Parenting | Guy Harris: The Recovering Engineer

Archive for Parenting – Page 2

Mar
26

A Simple Model for Understanding What Drives Behavior

by Guy Harris

The diagram above shows a simplified model for better understanding what drives behavior.

Since people often spend their lives studying and understanding what really drives our behavior, I am pretty confident that I cannot hope to fully cover the topic in this short post.

I can provide a quick overview you can use to diagnose what’s happening in your interactions with other people and how you might be able to modify your approaches to get better results, have more fun, experience more satisfying relationships, and make sense of what you see people do.

Here’s a simplified description of what the model shows:

We enter a situation.
We anticipate the outcome we want from that situation.
We choose the behavior that (we hope) gives us that outcome.

This description leads to the following implication:

We choose our behaviors based on what we expect to happen after we do them.

The consequence is what we expect that we will experience as a result of our behaviors. In this context, a consequence is anything that we experience as a result of our behavior. A consequence might be some external thing we receive or get because of our behavior. A consequence can also be the feelings we get from the behavior.

As you might guess, we tend to avoid negative consequences and to pursue positive consequences. As a result, negative consequences (like punishments) tend to discourage repeating behaviors and positive consequences (like rewards) tend to encourage behaviors to repeat in the future.

Part of the challenge with applying this model in practice comes from a common error known as perception error. Perception error happens because not every person sees every consequence the same way. What one person sees as a reward; a different person might see as a punishment.

You can use the DISC model to gain insights to avoid perception error.

For example, public recognition might be a reward for an outgoing, people-oriented person and it might be a punishment for a reserved, people-oriented person.

You can also apply the 5 Be’s of Motivation as you work with other people to encourage better interactions and results.

Remember, this is a very quick, very simplified description of this model and it’s implications. I’ll offer more insights in future posts.

This article is from the Motivation series. Use the links below to read more from this series.

The 5 Be's of Motivation
The Positive Runs Out
A Simple Model for Understanding What Drives Behavior
You Cannot Punish People into Good Behavior
Three Clues You Can Use to Find What Motivates Another Person
Employee Motivation Tips: Their Personal Life
Employee Motivation Tips: Their DISC Behavior Style

2 Categories : Gallery, Leadership Skills, Parenting, Post Series

Mar
24

The ABC’s of Life: Count Your Blessings

by Guy Harris

Bad stuff happens to everyone.

We all face illness, the death of loved ones, financial crises, job setbacks, relationship challenges, and mechanical malfunctions. All of them are real, and all of them can breed frustration. When faced with these events, we often view them only in the negative context, and we ask the question: “Why me?”

Recently, I read a quote by the great tennis player Arthur Ashe:

If I were to say, “God, why me?” about the bad things, then I should have said, “God, why me?” about the good things that happened in my life.

— Arthur Ashe

If I understand correctly, he said this sometime after he was diagnosed with AIDS — after he was confronted with and had to live with “bad” news.

After this diagnosis, he went on to speak out for AIDS awareness rather than quietly retire to a private life. Shortly before his death, he founded the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health. He kept using his blessings to help others even when he had received what many would call a curse.

Here’s what I propose, don’t ask “why” questions when confronted with adversity. Instead, ask “what” questions. Ask:

What lesson have I learned from this experience?
What will I do now?
What good is there in this situation?

“What” questions give you power. “Why” questions sap your strength.

And, I come back to the title of this post: Count Your Blessings.

Despite any hardship, all of us have some blessing.

If I have a co-worker who drives me nuts, I have a job. If my car has a broken water pump, I have a car. If my furnace breaks, I live indoors. If I lose a loved one, I had the privilege of knowing them.

I do not suggest that counting your blessings during a crisis or hardship is an easy thing to do. Nor do I claim to always execute this thought perfectly.

I do know that when I have found the strength and wisdom to look past the challenge to see the blessing, the challenge seemed less daunting, and I had the energy to persevere. When I have focused on the challenge, I have felt hopeless and without energy.

So, to have energy, enthusiasm, and happiness — count your blessings.

This article is from the ABC's of Life series. Use the links below to read more from this series.

0 Categories : ABC's of Life, Reflections

Dec
14

How Much Margin Do You Have?

by Guy Harris

A few days ago, I posted about the tragic death of a young lady who was part of my life when I was in college and she was a toddler. You can read that post here.

Sadly, I was unable to attend her funeral. I learned of the accident that took her life late on Thursday night and the funeral was on Saturday. I live in Indiana, and her funeral was in North Carolina.

My inability to get to North Carolina to lend my support to people who were a big part of my early adulthood saddened me equally as much as hearing of Krystal’s death.

