Your Approach.
Continuing to attempt to clarify my thoughts: Approach is different than Attitude and for me each are defined as the following.
Attitude – the thoughts and feelings relating to the situation you are facing. Approach – the process you actually follow in relation or response to the situation you are facing, influenced by your Attitude, and thus the situation you are facing.
For me the best words to describe my Approach are “confident, controlling and aggressive”. The levels of each fluctuated throughout my series. Another word for Approach is Strategy, and you all know how big I am on Strategy. I will use the two words interchangeably throughout my thoughts. And please remember these are my thoughts, fairly unedited and you read ‘em as I think ‘em. Although in this case I did write this message late last week, but as is often the case I haven’t read it since.
My Strategy was formed with a combination of influencing factors, as all Strategies are. My situation, and the details of it, were the first piece of the puzzle which was followed by my attitude, which was the collection of thoughts and feelings I possessed in relation to my situation. From there I developed my Approach which correlates with the Addressing stage of the E4A’s. (I’ll share those with you sometime soon, but you are all familiar with the process of Addressing your situation, no different here) Approach develops as a result of Addressing the situation.
That doesn’t mean an individual will consciously have a strategy development session to Address each challenge they are faced with, but in an organized setting such as a business environment this is SHOULD often be the case. In my case my strategy development process was implicit but upon reviewing the events of my initial week in hospital, for example, it became very clear that I followed a process. Just as it was evident when reviewing all the challenges faced as a result of my “devine-intervention”. Which is how I often refer to my series or battle with Cancer.
In cases or situations involving significant experiences/obstacles the process of strategy development is often much easier to identify and it may be much more beneficial to actually consciously develop your Approach. I am a big fan of thinking things through, especially with very significant situations. The development of Approach when dealing with a serious situation should be a conscious, well thought out process. That doesn’t mean you need to follow a flow chart of a given process, just think about it that’s all. In less serious times it can be unconscious as the development of Attitude often is. Attitude is greatly formed as a result of your experiences prior to challenge and it contributes to the Approach developed or chosen.
There you have my 4 part series on what’s really important. Now that I have shared them with you all I am going to have a good look at what I said, see how it applies to many different situations that I have experienced. As always your thoughts are welcomed. I’ll keep you updated on what I discover about my thoughts. Hope you had a great weekend and that Monday morning is good to you.
Geoff
#4
