Spiritual flaws and support for character assessment

OK. Here's the first part of a hot rant response on the career path program that occurred in my work place. Before I begin, I want to mention that the owners of the company are incredible. You will hardly ever find two more dedicated and wonderful people who love their work almost as much as they love helping others. They paid to have this executive level program brought to everyone in the company because they believe that it helps us in our walk of life.

Secondly, I want to mention that statistics can be deceptive. Without a full report on the target of the assessment and mention of the process with who was admitted and who was rejected from the sample, it's difficult to ascertain a full body of truth from the numbers. All the same, statistics and psychoanalysis are interesting and shouldn't be entirely rejected.

So to the first step - DiSC assessment. Well, I believe this is another facet of generalization that has similar pinings as astrology. I'm born in early August, which sticks me at the Leo portion of the astrology circle. But to be honest, I am more like a Capricorn than anything else. I haven't tried business matters, so I'm unable to determine how well I'd do there, but when I think I know what's best, I'm stubborn as a mule; it takes a very persuasive argument to lean me towards anything else. I also over think everything and you'd have to get through me first before you come close to hurting my family. Oh, and I'm also much like a Taurus - it is so me. I might have been civilized over the past seven years, but I am so passionate about certain aspects of life that I can't keep my mouth shut, which often leads me to trouble. Although I strongly believe people of all ages can change if they want to, I also believe that there are certain universal truths that should never change. I steam up quickly and hotly. But I also forgive others at a drop of a hat when they ask for it or when new evidence comes to light - I look for reasons to forgive them.

OK - cutting to the chase. It could be just me; I won't rule out that there are some people in this world like "The Pretender" who could slip into almost any role, and when I took the DiSC assessment, I sat almost perfectly in the center of the wheel. Supposedly that means I have the ability to become any personality I want to with the right motivated effort and environment. But I believe that God gave us an incredible ability to change.

He wouldn't give us commandments, especially through His Son, if He didn't believe it was possible for mankind to follow them to some extent. None of His commandments say we have to be able to fly or that we aren't allowed to love if we want to be saved. He does say, however, that He doesn't expect us to perfectly follow the basic ten commandments - so He sent someone to intercede for us. Interestingly, the message in the Gospel of repenting is common throughout the entire Bible. If He believes we can change - repent means to change direction back to Him - then we can. He made us and knows what we're capable of. End of story.

The trick is you have to head towards a goal. In this case, it's obvious that the Bible is referring to turning back to God and His righteousness. But it seems reasonable to me that anyone having faith enough can move in any direction they choose. The problem I have is having faith in a world of will-nots and can-nots. It's difficult to believe that I can change into who I know I can, and should, be when people are constantly telling me I will-not change because I'm too old or I can-not change because that's just not the way things happen.

Bah! Who said it would be easy!? In a society where instant gratification is the norm, they've lost touch with the real issues. People don't always change on a dime. We are wired to repeat an act until it becomes a habit, then repeat a habit until it consumes who we are, but with God all things are possible. I've seen people drop some really nasty habits without anything other than sheer willpower. They had no help from patches or therapy, and in some cases, not even help from a friend or an accountability partner.

I've been systematically tamed out of passions to the point that I'm more effectively controlled in the business world. That's not entirely bad. Even a wild stallion, as magnificent a creature as it is, is useless until it's been tamed. Meekness, I'm finding, is a valuable trait when used properly.

However, after watching people in the work place it's obvious that there are benefits at times to breaking the rules. People at work have become praised, if not marked as little heroes, for their willingness to do something clever that hadn't been suggested to them. That means there are certain unspoken "soft" boundaries, that although the general mantra in the work place is "do as you're told and nothing else", we can find something outside of that rule to bring laughter and joy and ease to others. Just don't toot your own horn. Even when you fix something important, it backfires in animated proportions.

My biggest challenge is keeping focused on the vision and keeping a motivated faith on it. My second biggest challenge is to regain the outside-the-box mentality that's been put aside for the sake of business, then learn how to wield it properly to the benefit of others to bring more joy and humor to the world.

Turning a new Habit

At work we went through career path training. Some of it is very good, while some of it I disagree with. This post is a tongue-in-cheek observation of the ideas.

Rule 1. You can stereotype people based on their generation.

I've heard of stereotyping by astrological sign, by DiSC assessment, by Jung-Briggs-Myers personality tests - all which in one way or another fall under the four temperaments. This rule identifies the current four generations as a model by which you should be able to consistently and accurately predict the personality of your subject.

• Matures - Born 1909-1945. Have lots of money and wisdom, but won't share it easily. Loyalty is paramount importance and you better say "Yes Sir" and "Yes Mam" when speaking to them. They tend to be paranoid of technology... possibly from watching "The Day The Earth Stood Still (1950)" too many times in theaters ... or maybe by seeing destruction first-hand in WWII.


• Baby Boomers - Born 1946-1964. They love to work. They also love to complain about how much they work in a bragging-rights fashion. Frustrated because the previous generation didn't share much insight with them as retaliation of their "Me" attitude. Boomers don't care what you have to say - especially if you're younger than them, but you better listen up when they talk.


• Generation X-ers - Born 1965-1980. In a backlash from the Boomers' workaholic trait, feel that if it takes an hour to finish the job there's no need to keep working on it to perfection. These guys are cynical and have no heros. What do you expect from the generation that suffered the fastest growing rate of scandals, disillusions and divorces in their childhood? Their theme tv-show is the X-files (the truth is out there).


