Axel Meierhoefer asked:

Does this sound familiar to you? In many of my consultations and coaching sessions, I hear people say this exact thing. Some claim that they don’t have any time to change or add any more tasks to their already overflowing list. Others say they are so stressed out as it is that they don’t see how they can afford to pause without running the risk to miss a step, make a big mistake, or a project running into trouble.

Are you one of these individuals or a leader of a team in this situation? Are you maybe even a person who suffers from both, no time and loads of stress?

If so, let me thank you right away for taking some of your precious time to read this article.

In case you are not one of these people, but you know some or feel you could be pretty soon, I hope you will gain some perspective and motivation to reflect and maybe change what you are doing.

First of all, there is really no secret to time. It is something we all have the same amount of. Each day has 24 hours, a week has 7 days, an hour has 60 minutes (please don’t argue about other systems of measurement). We all work in a global system of time. What we can do is decide what to do with the time available to us. We can determine how much we want to use for sleep, knowing that that keeps us healthy and allows us to continue for prolonged periods of time.

The other thing we can do is determine what we do with the time we don’t sleep, play, or use for things other than what we consider work. You might say that most of this time is planned out by the organization you work for, and that is probably true. Question is: Does this have to be this way and is the process really optimized towards the goals you and your organization want to achieve?

The core question here is: Are you ‘Downloading’ or are you ‘Seeing’?

You might have heard it in school ‘ or you might have never realized: of all the data that our sensors detect at any given time, only about 1% is actually used to make decisions or and recognized at any given time. Our brain can’t use all this information, so 99% is discarded.

The remaining 1% is used for decision making. Before we actually decide on anything, our brain does one other thing for us, unconsciously: it looks for similarities in our memory. If it finds them it suggests to apply the behavior or reaction we used in the past, thereby expediting the process very much. All that is very good and efficient, but it also means that a very small fraction of the opportunities in our lives receive real attention and reflection and cause us to possible do something new, react in a different way. This process of selection and referencing can be called ‘downloading’.

In our work life, especially in larger organizations, this downloading also determines what we do. If the pattern in the company is to keep your insights to yourself and not disclosing much info to the customers or the media, this behavior turns into a pattern that spreads through to organization like a virus. Departments don’t share, divisions don’t share, regional offices or even country offices all do their own thing. This increases stress for those in charge as you might never know what might lurk in the shadows and how it might hurt your own career. With nobody to talk to, you try to impress by doing as much as you can. I call this “face time”.

Nobody I know can do new, innovative, top level stuff all the time. So, how do we cope, still have lots of face time (and stress)? We structure the time we have available with many meetings and sessions. Most of these include minor updates and reports on activities, but for the most part, they are times to spend together in groups, providing attention. Those in charge see that you are doing things, that you must be important because you have tons of meetings to go to, and your schedule looks full to the point of bursting.

With that much on your plate, there is no room or time for change. If the organization is half-way successful, it even appears that there is no need for change. Is it fun? Did you achieve what you envisioned when you first got the job? Does it do all the tings for you that you know it could? Probably not, but it pays the bills ‘ right? Who are you to change this machinery?

I recommend to change from “Downloading” to “Seeing” (terms developed by Otto Scharmer, 2007)

In a nutshell, ‘Seeing’ means you can look at the situation, the process, the problem, the issue from the place of the observer as well as form the place of the participant. Ron Heifetz calls this process: Observing the play of life from the balcony of the opera house.

The important aspects to learn ‘Seeing” are:

- Identify the goals and the problem you intent to solve ‘ similar to good research, you need to narrow down what you want to study, what the exact research question is, and which population to select to get usable results.

- Be open to discover the unexpected ‘ Otto Scharmer writes about Charles Darwin, saying: “The father of modern evolutionary theory was known to keep a notebook with him to capture observations and data that contradicted his theories and expectations. He was well aware that the human mind tends to quickly forget what does not fit into familiar frameworks.” (Scharmer, 2007, p. 133) He calls the suspension of judgement the only thing that can allow us to open our minds and ourselves to the wonders of something new ‘ beyond the patterns we are used to from Downloading

- Communicate and collaborate ‘ When observing the reality (like from a balcony) and then reflecting upon it, ways to change become obvious. Discussing how the actions to achieve the changes can actually look like and what steps in a sequence can be will allow people to come along on the path of Seeing and actually become open to change.

For all three of these parts of successful ‘Seeing’, good leadership is required. Otto Scharmer had an interesting new view on this form of leadership. He states:

“The primary job of leadership, I have come to believe through my work with Edgar Schein, is to enhance the individual and systematic capacity to see, to deeply attend to the reality that people face and enact. Thus the leader’s real work is to help people discover the power of seeing and seeing together.” (Scharmer, 2007, p.136)

One part of the discovery of Seeing is for you to discover how you can best spend the time you actually have. It is equal for all of us ‘ the difference is what you do with it, how you spend it and how careful you use it to do things that actually get you ahead, instead of Downloading the same old, same old and fill your day with face time.

The other part is to overcome your stress by being a good leader, communicating the discoveries of seeing and how they can enhance the life of everybody in the organization, or even everybody you touch. If you focus on discovering what you can do to achieve the overarching goals of your life, your family, and your organization, you will not feel stressed or out of time, but energized, motivated, and driven. No longer will you experience work, but you will experience joy, energy, and satisfaction.

By learning how to move form Downloading to Seeing, you will learn to do what you are best at and what you enjoy most. You might learn that the job you are in is not the right one for you anymore. You might find new things that are better and more motivating for you. You will discover your passion ‘ and when you do, nothing is work anymore, and everything is play, joy, and a step towards the achievement of the goals you set for yourself and your life.

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Tom O\’Dea asked:

Introduction

Leaders need to seek better communication skills not only for themselves and their leadership teams, but as part of the organization’s culture.  Successful change management requires getting everyone moving in one new direction.   

People will be talking with one another while you’re trying to drive change.  As a leader, you want to make sure those conversations are out in the open so that objections can be addressed and people will grow confident in your leadership. 

Better Communication Skills at the Organization Level 

What do we mean when we talk about the communication skills of an organization?  At the individual level, we know how to describe communication skills.  We talk about someone’s style, their subject matter knowledge, their ability to adapt their message to their target audience, their preparation, etc. 

In an organization, better communication skills are something we seek to build in the culture.  To be specific, we’re seeking to create a cultural norm of frequent, open dialogue.  When that’s the norm, people feel safe in raising concerns and objections, knowing that they will be heard.  

