You can understand the new factual scientific ideas about how your brain's "anatomical structure" makes possible your own wonderful brainpower. You can quickly increase your mastery of the Broadband Brainpower Mindset, which includes learning how to use the five "Smart Skill Sets," for doing accurate "self-analysis" and gaining optimum "self-control" over your mind and body. Self-control gives you the ability to achieve your goals and plans based upon your personal ethical values.
[1] IF ARISTOTLE RAN GENERAL MOTORS ---
THE VALUE OF TRUTH IN RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATION
The "Intellectual" or "cognitive" dimension of human experience and excellence at work is associated with the "Truth Foundation." The Truth Foundation is the basis of trust. It is one of the deepest touchstones for ultimate individual fulfillment and happiness. Only when the issue of individual human fulfillment is understood in the deepest possible way will the leaders of business organizations see how personal satisfaction is in the final analysis tied to interpersonal, organizational, and business success.
Trust is the lubricant for human relations. Without it, the mechanisms of interaction are damaged and grind to a stop. What you must always do is be true to your deepest instincts about what the truth is and how it can best be used as the basis for your actions. The only prudent way to run an organization is to insist that people tell the truth --- to each other, to suppliers, to clients, and to the government!
Truth has to be one of the leading values of any organization that values its own existence. Respecting the truth, caring for it, and nurturing it in an organization is not just the job of top administrators --- although they should always lead the way and set the example. It is the job of everybody!
The truth about excellence is a powerful idea.
[2] GETTING WHAT YOU WANT ---
THE 7 PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL LIVING
INTRODUCTION
The basis of trust is telling the truth. Trust is the lubricant for human relations. Without it, the mechanisms of interaction are damaged and grind to a stop.
The only prudent way to run an organization is to insist that people tell the truth --- to each other, to suppliers, to clients, and to the government. Truth has to be one of the leading values of any organization that values its own existence.
What you must always do is be true to your deepest instincts about what the truth is and how it can best be used as the basis for your actions. Respecting the TRUTH, caring for it, and nurturing it in an organization is not just the job of top administrators --- although they should always lead the way and set the example. It is the job of everybody.
The truth about excellence --- a powerful idea
1) PRINCIPLE #1 ---Base your actions on truth
The world according to you --- Human beings have debated the ultimate purpose of life throughout recorded history. You could make a persuasive argument that the ultimate purpose of life is to search for truth. I say "search" rather than "find," because to find truth in the broadest sense of the word would mean that you would have to know everything.
As people have been educated about our court systems through recent high-profile celebrity cases, they have discovered, to their considerable dismay, that a legal trial is not a search for truth. The reason this reality has been such a surprise to most people is because truth is the very foundation not only of the legal systems of the Western world, but of life itself!
Truth is the ultimate certitude. Without truth as a foundation, life as we know it could not exist.
Happily, "getting what you want in life" is not about courtroom justice.
It is about you!
Therefore, even if the whole world goes insane, you have a holy responsibility to yourself to perpetually search for truth. "When all about you are losing their heads" (from Kipling's famous poem, IF), the surest way to keep yours is to be vigilant about basing your actions on the truth!
QUESTION EVERYTHING, EVEN IF IT
REPRESENTS GENERATIONS OF CONVENTIONAL WISDOM.
[1] Level 1 --- ULTIMATE TRUTH
[2] Level 2 --- SCIENTIFIC TRUTH
[3] Level 3 --- SECULAR TRUTH
Secular truth is the way the world works. Ultimate truth is very personal in nature, and scientific truth is not something most people have to consciously think about in their daily lives. But each of us has to deal with secular truth every day. We therefore have to have a reasonably good ability to deciphering secular truth by ourselves and for ourselves.
THE PATH TO PLEASURE IS PAVED WITH
CORRECT PREMISES AND ASSUMPTIONS, WHICH IN TURN LEAD TO CORRECT PERCEPTIONS.
