C a r e e r Z e n
by Larry Daly, 'The JOB DOC'
Chapter 14. Assumptions and Expectations
More about studying others, with a practice exerciseWe assume that all other people see the same colors we do, taste the same tastes, and hear the same music and sounds. Not so fast! Not necessarily so.
The shooter with ear damage may not hear half the range of sounds other people do, but the musical person trained from childhood may hear much more, perhaps twice as much range and complexity. The trained chef or experienced wine taster will be able to distinguish many more tastes than the average person. A weivght lifter or runner or other athlete will be more finely tuned to his body than will the average office worker. Diet, accident, age, work strain, and many other factors can seriously affect vision, hearing, and smell and other senses, so that any given person, and perhaps most people, may perceive the whole world quite differently than you do.
You must understand this when you meet every person, and recognize that time pressure requires that you do make many assumptions that this person is very much like you, but also realize that they are assumptions, so be open and ready to discover any important actual differences in this person.
How can you tell, with any given person? Practice. Experience. Looking for clues, gross and subtle.
I will go into some depth in an example case, from which you can learn much.
As you read the following description, consider it an assignment: It should be easy enough to place the subject in the correct personality, Neuro - Linguidstic, study type and peer relationship group, and thus, knowing your own type and peer relationship details, work out how you would meet, work with and otherwise deal with such a person, under the given that you had to work together, with no way out, essential to your career success, and at least for a certain amount of time, such as 3 to 6 months, or even for a year.
First, let's review. My ‘Peer Form' is not yet perfected, merely an outline or basic beginning. Go back to Chapter Two and skim and review the Peer Form and other information, then, at the end of this chapter, suggest how the Form can be corrected or improved or expanded or condensed for use in the real world, presenting your own independent and original reasoning and evidence and observations and analysis for your own conclusions, whether agreeing with, different, or opposite to mine.
DAN
At age two, Dan had an accident. He was poked in the eye by a holiday tin horn, injuring the muscle so that one eye did not point the same direction as the other, each looking outward, making him appear ‘wall - eyed'. The binocular ability natural to all humans and giving us all the ability to judge depth and distance accurately for throwing or hitting a ball, or (original use?) leaping from one tree limb to another, could not be his. Not even with special exercises and corrective lenses -- the damage was permanent and severe, and his parents could not afford the expensive surgery that might have helped. A simple one - second accident changed a whole life.When Dan first went to school and was laughed at and ridiculed by others (as all children are) he took it personally and quickly began to either withdraw and stay away from other children, or attacked them in frustrated rage. Dan later developed a full broad independence and self - sufficiency in all things, so that he would never have to deal with others at all, eventually leading to a permanent loner attitude, approaching misanthropy.
All of his life he was unable to trust and like people enough to form lasting relationships. At the first suspicion of ridicule he would turn off, and be gone, proving that he did not need anyone at all. Soon he could be friends only with those who needed him, or whom he felt were below him in some way, but then how could he respect them, so he left them, also, as not worth his effort and company.
Needing to learn all he could, driven by this inward need, Dan read voraciously, anything and everything, developing wide knowledge and understanding, gaining a rich and satisfying intellectual life, but also further alienating himself, and further damaging his eyes. As a result he soon became most often bored with other people, since they had not his level of knowledge and range of interests, and spent all of his time alone, usually in the public library, studying science and technology, chemistry, physics, and other subjects above his age.
As a teen-age boy, suffering the same early sexual pangs of desire as others his age, but already oversensitive, tough and suspicious, he had difficulty making out with girls. He was physically healthy, muscular and strong for his wiry build, and not ugly or seriously disfigured, but lacking popularity and personality and group contacts and his status as a loner, he became even more alone. After discovering masturbation, and then no longer needing women for sexual release, Dan remained a bachelor all his following life, raising no family, having no children, leaving no descendants. He was much more satisfied with things and tools and machines and books and information than with people.
While Dan eventually learned to control his emotions, or discharge them safely, he was always uncomfortable in emotion - triggering situations, so he carefully avoided anything going that way. By the age of fifteen Dan was frustrated and angry, knowledgeable and critical far beyond his age from all his study, and thus desiring much more than he was getting at school and home.
