Paul Johnson asked:


There, now it’s out there; the “C” word, Christmas. Somehow it’s become politically incorrect to wish others Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa or anything that suggests a belief system. Well, I’ve decided to forgo political correctness at the risk of being labeled “politically inept” this holiday season.

Be Different in December

I choose to celebrate in December because Christmas is in it. You may celebrate in December for a different reason. I not only respect but cherish that diversity among us. Yet that diversity is discounted and stripped away from us when the Politically Correct (P.C.) Police force all to be the same by restricting us to Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings. Can we Americans afford any more loss of our identities? Can we afford to lose the meanings behind our traditions, actions and feelings?

The advent and proliferation of social media encourage us to “live in the open.” Tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube enable us to share what makes us human. In theory, our humanity should make us more desirable as a business associate. When you defy the P.C. Police and offer a greeting with more flavor than Seasons Greetings, we learn you are a person of character and courage as well as spirited and thoughtful. Much is shared in less than 2 seconds!

Speak Your Peace of Mind

We’re entitled to all speak our own “language” of the season. Consider that, as an example, if one of us speaks Spanish, another French and the third Italian, none of us can be accused of being wrong. Background, upbringing and, sometimes, life choices enable each of us to express ourselves in a preferred way. I prefer to offer Merry Christmas because it has meaning in its language that I understand best and represents the best expression I’ve got to give. The P.C. Police stand ready to chastise us for choosing the “wrong” form of expression. I’m giving others a gift of my heartfelt wishes; Merry Christmas enables me to present those wishes with the clearest and strongest meaning I know. By watering the message down to Happy Holidays, I feel like I’m cheating you, giving you less than the best I have to offer.

I can accept that not everyone will be happy with my gift of Merry Christmas. Some will take offense, but that’s because they choose to be offended. They’re so concerned with their own selfish perspective of the way things ought to be, they can’t see my gift for what it is. Let’s face it; some people are looking for reasons to be offended.

Give Your Gift Any Way

You must be willing to get into trouble now and then if you’re ever going to be comfortable using your preferred greeting at every opportunity. When you occasionally find someone who takes exception, is offended and won’t accept your gift, don’t blame yourself for their problem. I refuse to walk on eggshells because someone might want to pick a fight over my choice of words. Saying Merry Christmas doesn’t mean I’m pushing religion; I don’t expect anyone will convert to Christianity because I offered them a Merry Christmas!

I encourage you to join The League of the Politically Inept and give your greeting gifts at every opportunity during December. I’m convinced most people appreciate it, and your encouragement emboldens them to do the same. When December is over the politically inept will have had a lot more fun than the politically correct. Don’t forget the reason you celebrate this season, and continue to be generous with your gift of your favorite greeting.

Copyright 2007 Paul Johnson



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Damian D. Skipper Pitts asked:


most people hear the phrase “organizational politics,” they react very negatively. They see politics in the workplace as forming clicks and another way to keep those who go against the status quo labeled as an outsider. People also think that it’s a toxic dynamic that allows manipulative behaviors for people to get what they want by stepping on their co-workers’ backs. But not every instance of workplace politicking is a selfish maneuver to win.

In his book, Building Great Teams: Charting the Path of Organizational Politics (Book Surge, 2007), U.S. Marine turned business professional and university instructor Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts takes you inside one of the greatest team building organizations in the world – the United States Marine Corps – to examine and discover the strategies that business leaders must be willing to learn, use and employ for building ordinary groups into extraordinary teams; leading the right team of commandos who understand what it takes to win on the business battlefield and defeat workplace politics using warfare as the key to experience a significant win. He defines workplace and office politics as “the path to smart growth…using the power to accelerate the careers of high potential future leaders and teams power in the workplace.” He implies that office politics are not always negative, but offer opportunities for greatness. And while workplace politics aren’t necessarily avoidable, people can learn to understand their purpose, find their voice and understand how-to strengthen and build the teams dynamics and interpersonal communications skills – all while managing responsibilities with tact, poise, and polish. The game of politics, when understood how-to use it as a strategic weapon, helps to successfully chart the path of personal and professional growth as the essential task to achieve personal mastery from the results of peak performance. Organizational politics also offers the hidden treasures that allow people to stand-out from the crowd. They learn to demonstrate their ability to navigate the maze of successful team building – a task that is viewed as positive organizational behavior from the individual that is perceived as an extraordinary leader. This is the type of person that others seek to follow and emulate for the greatness they wish to develop for themselves.