2) PRINCIPLE #2 --- Focus on value, not entitlements
Get a life
3) PRINCIPLE #3 --- Make choices with civility, dignity, honesty, and humility
Character of the soul
4) PRINCIPLE #4 --- Avoid those who drain your personal resources
People taxes
5) PRINCIPLE #5 --- Rid yourself of major encumbrances
Freedom from
6) PRINCIPLE #6 --- Develop the self-discipline to act
Tough choices
7) PRINCIPLE #7 --- Learn from bad breaks, and move on
[3] THE SEVEN HABITS
OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE AND THE CHARACTER ETHIC
1) Paradigms and Principles --- The "Seven Habits" --- An Overview
2) Private Victory:
HABIT 1 = Be Proactive (principles of personal vision)
HABIT 2 = Begin with the End in Mind (principles of personal leadership)
HABIT 3 = Put First Things First (principles of personal management)
Becoming a "Quadrant II Self-Manager" where people are more important
than things!
It defines your unique mission including values and long-term goals. It helps you balance
your life by identifying roles. It gives you greater context through weekly organizing. The
Quadrant II paradigm use "Fourth Generation" advances including being
"principle-centered" and "conscience-directed" --- and apply the key to self-management of others through delegation!
The value is not in any extrinsic technique or tool, but in "seeing" through the intrinsic lens
of importance rather than urgency
3) Paradigms of Interdependence:
HABIT 4 = Think Win/Win (principles of interpersonal leadership; Four dimensions of
win/win = character, relationships, agreements, supportive systems and processes; win/win management
training; win/win performance agreements, win/win systems, win/win processes)
HABIT 5 = Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood (principles of
empathic communication; character, empathic listening, diagnose before you prescribe,
understanding and perception, seek first to understood --- then to be understand!)
HABIT 6 = Synergize (principles of creative cooperation; levels of communication
--- high and low trust and high and low cooperation; diagram)
4) Renewal:
HABIT 7 = Sharpen the Saw! (Four principles of balanced self-renewal --- physical,
social-emotional, spiritual, and mental)
[4] LIVING THE 7 HABITS ---
STORIES OF COURAGE AND INSPIRATION
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK
The "framework" of thinking that permeates all of these stories is based upon
the "7 Habits" book written by Stephen Covey, which are in turn based upon
universal, timeless and self-evident principles! The "principles"
apply in any situation, any culture and they belong to all six major world religions and they are
found in all societies and institutions that have truly enduring success:
1) By "Timeless" is meant that they never change since they are
permanent, natural laws, like gravity!
2) By "self-evident" is meant that you cannot really argue against
them any more than you can argue that you can build trust without
trustworthiness!
3) The fundamental assumption or proposition is that "highly effective"
people LIVE the principles underlying the "7 Habits" ---
even in this turbulent, troubled, complex world of change!
4) Further, it is assumed that "effectiveness" can be defined as
getting the results you want in a way that enables you to get even greater
results or success in the future --- in a sustainable and balanced way!
5) In addition, when the 7 HABITS are fully learned and applied, they
operate like natural laws, whether you are aware of it or not! For example, the
principle of responsibility (Habit 1) is self-evident and so are all
the other principles, namely, the principle of having a purpose (Habit 2),
the principle of living by the principles (Habit 3), the principle of
mutual respect and benefit (Habit 4), the principle of mutual
understanding (Habit 5), the principle of creative cooperation (Habit 6),
and the principle of continual improvement (Habit 7).
These 7 principles are like the vitamins and minerals found in all kinds of foods.
They are found in diverse aspects of Nature and can be expressed in many forms.
The "words" of the 7 HABITS are only symbols of the world of
human principles. They are like the "key" that opens a "door" of
meaning.
"Do ethics and values truly matter?" Of course, the answer is: "They absolutely
do!"
Librarians must approach scholarly communication from an ethical position, and honor that process in their
own professon and other disciplines. The central question becomes, "How do we honor and try to reshape
that process in an ethical manner?"
Social pressures such as political correctness or Affirmative Action force librarians to choose carefully or
adhere to certain regulations. But ethical consideration and commitment are still confused with legal sanctions, and administrators often make the wrong ethical choices, if they even bother to give a thought to whether a given action is ethically acceptable!
Sometimes the problem is blatant fraud or dishonesty, such as when a library administrator has made a choice to further an unethical or illegal agenda!
ETHICAL REFERENCE SERVICE =
(1) Serve all patrons equally and objectively
(2) Do not allow personal commitments to intrude
(3) Do not sacrifice everything for the sake of information provision
(4) Avoid conflicts of interest
(5) Protect privacy and confidentiality
(6) Protect your employer's investments
(7) Cultivate a service ethic
(8) Market your availability and willingness to help
(9) Provide added value
(10) Recreate yourself as an indispensable provider of whatever information is required!
