Speaking for Social Integration

Speaking can be a great social asset to anyone who uses it wisely. This presupposes that there are unwise uses of the mouth. Some of the ways words can be used unwisely include:

§  Criticism and condemnation

§  Argument

§  Insulting or Abusing another/Denigration of another person.

On the other hand, the productive use of the spoken words can enhance one’s social acceptance and integration. Some of the positive uses of the tongue towards social development are:

§  Encouragement or positive reinforcement

§  Appreciation of the other person

§  Counsel and advice

Let us first examine the various wrong uses of the words in social interaction: Criticism is one thing most of us find so easy to do: we criticize the government, we criticize our friends and colleagues, we criticize our leaders and bosses; and we criticize people who are not even remotely related to us. However, the amusing part of this is that most of us never or rarely criticize ourselves. We are the saints in the spectrum of our own opinion.

Meanwhile, if you must fare well in the society of men, one lesson you must learn very well is how to keep your critical opinion of others to yourself; you must learn to be less judgmental and accept people for what they are, warts and all. Just like you and I, people rarely criticize themselves for whatever reason. If asked, everyone would proffer a reason for doing whatever they are being criticized for - irrespective of how unreasonable it may sound to others.  Therefore, criticizing such a person will definitely not be the best way to ingratiate yourself, but a sure way of ending up in his black book forever. Carnegie (1940:35) says this better:

If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism – no matter how certain we are that it is justified. 

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic.  We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

This tells us what a great harm we cause others by indulging in the easy act of criticism.  Anyone who is habitually critical will not have friends, as people will avoid intimate relationship with him. For as the Bible says, a man who would have many friends must first make himself friendly, not by criticism, but by warm disposition.

While criticism is a negative comment on the action, attitude, works, or behaviour of someone else, condemnation is a judgmental remark about someone’s personality. Condemnation is stronger and more dangerous than criticism because of its directness.

Anyone who is critical will also be judgmental. And a judgmental person rarely has friends due to his disposition. People avoid such a person like a plague because they are not usually good company to have around. A critical and judgmental person cannot integrate well in the society because people will not accept him except they have no choice.

Besides, habitually condemning others is playing God. This, in itself, is a most grievous offence because there is no perfect person under heaven, and so no mortal has the locus standi to judge the personality of another. Moreover, the only perfect Person Who has ever lived did not go around condemning people in His days, which makes it more unjustifiable for any lesser mortal to do so; instead He welcomed all to Himself and was especially friendly with those who were considered outcast in the society because of their intolerable vices.

The case of a woman who was “caught in the very act” of adultery was particularly striking in this instance.  Knowing His disposition to all sinners, the Pharisees and experts in the law dragged the woman to Him desiring to hear His opinion before they go ahead anyway to stone her to death as the law decreed for such offence:

They said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?” This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throne a stone at her first”. And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, Lord”.  And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more. (John 8:4-11).

Speaking for Emotional Development

Self-disclosure is perhaps the most important way to use the spoken words for emotional wholeness. Tardy and Dindia (1997:213) define self-disclosure as “the process whereby people verbally reveal themselves to others”. Many people have bottled-up secrets, fears, and feelings of inadequacy which they would not share/reveal with/to someone else for fear of being rejected or dropping in such person’s esteem. And so they continue to tag along in life, wearing cheerful countenance, preferring to bear alone the agony of their challenges rather than the risk of sharing it with someone else.

Osborne (1997:9), remarking on this phenomenon, says:

Each of us is in a state of tension between the need to reveal and the need to conceal ourselves.  We have an urge to share our true feelings, but we fear that we shall become vulnerable, that we shall be rejected or criticized.  As a result, we tend to settle for commonplace discussions about the superficialities of life.

Most people are ignorant of the fact that such dammed up tensions may lead to all kinds of neurosis or outright insanity. The best way, therefore, to attain emotional healthiness is to have one or two confidante(s) among your friends whom you can unburden to regularly. The irony of self-disclosure is that the revelation that most fear would drive people away from them usually have the opposite effect, as the person entrusted with such confidence about the weaknesses and inadequacies of his friend usually ends up understanding, respecting and loving him the more. Osborne (1997:23-24) further expatiates on this:

Invisible barriers prevent us from knowing and loving each other… loneliness and sense of isolation are experienced by reluctance to reveal ourselves to others for fear of rejection… the more others learn about us, the easier it is for them to accept and love us.  No one can love a mask. As we remove our mask we find ourselves being accepted at a new level… You may never have thought of yourself as lonely, but the feeling is there just the same, unless you have broken through the barrier of your fear of rejection.  And when you can reveal your true self, however slightly, you will find yourself accepted and loved at a new level…. you will come to know yourself, while revealing yourself to others for fear of being known by others is no greater than our fear of knowing ourselves.