They also recognize that they are obligated to participate in dialogue, whether in meetings or less formally among their peers.  It’s part of their job, making sure they are contributing not only their labor but their expertise, insight and ideas whenever possible. 

Leaders need to look out for the two biggest barriers to better communication skills in an organization: silence and violence. 

Recognizing Silence 

Very simply, silence means people are not participating in the dialogue.  Said another way, important conversations are not happening because people are choosing not to engage in them. 

Why is silence a problem? 

Hopefully you’ve hired smart people.  It only makes sense, then, that you want and need the insights of those smart people when you’re leading a change program.  Smart people always have thoughts and opinions.  When they go silent, you lose the benefit of knowing those thoughts and opinions. 

Besides not having the input, when people are silent you don’t know where they stand.  Do they understand what you are trying to accomplish?  Are they committed to working with you and your team, or do they have reservations?  Without clear understanding and commitment, how will you bring these people along with you? 

Addressing Silence 

First and foremost, make sure you’ve created an environment where it’s safe to speak out.  Many people who turn to silence do so because they feel they may be ignored or worse yet criticized for speaking up.   

Examine your behavior — what do you do when you are challenged?  Do you fight back right away?  Or do you give considered answers and act respectful when you disagree with the challenger?  Check the same behaviors in your leadership team, and within the organization in general.  You’ve got to make it safe for people to engage.  Your behavior will set the tone. 

If you’re sure it’s safe and you see individuals are still reluctant to add their input to the dialogue of the organization, coach them individually.  Let them know how much their input is valued and needed, and thank them when they open up. 

Recognizing Violence 

In this context, violence can be described as the tendency of one or a few individuals to dominate conversations.  When there is violence, there is no chance for open dialogue.  The dominators, if there are more than one, may argue their points without effectively listening to one another.  And those who are not dominating the conversation will end up going silent, out of frustration or boredom. 

So in the end, violence begets silence.  How do you address violence? 

As a leader, maintain your own objectivity.  You’re a participant in the conversations taking place, but you must also be an observer.  Learn to step out of the discussion from time to time and assess what’s happening.  If you observe individuals dominating to the point where others are checking out, you need to intervene. 

The degree of intervention depends on just how “violent” the dialogue is getting.  It can be as simple as reminding someone to ease up a little and open themselves up to push back from others.  Or it can go all the way to having to call a time out and taking people aside to help them see that their passion is overwhelming others and suppressing good dialogue. 

The Result of Silence and Violence 

One of two things is going to happen when you don’t have open dialogue in which everyone is actively engaged.

You’ll stall. Some strong people will argue and debate ad infinitum, while others check out.  And your change strategy goes no where.

You’ll move forward.  Not everyone will be participating, but strong people will drive and dominate the dialogue and the resulting actions. 

 

Stalling will be very clear to you, and you’ll need to intervene to create safety, get people engaged, help break logjams, etc. 

Moving forward might not seem so bad, but beware.  Depending on just how many people have gone silent, there may be a time bomb in your implementation plan.  When things go wrong, as they do in any change initiative, there will be a number of people who will have effectively positioned themselves to wash their hands of all responsibility.   

As we noted earlier, just because they go silent doesn’t mean they don’t have input and opinions.  When the plan goes forward and they’ve been shouted down, or chose not to engage because they felt it wasn’t safe, they will be in a position to say “that wasn’t my idea”.   

Even though such behavior should be unacceptable, it happens way too often.  Prevent it by setting expectations around organizational communication, specifically creating a shared value for open, honest dialogue without repercussion or disrespect.

 

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Randy Siegel asked:

Most of us are operating at less than full power, and we’re not even aware of it. Something is missing from our lives and we aren’t sure what it is.

When we operate at full power, our lives are richer because we live with authenticity, connection, meaning, service, and serenity. We are powered by passion that is grounded in love and not driven by fear-based anxiety. Service and love become our primary motivations rather than self-aggrandizement.

When we do the work of authentically packaging, promoting, and presenting ourselves we create a strong sense of identity, purpose, and self-esteem. We become what I call “high voltage communicators.” But identity, purpose, and self-esteem alone cannot ensure that we stand in our power.

To operate at full power and become “high voltage leaders,” we must consciously and consistently choose Self over ego. David Richo, Ph.D., in his book Unexpected Miracles: The Gift of Synchronicity and How to Open It, offers this distinction between ego and Self, “…the ego is our capability of light, and Self is the light.”

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called the Self the “God archetype” within us, while the ego is the center of our conscious rational life or the bearer of our personality. When functional and happy, the ego helps us achieve our goals in life. When dysfunctional, it becomes inflated and its main objective becomes to save F.A.C.E.: Fear, Attachment, Control, and Entitlement, according to Dr. Richo.

To be at our full power we must shape ego so that it serves Self. To choose Self over ego requires: 1. Focused attention 2. Unconditional acceptance 3. Inspired action.

Let’s examine each. Focused attention asks us to seek the high road and choose love over fear and service over Self. It requires us to examine our intention before beginning any transaction. Before I speak to a group, I ask myself, “Am I doing this to serve my audience, or am I doing this to gain applause?”

The Law of Attraction teaches us that what we focus upon, we manifest; what we focus upon expands. This is why living a life full of appreciation, gratitude, and love becomes so important. Every night before I go to bed, I recount three things, people, or situations from my day for which I am grateful.

Unconditional acceptance requires us to trust in the Divine Order of life. We do this by practicing trust, patience, and surrender. We don’t hold on to outcomes, and we unconditionally accept the “what is.” Paul Ferrini in his wonderful little book The Ecstatic Moment writes, “All suffering results from your refusal to accept and bless your life just the way it is now.”

Paul Ferrini reminds us that when we practice unconditional acceptance, we say to ourselves:

I embrace the givens of life: beginnings and endings, aloneness, change, unfairness, unpredictability, and sometimes being given more than I can handle. I open myself to every transformation that is ready to happen in and through me. I respect the right of others to question or reject my path. I drop the need for certainty; I am comfortable with ambiguity.

Finally, inspired action asks us to flow not fight. It requires us to listen to our intention and act upon inspiration. Inspiration can come from hunches, synchronicities, life events, physical sensations and illnesses, emotions, dreams, and other people; so we need to stay attuned to all these signs to assure that we’re on the spiritual path. I find that when I’m feeling good I am on track.

If we find ourselves off track, we can look at what emotional blocks, doubts, fears, attachments, and negative mind talk might be in our way. If we are clear, then we can trust that our higher power has something in mind that is better for us and the world (back to unconditional acceptance).

