They Want to be Told What to Do!

We often think we are able to guide ourselves sufficiently well, though many experiences in a huge range of fields show there's much to be said about being instructed, being told what to do. Whilst we need a balance between own judgement and instruction, in a world that is moving toward doing what you want, how you want it, we need to reassess how helpful instruction can be.
 

“They want to be told what to do!”

 

"They want to be told what to do!", said His Holiness Rtadvaja Maharaj to me, after I explained to him the lack of discipline with children these days. When showing some of the kids in our martial arts class a set of core exercises, I personally found it frustrating to deal with when I didn't see anywhere near level of discipline we had when we were kids neither in terms of perseverance nor behaviour. Rtadvaja Maharaj had extensive experience dealing with children in the US, in raising them with cultural values, spiritual values, respect and self sufficiency. He explained to me how he facilitated their taking taekwondo and judo lessons and how house rules and etiquette were pivotal to everything in their development. He explained how many of them come to him now as adults and thank him for such discipline at the time. After this conversation I kept in mind what he had instructed, that the kids, they actually want to be told what to do! This seemed totally against what I thought. Every time I told them what to do, it seemed they didn’t have the perseverance to follow it, or somehow preferred to do their own thing, their own incorrect adaptation. This had led me to change tact. I thought, ok it’s a new generation of kids, their lifestyles are different, maybe I need to be more accommodating. So over time I had either gone on one extreme or another; being either too lenient, or too strict. This was because no one had, with real conviction, confirmed what style works in that context and what doesn’t. So with Maharaj’s advice, I adjusted the style to put discipline and house rules back in the centre. Instead of saying "Hey, you just missed 5 repetitions, go to the side of the room and do double the number!" but rather "Do 20 additional repetitions as it's a house rule we all must follow so we improve our discipline." A somewhat small change in the context of a crazy room of kids who are falling over each other, but one that would prove effective over time. After a few months, I thought I'd try a different technique. I had been trying to work on some explosiveness, which wasn’t so strong. If you imagine sitting on the floor with your knees and shins flat on the ground with your feet tucked behind, and your back straight, from this position, the technique involved getting up onto both feet in a single motion. It's not only a test of explosive power but also the mental orientation. Your mind must be convinced, or trust the fact that you will thrust up in one motion. So as we were all about to cool down I said. what I'll do next I want you guys to do it. I demonstrated the thrust technique and stood up on both feet in one motion to a set of faces which had the expression "Oh, that looks cool, but I don't think I can do it." I explained that more than half of the challenge is mental for you, as you have sufficient physical capacity to do it, put your minds to it imagining what you'll do, and your body will follow, trust me. The kids got to their start positions, and within a few seconds, to my surprise, almost all of the ten or so children were able to do it. Although not showing my surprise, I was overwhelmed at how they trusted the instruction, and most of them we're able to get up, some of them with some real explosiveness! What a pleasure to see. They went to their parents and friends after class and also to their surprise, showed what they could do. Parents and children were happy and this created a kind of buzz, a kind of energy, I had not experienced there before. I believe instruction, discipline, and direction that Maharaj spoke of, had eventually led to this trust, and that trust had led to results that were otherwise impossible.

 

Unconstructive Creativity

I was invited to speak at a conference consisting of the banking community this week. One gentleman reflected, that bankers should respect and appreciate the openness of the Asian regulators in having open dialogue with the community they are regulating. It was a sensible point I thought. I expected most to agree with this, however, another gentleman, shared a contrary opinion. He said that when the banking community has been left to it’s own accord, it has resulted in overly complex, tedious, and mis-focussed dialogues, where 90% of the time has been spent discussing 10% of the issues. He said that we can become too creative, which has proven to lead to further complications. I was astonished to hear this from people who have the image that they think they know everything and are God’s gifts to everyone else. He rounded off by saying, sometimes we need to be told in black and white, what to use, and what to do. Remembering Rtadvaja Maharaj’s guidance on the kids wanting to be told what to do and the results that followed from this, it drew a clear parallel. When trying to get a huge, global community who are super high tempo, to reduce systemic risk, and increase transparency, how is it possible to achieve this without having certain common standards being set? In the beginning of regulatory change nobody wants to be told what to do, but after being given time and space it is realised that there is a need to set the standard in certain areas. From a legal standpoint, if there is not a consistent set of rules across jurisdictions, there may be market arbitrage. From a technical standpoint if there are not standards in place, things simply won't operate. From a process perspective if there are not consistent standards, there may not be transferability. We need to be told what to do, otherwise we can become what I’d call “unconstructively creative.”