Workplace Politics vs. The Battlefield Engagement

Just as in any military engagement, in order to win one must know the rules better than his/her competitor to outsmart them on the battlefield. It also is beneficial to be a part of the right team for controlling the elements of the battlefront. However, some might claim the workplace and the military are very different in many ways. Thinking from this approach causes significant missteps in organizational politics. There are significant issues that are similar in the workplace and on a military battlefield. For starters, the one constant is “people.” Any time that people are involved in a scenario, decision-making must play a role in the ability to win. Using the strategies from the United States Marine Corps, people are responsible for making critical decisions from the highest ranking officer down to the lowest ranking enlisted – and the decision could mean life or death. Well, the same goes for the workplace. People are responsible for making critical decisions that could mean that the organization acquires strategic assets (executive suite decisions) or that a customer is treated in a way that causes them to continue doing business with the organization. Both can be seen as life or death for the organization. As seen with Wachovia bank, a decision from the top level leadership was made to acquire Westgate Financial to boost their mortgage business. When the U.S. mortgage markets and industry imploded during the financial crisis, the organization was effected with incredible implications – it became the beginning of the end for one of the country’s largest banks and people lost careers and more. Similar to the likes of a military battlefield engagement and a series of wrong decisions made by leadership, loss of life was experienced.  

But what most people fail to realize is that the workplace is too a battlefield. Business is warfare and those who understand how to navigate the politics always win. Consider the game of chess. Chess can be low-key and quiet, a friendly game between friends. Or it can be explosive and highly competitive, set amid a crowd of observers, where the ultimate winner reaps world-wide accolades. Consider the skill behind the game of chess. It requires well-planned strategy and a great deal of mental acuity and patience, not to mention years of practice to reach an elite status.

These are the same skills required by a great leader, one who has the ability to guide an organization and one who understands the world of workplace politics. On the other hand, while playing a game such as chess, there can only be a single winner where there often can be a more neutral outcome in the world of workplace politics. With the proper skills of negotiation and influence, savvy leadership might be able to create a win-win situation.   



The Truth about Politics in the Workplace

Politics will always be part of an organization because people are people. The dynamic relationships of individuals who run a business enterprise play an important part in how the business operates: How the mission map, posture statements, vision, values and organizational culture is forged. And while the average Jane or Joe might feel like they are being run over by co-workers who manipulate the system, bully, gossip, backstab and brown nose to get what they want, there is more to workplace politics than those negative daily encounters. The quintessential aspect of organizational politics is the team. Building great teams’ hits at one of the most discussed topics in business media and the workplace: Organizational Behavior, transformational leadership, organizational renewal and inter-office politics. The day of the individual worker is over, as today’s business arena demands that workers possess the ability to effectively work as team units that consistently produce extraordinary outcomes from their performance. It is a scenario all top leaders and managers knows well: The organization, their people, and their systems all require efficient and effective processes to remain constant in its approach to move quickly toward new and innovative ways of reaching mission-critical objectives.

Good leaders are a thing of the past, as global economies now require more than good – they seek greatness and ordinary just does not fit the bill any longer. They now require the ordinary to be “extraordinary.” The new battlefield in the workplace requires the extraordinary leaders’ understanding of workplace politics and the accompanying landscape to be significant. They can no longer work in the old silos of the past that was developed by the silly political conflicts. No, these extraordinary leaders can no longer exhibit the behaviors that ultimately invite disaster. This is not to say that leaders of the past demonstrated the behaviors that put-up with negative politics that caused disastrous outcomes nor does it imply every good leader has found his/her way to the top of the heap by climbing over the bodies of crushed co-workers. It simply means that leadership understands workplace politics well enough to use them as “strategic weapons” to produce positive returns without the mud slinging and backsliding of unethical and immoral actions.  

Understanding how-to chart the path of organizational politics means being able to maneuver using political warfare to enhance the organization’s ability to rise to the top of its industry, without leaving one of its warriors lying wounded on the battlefield. It means having a well crafted Battleplan, understanding the players, building positive alliances and coalition of forces, using the art of war as a significant warfighting strategy that all stakeholders understand and buy-in to for winning, and finally, developing a compelling case study for the associates of the organization to understand the comprehensive approach for integrating strategic human capital and team development initiatives into the fold.