We cannot employ these three strategies once and consider our work done. Instead we are called to practice them every time we make a critical decision or interaction. We are called to consciously choose the spiritual path every day and every moment of our lives.

When we authentically package, promote, and present ourselves we create a strong sense of identity, purpose, and self-esteem; we become high voltage communicators. But when we team identity, purpose, and self-esteem with consciously choosing Self over ego, we become high voltage leaders and stand in our full power, becoming the full expression of all that we are.

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Dr Robin Rushlo asked:

Copyright (c) 2008 Robin Rushlo

When you hear the word “coach”, a football team with a man pacing to and fro and calling out the names of the players or a basketball team with a man/woman shouting out directions jumping up and down pointing like a commander on a battlefield comes to mind.

Coaching is not for sports anymore, it is now one of the key concepts in leadership and management. What makes coaching so popular? Coaching levels the playing field and helps all involved to grow and find their best.

I am going to help you explore coaching. It is one of the six emotional leadership styles proposed by Daniel Goleman. For those who may not know of him here is a short bio about Daniel:

Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 30 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries

Moreover, it is a behavior or role that leaders enforce in the context of situational leadership. As a leadership style, coaching is used when the members of a group or team are competent and motivated, but do not have an idea of the long-term goals of an organization. This involves two levels of coaching: team and individual. Team coaching makes members work together. In a group of individuals, not everyone may have nor share the same level of competence and commitment to a goal. A group may be a mix of highly competent and moderately competent members with varying levels of commitment. These differences can cause friction among the members. The coaching leader helps the members level their expectations. Also, the coaching leader manages differing perspectives so that the common goal succeeds over personal goals and interests. In a big organization, leaders need to align the staffs’ personal values and goals with that of the organization so that long-term directions can be pursued.

Coaching builds up confidence and competence.

Individual coaching is an example of situational leadership at work. It aims to mentor one-on-one building up the confidence of members by affirming good performance during regular feedbacks; and increase competence by helping the member assess his/her strengths and weaknesses towards career planning and professional development. Depending on the individual’s level of competence and commitment, a leader may exercise more coaching behavior for the less-experienced members. Usually, this happens in the case of new staffs. The direct supervisor gives more defined tasks and holds regular feedbacks for the new staff, and gradually lessens the amount of coaching, directing, and supporting roles to favor delegating as competence and confidence increase.

Coaching promotes individual and team excellence.

Excellence is a product of habitual good practice. The regularity of meetings and constructive feedback is important in establishing habits. Members catch the habit of constantly assessing themselves for their strengths and areas for improvement that they themselves perceive what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to acquire to attain team goals. In the process, they attain individually excellence as well. An example is in the case of a musical orchestra: each member plays a different instrument. In order to achieve harmony of music from the different instrument, members will polish their part in the piece, aside from practicing as an ensemble. Consequently, they improve individually as an instrument player.

Coaching develops high commitment to common goals.

A coaching leader balances the attainment of immediate targets with long-term goals towards the vision of an organization. As mentioned earlier, with the alignment of personal goals with organizational or team goals, personal interests are kept in check. By constantly communicating the vision through formal and informal conversations, the members are inspired and motivated. Setting short-term team goals aligned with organizational goals; and making an action plan to attain these goals can help sustain the increased motivation and commitment to common goals of the members.

Coaching produces valuable leaders.

Leadership by example is important in coaching. A coaching leader loses credibility when he/she cannot practice what he/she preaches. This means that a coaching leader should be well organized, highly competent is his/her field, communicates openly and encourages feedback, and has a clear idea of the organization’s vision-mission-goals. By vicarious and purposive learning, members catch the same good practices and attitudes from the coaching leader, turning them into coaching leaders themselves. If a member experiences good coaching, he/she is most likely to do the same things when entrusted with formal leadership roles.

Some words of caution though: coaching is just one of the styles of leadership. It can be done in combination with the other five emotional leadership styles depending on the profile of the emerging team. Moreover, coaching as a leadership style requires that you are physically, emotionally, and mentally fit most of the time since it involves two levels of coaching: individual and team. Your members expect you to be the last one to give up or bail out in any situation especially during times of crises. A coaching leader must be conscious that coaching entails investing time on each individual, and on the whole team. Moreover, that the responsibilities are greater since while you are coaching members, you are also developing future coaches as well.

So as you see coaching can help you find the path that your and your company needs to be traveling over. Coaching is not mentoring in the true sense so you must look deep and find out what you need coaching or mentoring.

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Dave Wheitner asked:

As a personal transformation tool, coaching goes several steps further than most training seminars, workshops and retreats. It engages us in a continual interactive process of practice, learning and feedback. This deepens the learning and truly embeds it in our thinking and habits.

Thus, coaching in general has the potential to provide an even greater return on investment. For idealists, however, coaching that emphasizes a whole-life approach may provide the greatest benefits of all.

Idealists frequently ponder how our lives and the world around us might be different. Our thinking extends beyond current reality, as we spend significant time considering the “big picture” complexities of how everything fits together in the world. Living authentically is very important to us, and we place a high priority upon living AND working from our deeper values.

A job or a career doesn’t feel right if it’s just about the money. It has to be where our heart is, whether our cause is environmental sustainability, public health, animal rights, social justice, ethical leadership, labor rights, or world peace.

We’re happiest when we have a sense of integration across our personal and professional lives, and when we don’t need to engage in “character changes” through the day–e.g., shifting from a “work me” to a “non-work me.” In fact, our professional and personal lives may overlap in many ways, especially if we work in a nonprofit organization, a socially conscious private-sector company, or a public sector agency.

The same people with whom we work may be those with whom we socialize, as they share many of our core values and beliefs. Because we believe so much in what we do, we often find ourselves talking about our work–both the good and the bad–to others in social settings. Our volunteer activities may be closely related to our work, or we may often engage in work-related activities on a volunteer basis.

While some of this occurs with any individual who loves what they do, the tendency for everything to “blur together” can be particularly notable among those of us with idealist leanings.

Given these features common among many idealists, life coaching that takes a true whole-life approach is often the most sensible route for us. This is true whether we initially seek coaching to improve our performance in the professional arena, to enhance our personal life, or to improve our well-being across areas. Executive coaching, in contrast, can vary significantly in the extent to which it spans beyond the workplace; as a general rule, it tends to focus more specifically upon workplace performance and productivity.

In some cases, executive coaching focuses even more narrowly upon developing a specific set of “competencies” or skills that are specific to the needs of the organization. Such coaching very clearly has its place and value, and many companies have experienced great benefits from it over the years. However, this approach can largely neglect the non-work side of life, and may leave much to be desired if applied to individuals and organizations that are deeply value-driven.

