Don McMinn

Significant thoughts will change your life.

Call them what you want — wise sayings, proverbs, maxims, aphorisms, quotes — they are concisely written or spoken linguistic expressions that are especially memorable because of their meaning or structure. Distilled wisdom. Important thoughts reduced to a few choice words.

How do famous sayings come into existence? Who vets all the statements uttered by mankind and decides which ones are given the high honor of becoming timeless and often transcendent? Interestingly, there’s no selection committee and no official vote taken. A combination of time and human censorship filter and cull humanity’s thoughts, and the nuggets of truth have survived.

Here are some suggestions on how to benefit from significant thoughts.

Constantly search for them

In your reading and conversations, be on the lookout for thoughts that matter. Just this week, while reading a book, I discovered this Chinese proverb: That the birds of worry and care fly above your head, this you cannot change; but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.

Write them down

If you don’t write it down, you’ll lose it. If necessary, write it on a scrap piece of paper until you can transfer it to your thought journal. Steven Covey says, “Writing bridges the conscious and subconscious mind. Writing is a psycho-neuromuscular activity that literally imprints the brain.”

Memorize them

This is the most important, but often neglected, step. When you memorize a statement, it finds a place in your mind and becomes available for reflection and application. Knowledge without memory is useless.

Share them

A.K. Chesterson said, “Thoughts disentangle themselves over the lips and through the fingertips.” Intentional dialogue is a terrific way to “untangle” significant thoughts. Simply introduce one of your thoughts into a conversation you’re having with friends. You might begin by saying, “I’ve been thinking about a phrase and would enjoy hearing your thoughts about it. Here it is…” The conversation will deepen your understanding of the thought and help solidify its place in your mind. It could also add value and meaning to what otherwise might be a frivolous conversation.

Apply them

One of the great moments of life happens when you personally experience, or see someone else experience, truth. For instance, one day I was coaching a young executive who was struggling with how to deal with a toxic team member who was  stirring up strife among his team. I shared with him an ancient proverb, “Remove the scoffer from your midst and strife will cease.” He immediately sensed that it was the right solution to the problem and soon started the process of dismissing the troublemaker. When the man was gone, strife ceased. I enjoyed watching a significant truth impact life.

Significant thoughts will change your life. Learn them and use them.

Click here to see 15 wise sayings that have changed my life.

In 1997, managers at Samsung didn’t question a $13 billion investment that would take the company into the automobile industry because the idea’s champion, Samsung Chairman and CEO Kun-Hee Lee, was a forceful personality and a car buff. When Samsung Motors folded only a year into production, Lee wondered why no one had expressed reservations. (Teams That Click, HBSP, pg. 74)

Robust dialogue could have prevented Samsung’s debacle.

Simply stated, robust dialogue occurs in a group when everyone is encouraged, allowed, and even required to give their unfiltered input on issues. The value of robust dialogue is: Every idea or plan will be improved upon when submitted to the unfiltered wisdom and input of others.

Robust dialogue is not just the right thing to do; it is the best thing to do. It’s not just politically correct, it is practically helpful.

The prelude to robust dialogue may sound like this:

• • • The boss says, “I’ve got an idea and I would really value everyone’s input. I want you to be totally honest.”
    • A team member says, “My division is thinking about offering a new service, but before we get very far down the road, I want to get your opinion on the project.”
    • A team member says, “I think we’re going in the wrong direction on this project.”

Bossidy and Charan teach that robust dialogue is based on openness, candor, and informality.

• • • Openness—people are not trapped by preconceptions; they’re open-minded.
    • Candor—people speak candidly and express their real opinions. Truth is valued more than harmony.
    • Informality—informal dialogue invites questions, mental experimentation, and creative and critical thinking. Formality suppresses dialogue and leaves little room for debate.
      (Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, pg. 102)

Robust dialogue will help maintain a transparent and healthy workplace. It’s amazing how often there’s an elephant in the room, but no one is willing to acknowledge it. Clarke and Crossland warn, “Every time your team avoids the critical ‘real issues,’ you lose. Every time the discussion outside the meeting room—physical or virtual—is dramatically different from the discussion inside the room, you lose.” (The Leader’s Voice, pg. 118)

Often, we avoid challenging dialogue because we value unanimity and harmony. But when we ignore the tough issues, we inadvertently dilute any sense of consensus; true alliance is achieved only when all the major issues have been identified and wrestled with. Consensus is good, unless it is achieved too easily, in which case it becomes suspect.

