Ecological Human Services Management

1. Be Accepting This means you are okay with me as is, with no interest in trying to change me. 2. Be Affectionate This means you find opportunities to be warm and close with me. 3. Be Ambitious This means you are always on the outlook for chances to improve our lives. 4. Be Assertive This means you speak up about what you want and need. 5. Be Attractive This means you work to be someone I want to be with and do things with. 6. Be Considerate This means you care about my feelings, interests and needs. 7. Be Consistent This means you are always appropriate and predictable. 8. Be Dependable This means I can always count on you. 9. Be Decisive This means you are comfortable making choices and decisions. 10. Be Energetic This means you are usually ready to participate in whatever comes along. 11. Be Fair This means you don't think everything is about you and what you want. 12. Be Flexible This means you are open to changing your plans and opinions. 13. Be Gentle This means I can always b

I think we all know that things are constantly changing, whether or not we are paying attention to the changes. It may seem that everything is the same today as they were yesterday, but they aren’t. Even if we don’t notice, nothing is quite the same today as it was yesterday. Things change, people change, circumstances change, and we change too. What this fact of life and living demonstrates is that change is a process and not an event. The outcome may appear to be spontaneous but never is. Fortunately, we can usually understand what happened if we stop to consider it carefully. Even if we don’t understand, we know that the change was a result of a process that is just not clear to us. At times, we decide that we are not satisfied with the status quo and want things or circumstances to change. The change we want may be for us, our family, a specific relationship, our work team, our company or other organization, our community, or within any context where we think change is desirable or necessary. That is wh

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." -- Oscar Wilde Suppose Wilde is right, pure and simple. It follows that his proposition is likely not pure and definitely not simple. Truth has many forms and many faces, some of which are persisting and some of which are temporary, some of which are obvious and some of which are subtle, some of which are certain and some of which only might be true, are probably true, or are (as the physicists like to say) "approximately true." Most of the time, one can comfortably deal with the world without thinking about the nature of truth or about the actual validity of most truths. It works out fine to proceed on a "true enough" basis. Ice is cold and fire is hot. Your car is still where you parked it. The directions you get from MapQuest.com will get you where you want to go. Eat too much and you will get fat. If you need help, you can count on your best friend. The important quandary usually isn't about truth or whether true enough is good enough. Rather,

The idea that excellence is a product of training isn't surprising. Athletes, musicians, and those who achieve preeminence in other areas requiring superior personal performance are well-aware of the necessity and value of continuous training. The point that may not be as obvious is that training and habituation are prerequisites for areas of excellence beyond developing physical skills and individual talents. They are necessary for emotional excellence, moral excellence, interpersonal excellence, as well as intellectual excellence. The point that may be even less obvious is as Aristotle said, "Training and habituation are prerequisite to virtue. People have the capacity to be virtuous but become virtuous people only through training and habitually acting rightly. One becomes virtuous by acting virtuously." How does one act virtuously? Cicero advised, "It is our special duty, that if anyone needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power." Confucius said, "To be able to practice five

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. - Christopher Morley You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. - Doug Floyd The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself. - Rita Mae Brown Sticking to the high road can be quite challenging. Even so, the associated lessons all have two things in common. First, they usually are not particularly complicated. It certainly can sometimes take a while to get it; but once you do get it, the lesson is normally straight-up and to the point. Second, and here is the rub, the lessons invariably are a "So now you tell me!" kind of thing. Oh sure, hindsight is 20/20, live and learn, no one is perfect, and you are only human. Nonetheless, having learned your lesson is not much consolation once you have already missed important opportunities to stick to th

Most people are more comfortable with old problems than with new solutions. - Author unknown All the mischiefs in the world may be put down to the general, indiscriminate veneration of old laws, old customs, and old religion. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow. - Glen Beaman The relationship between trial and suffering is a common theme in the success and motivation literature, although "failure" usually replaces "trial and suffering" in the equation. For example, Benjamin Disraeli said, "All my successes have been built on my failures." The famous Anon. said, "Failure is a better teacher than success, but she seldom finds an apple on her desk;" and Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, said, "Most success springs from an obstacle or failure." Maury Povich joined in too when he said, "There's got to be a glitch along the way, or else you lose touch with reality." Robert Louis Stevenson took the concept to the extr