Thus, keep several things in mind when seeking a coach. First, regardless of the type of coach you speak with, ask whether they take a whole-life approach with their clients–the breadth may vary greatly by practitioner. Secondly, even if you are in a leadership position, it may make sense to begin with a coach who takes a holistic approach, and later transition to a more focused specialist in workplace executive coaching if necessary.

Thirdly, keep in mind that as you become more skilled in defining and creating what you want in your personal life, this growth will likely impact your professional life as well. A broad foundation will support any workplace-specific coaching you pursue down the road.

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Philip Spires asked:

A sharp closing of the door left the two men together yet alone, strangers, introduced merely seconds before. The older, taller of the two seemed to scrutinise the stockier new arrival for a few moments, his penetrating gaze noting the military dress that remained less than a uniform alongside the almost apologetic manner he projected. They had fallen silent after their mutual acknowledgement, the elderly man’s gripped handshake accompanied by a stentorian, lengthened “Hello”, the younger man’s hesitant nod, plus a hand quickly withdrawn. During an extension of that same silence, shared at the room’s edge by its only window, they surveyed the line of protesters below. The quiet that filled the room, a quiet left after the noisy departure of the usher who had just led the younger man up from the street, soon began to fade. Sounds of chanting, angry sloganising, hardly rhythmic from this admixture of universally blue-suited, tone-deaf Englishmen, filtered through the draught cracks around the quartered frame. There were no discernible words, the shouted slogans becoming a mere murmur of unrest from their distance.

Almost in unison, their joint gaze lifted from the side street below the high window, a side street that they had both needed to lean into the recess to view, so that now they looked across the great square, great not in size, but perhaps in claimed significance. Ahead was the mother of parliaments, a mock-Gothic imitation of the grandiose, a pretender to an assumed aesthetic, re-invented as fashion demanded. Before it, almost insignificant, set down below pavement level, they could both visualize from memory the statue of the great protector, stolid in defiance, solid in his defence of the right to speak within those walls, a right too often challenged by those who lay as corpses in the opulence opposite. For there, to the right of the two observers lay the confessor’s church, the abbey of royalty that a true perpetrator of terror adorned with a fan vault to decorate his own death, a chapel that seemed to thrust threateningly towards the palace of speech it faced, an older palace of speech, long destroyed, long superseded.

“In its present, history is always a lie,” said the older, taller of the two men.

The other maintained his silence for a while. He turned to face his companion, to look him up and down, to note the establishment feel of his blue three-piece suit with its pronounced watch-chain presenting almost a seal of office across the midriff. He was tall, this writer, stately, even dignified, his eighty years now generating a slight stoop when he moved, just a hint of roundness in the spine, whose imagined rigidity suggested the stance of a once proud young man. The smaller man seemed uncomfortable in the writer’s presence, as if he knew what to say, but not where to start. There was a sense of both deference and discomfort, a respect tinged with something less trusting. The older man’s reputation and achievement preceded him and, in later years, he had learned how to inhabit the respected space this inevitably generated.

“I would guess that you have brought no written speech,” said the younger man, the non-sequitur not itself worthy of remark. “But then I would have expected that. After all, you are a writer.”

The old man smiled a little, without averting his gaze, which still apparently concentrated on the beauty of the abbey’s spires, the grandeur of its tower, the power of its glory. “No,” he said, pausing again, as if wishing to perpetuate an ambiguity as to whether he had no speech or whether he was denying that he was ever a writer. For several seconds the older man rocked gently from side to side, transferred his weight from one foot to the other in the manner that a recently consulted nurse had suggested as a means of keeping his aging legs supple. She realised, an hour later, that she had no cause to worry about the state of the old man’s plumbing, which she had experienced in full working order. But still the writer took her advice and hopped, just a little. He then turned to face the younger man, the slight downward attitude of the head inevitably suggesting condescension.

“I have to work to my notes,” said the smaller man, averting his eyes just enough to attain an independent angle. “In my position I cannot ad lib, even if I feel I’m capable of doing it. I always have to make doubly sure that every word plays a calculated part in the whole message. One cannot be too careful. I cannot risk a single word being misinterpreted.” He patted the left breast of his military-style camouflage jacket and then flicked the lapel aside with his right hand so that he could retrieve a folded sheaf of hand-written sheets from the inside pocket. He began to read. “Muchas gracias por su solidaridad…”

“You will speak in Spanish?”

“Yes. And with an interpreter. As I said, we have to ensure that our words are clear, unambiguous, saying precisely what we mean and only what we mean. There is no room for error. There are those waiting to gather ammunition against us.”

“No pasaran!” said the old man as he gave the other’s upper arm a firm squeeze with his out-turned left hand. It was a strange gesture, a reverse, backhand expression of support, firm in its conviction, ambiguous in its sincerity. The younger man smiled, suddenly and obviously more at ease, less in awe of this great name’s perceived distance. “But your English is perfect, fluent”, continued the writer. “Why not speak to us directly in our own tongue?”

The younger man only shrugged, as if to imply that a question with an obvious answer need not be asked. “As a writer,” he said at last, “you know that language must be precise…”

“…and so a problem, should it arise, can always be put down to poor translation?” A silence from the other signified agreement. “And so the politician can retain deniability, even if that was in fact what you meant to say? A side exit from the trap of duplicity?”

“It would never be my intention to deceive…”

“But if the charge arose, you could sidestep it without confronting it? Shall we say that you could find an avenue of convenience?”

The younger man kept his silence for a minute or more, during which time he stared again at the thin but noisy line of blue-suited protesters in the road below. He noted for the first time that they all seemed to be in their early or mid-twenties. They were so similar in appearance they might all have been selected for the role. Wanted: official agitators, he mused. Blue suit, aged twenty to thirty, head shaven to at least a number two.

He then turned back into the room to face the writer. “But then words are your tools, your stock in trade – I think that is the correct English idiom – so you know perfectly well how important it is to have exactly the right word in the right place. You would never make a mistake.”

