On My Mind – Principiis – Six Mistakes Of Man – 8/4/2018

**Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator who died in 43 B.C., recorded what he considered to be the six most drastic mistakes repeatedly made by man.**

The delusion that individual advancement is achieved by crushing others

The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed

Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot do it ourselves

Refusing to set aside trivial preferences

Neglecting development and refinement of the mind by not acquiring the habits of reading and study

Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do

**Some things never seem to change**

This is the third of my Pillars but – as always – I thought I should link back to the post that started the series:

http://booksofbrian.com/on-my-mind-principiis-7-28-2018/

I followed that with a post on my 1st Pillar – IF by Rudyard Kipling:

http://booksofbrian.com/on-my-mind-principiis-if-7-28-2018/

Followed by a post on my 2nd Pillar – Live A Good Life by Marcus Aurelius:

http://booksofbrian.com/on-my-mind-principiis-live-a-good-life-7-31-2018/

I’ve always kept Cicero’s Six Mistakes Of Man as the 3rd of my six Pillars and, as a result, this post represents the halfway point in the series.  This is one that came to be as a result of the time I occasionally spend reading works of classical history.  I stumbled across it in a biography of Cicero (quick note – something I learned from my son and step daughter – our two Latin scholars – his name is actually pronounced Kikero – the C in Latin always being pronounced as a K).  It captured and held my attention at the time because it seemed to hold up so well across the years – once again, there are no new problems.  It also  seemed to me at the time to be something that every single person should be required to study and debate at an early enough age to – just possibly – make a difference across the years of one’s life.

All of us move through life manifesting – often unconsciously – learned behaviors – both constructive and destructive.  While these six don’t – by any stretch of the imagination – encompass the totality of negative prejudices and attitudes that we all too frequently fall victim to – they’re likely not even the worst that you might call out – I can tell you that I see all six of these far too often – both in my own thoughts and behaviors as well as in those of others.  As a result, I’ve always tried to keep these warnings in mind as a guardrail around my own thought processes, my decision-making process and my own interactions with others.   I also tend to use them as a screen through which I evaluate and adapt to the behaviors of those around me.

While I run across all six of these in everyday life – in attitude, conversation and interaction – I find that an awareness of these warnings is most valuable in the professional parts of my life.  I’ve had the opportunity to work in both the public and private sector – in both small and large organizations – at both for and non-profit organizations – in jobs with both minimal and significant responsibilities.  The setting or circumstances do not matter – these warnings inevitably go unheeded – and many of them can all too often stand out as the source – in one form or another – of individual or organizational failure.  It’s not hard to restate them in a way that makes them relevant to the work environment:

• No one wins a fight at work – anyone who frames obstacles at work as conflicts that will have a winner and loser has already lost – both professionally and with respect to his responsibility to the employer and his or her colleagues.
• No employer or supervisor or co-worker is perfect.  There are things about any of these that you’ll like and appreciate and things you won’t.  With respect to the things that you don’t like or appreciate, there will be things about each that you can influence or change and things you can’t.  Learn to distinguish between the two and throw your energy into areas where positive change is possible.  If that’s not enough for you or it leaves you disgruntled or dissatisfied – focused on the negatives that you can’t change – you’re in the wrong place and a decision to stay will only end badly for you – and possibly for others.
• Don’t limit yourself based on past experience or your own skill set – you’re surrounded by others with skills, capabilities and experiences that only magnify what you’re capable of doing.  So many things become possible that once weren’t when you reach out and pull those around you into the process of solving a problem.  I’ve found – over and over – that I’m almost never the smartest or most capable person in the room.
• Learn to distinguish between what is and is not truly important.  There will always be things that you believe to be important – critically important – worth fighting for – but by stepping outside yourself and thinking more broadly and inclusively – you’ll often find that they don’t carry the weight you originally thought.  All too often, they spring from personal pride, arrogance or a desire to put yourself at the center of a process.  More projects have died and more deadlines have not been met because one or more of those working on the project simply isn’t capable of letting go of those things that simply aren’t critical to the final outcome.
• You’ll always be busy, you’ll always have work to do, you’ll never feel like you have the time – but if you don’t carve out opportunities to improve yourself, to learn, to listen, to study – you’ll never be more capable that you are at any given moment – and don’t disregard opportunities to learn from those around you.  As a supervisor, I’ve learned more from my direct reports and from those in organizations that I’ve led than any other source available to me.
• Forcing a solution based on authority or assuming that a solution imposed over the objections of those impacted will lead to a good outcome usually leads instead either to outright failure or to a lack of adherence and support – slow, gradual failure.  There’s a time for any supervisor to exercise unbridled authority but I find that it’s almost always limited to time-sensitive, crisis situations – where the alternative to making a decision and compelling action is disaster.  Otherwise, take the time to understand concerns and objections, listen to those who will have to either implement or be impacted by a decision, accommodate those concerns or uncertainties to the greatest degree possible and then be open and honest about why everyone is not getting everything they believe they need.

It may seem like I’ve trivialized Cicero’s warnings by focusing on professional considerations.  I do so only because this is where they come to life most vividly for me.  I can assure you that I see far too many instances where these principles are disregarded outside of the workplace – by friends and acquaintances, by educators, by politicians – all too often leading to the same disappointing or damaging outcomes – at times on a mammoth scale.  I’d suggest that failure to heed any one of these warnings has the potential to damage a friendship, a family relationship (spouse, parent, child or sibling) or a reputation in the community.  Still, the purpose of my Pillars is to guide me in the day to day – and all too much of my day to day involves what I do at work.  This is where it usually becomes real for me.