NonSingular

As we grapple with the complexities of life - personal decisions, professional decisions, organizational decisions - we often pine for that "just right" solution.  Looking for that singular "right" decision or solution or guru or book or software or...

Before making consequential decisions and life-choices, we are wise to consider many options, to seek many and varied viewpoints and experience survivors.  

We are wise also to be willing to reverse or abandon decisions that no longer serve us well.  Holding on to decisions made under previous circumstances and under previous conditions that no longer apply comes with a very high price. 

CONTEXT is everything!  (and context changes continually)

Seeking/Thinking/Considering broadly and continually -- rather than narrowly -- almost always serves us best.

TheNewArtAndScienceOfTeaching

I recently read The New Art and Science of Teaching: More Than Fifty New Instructional Strategies for Student Success by Robert J. Marzano (2017).

RJM has been an influential researcher and thought-leader for decades in the arena of teaching and learning.  In this book, which he describes as a manifesto, he synthesizes his previous work/writings into a superb compendium of effective teaching strategies.  

He concludes the book with eight recommendations for substantive change in the interest of making a better learning experience for students.  Those eight recommendations follow. 

Recommendation 1: Create a system that ensures teacher development. 

Recommendation 2: Focus on unit planning as opposed to lesson planning.

Recommendation 3: Use blended instruction. 

Recommendation 4: Ensure a guaranteed and viable curriculum involving cognitive and metacognitive skills.

Recommendation 5: Rely on classroom measurement. 

Recommendation 6: Change report cards. 

Recommendation 7: Adjust scheduling to address the differential effectiveness of teachers.

Recommendation 8: Gradually move to a competency-based system.

Sure wished I'd have had such a guide when I started my teaching career in 1980.

DichotomousInterrogative

The best leaders (heck, the best people) I know have a couple of questions running continually in the back of their minds:

How am I making this situation, this team, myself better?

How am I NOT making this situation, this team, myself better?

As answers to both questions gain clarity for these folks, they then purposefully do more of the former and less of the latter.  Intentional bettergetting.

Note to self:  Don't try this unless willing to engage in self-changing strategies.

HowNotToDie

I recently read How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger and Gene Stone (2015).

The authors identify the top 15 killers of Americans and present a plethora of research in response to each that provides guidance to us on how to best interdict those potential maladies.

A chapter is dedicated to each of the killers.  Here they are, in order of their human devastation:  Heart disease, Lung diseases, Brain diseases, Digestive cancers, Infections, Diabetes, High blood pressure, Liver diseases, Blood cancers, Kidney disease, Breast cancer, Suicidal depression, Prostate cancer, Parkinson's disease, and Iatrogenic causes (death caused by physicians).

The authors also detail, with substantial research support, Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen, the foods they believe, if eaten consistently, will prevent and even reverse those killing diseases.  The Dozen: Beans, Berries, Other fruits, Cruciferous vegetables, Flaxseeds, Nuts and seeds, Herbs and spices, Whole grains, Beverages, Exercise.

Both in this book, and at his website - NutritionFacts.Org - Dr. Greger presents the findings of study after study after study (not just a few) to support his underlying conclusion - that a whole-food, plant-based diet is the surest pathway to optimal health.

Read it only if you want to be a healthier you.

Reflection

Reflection - the image we see bounced back at us from a mirrored surface.  We take a look at how we shape up.  That examination can range from the very superficial and cosmetic all the way to deep assessments of purpose, motivation, intention, and meaning.

Reflection - a mental exercise in which we take stock of who we are or what happened, and make some judgement calls about how we respond to those realities.  In essence, we evaluate the level of our satisfaction with our performance (or that of our team) in some endeavor, or in life. 

Both forms of reflection provide important data in relation to these questions:
How we doin' right now?
How did we get in this shape?
What improvement measures are needed?
Are those measures needed in cosmetic terms, in behavioral terms, in mindset terms?

Reflection yields its best results when we engage in it often.  

Path corrections are best made before we get 100 miles (or 6 months) down the road.

Confrontation'sDescendants

Confrontation occurs when we choose (yes, it's a choice) to address a difficult issue with another person.  Group confrontation can also occur, but it's rarely fruitful.  

Some humans seem to thrive on confrontation, as if it is an addiction.  Others persistently avoid it.  To be sure, confrontation puts everyone on edge, heightens our blood pressure, kicks the old sweat glands into gear.

The folks I know who handle confrontation in the healthiest manner do these things:

• They ask good questions of the other, in attempt to fully understand.
• They listen carefully to the other in response to those questions.
• They purposefully try to turn down the volume and limit the hostility.
• They insist on sticking to the issue, not drifting toward peripheral issues or the digging up of old bones.
• They ALWAYS assume that, in the end, they themselves could be proven wrong.
• They attempt to use the confrontation as a way to build a bridge rather than destroy a relationship.

Unhealthy approaches to confrontation include:

• Threatening words, threatening postures, threatening acts.
• Surprise engagements, the launching of the confrontation without warning or prelude.
• LOUDNESS in the discourse, as if the decibel level somehow lends credence to ones position.
• Leveraging divisiveness, rather than unity or compromise, as a tool.
• Demonizing the other when resolution seems elusive.

I trust that Moe (my lovely bride of 41 years) and I were reasonably successful in teaching our children the healthier approaches to confrontation, for most assuredly, our grandchildren (and their own) will harvest the efforts of that teaching.

Jackass

"Jackass" was a popular TV show a few years ago.  It featured stuntmen trying crazy stuff that was clearly risky.  Almost always, viewers could forecast the potential risks as we watched the attempts unfold.  Often, the results were extraordinary fails, which made for great entertainment.   

The wisest leaders I know exercise thoughtful and deliberate forecasting before launching a risky decision.  They purposefully rely on very deliberate cost-benefit analyses before making decisions that put their organization at risk.

The wisest of the wisest organizational leaders leverage the thinking of trusted others before putting their organizations at risk.  Thoughtful decision making doesn't necessarily make for great entertainment, but its absence often yields Jackass-like results -- the loss of time, productivity, market share, customer allegiance, talent, or even life.

Jackass behavior/thinking/decisions are best left to................the Jackasses.