In reflecting on the events of the last few days, I see that the problem is one of margin.

To explain what I mean, I’ll lean on my background as an engineer.

In my engineering design classes, I learned about the concept of design or safety margin — a factor built into design calculations to allow for minor errors, miscalculations, under estimations, and other variables that are difficult to accurately determine.

While I was in the Navy and learning to become an Engineering Officer, I learned about the specific margins that were built into both the submarine and the engineering plant to ensure safe operation.

Later, when I was working as a research engineer in the chemical industry, I used the concept of design margin as I developed new products and worked with customers to get our products qualified for their applications.

Safe engineering design always considers, allows for, and builds in some margin for safety.

This weekend, I became eminently aware of the lack of margin in my life. I didn’t have enough time margin to safely make the 12-hour one-way drive in the time I had between learning of Krystal’s death and her funeral. I didn’t have enough financial margin to jump on a plane and go.

Do I have enough time to live up to my immediate commitments? Yes. Do I have enough financial margin to meet my financial obligations? Yes.

And having enough to meet the minimum requirements does not create margin.

Just as the concept of margin applies to our schedule and our budgets, it also applies to our personal and professional relationships. For example, do you have enough margin in your relationships to…

Withstand a communication error?
Make it through a misunderstanding of intention?
Survive a missed appointment?
Last beyond a forgotten task?
Etc.

I don’t propose that I have a “silver bullet” answer for creating more margin. I do find myself thinking about it a lot the last few days.

I suppose that each person has to find his own way to create margin in his life. So, as we prepare to end 2010 and begin 2011, I’ll share the question with you that I’ve been asking myself:

What will you do, starting now, to create more time, financial, and relationship margin in your life?

This is a big question to consider, and it relates directly to how you set your goals for next year.

If you have suggestions for me or others reading this post that might help in this process, please leave a comment below.

If you have specific questions about setting better goals, my friend and colleague, Kevin Eikenberry, is leading a free teleseminar on December 21 to address goal setting issues. You can leave your question for him and register here.

Photo by Vincent van der Pas.

8 Categories : Reflections

Dec
7

Take Charge of Your Life – Control What You Can

by Guy Harris

To take charge of your life, focus on controlling what you can.

As a practical matter, there’s not much you can control. So, you might as well control what you can.

You cannot control:

How other people treat you
How other people respond to you
What other people say
The weather
Company policies (for many people)
Laws (again, for most people)
etc.

You can control your own words, actions, reactions, and interactions.

That’s it.

When I discuss this idea in training, I often say that of the 6+ billion people on the planet I can only control one of them. And he doesn’t always cooperate with me.

Still, controlling myself is all I’ve got.

For example, I can’t control whether or not people read this blog. I can control how often I post.

I can’t control if people treat me with respect. I can control if I treat them with respect.

And, the list goes on in like manner.

The point is this:

By focusing on what I can control, I become less concerned with what I cannot control.

With this as my focus, I can take charge of my life. You can choose to do the same.

This article is from the Take Charge series. Use the links below to read more from this series.

How to Take Charge of Your Life - General Principles
Take Charge of Your Life - Control What You Can

1 Categories : Personal Change, Reflections

Nov
17

How to Take Charge of Your Life – General Principles

by Guy Harris

Last week, I listened to a speaker talk about the necessity of becoming clear on your purpose if you want to achieve success. It was a message that resonated with me, and it triggered some thoughts about my business and my relationships.

As I reflected on what he had to say and I considered some of the questions I receive in workshops, seminars, teleseminars, and coaching calls, I realized that part of what I hope to accomplish with my work is to help people get free of thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that trap them in bad situations — bad work relationships, bad personal relationships, bad partnerships, etc.

So, I’m starting a series of articles targeted at specific things you can do to take charge of your life. I haven’t mapped out a detailed plan at this point. The series might be 6 articles or 16. I don’t know right now. I’m just going to write them and keep adding to the series until it is finished.

The general principles that come to mind as I start are:

Control what you can
Influence who you can
Forget about the things and people you can neither control nor influence
Stay focused on what you can do rather than what you can’t do
Take responsibility for your situation.

I might think of some others as the series progresses. I would certainly be open to input on what to include on this list. Please let me know if you see a core, guiding principle for taking charge of your life that I missed.

The general principles are sort of like the airplane control panel in the picture above. They give you a way of looking at and evaluating your life to see what you either need or want to change. I’ll be exploring each of them individually and some related ideas in future articles. I hope you’ll stop by again and check the series out as it unfolds.

Photo by Blyzz on Flickr.