The second way to use speaking for emotional development is through affirmation. Affirmation is the act of stating as obvious what you want to be, even when all indications are pointing to the contrary. Fieger (2004), commenting on this concept says:

The words you speak, to yourself and others, define the quality and the content of your thoughts and beliefs, AND, they affirm your reality. Therefore, you must always talk about that which you desire to be made manifest in your life.  Why waste your breath talking about trivialities, when you can be talking about what is really important to you?

Although the concept of affirmation may sound nonsensical to some people, the truth is that it holds a great potential for personal transformation for anyone who faithfully observes it. A man who cultivates the habit of speaking positively (to himself) in terms of what he is getting or doing rather than what he does not have is sure to have a positive attitude. He will also have Providence opening his generous doors to him at every turn. While the man who incessantly bemoans his lack and inabilities may never cease experiencing difficulties. The Bible sums up this human experience thus: “The power of life and death is in the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit (Proverbs 18:21).

Listening for Professional Development

No doubt we spend most hours of our days on our job, and a greater percentage of those hours are spent listening to our superiors, our colleagues, our subordinates, and even our clients and customers.  If you want to be the toast of your colleagues and clients, simply listen to them. Apart from this, the habit of attentive listening enhances your personal competence and performance on the job. The man who listens well will perform better than his colleagues who are less attentive. To this effect, Hybels and Weaver (2001:70) say:

Researchers have found that there is a direct connection between good listening skills and productivity on the job. When employees were given training in listening before they received training in computer techniques, they were more productive than employees who hadn’t had the listening training.

In a related comment, Carnegie (1940:102) quotes Eliot to have said: “there is no mystery about successful business intercourse… Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important.  Nothing else is as flattering as that”.

The importance of attentive listening for productivity at the workplace cannot be overstressed. By listening attentively to your superiors, you will always get the details of their instructions and carry out tasks with little or no mistake; by listening empathetically to your colleagues and subordinates, you are better positioned to help and/or enhance them to perform better; by patiently listening to your clients, you are able to get the essential feedback you need to improve your product or service and this will ultimately increase your bottom line.

Listening for Social Integration

The social aspect of man describes his relationships with the outside world. The extent to which man is accepted and esteemed by the society is dependent on the degree of his integration in the society.

No doubt every man desires to be liked and appreciated by everyone, although most will deny this. Carnegie (194:38), while summing this need of man to be liked, cites Williams James as saying that “the deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated”.

Therefore, a man who wants to be seen as friendly and sociable by his fellow men must be a good listener. The Bible also lends credence to this verity, saying the man who would have many friends must himself be friendly (Proverbs 18:24), and being friendly in this sense means being an empathetic listener. Listening is one of the ways to appreciate people. Osborne (1997:10), citing Caldwell, beautifully captures this nature of man thus:

Man does not need to go to the moon or the solar systems.  He does not require bigger and better bombs and missiles. He will not die if he does not get better housing or more vitamins…

His basic needs are few, and it takes a little to acquire them, in spite of the advertisers. He can survive on a small amount of bread and the meanest shelter… 

His real need, his most terrible need, is for someone to listen to him, not as a patient; but as a human soul.

On the other hand, anyone who continually violates this law of appreciation and always assumes the centre of all conversations, without leaving room for others to speak, will have only himself to blame when he discovers that people are beginning to avoid him like the plague. Carnegie (1940:109) offers an insight into this situation:

If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself.  If you have an idea while the other fellow is talking, don’t wait for him to finish. He isn’t as smart as you.  Why waste your time listening to his idle chatter? Burst right in and interrupt him in the middle of a sentence.

This sarcastic “recipe” underscores the need for every individual who seeks social integration to be ‘quick to listen and slow to speak’. If you want people to consider you a good company, listen to them. Its ingratiating power is amazing.

Listening for Mental and Emotional Development

A good listening habit is one of the indications of good breeding. Since the mental faculty, the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of the body can only retain and process the message or information inputted into it - as well as be enriched by it – it behoves every individual to cultivate a good listening habit by:

§  Paying attention and showing interest in the message being transmitted

§  Indicate to the speaker if he is understanding the message or not, and

§  Showing how he is reacting to the message by non-verbal cues (Beck et al, 2002).

The first way to use the listening skill to enhance your mental faculty and ensure a wholesome being is by being selective about what you listen to.  There is no better way to keep your mind healthy than to choose what you listen to. Knowledge is the food of the soul, just as the body thrives on viands and adornments.  However, it is not all the information that one is exposed to that he should listen to, for as the saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out’.  What you feed your brain is what you will express in speech or behaviour.