Robust dialogue is not only helpful in the workplace, it will also improve dialogue among family members and friends. See a previous post—Don’t go to Abilene—for an example of how robust dialogue might help family communications.

The mother asked, “Where have you been?” Her little girl replied, “On my way home I met a friend who was crying because she had broken her doll.”
“Oh,” said her mother, “then you stopped to help her fix the doll?”
“No,” replied the little girl, “I stopped to help her cry.”

Hurt and pain are inevitable. It’s not a matter of if we’re going to be hurt, but rather when and how we will deal with the pain.

Pain takes many forms. It can be physical (a sprained ankle), social (exclusion from a group), or emotional (embarrassment, disappointment). Some hurts may be perceived as relatively minor—“I was embarrassed at lunch today when I spilled ketchup on my shirt.” Others are major—“My father abandoned me.”

Regardless of the form or the severity, there’s only one antidote for hurt—comfort.

Here are some practical suggestions on how to comfort other people.

Learn to sense when someone is hurting and be willing and available to help her.

We’re often unaware when people are hurting. Sometimes circumstances will give us a clue (physical illness, death of a loved one, divorce or separation, loss of a job), but often it’s not so apparent. So be discerning and learn to recognize when people are in need to be comforted.

When you do sense that someone is hurting, are you willing to slow down and take the time to minister comfort or do you choose not to “go there”? You must be discerning, willing, and available.

When someone is hurting, if possible, enter her physical world.

While it’s possible to comfort someone over the phone or in a letter, it’s best done in person and preferably in the hurting person’s space. If your friend is hurting, instead of suggesting, “Susan, it sounds like we need to talk. Can you drop by my office this afternoon?” it’s better to offer, “Susan, it sounds like we need to talk. Can I come by your office this afternoon?”

Enter her mental and emotional world.

Humans live in at least three “worlds” simultaneously: physical, mental, and emotional. While it’s easy to determine where someone is physically, it’s more difficult to determine where she is mentally and emotionally. But to comfort effectively it helps to understand what a person is thinking and feeling. Often, just asking directly – “How are you feeling? What are you thinking?” – is sufficient. At other times it takes more effort, particularly if the person is guarded and reticent to share.

Listen.

A good comforter must be a good listener. Let the one who is hurt do most of the talking; if you talk too much you’ll inevitably engage in unproductive responses.

When someone needs comfort, avoid these unproductive responses.

• • Advice/instruction – “Let me give you some steps of action to solve the problem.” Or, “Maybe next time that happens you should…”
  • Logic/reasoning – “Let me analyze the situation and tell you why it happened.” Or, “I think the reason this happened was because…”
  • Pep talk – “You’re a winner! You’ll make it through these tough times!” Or, “I’m sure tomorrow will be a better day.”
  • Minimize – “Sure it hurts, but get it in perspective; there’s a lot going on that’s good.” Or, “Aren’t you being overly sensitive?”
  • Anger – “That makes me so mad! They shouldn’t get away with that!” Or, “I’m so upset that you keep getting yourself hurt.”
  • Martyr’s complex – “I had something similar happen to me.” Or, “After the kind of day I had, let me tell you what hurt really feels like.”
  • Personal fear/anxiety – “I’m afraid that what has happened to you is going to affect my life too.”
  • Silence/neglect – Not saying anything.
  • Fix it – “I can’t believe that salesman talked to you like that. I’m calling the store right now and talking to his boss.” Or, “Sorry you had a flat tire on that lonely road. Tomorrow I’ll get a set of new tires.”
  • Spiritualize – “Well, you know that God will work all of this out for your good.”