Today the vision in Dan's left eye is sharp only at four inches, and everything beyond that is vaguer and vaguer, and light sources have rainbow halos around them. The vision in his right eye focuses at nine to ten inches, shrinking every year, and the same image (when he forces himself to see out through both eyes at the same time) is tilted down and to the right ten degrees from that seen through the left, and is about ten or fifteen percent lower - presenting two distinctly different images of the same thing. Double vision. Both images have multiple outlines, making sharpness impossible. The right eye also has bright rays coming out of every light source, and, combined with the halos in the left, make seeing past any light source impossible, so the subject can not drive a car at all, or hardly walk well on the street at night. An operation on the right eye for cataracts a few years ago was highly unsatisfying, so Dan does not want to go for any more operations, no longer trusting doctors.
Somehow, perhaps surprisingly, Dan has not only lived a productive working life and never become a criminal or violent or cause harm to others or destruction, etc., but has also done quite well for himself.
After enough rejections by women he had chosen the passive attitude -- he never chases them or falls for them, but accepts and welcomes any relationships with those few who ‘capture' him, as long as each relationship lasts, and as deep as it might become, but also not regretting it all that much or for very long when it is over. Dan is straight and enjoys affection and physical pleasure with women, is physically normal, is sexually successful, or at least always has been up to and during the last relationship, several years ago. He has never been either physically or emotionally satisfied by one - nighters or other quick brief sex, but only the long - term relationship. However, none of his relationships has ever lasted more than two years, and most last only six months or less, until a woman begins to tell him that he must do this or can't do that, which is the beginning of the end, for him. He appreciates a lover but cannot abide a mother or dominance situation, being the (casually and gently) dominant one or else there is no situation. Dan was never all that enamored of his own natural mother, who was an alcoholic, shrew, martyr, and worse.
Dan was the only sober one in the family of both parents, five siblings, and many relatives (so he assumes that a hereditary factor is present here), and while he did have a period of alcoholism until he realized it at age 25 and quit cold and never drank again for many years, and now only drinks (and enjoy) a beer or wine with a meal, or the annual New Year blast, he does not drink otherwise.
His self - discipline is also strong enough that he quit smoking cold after 33 years, and he has never taken drugs or other substances.) He is not in a hurry to get into another relationship, nor does he avoid them -- the next will come when it does, or not, as the case may be. He has not felt loneliness for another person for more than a day in a year in many years. At his age, sex itself, both the physical and the emotional, is no longer the most important thing in life to him, and he does without it for months, or solves the urge or need in five minutes without dealing with anyone else or spending money impressing and buying others.
Dan is neither masochist or narcissist, but is quite self - centered, and does know and deeply appreciates his own good points, and can ignore or rationalize away the bad. He values his personal privacy and time and likes solitude and quiet, relishing the blocks of time to read, research, write, watch serious tv, listen to classical music, and pursue his many other interests.
Dan appears to remain reasonably happy today, not only knowing and understanding and having come to terms with himself, but also with others. He is well off enough that he does not need to work, and feels no need to associate with others for company, finding all the satisfaction he needs in his own company. But neither does he automatically reject others. Sometimes he does not even go out of his (very comfortable) house for days, often not talking to another person for weeks at a time other than the brief simple polite hello type of interaction. This elderly male is not as suspicious or wary with people any more, and doesn't beat himself up over those slights he does perceive, usually assuming that his own perceptions are wrong or not as serious as they could be.
Assignment
I have gone on at length here for one purpose: How would you understand and deal with such a person?Given that you could quickly enough and accurately enough evaluate him to gain enough of the above information, how would you deal with Dan? Plan and propose and describe and project and predict a practical working relationship with such a person.
What do you think would be areas of common interest between you, on which to base a working relationship in your career, assuming some kind of situation in which this would be vital to your career goals? What do you think such a person thinks about? Why would he work? What might be his career goals? What kind of achievements or goals might be considered of value by such a person? If you for some reason wanted to form an alliance toward mutual goals with this person, how would you go about it, and what might it be like, and how effective?
How would you even talk to Dan? The moment you realized that he was a thinker, if you ever did, and with fifty years of serious reading and experience in virtually every science and discipline, a published author, how would you contemplate the possibility of him thinking you shallow and perhaps ignorant, and deal with it? The moment you see that he does not need you, and is turning away unconcerned and uninterested and untempted to continue your conversation, though politely, and perhaps even with a cheerful pleasantry, how would you strive to maintain his interest and attention? Would he not see through you? Would he not immediately understand that you had an ulterior purpose, a personal agenda? Would this not further warn and perhaps alienate him? Might he think you would try to manipulate him? Could you? How?