The writer laughed. “My dear man,” he began, now turning to pace towards the room’s centrally placed, heavy walnut but dull-topped table, “You invest in me credibility, talent and invention beyond my worth. I am but a story teller, a literary fraud whose imaginings occasionally, and for just an hour or two, might light up the dull lives of blighters like those down below. I churn out the literary equivalent of b-movies for residents of suburban semis. Words? I’ve spawned millions of them, drivelled them out like torrents of wanked sperm, onanised only on the stony ground of the popular imagination – an oxymoron for sure.” His pause was pure theatre, calculated to maintain his hold of the flow and, at the same time, to add emphasis to his words and retain control, measured to keep the other silent. With apparent impatience, he retrieved the cigarettes and lighter he had previously tossed carelessly onto the table-top from a hand that had been summoned to shake its greeting with
the newly arrived president of the republic. The old writer’s right hand had fiddled a cigarette from the pack, his left hand had lit it and he had already taken a long, deep, settling drag before the instant elapsed. When he spoke again, it was as if there had never been a break in his flow, his words now animated by loose clouds of smoke, particles that clipped the edge off his voice. “These people just do as they are told. They see us as we are sold to them. Today a performing monkey that writes books and an ogre who threatens their freedom. Tomorrow performing monkeys are cast as illiterate and the ogre is a partner in trade. Joe Soap does what Joe Soap is told to do. A whim is less fickle than popular consciousness.”

“So is your support for our cause such a whim? Will you oppose tomorrow what you support today?” The younger man’s voice was harder, more forthright in its continued deference.

“It rather depends on you and your people – your phrase, by the way,” replied the writer. Here the word ‘people’ clearly did not refer to an agglomerated populace, but a clique whose existence the writer was keen to suggest. “We all know whom we oppose. We know what we are against. It’s what we are for that perennially confuses us, especially when we are confronted with the complications of interpreting a reality that we only imagine.”

The younger man now moved away from the window. Stepping slowly, thoughtfully, his face downcast, he began to amble a wide arc around the table, the old writer at its centre, a stalking of sorts. He pressed his fingertips together, forming a cat’s cradle across a stomach that the other judged would fill out in a few years, thus transforming the current stocky athleticism into a portly middle age that would no longer be flattered by the military fatigues he currently wore.

When the younger man stopped and turned, he looked up to see that the old man still faced the window, stood erect, taking staccato drags from his cigarette, each accompanied by an audible suck of the lips. It’s ironic that I should address his back, he thought. “And exactly whom do you oppose? Or should I more precisely ask whom do you currently oppose, since in the past your allegiance to any cause has been – let’s say – variable…?”

“My dear man, Mr President,” said the writer, smiling, as he turned to face his inquisitor, “every man has his price. Take Joe Soap in the street down there, for instance” he said, nodding towards the window, now behind him, “You don’t think that any of those snotty nosed Johns of city clerks actually believe the rhetoric about your regime? Do you think that a twenty-two year old moron who spends all day wheeling trays of punched cards around the bowels of a bank’s computer centre for subsistence pay goes home of an evening to read and analyse Heritage Foundation reports on the communist take-over of Central America? He doesn’t do that any more than he comparatively tests all available brands of soap powder before buying his Omo – except on reflection he probably wouldn’t buy that one on the grounds of being embarrassed by associations with its name. No, he gets led by the nose to the Daz and he buys it. He goes along with the tide, we might say. The trick of manipulating the popular imagination, oxymoronically, of course, is to cover all the options, to back all sides. The trick is to convince Joe Soap that he needs washing powder and then to cartelise the shelves with an agreed and shared presence. Whatever brand decisions he makes are utterly irrelevant because the big guys who run his brain have the market carved up between them. Politically, his brain space, albeit quite small, is fully occupied with propagandistic threats to his lifestyle, threats that might restrict his right to detergent choice, a human right worth fighting for.”

“And it is your view that your books are just more soap powder?”

“Precisely, dear fellow. Precisely.” The writer turned away again, puffing to pursue the production of ash.

The younger man ambled forward again as the writer turned his back. Legally trained, the young president of the republic found himself thrust back into the profession to which he had aspired, but had never practised, his studies having been interrupted by what a respectful obituary might describe as brushes with the authorities. He was stalking his witness, here a writer confined within a dock of his own invention, perhaps imagination. It was to become a cross-examination. “But I’ve read your work – almost all of it, though I admit that most was in Spanish translation. Maybe something was gained in translation, but I always felt that your so-called, self-professed mere stories, entertainments, always had their deeper side, another level no less, where the characters and the situations in which you placed them epitomised moral conflict, ideological questions which they always at least tried to address. Indeed you, the writer, the creator, always seemed to want a moralistic resolution to your characters’ dilemmas.” The president paused to look the writer in the eye, but the taller man’s gaze was fixed ahead, above his level, blankly concentrated on the mechanics of drawing smoke. “So you would deny,” he continued, “that what I read into your work was ever intended? It was a mere figment of my furtive, youthful imagination?”

“Leading question. Counsel should not put words into the mouths of the witness,” said the old man, choosing his words with intricate care whilst fixing a stare at his inquisitor in time with the very end of the phrase.

“Ah”, interrupted the other, uncharacteristically immediate in his interjection. “So not only do you know detail of my education, you want to play judge as well! Is that it? Is that the key? You want to claim the status of inconsequence, the mere story teller, whilst, somewhere in your unwritten estimation, you believe you hold the ultimate truth, the end point, the last word, the judgment?” A smile began to lift the curves of the black moustache that dominated his face, his rimless spectacles lifting a little on flexed cheek muscles.

“Judge?” replied the old writer. “Judgment? You sound like a Christian.”

“I am.”

“Well I’m not.”

“You are a Roman Catholic. You converted. Everyone knows that”.

“Pragmatism, my dear boy. Pure pragmatism. The old girl demanded it. It was the only way I could get my end away with her… a state I yearned for so much I would have topped myself if I hadn’t succeeded. Not that it did me a whole lot of good in the end. She turned out to be stretched frigid with guilt, a guilt I could not penetrate, a need to appease the wrath of a loving God she knew hated her, her alone.”

“And so you looked elsewhere?”

“Well documented. Well known, as you might say.” The old man fumbled for another cigarette, lit it and tossed the pack and lighter carelessly back onto the table. “You don’t smoke, of course.”

It was an intended diversion, a plea for the re-establishment of shallow politeness. The ploy was ignored. “I approach the problem in entirely the opposite sense”, said the other. “I was a Catholic, a devout believer, and I’m happily married to a woman I hope will live for ever. But we are shunned by our church, shunned because of my politics, shunned because of the ideology I have espoused, a philosophy the bishops call godless.”

“In the words of a famous economist,” began the writer, his manner beginning to approach the patronizing as he paused for a moment to signify the unearthing of an aphorism, “in the long term we are all dead. Gods, godlessness, ideology, alienation, they all become as significant as a flake of this”. He tapped his cigarette, causing a tip of ash to fall and disintegrate on the carpet.

