Category Archives: Thoughts

My general thoughts

Oblivious Self Awareness

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A participant in one of my project management training courses said something that was an eye-opener for me.  The training course was a preparation course for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.  In this course, I use a lot of sample questions to ‘train’ participants on the structure and content of PMP exam questions.  I usually display a question with four possible answers, give the participants a couple of minutes to think about it and to select an answer, and then I highlight the best answer with an explanation and justification of why it is the best answer and the others are not.  In that particular session, an active and experienced participant said firmly that the answer to a particular question is B.  When I said that the best answer is C and not B, he said to me: “I am sure that the answer is B.  However, I am also sure that you, as you always do, will convince me and all of us with your clear argument that the best answer is C.”  He complemented his statement with giving me the posture of an attentive and focused listener, waiting anxiously to hear what I was going to say.

I remembered this when I was recently listening to one of my friends who I enjoy listening to.  Tarek is a quite knowledgeable conversation partner and posseses an excellent way to describe things.  Tarek paints a clear picture, supported with facts and readings to present his point of view, which forces you to respect his point of view even if you don’t agree with it.  In a recent conversation with Tarek I told him that he is a perfect example of someone who “knows more than he thinks he knows, and can do more than he thinks he can do.”  I urged him to put his thoughts on paper and start blogging (ironically, Tarek is the one who told me sometime ago that I should start blogging and he is the one who introduced me to WordPress).

The point I want to make here is that, most probably, we know more than we think we know; all of us can do more than we think we can do.  The reason behind not knowing what we really know is what I would like to call is our “oblivious self-awareness”.  I don’t think we do this on purpose; well it is oblivious after all.  I can attribute this to our normal practice of acquiring knowledge and experiences.

As we move on in our life, we slowly accumulate knowledge and skills: we change.  We unknowingly treat the accumulated work and personal experiences as ‘common sense’ and we convince ourselves that everyone is aware of.  We believe that our actions and knowledge are nothing but spontaneous and instinctive ‘facts of life’ which everyone do and know.  However, with some observation you will find out that some or even most of your spontaneous actions and instinctive knowledge are not as spontaneous and instinctive to others.  This is nothing but a positive implication of the ‘boiling frog syndrome’, where you are not fully aware of the changes that happened to your behaviour and intellect as a result of the experiences you are continually collecting.

Therefore, you should have more confidence in yourself, your knowledge and your experience.  Continually test your knowledge and skills and increase your self-awareness.  Wherever you are in the journey of life, chances are that you know more than what you think you know, and you can do more than what you think you can do.  You just need to be more self-aware, get into the habit of attuning to what others are telling you, and attract your luck by surrounding you with people who would give you a little nudge.

Communicate as a child

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Photo courtesy of the talented Diana Ayoub (dianaayoub.wordpress.com) – thank you Diana

“We don’t tell you what you like to hear, we tell you what you need to know.”  This was the tagline in a radio promotion for an Accounting & Taxation Services company, sometime ago.  Its simplicity and honesty made it click and stay in my mind.  Since then, I’ve been using it to explain ‘how’ to communicate project progress every time I teach project management.

With similar simplicity and honesty, was the child’s question to his pregnant mother: “if the new baby is growing in your tummy, then what’s growing in your butt?”  This story was used in a TED talk by a speaker who I can’t remember.  The speaker beautifully explained the importance of telling what we need to know rather than what we like to hear.  Before I proceed, let me clarify one thing now: I’m not talking about the dimension of ‘honest’ communication and that we should always be honest in what we say.  I don’t want to go down that route, honestly.  I’m trying to present communication from children’s point of view where they are really “honest” in what they say, even when they are lying.  In their judgment they are honest because they are saying something ‘useful’, they are telling what they believe needs to be known: “it’s not me who broke the vase”, “my dad says that he is not in”, “my mother said that you look ugly”, etc.

So, when communicating, make sure that you have a ‘useful’ communication.  And by communication I don’t mean only talking or writing; listening and reading are also important means of communication and you should ensure that all of this is ‘useful’.  When asking a question, aim for useful answers.  When giving out new information, make an effort to present something useful to the receiver.  When reading a book or a blog, rate it as how much useful was it for you.  And when telling out something, make sure that you tell what the receivers need to know, not only what they like to hear.  It would be great if what they need to know matches what they like to hear.  But if these don’t match, tilt towards what needs to be known.

One way of having good and useful communication is to communicate as a child.  I don’t mean that you get emotional or innocently rude when talking, but to use some childish techniques to make useful and effective communication.  For example, children like to ask a lot of ‘why’ questions.  So, always ‘start with why’ as Simon Sinek advises in his book: ‘Start with why’.  Ask yourself: why I am doing this, and why the receiver will accept my communication?  This will help you fine-tune your communication.

Also, children ask a lot of probing questions, like “where do babies come from?” or “where does Santa Clause live?”  Get into the habit of asking probing questions rather than closed ones, and be ready to explain the facts in a useful way, not necessarily in an honest way.  After all, when describing the facts about ‘the birds and the bees’, you don’t want to be completely honest to get your message through, you just need to exchange useful information.  When explaining something, make it as simple as if you are presenting it to children.  When preparing a communiqué, always remember the quote attributed to Einstein: “if you can’t explain it to a six years old, you don’t understand it.”

Finally, let me ask you this: when you get curious to know a secret about your neighbours, who do you ask?