Do you think your personality can invite, intrigue, sway, or even match his own as seen in his own eyes? In what terms would you propose alliance? He does not need your money, time, effort, or anything else in his behalf. He has always worked alone. He has always thought alone. You can truly not imagine the thoughts that occupy his mind any more than you could comprehend the things important to a person who knew he would live for a thousand years. He did not play well with others as a child, and does not share with others now.
Dan is truly self - sufficient, unable to be tempted by women, sex, liquor, drugs, wealth, or power over others, despising all. He already has all the leisure and freedom he needs (and others seek), for he has total autonomy in his life, able to leave for Paris or anyplace else in the morning if he wished to, or retreat into total urban hermetry in his apartment for the next year.
He deeply believes in atheism, not only having shed the Catholicism of his childhood, but also having studied for the Protestant and non-denominational ministry and been ordained, studied the mid- and far eastern beliefs, written a book on the history of belief, only to toss that all aside upon deciding that religion is not only the emotional opiate of the masses, as Marx said, but also as much business as any other endeavor of man, though selling only words and emotions for solid coin), and believing that most other people are fools, misguided, over - dependent upon over - valued verbalisms, tautologies, cliches, and upon others as weak as themselves, a thousand zeroes all still adding up to only zero, for a thousand times nothing is still nothing.
Not only does Dan consider religion a social and cultural and intellectual imprisonment, but that -- as an example of his own thinking and independent conclusion which you and most other people could never come to yourselves, let alone comprehend -- that most of the written holy works could as well be true records of visitors other than a deity, though by their very real powers as powerful as any perceived or imagined deity.
Assumption Errors
Dan is only one example of how differently one person can be from another, only one example of how far wrong one can be in assumptions about another.To know others you must not only know them, but yourself also, and thirdly how and where the two will fit and match and accord and chafe and wear. Those people who externalize their life will always have difficulty understanding and dealing with those who internalize. The passive person seldom understands the dynamic doer, and the logical mind is at a loss dealing with the emotional type person, and vice versa. True or false?
Now add in the differences caused by gender orientations, ages, experience, occupations, religions, cultures, languages, and all of the other factors possible in any two different people, and you will soon be able to understand that if any two people ever fully and truly had all the correct assumptions about each other it would be a true miracle.
In short, it is virtually impossible for any two people to truly understand each other. And especially without making a real and extended and continuous effort to do so.
Therefore it behooves you to listen to and closely study every other person you talk to in order to thoroughly understand him or her, and in order to deal with them effectively, work well together, achieve mutual goals, and so on, in your career.
In summary, then:
What do we expect and anticipate and assume in our dealings with others? Make a list, with explanations, details, etc.
Earlier we described the basic 16 Myers-Briggs personality types. List your basic assumptions about each type, and their similarities to and differences from each other. Determine which type the above subject is, and thus how best to understand and deal with him in general. And how other types deal with him, successfully or not. And he with them.
Create a cue system or ‘cheat sheet' that would let you know as quickly and easily as possible which type of personality you are facing and dealing with at any given moment, and related warnings about any assumption(s) you may want to avoid in each kind of association. And any other aid(s) to help you deal with that person successfully, and avoid mistakes.
Then, when you are ready, begin to observe and understand in depth every person you know, for practice in this discipline of purposeful ‘peopling', starting with family and friends, classmates and sports friends, and then those you work with on the job. Observe people in shops and other public and social contexts, and how they deal with each other.
A Brief Checklist of Observation Questions
Watching people without knowing what you are looking for, and thus not understanding what you are seeing, is futile and a waste of time. This checklist will help you in this:Again I'll call our subject Dan, for convenience. You insert the name of the person you are observing, instead, of course.
We want to know as much as possible abut Dan for a reason, a purpose, such as whether to hire or promote him, be friends with him, have him on our support team, refer him for a job, build a strategic alliance, and so forth.
So we are going to ask and try to answer a list of questions about him, and by careful observation, paying close attention, try to answer those questions, in order to understand Dan. The following is just one possible example; you will create your own list or form as you need, and have a space to write your purpose down at the top of your list or form, to focus on the characteristics best for that purpose, at that time and place.
First Dimension: how Dan prefers to interact with the world, and direct his energy.
1. Does Dan prefer to work alone (I) or with others (E)? Or works better, faster, more efficiently, alone (I) or with company (E), independently or in the team atmosphere?
2. When he deals with others, does Dan prefer light quick casual relationships with many people (E), or does he seem to prefer only one or two other people, and to develop deeper (I) rather than superficial relationships?