“So what motivates you?” asked the former trainee lawyer, pursuing again his original point.

“A quick fuck.
A good bottle. Dope. And then another fuck. The here and now is all we have…”

“Even though sometimes you try to bring even that to an end?” The lawyer’s question was fast, calculated and completely disarming, delivered with a politician’s panache for locating a weakness and exploiting it.

“You have done your research well. I suppose one of your ‘people’ read all the sordid biographies just to prepare you for this evening?”

“No. I knew already. As I said, I’ve read much of your work. I have the ultimate respect…”

“Ultimate? A good word for a head of state to use.”

“I have no intention to pull rank, sir,” replied the younger man. “What I say will always be true, always honest.”

“Yes, It’s common knowledge, if any form of knowledge can be described as common.” The old writer took a long noisy drag on his cigarette and ambled back towards the window. “It’s a conundrum the hoi polloi never face. The worker ant stays in line. The experience, therefore, is always one of perceived unimpeded progress, of unblocked pathways to repeat the humdrum of existence and its duties. The fact that the way is cleared in the first place and kept free by the work of the soldiers, those with the duty to explore, to remove the danger, to clear the way, this is never known, let alone understood by the Joe Soap workers. They assume the mundaneness of their lives is a norm, not an achievement created by the efforts of others.”

“Or a conspiracy …..”

“A process of management, let’s call it, to use the vocabulary of the market age. Our protestors chant their slogans; their leaders feed them with more; they learn to regurgitate.”

“And what about our supporters? Those hundreds filling the hall below?”

The old writer turned a little and cocked his head, as if feeling the air for sound. He realised that the chants of “No pasaran! No pasaran!” that filtered along the maze of corridors to their waiting room must be deafening inside the auditorium. “I apologise for the crudity of my sweeping logic. But even you, Mr President, even you would acknowledge that the supporters are a minority, dwarfed by the opposition, a piss in the ocean compared to the torrents that oppose you?”

“Today, maybe. Tomorrow, who knows? That’s why we are both here. We both know what we oppose. And I, at least, know what I support.”

“Today….”

“No. Much longer than that. Just as I know a little about you, then I’m sure that you know something of me. My politics are not the clothes I put on yesterday. I’ve been committed to the work for justice and human rights for over twenty years. I am also a patriot – not a nationalist, a patriot. I want to achieve progress for my people, my country, but not at the expense of suffering for others. You know my history.”

Both men knew they had reached a critical juncture. There was a sense of threat on the edge of these last words, a malice that the professedly libertarian old writer sensed the more keenly. Ill at ease, he tried to divert. “When we’re on the podium, old boy, then we will know the shape of things. I don’t doubt that there are many out there who passionately support your cause. But there are others who are with you only to oppose a shared enemy. And there are others, perhaps many of them, who aren’t members of your audience at all.”

“I don’t understand,” said the other, though he did.

“I’m sorry. I forget that It’s your first time in our green and pleasant land. You will see. Watch them when you speak. There will be many who stand and cheer. But for every three or four doing that, there will be a man – always a man – still in his seat, apparently a spectator, apparently indifferent. Except, of course, he won’t be looking at you. He knows who you are. It’s the identity of those in the audience that interests him. Ostensibly, he is in the audience to protect you. Like the gazelle he probably isn’t, it’s his job to leap onto anyone who looks like they are about to shoot you. After all, you are a head of state.”

“Policeman. Secret Service men.”

“Precisely. The place will be packed with them.”

“It’s a pity,” said the young president, “that there weren’t more of them down there when I arrived. There’s sixty or seventy of those thugs….”

“In Britain they are called Young Conservatives by the way,” said the old writer with a punctuating guffaw.

“…..and there was only a handful of policeman. They were throwing things, tomatoes, bags of flour….. is that the way visiting heads of state are greeted?”

“It depends on who invited you, old bean.”

“Also on what I represent?”

“No, only who invited you.”

“So what do you recommend? That I start my speech by inviting all the spooks to stand up and take a bow? So that I can invite all of our supporters to applaud them in a show of magnanimity and humility? To thank them for protecting my safety and with it the integrity of our revolution?”

“Waste of time. Nice gesture, but it would be taken as a sign of weakness.”

The old writer paused, his tone indicating that he remained in mid-flow, that second thoughts about what was to follow had stayed his tongue.

“And you, of course,” said the younger man, his voice expressing an assumed continuation of the other’s perceived meaning, “ought to know, because you used to be one of them. That was when, presumably, you also knew what you opposed.”

“They paid my bills. It was a job. I was a worker ant.”

“And throughout you were a conscientious and loyal employee. You did what was asked, opposed those who opposed. And, I suppose, you did what you did because of your own patriotism, a noble cause and supreme motivation for an Englishman, I understand.”

“Wherever did you hear that? I merely did what I was told. Patriotism is something the English, in particular, despise amongst themselves. Abroad, or in the company of foreigners – a term that includes everyone who does not think like oneself – the English become fiercely patriotic, but it is always motivated by profit. If the returns aren’t there, the retreat can be swift, indeed.” The tall old man looked his partner in the eye, pausing as if to assess the merit of continuing, as if to assess the impact of the words that might follow before he dare speak them. The young leader thought that this might be the pose that the nation would choose to immortalise the man in bronze after his death. “Your revolution is a privileged state…”

“We are threatened from every side…”

The old man turned away, held up the palm of his right hand to stay the other’s words. “It’s privileged because you know where you stand. And that’s a luxury. You will be defeated, of course, but only temporarily. Your cause will triumph in the long term…”

“…when we are all dead…”

“Indeed. But your cause has integrity. It will be resurrected, maybe many times, and each time it will forge progress towards its goal. In Britain, we still continue to stuff ourselves with the illusion that our total defeat in the war was, in fact, a victory. The fact that we were not invaded convinces people that we won. We were on the winning side, but we lost the war. Ask them why the true victor demanded the complete dismantling of the British Empire, the ceding of our oil-rich territories in the Middle East, the adoption of an independent nuclear deterrent that we never had the right to use, and the requirement that we always send troops, always under the empire command, to any conflict that the empire chooses to pursue, and they will look at you blank-faced in ignorance. Our cause, our patriotism you might say, is corrupt. It’s a false consciousness, as false as people’s conviction that their consumer choices really exist. So when I wo
rked for the services, we did the empire’s job. We had no choice. We knew who our real master was, and we knew we worked to further that interest, which had subsumed anything that we might call our own. Patriotism was not even on the agenda, because we could no longer identify what it was. So we did what we were told.”

