"Miller's Bolt: A Modern Business Parable" by Thomas Stirr

This book has the potential to positively change your life by giving you the ability to change another's attitude toward you. How and what we think is more powerful than many of us realize according to Stirr, postmodern science and the ancients.

Miller's Bolt is a fun read and a wonderful parable. It is the fictional story of a top-notch manager who is on the edge of being fired. For, although Jim Manion does his job well, he has unwittingly alienated his co-workers by how and what he has been thinking about them. Given three months notice, Jim seeks help from his friend Peter Miller, a consultant and personal development coach. Together the two of them work to save Jim's career.

The book's thesis helps us to understand how to have more control over our attitudes towards others, including members of the most challenging groups of difficult people ...close family, bosses, and colleagues. We positively can affect the behaviour of others towards us by the way we view them and how we feel about them. We have the power to attract or repel with our thoughts because of their affect on our attitude and feelings.

The concept that changing the way we think about things and people will produce different outcomes seems to have clinical, scientific support. The headline reads: "Sexual Fantasies Relieve Pain". But what Dr. Peter Staats of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University actually said was that our perceptions of pain could increase or decrease our tolerance for it. In the study published in the Journal of Pain Symptom Management (1988 Apr, 15:4, 235-43), subjects given favourable messages about the beneficial effects of ice water hand immersion had better pain tolerance than those who were told that ice water exposure had negative consequences. This also seems to prove that how we think about someone can affect our relationships, positively and negatively.

There is support among the ancients for the concept as well. One of the Hebrew Proverbs (23:7) says: "For as [a man] thinks within himself, so he is. ..."

You can buy it in Canada or the U.S..

Now It's Your Turn!: If you already have read the book or choose to do so on my recommendation, let me know what you think and how you feel about it. (My 'Comment Section', in which you can share anonymously, will open to you when you click on "comments" immediately below this post.)

Until next time, how can I help you? (You can contact me by clicking here. Also, contact me directlyto be added to Patton Associates’ S-M-A-R-Briefing™ Mailing List. Check out recent samples here.)

"The System Made Me Do It!" - July 2005

Do you often find confusing what some people do around you? Do you sometimes hear people commenting on things you know you never said? Do you get the impression that some you work with or know feel that others run their lives?

If you answered "Yes!" to any of my questions, you will find helpful the short editorial, "The System Made Me Do It!" by John Renesch. He includes some suggestions to help you through the haze you may have noticed. If you answered "No!" to one or all of my questions, you may wish to read John's piece to discover something you may have been missing. His "Five Apes Story" is fascinating.

Engaged staff are more enthusiastic and productive and serve their internal and external customers better. Contact me and ask me how my WE CARE process can enhance the engagement of even negative employees. You also could drop me a line and I'll send you a brief, free report on the importance of engagement and how you can enhance it.

Now It's Your Turn!: In what kind of weird behaviours do you watch people in your organization engage? How about sharing a story about a report you got about something you never said or did? Does Mr. Renesch's analysis make sense in your experience? (My 'Comment Section', in which you can share anonymously, will open to you when you click on "comments" immediately below this post.)

Until next time, how can I help you? (You can contact me by clicking here. Also, contact me directly to be added to Patton Associates’ S-M-A-R-TBriefing™ Mailing List. Check out recent samples here.)