Indian Talent, Global Content
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Indian Talent, Global Content |
January 2009: What's in the breeze |
How full is your bucket?
Interactions and interpersonal communications are the backbone of any relationship. They have an inherent capacity to either impart vibrant energy or to leave us in shambles! Considering the fact that we spend an enormous chunk of our lives and time communicating with each, we ought to get our act right all the time. But most of the time, we don’t! A look at the lacklustre and dismal state of relationships around us reveals that there are some things, perhaps many things, which we just don’t get right in our communication– so, more often than not, we mess up. So, what exactly are we missing? To help the discerning and sincerely curious minds understand what communication is really about and the profound impact that this seemingly simple activity has on our lives, as also on those that we dialogue with, and to help us spread positive energy in our little worlds, authors Donald O. Clifton and Tom Rath have come up with a slim 127-page book called, “How Full Is Your Bucket?” The book is the second bestselling joint venture of grandfather, Clifton, and grandson, Rath. The principal thought in the book belongs to 79-year old Donald O. Clifton who, unfortunately, passed on in September 2003, just before the publication of this book. He spent his entire life being a psychologist, albeit with a difference! While traditional psychology strives to simply understand ‘what is wrong with people,’ Clifton’s interests lay in assessing the impact that ‘positivism’ has on our lives. His inspiration to test these waters came from the all-time high death rate of 38%, amongst American soldiers held captive in the North Korean POW camps. If relentless negativity of the kind that the American POWs were subjected to, had the capacity to kill, reasoned he, what astounding impact would incessant positive reinforcements deliver? From then on, for five decades, Clifton dedicated his life to studying, researching and recording the influence that positive emotions have on people’s lives. In 2002, his arduous efforts were generously rewarded by the American Psychological Association when it officially conferred on him the titles of the ‘Grandfather of Positive Psychology’ and ‘Father of Strengths Psychology.’ The book gets its name from Clifton’s favourite theory about the “dipper and the bucket” – a theory that he propounded very early on in life and spent the rest proving. He believed that we are emotional beings whose lives are definitively formatted by every interaction, big or small. Each interaction has the capacity to make us feel either good or bad; interactions that leave us without any emotion are rare. We come to this world accompanied by an invisible ‘dipper’ and ‘bucket,’ and our buckets are constantly being filled or emptied, depending on how we have been dealt with by people. We are at our best, brimming with energy and raring to go, with the zest to conquer our mountains, when our buckets are full and at our worst, sapped of all enthusiasm, lifeless and poisoned, when our bucket is empty. Each of us can use our dippers to fill another’s bucket, i.e. say and do things that cast the spotlight on the ‘good’ in the person, thereby leaving the recipient feeling upbeat, or deplete from their bucket i.e. focus only on their shortfalls and mistakes making them feel lousy. This is exactly what we do to each other when we communicate. Given the reality that we engage in countless interactions in one life time, work out that math and you will begin to understand and appreciate the significance of this commonplace activity! Using research findings based on true occurrences in the lives of real people, the authors effortlessly drive home the realisation that our interpersonal communications do have a staggering influence and a direct correlation to what we can or cannot accomplish in this lifetime. The book also lays out guidelines on how we can go about this “bucket filling” activity, so as to have the desired effect: our feedback has to be honest, sound genuine and of course, it has to be current. People differ from one another, so our recognition of their abilities has to match their expectations – some are pleased with a simple pat on the back in private, others may like a public acknowledgement. Our bid to compliment should not be at the cost of overlooking genuine and worrying flaws in a person, because that can actually be counter-productive. The book is definitely written with the intent of helping organizations get their communication strategies correct so that they can build a positive working environment. But its teachings can just as easily be applied to our personal lives with great results. The best part of the book is that every premise it puts forth is backed by research findings that are rooted in the lives of real people and that makes it truly relevant. When you’re finished reading this book, you are genuinely sold out on filling as many buckets as you possibly can and that should definitely bring good cheer! Chillibreeze's disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article.
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