Convert Uniqueness into Ultimate Power

The best leaders are the people that understand the nature of warfare in dealing with and overcoming workplace politics. These are the men and women who have a tone on the pulse of the workplace – internal and external – and know what it takes to remain on task “ethically” to lead others into greatness. Here are five important things to know about politically savvy leaders:

°          They understand the critical importance of the team associates to be “LeaderShaped” into GREATNESS. They understand the “what” and “how” in developing a GREAT team.

°          They make decisive decisions for the benefit of the Future Picture

°          They understand the “culture” in the system that the team must influence.

°          They know what it take to strategically “execute” and win as a team.

°          They know how-to use the “Six Political Signs of Business Leadership” to achieve professional mastery to the people and organization: 1. a clear “Vision” of issues. 2. Understand the “Value” drivers within the team. 3. “Behavioral” influence of leadership to the Future Picture. 4. “Strategy” Modeling (Enterprise Decision Making). 5. Strategic “Execution” (Governance). 6. “Duplication of Protocol” (learnable-teachable methods for future engagements).

Engaging the battlefield that is influenced by workplace politics, for many, may mean asserting their power, pushing and shoving like the elementary school bully until they get what they want. But that’s really just the toxic behavior and conduct that eliminates the possibilities for leadership and the organization they influence to win. One of the best ways to lose power is to overtly use it. Instead, the best leaders know that power comes from influence – and influence is subjective to behavior, character and the value system that drives the people responsible for charting the pathway.

In this great read, Pitts also outlines how, in most cases, team leaders never hit their goals – not because they lack talent within the associate ranks, but because they are naïve to the complexities of team dynamics. He outlines the strategic-execution methods that smart leaders understand and use to determine what type of team model best suits their specific environment, what key skills to look for (and which to avoid), and how to coax top performances from everyone starting from day one.

Author Robert Dilenschneider explains in his book, Power and Influence: The Rules Have Changed: True power and influence means accepting responsibility, taking the heat and keeping your word. So even if someone supports the supposition that leadership is just another way of playing political games, it doesn’t necessarily mean this is a bad thing. When properly played, workplace politics can lead to great achievements and outcomes. Pitts believes that extraordinary teams that are great engage politics well. They are LeaderShaped and driven by extraordinary people who make a distinctive impact – they deliver significant and superior performance over a long period of time. There are some striking characteristics of great teams who achieve sustained success within their mission across its life cycle. They experience an increased level of professional mastery in developing and executing as great teams do. These teams have gone through a process; a process that is forged in a furnace of professional development, transformational thinking, and strategic-execution.  

Workplace politics, good or evil, are a very real part of the work environment. Whether people subscribe to the belief that leadership is just another way of engaging the political battlefield or not, it is important to keep in mind that as long as there are people working together as great teams do, there will be politics, but the outcomes will be far different from the results of the past. Great teams are the way to successfully engage the battlefield – greatness from the team is how to engage politics well and win it using fair tactics.



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David H asked:


does truth objectively exist, or is the truth subjective? i guess the question is, is there such a thing as real truth?
just looking for opinions

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FRANCIS K GITHINJI asked:


The online dating society has the advantage of doing a lot of things when in those chartrooms inclusive of these being the e-commerce, recruitment and outsourcing, communication, education and social interactions among others. However, one can’t help wondering why everyone wants an online buddy. The answer most likely lies with the very vague nature of our conservative society especially on issues of marriage and relationships.

By this I mean that this adventurous online dating society has its own moral values and expectations that every couple must be aware of and comply with both in marriage and engagements. Many especially among the dot.com generation detest these set of options that the society implement and expect them to trail vigilantly.

The very nature of these conservative dating rules makes it hard for any young person to even think about them. This is because they are very bureaucratic and intimidating in respect to the changing times and only causes lots of confusion and dilemma as one revolves between complying or not. Come to think of it and you may as well understand that this kind of society is by –passed by time and the people are now focusing on something different and that is why they turn to online dating society.

As a result the online dating society is replacing the traditional one in terms of dating rules and preferences. The very people whose old fashioned parents, nourished with too much of their traditionalist society are rejecting it and pleading for more flexibility and independence in terms of who they want to date, when to date, where and how to go about it.