Conformity: Every society honors its live conformists, and its dead troublemakers. - Mignon McLaughlin || Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path. - Author unknown "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do." -- Edward Everett Hale A similar sentiment was expressed by William Penn "I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." Your best strategy over the long-haul is to understand where people want to go and help them get there. You do this by talking with them about what aid and support they need from you and being sure they get it. It may seem more expedient to charge full-speed-ahead and others be damned; but being too self-serving ends up, in the long run, serving no one. Your success is best served b

I have made what may be one of the world’s seventeen greatest discoveries. It is this: “Always keep it short and to the point.” You may disagree, citing Robert Southey who said, “It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn,” or Shakespeare who promised in Hamlet, “Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.” Of course you are not questioning my point, just my assertion that I personally made the discovery. Naturally, I know that Baltasar Gracián said that “Good things, when short, are twice as good.,” in The Art of Worldly Wisdom; and Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” These great minds along with many others counsel us to be concise and not impose on the patience of anyone when we can avoid it. They have mostly intended their advice for the written word. For example, Lord Sandwich advised, “If any man will draw up his case, an

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." Although Longfellow's pronouncement has superficial plausibility, it's merely an example of polar logic. One pole is what you feel capable of doing and the other is what you have already done. The judgment reduces to can and did. You judge yourself based on "can" and others judge you based on "did." The reality is that such judgments rarely reduce to either can or did, for you or for others who judge you. Look first at "can." If this is a judgment you make about yourself, is it reasonable to make it without considering "did?" Relying exclusively on what you think you can do, without considering what you have done, places no value on prior experience. It also acknowledges an inability to learn. Alternatively, if you consider did to the exclusion of can, your behavior is simply repetitive; and you will need to take Albert Einstein's observation to heart, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." -- Aristotle The idea that excellence is a product of training isn't surprising. Athletes, musicians, and those who achieve preeminence in other areas requiring superior personal performance are well-aware of the necessity and value of continuous training. The point that may not be as obvious is that training and habituation are prerequisites for areas of excellence beyond developing physical skills and individual talents. They are necessary for emotional excellence, moral excellence, interpersonal excellence, as well as intellectual excellence. The point that may be even less obvious is that Aristotle also said that training and habituation are prerequisite to virtue. People have the capacity to be virtuous but become virtuous people only through training and habit

Hello and welcome to Audio Tidbits. I am the newest member of the podcasting team and am excited to have this opportunity to talk with you today. As the new guy on the team, it's not easy to know exactly how to behave and what to share with you as my first chance at podcasting. I suspect you have been in the position of being the new kid in town. If you were like me today, you weren't quite sure how things work at your new gig and are anxious to get off to a good start. To say the least, it's a little awkward. Even so, I am taking a very big silent breath and hoping for the best. Here I go. I thought I'd share with you as my first podcast some thoughts about being helpful and helping others. I know, maybe I'm just hoping that you are patient and help me get off to that good start we all hope for when starting something new. Edward Everett Hale said, "Look up and not down. Look forward and not back. Look out and not in, and lend a hand." You are seldom too busy or stressed to lend a hand, pitch in, to hel

Samuel Johnson told us that the chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken; and John Dryden added that ill habits gather by unseen degrees — As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. The truth of it is that Arnold Bennett got it right when he said that habits are the very dickens to change. Abigail Van Buren was also on point when she added that a bad habit never disappears miraculously. It's an undo-it-yourself project. Of course Mark Twain was also there, egar to join in, "Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time." Naturally, St. Augustine had a wise caution for us, "Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.;" and as we would expect, Mark Twain inserted his take here on putting too much stock in saints and wisdom, "To have nothing the matter with you and no habits is pretty tame, pretty colorless. It is just the way a saint feels, I reckon; it is at least the way he looks. I never could sta

Listen to this little tune for two minutes and forty-nine seconds and don't keep running the chorus past your mind once you have finished listening. I couldn't do it and bet you can't either.