“Plus a little more, on occasions.” It was a lawyer’s insistence, coupled with the politician’s opportunism that rendered this statement a question that demanded immediate response.

“I was not born rich,” said the old man, now leaning forward a tad more, his stoop an assertion. “Like any other human being I took a job. It paid the rent. A steelworker doesn’t necessarily believe in the ingot he is forging. A miner does not dig ideologically to supply the furnaces of capitalism.”

“But a man does not join an intelligence service devoted to fighting communism in order to dig coal.”

“It paid the rent. And I did other things on the side – for reasons of ….”

“Integrity? Truth? Conscience?”

“Lord, no! Pragmatism, as ever.”

The younger man held fire for a while. It was the right time to introduce the point, but the language was difficult to find. “So this would explain your current status. Patriotism, that which an outsider might presume you pursued when you worked for your government, was always a purely business arrangement. They paid you and you served them. And now they no longer pay you, so the patriotism evaporates and you become a tax exile. So you have no country apart from the self.”

“e e cummings, I believe?”

The younger man was silent, taken aback. A look of gentle confusion spread across his face. The tack he had planned had been undermined by this unexpected turn.

The older man sensed the other’s vulnerability and laughed. Intellect had once again granted an upper hand that was his to exploit, but he chose not to use his knowledge to control. “An American poet,” he said, calmly, “who broke all the rules, broke them so completely he recast what he did as a new system, a new set of rules. The artist’s only inevitable country is himself. You, Mr President, will never be an artist. You do not have the qualifications. For one, you have integrity, and lack the selfishness required.”

“So for you selfishness is publicly excused as pragmatism?”

“Each of us has a relationship to capitalism and pragmatism pays the rent. In your situation, where you are pushed outside of the ring, you don’t even have the choice to cooperate. For you, for your regime and for your people, pragmatism is not an option.”

“And was it pragmatism that led you to organize the infiltration of the student movements I later joined or the labour movement my friends organized? Was it your pragmatism that successfully placed spies in all the organizations that opposed the cynical old son of a bitch we called a dictator in our country but whom you and your imperial allies befriended because he was your son of a bitch? And is it not true that some of those people you placed, especially the less important ones in the student movement, did not they report to your office? And through that to our enemies? And was it pragmatism that led eventually to the arrest of activists, arrests that led to the imprisonment and exile of many truly honest and committed people? And was it also pragmatism that created the trumped up charges and rigged hearings that convicted them? And was it this pragmatism that led, in my own case, to years in jail and then exile – and eventually to my excommunication from a Church I love, that was my very life? Did you do that? Was all this the consequence of your pragmatism? Did you perpetrate such things to pay your rent?”

“I did what was required of me…”

“The defence of an officer in a death camp. I was acting under orders … … and doing a little on the side, making a small fortune from the market in gold teeth.” The young man’s scorn quickened the words to a tirade, the silence they demanded deep and uncomfortable. A politician who ought to have employed circumspection had lost control. A writer with a command of words had been cornered, rendered speechless and left without defence.

The president stood again at the window. He again retrieved the papers from his inside pocket and began to read. The old man, now looking every one of his eighty years, took the four steps needed to be at the other’s side. Over ignored papers and smouldering cigarette, their joint gaze again fell on the smartly dressed right wing thugs in the street below. “We know what we oppose,” said the president.

“At least today,” said the old writer.

There was a knock on the door, a sharp single perfunctory tap that signalled immediate entry. It was the old writer’s turn to speak to the assembled rally. Again, as he turned, he offered a back-turned left hand, a slight grasp of the other’s upper arm a gesture of solidarity. But this time the words were without passion, without animation and perhaps more sincere for their whisper. “No pasaran. I’m with you.”

“Today,” repeated the other quickly, the slight pause obviously inserted as a prelude to continuation, “and every day I have found your work inspirational.”

The old man smiled a little and gripped again.

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Ann Golden Egle asked:

It’s May. Before you experience spring’s new burst of growing and before summer’s warmth massages your heart, it’s time to get your head back around the prospect of making the last seven months of this year more about effectiveness than ever before.

How do you snap back into the productivity gear? Look closely at things you’ve got going that kill your enthusiasm, your ability to create or to be productive. Common killers that dominate my seminars and private coaching are the following:

He takes far too long to make his point. By the time he gets there my mind is elsewhere and I am irritated at his utter lack of respect for my time and expertise.

Her communication is more about her than me. It’s brusque, as though she doesn’t have time for me. I grow confused, agitated and eager to avoid her.

These two modes of very poor communication are present in work or social venues across the world. I’m sure you can clearly see both of these in ‘others.’.’ Could you be the culprit? If you suspect that this is the case, please consider the following and take immediate action.

Is it possible to know if you take too long to get your point across?

Here’s an example:

When I first entered the coaching profession in the mid 90’s, literally no one in my community had a clue what ‘personal or executive coaching’ was. I was so excited about the prospects of helping clients turn their lives around that I talked on and on, advocating what I believed to be fabulous facts and figures. Soon, I noticed my recipients looking for an escape route, their eyes glazed over, and the yawns soon followed.

I lost them through not first learning about their specific area of interest and then narrowing my focus to them. Had I taken more time to ask questions, get curious about them, the conversation would have been more to the point, more engaging and effective.

This is true in your work environment where people are always behind schedule. Make it a practice to respect your colleagues and subordinates time. Know when time is of the essence, which is 90% of the time. State what they need to know quickly and thoroughly, and let them be on their way. You will begin to notice a change, such as, they might begin to accept your phone calls.

How do you know when your communication is too curt, injuring rather than encouraging your recipients? This is tough to identify as you rush through your day, oftentimes leaving injuries in your wake as you move boldly to the next project. You are not aware of the damage until it grows to be a major problem. That’s too late.

Brief communication is not the enemy here: your lack of respect, awareness and tone of voice are. I appreciate leaders who communicate quickly and to the point, with a twinkle in their eye and huge heart that says ‘If you need more time, I’ll give it to you.’ They are in-the-moment, focused on you, aware of whether you are receiving their point or not.

As with talking too much, you know if you are too abrasive by closely watching your recipient. Are they with you? Is your communiqu?ore about you (or your state of mind) than them and what their needs are? We’ve already established that people don’t like to be thoughtlessly told what to do. Is there another way to phrase your directive, perhaps a question to attain facts before handing out commands?

At our core, we respect communication that is honest. Place it in the forefront of your interactions this week. Ask for constructive feedback and suggestions. Enjoy becoming an even more effective and enjoyable leader in your own world this week and watch your productivity and effectiveness soar. Have an outstanding week and enjoy your discoveries!

