CURIOSITY - CGAUX
COMPLACENCYBy Randy VentressTSgt, Tennessee ANG (Ret)DCAPT-South, D8ER, USCGAUSCG Leadership Competency - Leading Self: Self-Awareness & LearningWe are all creatures of habit. Nobody is an exception to this rule. I recently fell victim to a habit I have been developing for over a year now. Allow me to tell you a short, true story of an example of the title to this article.For well over a year now, I have been following a routine every evening and morning. Being a member of the technology age I have a cellular phone and a Bluetooth device to go along with it. Every night at bedtime, I plug both into chargers on my nightstand to charge overnight while I sleep. I wake every morning and while getting dressed, I unplug both and drop them into my pockets, the phone in the right pocket of my pants and the Bluetooth in the left pocket with my car keys. (Some of you reading this have already put your minds on fast-forward and can see in part where I'm going with this.)On the morning of subject, I go about my routine of getting ready. Today is a travel day to visit my parents out of town, short drive, about fifty miles each way. The trip is made, visit completed, and returning home. After pulling into the garage to unload the car, guess what? Yep, in reaching into my pocket for my Bluetooth, it is not there. A thorough search of the car doesn't turn it up either. So, I call Mom to check for it on the floor of her home. Nope, no sign of the device.Being a creature of habit, I started going over in my mind the steps I took at Moms' and remembered that as we got into her heavily-leafed yard, that I reached into my pocket to take my keys out, so I asked her to check the parking area. Nope, no Bluetooth. (Remember I keep the Bluetooth in the same pocket as my car keys. Okay a change of habit may be in order)In my own analytical way, I just knew the device was buried under leaves and grass in her yard. So, I take off to make the trip a second time in a few hours and get there and start my search, and I'm running out of daylight. I rake most of her yard and after almost two hours, come up empty handed. At this point, I've relegated myself to replacing the Bluetooth, so I return home, only to find that my wife had found it while I was gone. Still connected to the charger.As Leaders of our organization, and members as well, we cannot get complacent. Complacency causes us to form bad habits and as I learned, can be costly. I have been performing the same ritual every morning, and I got complacent and overlooked one item, "disconnect Bluetooth from charger and insert into pocket". Likewise when we as members of this organization repeat the same actions frequently we tend to get into the "habit mode" to get our jobs done, becoming second nature to us. This is where if we miss a step, we may get into a bind.We can overcome complacency. Keeping up with any changes that may come down from the top, keeping abreast of technology are two of the ways. Staying informed, and keeping our membership informed is the best way to overcome complacency. We have to break any bad habits we have and overcome complacency and it has to start individually. Only we as individuals can break out of our complacency by looking into our practices and deciding where changes should be made. ................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.