INSIDE OUT & OVERVIEW
We begin to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change ourselves. And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.
The word paradigm comes from Greek. It was originally a scientific term, and is more commonly used today to mean a model, theory, perception, assumption, or frame of reference. In the more general sense, it’s the way we “see ” the world ~~not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, interpreting.
For our purposes, a simple way to understand paradigm is see them as maps. We all know that “the map is not the territory.” A map is simply an explanation of certain aspects of the territory. That’s exactly what a paradigm is. It’s a theory , an explanation, or model of something else.
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.
Many people experience a similar fundamental shift in thinking when they face a life ~threatening crisis and suddenly see their priorities in a different light, or when they suddenly step into a new role, such as that of husband or wife, parent or grandparent, manager or leader.
We could spend weeks, months, even years laboring with the personality ethics trying to change our attitudes and behaviors and not even begin to approach the phenomenon of change that occurs spontaneously when we see things differently.
It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
In the words of Thoreau: For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root. We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.
Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education. Thoreau taught: How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires , when we are using our knowledge all the time.
Perhaps a sense of possessing needs to come before a sense of genuine sharing. Many people who give mechanically or refuse to give and share in their marriages and families may never have experienced what it means to possess themselves, their own sense of identity and self worth. Really helping our children grow may involve being patient enough to allow them the sense of possession as well as being wise enough to teach them the value of giving and providing the example ourselves.
Effectiveness lies in the balance ~what I call the P/PC balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.
There are organizations that talk a lot about the customer and completely neglect the people that deal with the customer ~~the employee. The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
You can buy a person‘s hand, but you can’t buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you cannot buy his brain. That’s where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness.
PC work is treating employees as volunteers just as you treat customers as volunteers, because that’s what they are. They volunteer the best part ~~their hearts and minds.
Marilyn Ferguson observed:
“No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by emotional appeal.”
In the words of Thomas Paine:
“That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows to put a proper price on its goods.”
更多文章请点击我的简文集：《家有两宝》