• Millennials - Born after 1980. These people have to be hand-held through everything. They are as insecure as the Generation X-ers are grumpy. Their positive outlook on life, however, is more welcomed in the business world so they tend to excel above the X-ers. Their theme song is "Don't rush me"

What I took home from this: people of different generations might have a world view that is predictable, but regardless, knowing a person's world view is key in communicating with them. If their definitions are different than yours, knowing where they come from helps to understand them and meet their needs better.

Rule 2. Check your Values, Interests and Environment along with your Skills, Traits, Knowledge and Capabilities with your Goals.

We have values and interests that are core to who we are. Those are augmented by our skills (learned ability), traits (acquired), knowledge (learned) and capabilities (unrefined ability). I was told that leadership is a born tendency - almost inherited through genes. If you aren't born with that tendency you'll never be a leader. Oh - and old farts can't learn new tricks, so why try?

Personally, the concept of a behavioral genome is too Kantian for me. Besides that, the Bible states evidence against it. More on that later.

What I took home from this: we need to be conscientious of where we stand to measure it. We can't manage ourselves - our behavior specifically - if it can't be measured. Personally, I use the Bible to stack up my traits to see if my values, interests, traits and knowledge reflect what God says they should be. Lots of room for development there.

Rule 3. Align what you've learned in Rule 2 to your work ethic.

The question was presented to us - why work? If you won the billion dollar lottery today, why work?

Although there were different tangents in that session that were noteworthy, the most important statement on this came from my College Philosophy professor. She said that it is an honor for man to work. From work he is able to contribute back to mankind, which is honorable. Only a vile selfish man wouldn't do so, and thusly become either poor, wretched or both.

Our company broke down the traits that identify the maturity level of a person, and thusly reflects the maturity level of a person's position as such:

• Credibility - How reliable is this person as a source?


• Competence - Can you teach this old dog new tricks?


• Confidence - Is the person enthusiastic and excited about work?


• Consistency - Is this person and his work stable or all over the place?

What I took home from this: in remembrance of what my College professor said, servitude is an exciting role. I'm not talking whips and leather (though that can also have its exciting role... er... for some... um... so I've heard) but that when you subject yourself for the good of mankind there are great rewards all around. My company is focused on providing other businesses with the best service possible because we believe that better businesses make a better future.

If you ask any of the Enron fall-outs what their values are, you'd hear something contrary to their actions. Values aren't typically a part of the big business model. Had they consulted our company, I think that would have been pointed out. Whether they listened or not ... well, that's up to each individual.

Rule 4. Emotional Intelligence can get you as far, if not farther, than Brain Intelligence

For a person to have a high level of emotional intelligence they need to have mastery of the following:

• Self Awareness - How do you feel? / What are you thinking?


• Self Management - Don't wear your heart on your sleeve. It isn't appropriate.


• Social Awareness - How does your action affect others? The key is to think of others more than yourself.


• Relationship Management - The ability to manage your own emotions and have a good level of social awareness to manage others in the situation.

There's a good amount of meat here. If you want to see an example of someone with poor self management, watch Barney Fife from the Andy Griffith show. An example of someone with good relationship management could be Donald Trump in his apprentice show (we all know the antics that players perform burn him up, but he rarely shows it and uses calm, collective tactics to weed out the offender).
What I took home from this: even though "IQ really can't be modified beyond the measure that someone is born with" (I'll buy that for a dollar), EI can be worked on and matured upon, like building up good muscle tone. OK - so I believe that people can raise their IQ score through thought exercises and learning the same way someone can increase their SAT score... but even more so can someone advance their maturity level in the EI realm by shifting his focus from himself to God's and others.

Rule 5. Become what you want by turning a new habit.

The last topic stemmed into an exercise for us to form 2 new habits in 90 days. Personally, I think this is a genius enough idea to merit it's own section. The Emotional Intelligence section is covered very well in the book of proverbs, in study of the beatitudes and in many many well written (even secular) books. It's the problem of applying it - or making a habit of it that most stumble over, so where the last segment was about awareness, this segment is about application. What's nice about this model is it can be applied to other areas of life besides just emotional intelligence, such as general quality of life (like making sure you wash your hands before each meal).

Turning a new habit:

• Pick your target. This is a hard or soft skill or behavior such as becoming a better listener.


• Consider your performance barrier. What stops you from developing that habit? Forgetfulness? Selfishness?


• Consider your desired outcome. What do you want out of this? For example, a happier marriage or a happier work life.


• Develop a ritual. Define specific steps to perform on a repeated basis to build an automatic action. This could be something like - stop yourself when you've realized you interrupted someone and ask them to continue.


• Plan one time action steps. For example, read "How to Win Friends and Influence People".


• Reward yourself in your success throughout the process. If you went to a dinner party and didn't interrupt once, go loves yourself some candy bar.

What I learned from this: new habits can be formed to overtake old habits. Can old habits be broken? I asked that question and the response I got showed the narrow mindset of the program: "Studies show that you can't stop an old habit, actions make pathways in the brain that are irreversible."

Hmm... I suppose people are incapable of quitting their habits of smoking or biting their nails. That smells like a challenge to me that I'm willing to take. I'm going to stop my life-long nasty habit of biting my nails. Here's how:

• Target: Stop biting those nasty nails now - have nice long fingernails by May 17th.


• Barriers: I get distracted easily - especially when watching movies. I don't like feeling spurs on the tips of my fingers.


• Outcome: Beautiful girly hands.


• Ritual: Tie string on my fingers before watching a film. Keep fingers away from my face when I'm not eating. Use my wife and kids as an accountability partner.


• Preparation: Talk to wife and kids about plan.


• Reward: Go see a movie in the theater