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The Role Others Play in Sharpening the Tip

Sharing Best Practices - The Value of Understanding the Approach

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The role of others is involved in sharpening the tip of your blade, the strength of your decision. Taking into account all the social contracts in your life will help you understand if the decision you make is in alignment with what you say you are going to do. People help with holding us accountable to our word and what emerges as the promises we forge in life should be respected and protected with the help of all parties involved.

Not sure if this should be during DO in shaping the last pieces of our decision (whether we think it does or not). Given we allow others to influence our actions it is important to understand that there is a non-zero influence in a majority of our decisions and how and whether the tip of the sword breaks off or becomes an augmented blade is based on the strength behind the choice you made about what you want to have in a particular context or situation.

Sharing Best Practices - The Value of Understanding the Approach

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Others are also involved with us when understanding because they help us make sense of our own pain, they help us see other ways of being, and they help us solidify our understandings of the world around us. This is especially helpful in the matter of knowledge transfer, not teaching, because the person who is teaching stands to gain a more tacit understanding of the topic they are having to explain to others so they too can grasp it. Sharing understanding of something helps people relate with one another, develop empathy for things we have not experienced, and treat each other with respect because we are not seeking to invalidate each other but trying to see what the other person sees.

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It is exciting to learn about what others think is possible for themselves not as a means for comparing your realities but for comparing their concept of possibility with your concept of possibility and understanding what you can do.

Sharing best practices with others who share similar problems as you do is like sharing different approaches to get over the same mountain. The answer is not a singularity to land on but the approach you took in response to the situation being considered.

If you view the solution to a problem as a binary construct of right or wrong then you fail to see there are an infinite possibilities to choose the incorrect approach to a problem and just as many right ways to choose from. When we seek to be right we refuse to think the perspective of others can strengthen how right we are because of the risk of having flaws observed in our thought processes.

Everyone loves to think everyone who doesn’t think or agree with them is stupid when the reality is everyone cares about different things and the context they are making decisions other is something you cannot relate with coming from.

If you grew up in the city you cannot quickly relate with and socialize about the trivialities of growing up in a farm town. If you live in the South in areas that are predominantly white while growing up being preached to about reasons to fear people of color, then how you approach situations involving race may be skewed a little differently than someone who was raised in the city or suburbs and has a better mix of diverse perspectives to learn from. People focus on the first label they can put on someone because our brains are constantly classifying information. If you have negative connotations with how you’re labeling a person then you need to ask yourself what biases are preventing you from benefiting by the experience of having contrasting viewpoints from your own that sharpen your perspective.

The perspectives of others are what augment your blade to yield unbreakable metal with each social contract you engage in and commit to as you become more of the person you say you are being and being held to that standard by others that keep you accountable to your word.

Others help us, others show us other ways, others hold us to our word.

Same with opinions.

What Do You Think? Vs What Do You Observe? The Power of Questions

In process improvement efforts, it is important for all stakeholders involved to share the experience of what they are going through while working so others who do not perform the task being shown can feel the pains their coworkers are going through just to complete their piece of the puzzle. This serves a purpose of bringing to light what those who are stuck doing the same things within the context they work in. It is impossible to think outside of context and letting someone coming from a context completely unfamiliar to what you’re doing is how you gain a valuable perspective worth integrating into your understandings of what you’re evaluating.

If a warrior is sharing with you how they come about making a sword they are making and they are killing themselves making it, it’s important to call out how they are impeding themselves so they can have an improved experience. When we do not want to give valuable feedback to others, we are choosing to be the kind of people who aren’t concerned about the growth of others and are accepting the status quo. Conversely, if you want to share the experience of your problems to validate your experience but do not want to do anything with feedback being offered, then you are choosing to be the kind of person who wants to keep their problems instead of getting off of it.

Asking people what they think about something relevant to you what you are ultimately asking for is validation for the experience of the world you are trying to assure yourself of.

This is seen in thirst pictures on Instagram from people wanting to be seen.

This is seen in status updates on Facebook from people wanting to be heard.

This is seen in achievements and awards plastered on LinkedIn from people wanting to be wanted.

None of these things are bad, it’s the mechanism through which their minds have learned produce serotonin in a reliable fashion. The mind is an efficient factory of thoughts and intentions that build and bubble up to the surface the more we focus on things that we believe will make us happy, no matter how meaningful or trivial some of our intentions may be, the more our subconscious will plant seeds of thought that bloom into actions being taken to achieve the image we are creating in our minds.

The reason a person puts an achievement up on their LinkedIn is because they aspire to be enough and

The questions you ask yourself and others in life will create and inhibit the scope of information the person you are talking to will provide. Asking people what they see will invite a completely different answer.

Feedback is What Sharpens the Point

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The point of a sword is the certainty

When Feedback Isn’t Feedback

You made me do it, and other forms of limited thinking we have when we are trying to survive in the context of being right.

Feedback is What Elevates You to the Standards You Seek In Life

If a warrior is to comment on another’s combat style, it would be to improve their ability to wield, not to invalidate them as a warrior. If you do this, then you probably fear receiving the same experience and do not have trust in others to not do this.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work Only if You Recognize Everyone Has One

The Crab Effect

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