Sunday, April 6, 2014

Team Tips – 18 {A little cheese with that WHINE?}

Got a phone call from “me Mum” the other day. She was sad. The reality of having to finally put the family home up for sale had just hit her.

After telling me how she felt, she apologized to me for “whining”.

I was struck that at her 95 years of age, having dealt with WW2 in England, emigrating to Canada with a newborn (me), having no friends or family in this part of her world, etc., etc. that this was the first time I could recall her “whining” (as she put it).

It made me think of all the stuff I see in Twitter, and on Fussbook, and in the news where folks are continually, relentlessly, indiscriminately moaning and complaining and fussing and wailing about the latest pin prick in their lives. That's what I call WHINING!


And my reaction to all that stuff is: Ya want a little cheese with that whine?

Sure, there's lots one can complain about, and no shortage of bad news. The talking heads are paid to provide it, lay on the drama, get the audience worked up, introduce a little anxiety, move us to DefCon 3.

But seriously folks. How about a little perspective? A little dose of proportion? See - now I'm whining!!

We live in a world of abundance. In spite of all humanities mistakes we're still here on this amazing space ship. The sun appearing every day is cause for celebration.

And there are tools in the Core Protocols to recognize the problems and see what can be done with them (like Perfection Game.) Of course it's a lot easier to point out the concerns than to figure out a remedy or solution, and many times we would just rather complain.

That's also where the Core Commitments help too. For example:
 1. I commit to engage when present .... (b) To always seek effective help.
 3. I will use teams, especially when undertaking difficult tasks.
 4. I will speak always and only when I believe it will improve the general results/effort ratio.
 5. I will offer and accept only rational, results-oriented behavior and communication.
 8. I will seek to move forward toward a particular goal, by biasing my behavior toward action.


So - surprise, surprise - we CAN make choices. We can choose to complain, AND choose to do whatever we can about it.

And I figure if me Mum can get on with it, then I'd better too!