3. When asked questions, does Dan reply instantly, building his answers on the fly (E), or does he pause and think out his reply before speaking (I)?
4. Does Dan seem to get energy from and focus his energy on activities in a group (E), or does he seem more content or recover energy by time alone (I)?
5. What kinds of words does Dan prefer using, or use more often or more significantly, such as plurals like ‘we' (E), or singulars like ‘you', (I), and speak in the more immediate sense (E), or a more long term sense (I)?
These five questions above, and similar questions, help us determine if Dan is more extravert (E) or introvert (I) by preference, for use on the Myers-Briggs Typing form. (For more information and details, and to fill in the missing questions, use the MBTI forms, or read Do What You Are, by Tieger.) On the Extravert - Introvert line below, mark your impression. Nobody is perfectly balanced, so select one or the other, even if by only a slight bit over the other side. It is okay to go by your hunch, if in doubt, since we often gauge others correctly by non - verbal cues we are not conscious of using, but are usually right and just as valid as our consciously observed cues.
Second Dimension: how Dan prefers to deal with information:
1. How does Dan seem to prefer getting his information? By direct observation, sight, hearing, collecting facts, or does he seem to be more interested in the meanings and potential and uses of information he gets through secondary sources?
2. Does Dan seem to be here-and-now oriented, or more toward results at a future time?
3. Does he rely on his experiences, or try to read between the lines, searching for hidden meanings?
4. Does he collect clippings and notes, or rely on his memory or impressions?
5.
Third Dimension: how does Dan make decisions and come to conclusions?
1 Does Dan seek help from others in making decisions, or want to make any decisions on his own, by himself?
2.
3.
Fourth Dimension: how does Dan prefer to act and live his life: in a structured way, making decisions, or a more spontaneously way, keeping his options open as long as possible?
1. Does Dan like decisions made and order settled, his life controlled and regulated? Or is he happier when he has more flexibility, is open to more kinds of possibilities?
2. Does Dan seem to prefer more to control life, or to simply understand it?
3. Does he seem to be uncomfortable when required to make a decision, or prefer to have closure and likes to make decisions?
4.
5. Even after his choices are made, does Dan still keep looking for other options, ready to change if better ones are found?
Summing up: Observe, or estimate, how you think Dan will react to specific adverse instances relating to each of the four dimensions above, as they relate to his business or career, or, conversely, what situations would make him laugh, go along cheerfully, be grudgingly accommodating, be calm but opposed, talk and reason against it, get coldly angry, close up tight and turn away, go and think of what to do, consult others, get help and support, scream in betrayal, strike out in rage, vent verbally, turn away deceptively but then sucker - punch, go along but watch for an opportunity to sabotage or otherwise ruin the operation later, or what other kind of reaction pattern? Observe Dan's words, actions, stance, gestures, and responses, in each 5-question category, to answer these questions, then place a mark on the I or E side of the line, whether he is just barely off the center or at the extreme end of it.
Extravert (E) --------------------------|------------------------------------ (I) Introvert
Sensor (S) -----------------------------|------------------------------------ (N) iNtuitive
Thinker (T) ---------------------------|------------------------------------ (F) Feeler
Judging (J) ----------------------------|------------------------------------ (P) Perceiving
To further understand and learn how to best deal with each type, go to your library or bookstore and get and study books and articles on Myers-Briggs personality typing, and compare it with other methods and systems.
ZEN AND YOUR CAREER
Up to now we have said very little about Zen itself. You may have expected more, and been disappointed. Don't be. Zen is in doing, not in talking. Zen is in action, not words. Those who spend a lot of fancy words are usually wasting your time as well as theirs.The practice of your career is Zen, when you do it with all your heart. Your life is Zen, living it fully, with your work a balanced part of it. In learning, feeling, thinking, experiencing, you are Zen.
Zen is enjoying your work, looking forward to it. If you dread it, you are not experiencing Zen. Get out of that job as soon as you can, and do what will bring you satisfaction and joy. To live a life of economic slavery is to kill your soul. Money alone is not worth it. There are other worthy goals, such as freedom, autonomy, etc.
To live your career successfully, you must practice self - discipline, self - improvement, persistence, consistency, humility, devotion, the learning of knowledge and search for wisdom, study of self and others and your relationships, conquest of barriers and solving of problems, all in balance. This is the practice of Zen.
Your actions each day, meeting and dealing with others, and setting and achieving of goals, your personal ceremony and ritual, whatever they may be, are the practice of Zen.
