Reminds me of this Zen koan: http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/1acupoftea.html
Give it five minutes
41–50 of 74 posts
Re: Give it five minutes
#42"Seek first to understand, then to be understood." - Habit 5 of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People[1].
Trusted, influential and successful communicators are trained to engage with people this way. It's less about "thinking" before you speak, than what the intentions are behind your interactions with others... are you seeking first to understand or to be understood? Everyone wants to be understood, and when you consistently give them that, you get much more in return.
Another case of common sense being not all that common. If you're like me, then you too need to make this a conscious pursuit.
Re: Give it five minutes
#43As recounted in Carnegie's classic book: When General Meade squandered a great opportunity to capture General Lee and his army after the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln wrote a harsh letter to Meade. The letter was found after Lincoln's death, still in his desk drawer, never sent.
Re: Give it five minutes
#44I come from the opposite direction, where I was thinking too much. In the sense that I am quiet in most conversations, because I need to think about what to say back, and most conversations flow quite quickly, and I end up with a response well past the point it's applicable. This is bad for two reasons: 1, if you don't say anything, the default assumption is you don't know anything, unless you have well known achieve…
At my previous job I had this problem. It was intensified by, what I perceived to be, conversation that was more flawed than accurate. I heard so many statements I couldn't agree with, I didn't know where to start commenting on anything. In other worlds, the whole idea or conversation that was being discussed was wrong. Very often I had nothing to say, because how do you tell a team of co-workers that everything they're saying is wrong?
Of course, many would assume I was more likely to be wrong, disagreeing with so many people. I worked in a very stale industry however, no where near as pioneering or cutting edge as some dream jobs in the valley: some would say legacy, enterprise software. So I beg to differ the opposite is possible also. Also, I worked there for years, knowing most colleagues would do anything just to coast, I had far more than 5 minutes to give the processes consideration.
Regardless, what I learned is, if everything in the conversation sounds wrong, and the appropriate "5 minutes" have been given, perhaps you are participating in bad conversations / keeping bad company. Switching jobs is the best thing that could have happened to me in order to improve my expertise.
Re: Give it five minutes
#45Imagine an environment where you did TWO things:
1) You gave your opinion immediately without fear for others thinking of you as an asshole.
2) You thought about it for more than 5 minutes later. You might even think about it for hours later that night.
It's not one or the other. Both are very important. I've seen more annoying and bureaucratic things happen because people are too afraid to say what they think. Not because people think too less.
Re: Give it five minutes
#46Am I the only one who's really tired of the 37signals people tossing their dime-store philosophy on us?
Re: Give it five minutes
#47I come from the opposite direction, where I was thinking too much. In the sense that I am quiet in most conversations, because I need to think about what to say back, and most conversations flow quite quickly, and I end up with a response well past the point it's applicable. This is bad for two reasons: 1, if you don't say anything, the default assumption is you don't know anything, unless you have well known achieve…
At my previous job I had this problem. It was intensified by, what I perceived to be, conversation that was more flawed than accurate. I heard so many statements I couldn't agree with, I didn't know where to start commenting on anything. In other worlds, the whole idea or conversation that was being discussed was wrong. Very often I had nothing to say, because how do you tell a team of co-workers that everything they…
> Very often I had nothing to say, because how do you tell a team of co-workers that everything they're saying is wrong?
Yup.
I (think I) have four buckets:
1) Awesome! I'm stealing it!
2) Worse than wrong (h/t Murray Gell-Mann) aka not good enough to criticize.
3) Hmmm, worth chewing over.
4) I have absolutely no idea (please talk more).
I'm more like Jason F, where I felt I had a moral obligation to fix things, and have had to learn to keep my mouth shut.
The most insightful advice I ever got was "Sometimes you just have to let people fail. It's quicker than opposing them."
Now I try to save my breathe for people who are worth my time and effort (investment).
Re: Give it five minutes
#48Am I the only one who's really tired of the 37signals people tossing their dime-store philosophy on us?
Not clicking on links is very, very tough. I can understand how you're having trouble.
Re: Give it five minutes
#49At the same time, the world is full of ideas, and a pretty tiny fraction of them are any good. The world feels especially full of ideas these days, since a lot of folks now fancy themselves "creatives" (that is, people who come up with ideas without having to get into the yucky business of actually executing on them). Here's the real challenge: What deserves your five minutes in the first place? Many intellectually b…
It's funny that you've responded to a post about not giving a knee-jerk reaction with the most obvious knee-jerk reaction.
Did you actually read the OP and think about what it was saying? Are there any lessons that you could apply to your life? It wasn't meant to be a sweeping generality - it was meant to convey a sense, a feeling, an intuition. Namely, the idea that you (yes even you) might not be thinking things out carefully enough before responding to them.
For instance, take your idea of the reason for intelligent design. Are you 100% positive that this is actually where the idea comes from, why it persists? The anthropologist in me disagrees. In fact, I'd say that such ideas actually get carried along because no one stops to think about them...even for 5 minutes.
Re: Give it five minutes
#50There is a French expression for this: "Tourner sept fois sa langue dans sa bouche" or "Turn your tongue in your mouth seven times before speaking." http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/7foissalangue.htm
They also have 'esprit d’escalier' :-)