Parents habit of disregarding their son’s or daughter’s lover because of their skin complexion, the language they speak, their nationality or even their health is becoming outdated. Individualistic view on one’s life on online dating can be contrasted with a common view of everyone’s life on a conventional dating scene where the rules are similar and pertains to all.

It appears that the online dating society is giving a lot of individual discretion and leniency to those who opt for it because its assumed that they made this constructive decision on their own to pursue an online dating society friend for intimacy, marriage or even pure business reasons.

There are lots of advantages to those who wish to push through with it. for example its very easy to confine even the well kept dark or shameful secrets to someone you can’t see or know. It’s also very likely that you could have an affair online without your spouse ever getting suspicious especially when life around your family and work gets difficult.

The single people for instance who lacks time to socialize too with the rest of the members of conventional society setting, might be tempted to risk falling for a stranger behind the screens on a job computer machine, with an Internet connection. This is behavior that can literally disconnect one from a real society.

The young people can reach out for pen pals without necessarily writing those mails manually, there is electronic mail section (emails) that enables them to send mails in less than a minute. The availability of chart groups video conferencing text images and sound, computer assistance groups only boosts the credibility of online dating society.

As a consequence, the conservative society might risk loosing its once tight bonded society to online dating society that guarantees freedom in the dating aspect.



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Dalip Singh Wasan asked:


Religions have turned political groups.

Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate.

Different religions took their birth at different times and at different places and that is the reason, they could not turn one religion and now the people in each religion have started declaring that their religion is the best and all others in other religions are not on the right path but are misguided people.

If we read religious books of all the religions, we come to the conclusion that all the religions are accepting that God is one and only one though He is called with different names. All the religions accept that we all have been sent on this earth by God Himself and He directs all the events of our life. All the religions believe that God Himself writes luck and destiny each of us and we are to live as per those directions and when our time is over, God recalls us and we die. All the religions believe that after death each one has to give his accounts and the people who had been doing something wrong during their life time are punished and are sent to Hell and all those who had been doing good works during their life time are sent to Heaven. These are the minimum concepts which are available in all the religious books available on this earth.

The world has got one God and they have got the same type of faiths, but they are not uniting as one family. If we have an eye on this world, this world has already been divided on the basis of religions. Some are called Muslim countries, some are Christians countries and some countries could be called Hindu countries. These units have become political and now one group is not in a mood to accept the supremacy of the other. They are competing and we are observing that the people who are having power are invading the other weak countries and they are trying to establish their supremacy. The people in each religion are not worrying about the path of their religion, but at present they are having a desire that their religious group may get supremacy in the world. The people in other religions who are weak know that they are under danger and the people of other religions may attach them any time and they shall be establishing their own supremacy over them. We also know that when people of one country attack another country, they collect other countries with them who also belong to the same religion. So now we can say that the next phase of wars shall be between people of different religions and nobody knows which religion shall get supremacy over the world.

Much had been said and the wise people had been trying to tell the people of the world that all the religions had been established just to meet one God, but all these uttering has been ignored by the people of this world and they are competing with each other.

There had been a time when Muslims had been ruling the world and then a time came when the Christians could establish their imperialism throughout the world. It had been accepted that this sun was never setting down and had been shining all the time over British Rule. Now time is coming when the Christian world, who is laced with arms shall rule the world and all others shall have to accept their supremacy. At present the war heads are determining the supremacy and the countries which are not having war heads shall not be having any place and they shall have to accept the supremacy of powerful countries. We had seen that when one force was invading Afghanistan and then Iraq all the people of the world kept silence though such invasions are banned under the International Law. Though after victory the powerful countries did not occupy the countries they won, but they are operating through ‘remote control’ and all the people of the world are having fear that they too shall be coming under this ‘ remote control’ one day or the other. So we can say with safety that the religions are not playing the role of correcting the people of the world, but today these religions are dividing this mankind and out of these divisions undesired wars are taking their birth and the people who are weak are turning terrorists. The man on the whole has entered into the zone of danger and none on this earth when there could be attack on their country and none knows when he could be killed by the terrorists or by the rioters. The religions which could have brought peace in the world have brought all the dangers and now none is at peace in this world. Therefore, we shall pray to God that He must come down on this earth and should give this man a right direction. If this man is allowed to go on the present path, there are chances that the world would be controlled by the powerful and all others shall turn slaves or they would become terrorists. And then peace shall be impossible in this earth.

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