From: Rangarajan T.N.C. <tncrangarajan@yahoo.com>
Date: Sunday, March 12, 2017
Subject: thoughtfulness
To:
Credit: cristianl / Getty Images
The power of a glass of water: Why simple acts of thoughtfulness matter today
- Published on March 4, 2017
- Featured in: Best Advice, Editor's Picks, The Weekend Essay, What Inspires Me
Management Consultant and Bestselling Author Chairman and CEO, ASI Consulting Group
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him. — Gautama Buddha
At the beginning of a busy week, I boarded my flight from Los Angeles
to Detroit and settled into an aisle seat, grateful that the client I
was going to visit had agreed to pay for first-class travel. A young man
in a charcoal-gray suit, with a neatly trimmed beard, hoisted his
luggage into an overhead bin, folded his jacket neatly on top of his
roll-on bag, and took the seat across the aisle from me. A female flight
attendant took orders for drinks; I asked for water. The young man
wanted nothing.
The second characteristic of a person with a caring mindset is
being thoughtful. By thoughtful I mean that the person is attentive to
others, considerate, unselfish, and helpful. When we place ourselves in
another person’s shoes, or see things from another’s point of view, and
then act for their benefit—when we are being empathetic—we are
practicing what it means to be thoughtful.
As the flight attendant was serving drinks to the passengers in first
class, the people flying coach began to board. Among them was an
elderly, frail-looking man with wispy white hair. He took the aisle seat
in the first row behind the bulkhead
separating the first-class and coach sections of the plane. When the
attendant was finished taking care of those of us in first class, she
paused near the man. Looking up, he asked her for a glass of water. The
attendant explained that drinks were not served in the coach section
until after takeoff.
He persisted, repeating his request again, saying, “I’m very thirsty.
Can’t you please get me a glass of water?” The attendant again
refused to accommodate his request, using the same dismissive, rather
official tone she had used in response to his first request. Her voice
had a robotic quality to it—it was clear she did not care whether or not
this older gentleman was thirsty—only that it was “against the rules”
to provide a simple glass of water. I understood that she was following
the airline’s policy, but was nonetheless surprised and somewhat put off
that she denied the elderly man’s
request. Others in the first- class section seemed perturbed and
concerned as well; we looked at one another anxiously, searching for an
ally, but no one got up or said anything to the attendant. Suddenly the
young man across the aisle from me left his seat, went to the
attendant’s galley, and returned with a glass of water. He handed the
glass of water to the man and returned to his seat, ignoring the glare
of the attendant, who seemed dumbfounded and annoyed by his actions. The
rest of us near the old man who witnessed the incident gave the young
man a round of applause. Feeling relieved for the old man, but a bit
ashamed that I didn’t get him a glass of water myself, I vowed to myself
that going forward, I would be as thoughtful and action-oriented as the
young man was.
During a trip to India, I was in a taxi in Calcutta, the capital of
the Indian state of West Bengal, stuck in traffic. Once India’s
leading city, Calcutta has been in steady economic decline for
many years. It is perhaps best known for its crowded, fetid slums,
rickshaws—and Mother Teresa, who lived there. It is a chaotic, crazy
place: the traffic, the noise, the colors, the jarring juxtaposition of
the richest of the rich rubbing shoulders with the poorest of the poor.
The city is a storm of sounds, smells, colors that assault your senses.
My taxi was inching along a street teeming with people. There was a
Mercedes in front of us, a rickshaw behind us, a cow, an overcrowded
bus, shouting vendors, and men on mopeds whizzing by on either side. A
man clad in rags slept on a filthy blanket on the sidewalk. Through the
window of the car I saw a naked child, seven or eight years old,
reaching his hand in a street drain.
I asked my cabdriver what the child was doing.
The driver told me, “Sir, don’t look at it. Just ignore it.” I was flabbergasted that he referred to the young boy as “it.”
I said, “No, no. I want to understand. What is he doing? ” Once again he told me to ignore the child.
Frustrated, I said, “Just stop here.”
I got out of the car and, using the local language, I asked the child what he was doing.
He said, “Sir, I’m just seeing if any food is passing through this drain.”
“What do you do with the food? ” I asked. He said, “I dig it out, wash it, and eat it.”
I was speechless. I did not know what to say. I was completely frozen for several seconds that seemed a lot longer.
When I regained my wits, I took the boy to a sweet shop nearby and
told the man behind the counter, “Whatever this child wants, give it to
him.” He chose a few things, I paid for them, and then we parted. My
taxi had not advanced very far and I got in again.
