When To Fish or Cut Bait?

     Obviously knowing what not to quit is just as important as knowing what to quit as well as how to do it. The problem is often compounded by vivid, relevant experiences of past successes or failures, the plethora of thoughts and feelings that can easily surface in trying to understand something, and the extreme difficulty in communication these days. Another problem is that there is a major paradigm shift going on in the world today—taking us all from a controllable, predictable, familiar and certain world to an uncontrollable, unpredictable, unfamiliar and uncertain one, where all the tried and true success prescriptions no longer work. It is easy to miss this change or want to deny it, but that just puts us further behind in the change learning curve.

     Getting to this point of knowing when to fish or cut bait has always given me great difficulty. There are several reasons for my having this difficulty. First of all both my parents instilled in my brain the values of tenacity and perseverance with an ironclad no-quit fiat branded across my forehead. Next came several years of psychology study which fine tuned my problem-solving and conflict resolving skills, along with giving me unbridled optimism and belief in every person's unlimited potential for growth and goodness, without any room for doubt.

     This parental and school education was followed by decades of public and private management experience and training that leads managers to believe more in employee's potential assets than red flagged liabilities (everybody can be motivated and productive) and also the value of ongoing conflict and chaos in organizational development. And then my perspective was even more confused with a lifetime of successes at cutting lots of bait easily, chased by a spiritual quest leading to the important realization that we can change any reality we take enough time and effort to truly understand and apply the right mixture of acceptance and intervention with.

    So with all this training and experience, you would think I would be an expert at knowing when to fish or cut bait. But I have less of a certain conclusion than when I started. However, I can openly admit that I am not the expert on this important topic and this confession might be a key to growing and succeeding in this world of uncertainty that we are all now part of. After all, when you can admit what you don't know, you can begin to learn what you need to know.

    Here are three activities that I have recently discovered which may make the road to this fishing/cutting bait decision less likely to be a dead end or an unpaved one filled with pot holes and sharp twists and turns. In other words, less crashes, stalls or flat tires.

CRITICAL THINKING

     The way the brain processes information does not always guarantee its accuracy or completeness. Placing complete trust in the quantity or quality of information you have in trying to arrive at one of these fish or cut bait decisions is probably not smart. For one thing the brain processes complex realities and reduces them down into artificial simplicities for easier understanding and storage.  Another brain research-proven reality is that you really can't trust the recall of past memories that well because the memory process is designed mostly for convenience and efficiency rather than accuracy or completeness. The total disagreement of eye-witness testimony is a perfect example of this dysfunction.

     Other "brain tricks" are the drive to prove things you already know instead of disproving what you don't know, seeking only new information that fits with what you already know, the inability to shed a belief despite the compelling evidence to the contrary, and the bad habit of making a universal law out of a one-time personal experience. And this doesn't even get into expectancy theory which tells us the power of optimism and pessimism in effecting positive and negative outcomes of important events. Below that is the awesome power of earlier imagination, which very well may start everything we are trying to deal with in the here and now.

     It is extremely difficult to use critical thinking to get better at fishing or cutting bate, because then you become like the golfer who is so concerned about a proper swing, that he misses the ball altogether. The best you can do is question the information you gather, along with what you think you already know, with an open mind and accept that you will never be certain about anything. With that, add the humble realization that all you think you know may not always be so.

COMMUNICATION

     When you get into the edge of reason in emotionally laden situations, in which most fish or cut bait decisions occur, communication becomes even harder. The closer you get to absolute truth, or worse, yet, to relative perceptions of realities, the harder it is to use words to accurately and completely capture the essence of the experience you are trying to convey. This inability causes stress and frustration which greatly interferes with a solution.

      The only way to communicate past such a blockade is to create a supportive tone and avoid saying or doing anything that contributes to a defensive one. This takes great sensitivity and self-control. Supportive communication, which enables communication, conveys rapport-building and likeable things such as positivism, agreeability, equality, freedom, honesty, spontaneity, acceptance, empathy, humor and politeness. On the other hand, a defensive and disruptive tone that disables communication, conveys characteristics such as negativity, disagreeability, superiority, control, dishonesty, contrition, judgment, insensitivity, over-seriousness and rudeness.

     To engage in this level of communication takes great personal courage, but the commitment to do so can often affect the timing and outcome of the decision. Like anything else, you are already a part of a situation you think you are just stepping into or are controlling from the outside. You can't help but contribute to the outcome one way or the other.

UNDERSTANDING

     Understanding a situation takes critical thinking and good communication with a passion for the truth and an open mind in finding it. It also takes the uncommon abilities to avoid pre-mature judgments, expand patience, suspend expectations and engage in extremely active listening. More than anything, it involves combining all your mental skills to join logic, practical common sense, intuition and creativity, to find a creative compromise in which everyone gives up something old and gains something new.

KNOWING WHAT YOU REALLY WANT

     Now we get down to the real nitty-gritty of what the actual dilemma is that these three things—critical thinking, clear understanding and good communication—have to identify and solve. This process involves asking yourself what you really want from doing anything. The only answer I have ever been comfortable with is that I am as sure as I can be at the time that I am doing what it takes to get what I want, as the two are intimately intertwined like a pretzel.

     Pretzel truths are very valuable. Take the important concept of rapport, being what you get from what you do to get it. Or take the other things like success and happiness, both being what you get (a positive, satisfying, self-rewarding feelings) from what you do to get them (Know where you are, make smart choices about movement, and give your best effort to position yourself closer to what you know you need, either by staying put or moving). The bottom line is that you have to begin to precisely define what your particular pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow—way below all the superficial secondary and tertiary "rewards" that the real "object" offers—and then apply all the driving tricks that you can remember and learn to get there!

     One very useful idea I have gotten a lot of mileage from is to redefine important things I think I want, until they become what I know I need. For me success is simply being comfortable knowing I have tried my best to leave each new situation I enter into in a little better shape than when I came upon it (maybe through little acts of giving love?). With happiness, I have found that is more the peaceful absence of serious turmoil that disables people and that desirable state is only temporary, usually being experienced by my own growing past a test of my character in an adverse situation. Learning to become comfortable with the discomfort of the test is the key.

    There is no tried and tested prescription for becoming a master fisherman or bait-cutter in this Information Age of Uncertainty. Today's problems have to be solved individually, inch by inch, by critical thinking, careful communication,accurate understanding, and reconciling what you think you want with what you know you need. And each time may be a whole new learning arena. The best you can do is learn to separate the 5% sense from the 95% nonsense so your toolbox is equipped with the right stuff. It doesn't get easier, but you become more skilled, especially in seeing clearer and choosing better. And remember, it is not the view at the top of the mountian that counts most, but rather the fun you have getting there.

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security, Inc. in Bellevue, WA. He is author of You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets and Threading Your Needle With Life's Rope. He can be reaches at bcottringer@pssp.net or (415) 454-5011.