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lazyurl asked:

The clothing of an employee can create the first and forever impression for clients and visitors. This is the reason why corporate clothing is chosen very thoughtfully. Here are some tips on how to make your corporate uniform choice easier:

1) Make it look powerful

Your brand is your most important asset. When your staff comes to work, you can ensure that they look like a team and work like a team, by providing corporate clothing that looks professional.

2) Accessorize it

The trend is to offer staff a range of branded clothing that will enable them to choose items within the range, that suit their particular body shape. These days there is a huge range of attractive options, suitable for men and women, that is created specifically for this market. With ladies sizes 6-26 and Men’s Small – 5XL, there is no excuse for anyone not to be in uniform.

3) Personalize it

Once you have made it powerful, its time to personalize the corporate uniform. This is very important because, as a business owner, you might want to brand your logo on the uniforms. Corporate colors should also reflect in corporate uniforms.

4) Offer varieties

Why not encourage Team-work, by offering fun sports days a couple of times a year. Great casual clothing your staff will love can be designed in corporate colors and styles. You might also want to embroider your logo and the spirit of your team will carry over to fun days as well as work days.

When placing orders for your corporate uniforms , if your budget allows you, you might also invest in some of these other corporate work wear for your employees, such as sports jackets, golf wear, Friday casual dressing, etc.

5) Retain the pride

The secret lies in making your staff proud to wear their corporate clothing! With the exciting selections available now, this is easier than you think! Keep providing incentives for employees to maintain their corporate uniform look professional. Also, provide them new wardrobe once or twice every year to accommodate weather condition choices.

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Karen Cole-peralta asked:

In the last quarter of 1980, I was working at an apartment building called Center Park in south Seattle. Center Park was the first building of its kind built specifically to accommodate the needs of people in wheelchairs who could live independently with some assistance. I and a lady named Virginia were working there as Personal Care Attendants. We worked very closely with two disabled men, John Tyler and Ron Schwarz, both now deceased.

I consider us to have been a loosely knit team of all four individuals. However, we did not perform the tasks that a good team should have done to accomplish our goal of best possible care of our clients. This is what I think we should have done to improve our performance:

Set more goals, as outlined in “The Importance of Goals to the Success of Work Teams” by Greg Hendrix. We simply played it day-by-day when it came to taking care of our clients. We did take trips to Hawaii, San Francisco and Canada which were well planned and executed, but when it came to personal care we just took care of things as they came along. This may have shortened the lives of our clients in the long run. John Tyler was seriously overweight, and we never clearly set a goal of having him lose weight, such as write up a plan or get together as a team to discuss his needs. Ron Schwarz was taking far too many medications for his health, and one in particular seemed to be destroying his central nervous system. Virginia and I should have met with his doctors to discuss this problem and worked out a way to lower his amount of medications taken. We should have set goals for the betterment of his long-term overall health. “The goal of the group creates a vision that focuses their efforts.”—Hendrix. The four of us never had a clear vision of what our general purposes were.

Motivated our team, as outlined in “Team Motivation” by Peter Grazier. Virginia and I had no sense of growth or motivation in our jobs, except for the general rewards of caring for the sick and challenged. We held stagnant, dead-end jobs with very little chance for relief even on the weekends. I remember going to a talk by a Canadian lady who had gotten her aides together as a team and rotated them on a schedule, which gave them time off and a chance to go to school and better themselves. Job satisfaction was improved, and the lady was not overly dependant on any one aide. Not so with our “team.” Ron was highly dependant on my services. My sole motivation was Ron’s care and to work alone with Ron so much taxed me greatly. Virginia had similar problems with John, even though we traded off sometimes and covered for each other. We lacked “a clear purpose, focus or mission”—Grazier—which should have been at the top of our list of how to handle our jobs. We should have discussed burn-out issues with John and Ron, and laid out a plan for hiring more attendants on a revolving schedule so Virginia and I would have had time to go to school and better ourselves.

In summary, there were a lot of things the four of us could have done to improve our working situations, but the two most important ones were to set healthy, realistic goals, and to clearly motivate our paired and interactive teams.

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Dana H asked:

So you’re a diamond lover. You’ve got countless pieces of jewelry studded with diamonds. You are one of those people who just can’t resist the glitter and brilliance that goes with a diamond. Then you learn about the existence blood diamonds. Your world is suddenly turned upside down.

That may be a satiric narrative but the subject is dead serious. Blood diamonds are used to fund wars and other brutal activities in certain parts of the world. Diamonds sold in this illicit trade promote violence and kill people; you want to make sure that your own non conflict diamonds. .

Many sectors emphasize the difference between “clean” diamonds, often called non conflict diamonds and blood diamonds”. Even the UN General Assembly was quick to point out that diamonds mined and sold legally help the economy and promote prosperity in certain parts of Africa. In a resolution made in December 2000, they were also emphatic in stating that the sale of blood diamondsonly brings about pain and suffering. That is why restrictions and standards have been put in place to differentiate non conflict diamonds from the blood diamonds.

Non Conflict Diamond Identification Tips

The practical question would then be: How do I know if a diamond is a blood diamond or a non conflict diamond? For all intents and purposes, the answer would really be: “There is no absolute way you can tell, especially if the diamond has already been polished.” Tough? Yes.

This is especially difficult if you want to know whether or not the diamond you already own is “tainted” or if it’s a non conflict diamond. However, there are still some precautionary measures which are in place and which you can take in order to avoid purchasing a blood diamond. For one, the international community has established a system wherein a “Certificate of Origin” is required. There are known areas from where blood diamonds originate. With these certificates, you can have a way of knowing the origin of the diamond. Of course, certificates can and have been forged. Stricter measures and even stricter implementation is needed in order for this system to work efficiently.

In addition to this system, some countries have set up their own measures in order to ensure that blood diamonds are not released in their markets. Amnesty International suggests asking four questions when you are out shopping for diamonds. First, ask the salespeople how you can be sure that what they are selling are non conflict diamonds. Second, ask them if they know where their diamonds come from. Third, ask for the company policy on purchasing diamonds. Fourth, ask if they can show you a written guarantee from their suppliers. Chances are that if they are unwilling to help you out with your questions, they might have something to hide. They might be unable to answer you simply because they themselves do not have assurances as to the nature of their goods. In such instances, Amnesty suggests that you go some place else.

These questions can help assure that you purchase only non conflict diamonds. However, unless everyone cooperates and there is international transparency, there are still chances that some blood diamonds may get through.

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