 

Does this mean anything for us from a personal and also leadership perspective? Social media has effectively set an even playing field in one sense, for everyone irrespective of age, social status, geography etc. Justin Bieber has a Twitter account, and so do I, so do some of my cousins in India who live in rural villages, so do my uncles who are pushing 60. It’s changed certain aspects of the way we live, the way we share, the way we interact. The temptation is therefore there to view everyone as equal. The previous generations in their time never had these technologies, they used to interact in person face to face, most the time. In light of this new way, if we throw away values of respecting elders who have more experience, benevolence, and a desire to help the future generations, this may represent some of this 'unconstructive creativity'. If we don’t understand the principle of taking guidance, and we become more self-centred, and do not come to this realisation on our own accords, there will come a point where in the depth of our existence, we will hunger to be told what to do.

Perspectives: No Right or Wrong?

Everybody has their own perspective. People express themselves through what they wear. They post their opinions and feelings on Facebook and Twitter, etc. They debate views in conversations with each other. The newspapers even have sections called ‘Opinion’. So much of life is about interactions based on opinions and perspectives. How often do people really get their head around how to deal with opinions and perspectives especially as the social networking age really sets in? We’ve all heard that listening is important, but ultimately we need to decide, and act, not just debate opinions. This is the fundamental basis of political systems also. In the workplace, this plays an interesting role, and it can empower us if we are aware of the role of opinions, and perspectives of different people.

 

As I opened my eyes from a dozy, half-baked sleep as the plane took off, I found the air hostess had given a packet of peanuts and a drink, which happened to be a bottle of water if you weren’t awake to choose what you preferred. With my eyes barely opening, I took the packet of peanuts, and with the little energy I had in that dozy state, went to tear it open. It was a little stubborn and wouldn’t tear easily. So I look at the packet closer, saw the dotted line, and the small tear that had been made by the manufacturers, and with ease I tore it open. I had tried from various positions, from the other side to tear, to grab both sides and open from the middle, but with little effect. I recalled as a child opening boxes which had been bound with a kind of plastic tape that was industrial and extremely hard wearing. This tape is taken around the box, and then glued to create the link/seal. I would sometimes spend long trying to open it, and the meshed tape would simply not be torn. Once discovering the method, which was to find the part it was glued, and pull it apart in opposite directions so as to separate from the main bond, it was really very simple. In either case, so many experiments, speculation on what might work what won’t work, were ultimately useless until a proper method, of which there may be more than one i.e. using scissors or finding the correct opening. Often in Asia I’ve found myself lost in a range of circumstances from not being able to find a building to not knowing how to get a piece of thought leadership put into the right marketing format at work, to finding out how to use the scanner. Not surprisingly, the most effective method was to ask someone who had done it before.

 At all levels, such identification of the proper and effective method, works. It is not that every perspective is valid. The modern day concept that there’s no right or wrong answer, is wrong.  Tearing the industrial tape with your bare hands by brute force, is simply ineffective because it is designed to bare many kilos of force without ripping, and therefore there is a proper method for breaking it. Therefore it’s important to be able to identify what is effective and what isn’t. Listening to perspectives and opinions from all spheres, is however  important on many levels; one builds an understanding of peoples thought processes, their experiences, and their lives, one may be able to learn something from them whatever it may be, it could be something indirect, and listening also conveys a sense of respect and appreciation for others. But we should know that there is a hierarchy of how effective particular perspectives and opinions are; this is called judgement and we use it in all our decisions including which queue to go for in the supermarket; some things are known, some things are unknown, but we endeavour to make an effective choice or judgment call.  The less unknowns there are, the better. If you want to be successful in a business where you’re working for someone, you stand far more chance if you inquire, find out the strategy, and build on it, or help work towards it. If you’re an entrepreneur, you need to inquire and understand the demand first hand, not through speculation, but through objective observance and inquiry of habits, trends, tendencies, etc. When one is simple minded, then they can humbly and openly ask how something works, with a clean slate and really absorb what’s being taught. If the mind is clouded with many competing demands, then we may hear what has been said, but we may not have listened, or absorbed it. In conclusion, the miracles really start to happen when we sincerely try to find the right way of doing something, with an open approach that is respectful to others, and at the same time willing to go out of our way to go down the right route. This attitude will naturally give us more confidence in what we do, and the reason for that is that we are all wired up with consciences, and whether we know it or not, those consciences thrive on doing the right things rather than the wrong things.