Category Archives: Thoughts

Creative Conflict

Thoughts

Jack and Daniel are two brilliant IT programmers admired by everyone for their wit and professionalism at work.  Although they were working in two separate sections, they used to have lengthy, intelligent discussions near the water cooler or whenever they got in a meeting or a gathering.  However, as soon as they were assigned to work together on an important project, things turned really ugly.  Almost every day they bitterly argued about serious and trivial matters.  They were not helping each other, and worse than that, they were belittling each other’s efforts and contributions to the project.

Did you experience a similar situation somewhere?  Did you have a good relationship with someone at work, and later started having frequent conflicts with them?  If you experienced this then you probably have lost few good chances of coming up with innovative ideas because you (both) were not able to manage your creative conflict well.

People, by nature, have conflicting personalities.  Even siblings and identical twins have different thoughts, behaviour, and characters.  This makes conflict inevitable.  If we don’t manage the conflicting personalities well, bitter conflict will rise.  We need to understand why we are arguing with the other person, what we are –really- disagreeing on, and how we can turn around the situation to benefit from these differences.  One important thing we need to always keep in mind: being different is not bad.  Being different doesn’t mean better or worse.  It only means what it means: different.

If you always see yourself at odds with others, think again.  Maybe you are taking things too personal and missing valuable opportunities because you hate the feeling of being opposed.  Don’t take things personal.  If someone at work told you, bluntly, that your idea is stupid, don’t lash back.  Take a breath and ask them: what made you think that the idea is stupid? Can you come up with a better solution?  If you feel that the discussion with someone is drifting towards negativity, practice ‘listening to learn’ and ‘listening to understand’ rather than ‘listening to respond’.  This will quickly defuse the vicious cycle of looming conflict.  And who knows, maybe that someone does have a better idea!

Don’t shy away from conflict, neither confront it with negativity.  Always embrace conflict as an opportunity to come up with something new, something better.  I read this somewhere and I liked it: “If all of us agree, then some of us are unnecessary”.   Don’t get too happy when everyone always agrees with you.  Spice things up.  Induce constructive conflict.  Encourage creative conflict.

Attract your luck

Thoughts

Attract your luck

On a flight from Melbourne to Sydney a young man sat next to me.  As soon as he settled in, he pulled up a few raffle coupons that he got from the airport.  Some marketers were promoting a new product and were distributing raffle coupons for cash and other prizes.  I remembered seeing them in the airport but didn’t bother to stop and pick up any coupon.  Maybe because down deep I wasn’t feeling lucky and thought that I wouldn’t win a prize anyway.  I looked at the man next to me as he was diligently completing the coupons with his name, address and phone number.  I was saying to myself this man really thinks he is lucky and that he is going to win a prize.  He looked at me, and as if he read my mind he said: “Mate, you need to be in it to win it”.  A very good point.  I didn’t think that I would win any prize and therefore, I didn’t pick up any coupon.  He thought that he will win some prizes and got some coupons, and even more, he is meticulously filling them.  The result: clearly, there is no way I would have won anything; and probably he would have won something.  Simply put, he attracted his luck while I deliberately pushed it away.

You need to be in it to win it.  If you want to get better at playing a musical instrument, you need to practice it or get training on it.  If you want to advance in your job, you need to rub shoulders with the powers-to-be.  If you want to get married, you need to mingle with eligible bachelors.  If you want to win the lottery, you need to buy a ticket.  In other words, if you want to be lucky, you have to attract your own luck.

You might say that you are doing all of this and trying hard to attract your luck.  Yet, you are not getting any results.  This is very possible.  This might mean that you need to consider alternative ways in attracting your luck – you may not be writing your phone number clearly or correctly on your ‘luck coupon’.  Think differently, ask new people, visit new places, read different newspapers, check out different websites, watch other television channels, take a different route to your work or school, sleep and wakeup at different times, break the routine in some way or another and some results ought to happen.

One more thing I would like to add here.  An important component of ‘attracting your luck’ is to be prepared when your luck strikes.  In other words, you have to be ready for what you are attracting.  If you are working on getting a promotion at work, make sure that you are ready, willing and able to take on the duties of the new position when opportunity knocks.  There is nothing worse than ‘nagging’ to get that new position, only to find yourself overwhelmed with the new duties and responsibilities of the new position when you are promoted. It is much better to be prepared for an opportunity even if it didn’t eventuate, rather than having an opportunity when you are not ready to exploit it.

Good luck.