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do." -- Edward Everett Hale A similar sentiment was expressed by William Penn "I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." Your best strategy over the long-haul is to understand where people want to go and help them get there. You do this by talking with them about what aid and support they need from you and being sure they get it. It may seem more expedient to charge full-speed-ahead and others be damned; but being too self-serving ends up, in the long run, serving no one. Your success is best served by helping others succeed. The glitch is that, no matter how well-intentioned, your offer to help is usually turned down or the response is, "I will let you know." If you sincerely want to help, do n

"It may be years before anyone knows if what you are doing is right. But if what you are doing is nice, it will be immediately evident." -- P.J. O'Rourke The idea seems to be that good manners can and often do cover up the proverbial multitude of sins. As Arthur Schopenhauer put it, "Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax." It may quickly distort or otherwise transform reality. What seems sincere may merely be the latest example of Abel Stevens' observation, "Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts." The point is that in an effort to "be nice," candor can easily take a backseat to what Emily Post described as "a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others." The desire not to upset or offend takes priority over the responsibility to be honest and straightforward. Of course, W. Somerset Maugham did say, "I don't think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards." And Lord Halifax said, "A man that should call everything by its

Here's how to play the Match Game. Hold the match, ready to strike. Whether you burn that bridge is now in your control. "Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win." -- Jonathan Kozol In the realm of life's little lessons, this seems axiomatic. The problem is that many of the battles that are big enough to matter aren't small enough to win; and those that are small enough to win tend not to matter. The challenge is in knowing when to fight and when to walk away. Kozol's advice is to fight if the outcome matters and you can win, otherwise walk away. Although this is certainly a practical approach to self-preservation, it's also a clear cop out. There are battles that matter way too much to avoid, even though winning is far from certain. The more important lesson may be in David Russell's observation, "The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." Life is full of conflicts and tensions, battles large and small, bridges to cross and bridges to burn. Life is a jou

"When your intelligence don't tell you something ain't right, your conscience gives you a tap on the shoulder and says ‘Hold on.' If it don't, you're a snake." As one might expect, Carl Jung expressed Presley's folk wisdom in somewhat more formal language; but the idea is the same, "Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, 'Something is out of tune.'" Christopher Reeve also heard that inner voice, "I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God, I don't know. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do." The recurring belief is that the voice of conscience is ever-present and far less fallible than the voice of reason. For example, Josh Billings asserted, "Reason often makes mistakes but conscience never does." Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the same point this way, "Reason deceives us often; c

"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional, and are the portals of discovery." -- James Joyce This certainly puts a different twist on the concept. The only requirement is that one is "A man of genius." If so, you don't make mistakes, you merely commit errors, on purpose. Try that one the next time you screw up, "It's no big deal. I just decided to make this mistake in order to open the portal for discovery." You can also note that on your resume where you explain why you left your last job. Niels Bohr said, "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field." Of course, Bohr does qualify as a man of genius; but to assume that he too is suggesting that those mistakes are the portals for discovery is likely not correct. A little folk wisdom may be more to the point. "Why are things always in the last place you look?" "It's because, once you find it, you quit looking." Confucius has a better perspective, "A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't cor

"Since changes are going on anyway, the great thing is to learn enough about them so that we will be able to lay hold of them and turn them in the direction of our desires. Conditions and events are neither to be fled from nor passively acquiesced in; they are to be utilized and directed." It's not surprising that Dewey bases his approach to change management on active learning. Since change is a fact of life, you might as well make the best of it. Learn as much as you can about the changes in your life and then use them, as much as possible, to your advantage. William O. Douglas suggested that success in using change in your best interest depends, in large measure, on adjusting your thinking to conform to today's reality. "Security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts." Francis Bacon also agreed that you need to take charge of change and mold it to your purposes. "Things alter for the worse spontane

aeda, John with Becky Bermot. Redesigning Leadership. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011. ...courage is a noble form of stupidity that aids getting impossible things done. Being prepared isn't a matter of how much you practice. It's about knowing that even if you fail, you won't give up. Doing right matters more than being right. The primary challenge for a leader who is a natural doer is to discover the balance between the two; otherwise the specter of micromanagement can easily make a guest appearance. Competency results in success results in complacency results in failure results in learning how to be competent again. I'd rather be green and growing instead of ripe, ready to rot. A leader's job is to get people on board with his vision--and he'll try whatever tools are at his disposal to do it. ...the one thing I've learned it's most important to convey is respect--it's the prerequisite for any other kind of communication. ...I still find an online poll to be tempting, but I know that it doesn