While some of these responses may be appropriate to share after the hurting person has been comforted, they don’t work as the initial response.

Learn the “vocabulary of comfort.”

Often, we don’t know what to say to someone who is hurting because we’ve never developed an appropriate vocabulary. We don’t need to say a lot, a few choice sentences are sufficient. Here are some suggestions.

• • I’m so sorry that you are hurting.
  • It saddens me that you’re hurting. I love you and care for you.
  • I’m committed to help you through this difficult time.
  • It saddens me that you felt _________ (embarrassed, rejected, belittled). I know that must have hurt.
  • I know that you’re hurting. I just wanted to come be with you.

When speaking words of comfort, it’s also important that our tone of voice complements what is being said. Our speech should be warm, sincere and gentle.

Use appropriate non-verbal gestures.

A warm embrace or gentle touch can express comfort. Tears shed for someone else can convey love beyond words.

Jess Moody says this about comfort, “Have you ever taken a real trip down inside the broken heart of a friend? To feel the sob of the soul – the raw, red crucible of emotional agony? To have this become almost as much yours as that of your soul-crushed neighbor? Then, to sit down with him – and silently weep? This is the beginning of compassion.”

We continually come in contact with people who are hurting. Let’s minister grace and healing to them through the simple but effective gift of comfort.

Great teams are led by people confident enough to recruit people better than themselves.—Warren Bennis

A favorite toy among Russian children, the matryoshka doll is a series of wooden dolls that nest inside each other and get progressively smaller and smaller. Open up the largest doll and you’ll find a smaller, identical doll. Open up that doll and there is yet a smaller one. There may be as many as 15 dolls inside the largest one.

The matryoshka doll can teach us some important lessons on how good leaders build a great team and how insecure or uninformed leaders can inhibit the growth and health of their organization by choosing weak team members.

Recruit people who are “bigger” than you are.

If the person at the top of the organization intentionally hires someone who is “smaller” (less qualified with less potential), and that person recruits someone who is “smaller” than herself and this selection criterion continues to cascade down through the entire organization, eventually it will produce a dumbed-down organization.

Recruit people who are “different” than you are.

All of the dolls inside a matryoshka doll are identical (except for their size). If a leader only recruits people who are similar to himself—same personality, gifts, age range, perspective—his team will not benefit from the critical element of diversity.

Choosing quality team members is the leaders most important job.

For a leader, important decisions fall into two categories: strategy and people. I think the people decisions are the most important because if you get the right people on your team, they will help you set the right strategy.

When I was a kid, we often played an impromptu game of softball or basketball after school. Everyone who wanted to play gathered, two captains were chosen, a coin toss determined which captain chose first, and then teammates were selected one at a time. The captain who chose the best players, won. Sometimes a captain would choose a less-skilled player early in the selection process so as not to hurt the person’s feelings (no one wanted to be chosen last). While that might have been the kind thing to do, it wasn’t the smart thing to do if you wanted to win.

Leaders, choose the best and the brightest to serve on your team and your organization will prosper.

This suggestion is not for the insecure and paranoid; it takes a lot of emotional fortitude and self-confidence to recruit and empower people who are smarter, more competent, edgier, and more connected than you. But if you don’t, you and your organization will suffer from the diminishing-expertise syndrome.

You may wonder, “Won’t that make me look bad?” No, it will make you look like a competent leader. Remember, leaders get work done through other people. Also, surrounding yourself with top-flight people will motivate you to continue to grow and become better yourself.

In her book Team of Rivals, Doris Goodwin reminds us that when Abraham Lincoln was elected president and began compiling his cabinet, he not only chose strong and competent men, he actually chose men who had run against him in the primaries, men who had hoped to have his job—essentially, he chose a cabinet of opponents. Lincoln reasoned, “I have looked the party over and concluded that these men were the very strongest men. I had no right to deprive the country of their services.”

Surround yourself with great people.