And, since these are the things we have been talking about all through these pages, we have been talking about Zen all along, too.
Zone. Being and doing something that feels perfect at the moment, so that moment itself is pleasure. Being in the zone, where everything is clicking, working perfectly. Zone. Zen. Same thing. Zen is not something studied separately, but part of everything else you do.
Meditation is nice, if you like it. Another tool or aid or part of Zen, if it works for you.
You don't need cute Zen koan riddles that can't be answered. Or paradoxes, or parables of no - thought detachment, or search for emptiness or the rest of the formal package, unless you desire it for itself. Your personal satori or moment of enlightenment comes each time you gain a little more understanding or success or other pleasure as you perform your career.
But there is one thing to beware of, for it can destroy you and your career, and every Zen teacher will warn you: avoid arrogance. You must learn to practice humility, and to question yourself. When you are most sure of something, certain that you are absolutely right about it, that is the time to bow in humble mode and start over, for nothing can be perfect, and when it is, in the next moment it is not, for all things change.
When you have no time to do manual things, and be kind, and listen to others and give full time and thought to what they say, and especially so when they disagree with you or question you, then you have lost, and are no longer practicing Zen.
Look about you and see those who have achieved power and wealth, and see how many are now owned by it, slaves to it, mean and petty and arrogant. To pursue wealth and power is a great chase and glorious game, but to actually hold it can burn you. If possible, it may be best to avoid holding or exercising power over others. If your career goals are power and wealth, your road is very dangerous, and you will need extra humility, lest your friends turn to enemies and you pay more than you gain.
Zen is what you do, not what you say. Zen is within you, not something outside that you can buy or demand or take.
Career Zen is the result of balance in personal and work life - when you spend too much time at work and neglect yourself and your family your work will also lose quality, for they are part of each other, necessary to each other. Temporary imbalances are natural; it is the lasting imbalances that harm you and ruin your career. A work project may require extra time, but you may later balance that with some extra time with family.
Work perspective will improve by stepping back for a time and getting loose of it, returning with fresh eyes and renewed strength to take you to the next goal. Balanced time helps you percieve new goals and better paths, and enjoy the view. To smell the flowers is not just a cliche, it is necessary.
When the purpose of the trip is enjoying the trip itself as much as achieving the goal, then you may be on the right path and practicing Career Zen, but only you can tell. When you are enjoying your work, and wake each day with anticipation and desire and even excitement to get to work, then your Zen is working.
When you wake each day with foreboding and dread of your work, unwilling to give it your full participation and energy and mind and body, then you must get out, change that job or line of work, and find something better, or it will destroy you, little by little, sap your will and drain your mind and dry up your soul. To be a wage slave is the opposite of Zen.
Successful autonomy may well be the best embodiment of career Zen in America today, even when it pays less in dollars. Note how many office people have begun to work at home and say that they would never go back. Consider all your options. The happiest mountaineer will take his time and study all the trails to the peak, and keep looking for a better way at every stop.
Do you do your work with deep interest, always seeking new knowledge about it, always trying to learn more about it from others? Or as if you were merely a wage slave, or economically indentured?
Where are you now? Where do you have to go, in your career? How will you best get there?
What else? What more can you contribute to your own (and others'?) improvement in peopling?
End of Chapter 14
Click HERE to go to the Introduction
Click HERE to go to Table of Contents
Click HERE to go to Chapter 1 Your Career, your Life Work
Click HERE to go to Chapter 2 People Study
Click HERE to go to Chapter 3 Your Career in Context
Click HERE to go to Chapter 4 Setting Your Career and Life Goals
Click HERE to go to Chapter 5 Long Term Career Development
Click HERE to go to Chapter 6 Career Strategies and Tactics
Click HERE to go to Chapter 7 Realistic Expectations
Click HERE to go to Chapter 8 Your Personal Career Support Team
Click HERE to go to Chapter 9 Team Management; Research and Writing
Click HERE to go to Chapter 10 How to become an Expert
Click HERE to go to Chapter 11 Miscellaneous, and Executive Summary
Click HERE to go to Chapter 12 Your Personal Career Research Resources
Click HERE to go to Chapter 13 Those Awful People At Work Problems
Click HERE to go to Chapter 14 Assumptions and Expectations
Click HERE to go to Appendices
Click HERE to go to Bibliography
Click HERE to go to Index
Click HERE to go to Personal Career Coaching FAQ
Click HERE to return to my HomePage, to access COP and other documents
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