So, the first rule for using listening to achieve mental and emotional development is to choose what you listen to.  Platitudes and other forms of debased communication do nothing good to the soul.  They must therefore not be entertained, otherwise, the mind will process them, deposit them in the mental and emotion realm, and the man will live them eventually.

Capturing this phenomenon in another words, Allen (1902:4-5), in his timeless classic, says:

‘Men themselves are makers of themselves’ by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage…(The) mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance...

As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called “spontaneous” and “unpremeditated” as to those which are deliberately executed

Another way to enhance your mental and emotional capacity through listening is by attending seminars, lectures, workshops, conferences, and other intellect-simulating fora. By so doing, you will continually cultivate your mind, widen your horizon, and school your emotion, which is at best erratic.

What is Personal Development?

We cannot attempt a definition of the term Personal Development without first taking a look at the key word “development”. So what is development? Adesanoye (1995:4) citing Mabogunje, describes development as ‘a many sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well-being’.

Taking a cue from this, we can then define personal development as a conscious, disciplined and sustained series of investment in the self through the acquisition of knowledge and skills, as well as applying the acquired knowledge and skills for enhanced lifestyle. 

Areas of Personal Development

The development of the self is as composite an entity as the nature of man himself. It consists of various interdependent forms of human, which all work together to produce a better person when cultivated, or result in a debased existence when ignored. These different aspects of man that need cultivation for development are his:

§  Spiritual state

§  Mental state

§  Emotional state

§  Physical state

§  Social status, and his

§  Profession or vocation

A Glance Into The Self: 10 Simple Ways To Know You Are In The Job You Are Naturally Cut Out For

Dear friends,

I found myself in the meditation mode not long ago and the object of my rumination was why some people seem to derive so much fun in their jobs – bubbling in their productivity therein – while some only do the required rounds, watch the clock and tick the day.

I know this is a much-discussed issue in the career industry worldwide, with various postulations and sophisticated theories. So, I was under no illusion that I was going to come up with a groundbreaking solution that would land me a Nobel Prize for solving a nagging human problem. However, the Pilot of my flight of consciousness was not discouraged, but kept on conducting me to a point where I was able to capture some bits on what usually separates an excited worker from a placid one.

The distinguishing factor is interest – borne out of the natural configuration of each individual. It is a fact that we are not all wired the same way; even identical twins may not have identical emotional sparks. Therefore, individual interest plays an important role in job gratification, which in turn results in productivity. That does not discountenance some external or psychological variables that may facilitate or hinder job performance, such as remuneration, work environment, and self-esteem, to mention a few.

So, on the fulcrum of interest only, I came up with the following 10 submissions that will help an individual to ascertain what kind of job s/he is naturally cut out for, and if s/he is presently engaged in one. I’m not sure the list below can be described as authoritative, neither is it exhaustive; so, I’ll welcome inputs from you guys.

Ok, now to the titbits: how do you identify the job you are naturally cut out for or ascertain the one you are doing now is it?

1.    You will enjoy doing what you do, and it won’t be a drag or drudgery to you.

2.  Time will not be “of essence”, and you will not be watching it, since you can start whenever you like and end whenever you like. I agree that this one may be a hard pill for the apostles of structure to swallow. But, check it out in the lives of those who are all fired up about their job.

3.    You flow seamlessly into the work, with minimal or no friction anytime, any day, and in most places. You also hands off your work with a teeny feeling of reluctance, but a soothing sense of accomplishing something.

4.    You are doing something by which people generally hail you or associate you whenever they see you or thoughts of you pop up on their mind.

5.  Money is not a major consideration for doing what you are doing. Although it is anecessity of life and a viable motivation factor, your primary drive is derived from your sheer involvement in and satisfaction with what you are doing.

6.  You want to learn all you can about the vocation, or certain aspects of it where you feel you can still be better.

7.    You want to make everyone who comes into contact with you an artisan in the vocation. You want to teach them, help them, guide them, and/or instruct them on how to do it. And you will be willing to do all these, even at no fee.

8.    You want to passionately defend, justify, or clarify certain notions about the vocation, or its operational aspects, that you feel is wrongly bandied or misconstrued by people.

9.    You are agitated when you see people who are similarly engaged doing the same work the way it ought not be done, either by underperforming, under-delivering, or not conforming to certain norms and standards pertaining to it.

10. You eagerly look forward to getting up from bed every day you have to work to get on the task or an assignment you have in hand. And you won’t mind sleeping late engaged in what you are doing. In the event you are busy doing something else, you are not so excited and you can’t wait to be done with it to get back to your love vocation.

Like I mentioned, this list is neither authoritative nor exhaustive. You may be presently engaged in the job you are naturally cut out for and not find yourself in any of the above bits. We will like to learn your own slant to this.

Cheers!