I did not think ahead before taking the child to the shop. It was an
instantaneous reaction, much like the actions of the young man on the
plane. Having witnessed extreme poverty during my childhood in
Bangladesh, I knew that any human being, if they were hungry enough,
might be forced to gather food from the gutter. If someone is starving
and cannot afford anything to eat, and I can afford it, should I not
help? Of course, I realize I cannot help to feed all of the hungry
people in the world. But in that moment, it was my responsibility to
help that child. Nothing more, nothing less. For that one moment I was
able to have a small positive impact on the world around me, just as the
young man on the plane that day made a difference to the elderly man.
I believe there are moments like that in everyone’s day,
although perhaps not so extreme or dramatic. Metaphorically, these are
moments when a colleague, a friend, or a family member has a hand in a
drain, searching for something they need in a difficult time, or who
simply needs a “glass of water.” Those moments are opportunities to act
in a thoughtful way: to be attentive to others,
considerate, unselfish, and provide comfort or aid.
Barbara, the wife of Kent, a good friend of mine, hurt her back, and
given the pain, went to see a top back doctor. The doctor recommended
surgery for a disk problem. She postponed the procedure for eight
months, until the pain became so severe that she could not stand up
straight. At that point her doctor, alarmed, told her, “Tomorrow
morning, six a.m., you show up for surgery.” The next morning he did the
procedure.
Kent was in the waiting room while Barbara was in surgery. After
forty-five minutes, the surgeon sent a nurse to tell him, “The operation
will take another forty-five minutes, but the doctor will see to it
that your wife’s pain is gone.”
After the surgery was completed, the surgeon came to the waiting room
to tell Kent that all had gone well and that Barbara was in the
recovery area. Kent and the doctor knew each other; they had friends in
common and sometimes showed up at the same social events.
Kent told the doctor, “Thank you for letting me know that Barbara
will be okay. Thank you for also sending the nurse to reassure me.”
The doctor said, “Normally the kind of surgery I do can take four or
five hours, sometimes more. So I try to keep the patient’s family in
mind. I know that they are concerned and that they worry. So I do my
best to keep them informed.”
Then Kent asked him the question that was on his mind. “Did you have
the nurse come out especially for me, or is that something you always
do? ” And was the practice part of the doctor’s training or a policy of
the hospital? In other words, was this common among doctors?
With a smile, the doctor said, “No, it is not a policy of the
hospital. Nor was it part of my training. I just feel it is the
thoughtful thing to do—for all my patients, not just the ones I know
personally.”
Being thoughtful is a two-step process. The first step involves
listening: at work, to your customers and your employees; at home, to
your spouse and to your children; in your personal life, to your doctor,
elders, trusted friends, or experts. A typical study on our ability to
listen (there are many out there) suggests that we listen about 45
percent of the time we spend communicating with others. But results of
such studies vary widely and depend on the group of people in the study.
For example, a 1980 study of United States college students reported
that they listen 53 percent of the time spent in communication with
others, while a study conducted in 2006 reported the time spent
listening was as little as 24 percent.
Despite the wide variations in results, it is clear to me that we can
draw two conclusions. First, listening is the communication skill we
use most often. Second, we are generally not very good at it. One study
reports that the average person listens at only about 25
percent efficiency. A study of more than eight thousand people
found that almost all of them believed they communicate as effectively
as, or more effectively than, their co-workers. But of course that is
not possible; everybody cannot be average or above average.
Whatever the amount of time we spend listening, I think we can all
agree that listening is a critically important skill, and that we can do
better. If you don’t listen to others, you cannot possibly be
thoughtful. Yet most of us do not believe that we need to improve our
listening skills; we overestimate our ability to listen purposefully and
thoughtfully. We often mistake listening casually to someone speak as
understanding what they’re saying. Yet too often we’re thinking about
what we’re going to say in reply when it’s our turn to talk.
At the end of the day, our ability to truly listen to others is in our hands. We can all improve our ability to listen.
Listening to others purposefully involves not just hearing what they
have to say, but trying to put yourself in their shoes. It involves
empathy and understanding. Simply imagining that you understand what the
other person is trying to say, without attempting to fully grasp why
the other person is telling you what they are saying, does not
demonstrate good listening skills. Yet I see this all the time in my
consulting work. It is especially true of managers who are in other ways
very smart people. They are so busy that they often don’t fully hear
what the other person is trying to communicate; as a result, they jump
to conclusions about what is being said, when they really only have half
the picture. Why? They didn’t listen carefully enough, with purpose.
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