What is a System of Profound Knowledge?

"The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge. The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people." - W. Edwards Deming

W. Edwards Deming was an iconic figure in 20th century business management. I figurehead whom the Japanese regard as the symbol their industrial rebirth, and economic worldwide success. Deming advocated what he termed "A system of profound knowledge." His system of profound knowledge was broken down to the following 4 principles:

1) Appreciation of a System
2) Knowledge of variation
3) Theory of Knowledge
4) Knowledge of Psychology

Deming observed that an organization that is governed through a system of profound knowledge, purposefully and consistently, will thrive off of the continual improvement that is nurtured through such a system. He believed that an organization must begin with each individual and in a sense allow them to see their meaningful impact on the development of the whole organization. The opposite of which would be what most of us know as "compartmentalization" - that is, where we only see and know what we must do, and know nothing else of how we interrelate with the whole of the enterprise.

Deming insisted that employees where to a large extent constrained by the system they worked in. Management's role as such, must revolve around maximizing the development of the system, and the proper role of each employee for the proper functioning of the system. And, that each employee possessed a unique endowment that must be understood by management to properly engage the individual from his area of strength.

The thorough understanding of the intricacies of systems, control processes, and meaningful variables allowed Deming to contribute his theories not only to businesses, but also as a template for education and government reform.

One Deming's most famous dictum is that of "continuous improvement" or kaizen in Japanese. He advocated a purposeful consistency based on continuous improvement. The reasoning involved not only enhanced capacity and innovation, but accordingly costs would ultimately lower as a side-effect of a focus on quality and continuous improvement.

A debt of gratitude to an individual who took profound knowledge to a new level.

Angel Armendariz

Tuning Your Mind State For Ultra Communication

"Every enhancement of life enhances man's power of communication, as well as his power of understanding."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Will To Power

Choose the most effective states of mind, as you awaken, as you go about your day, as you face challenges, as you go to bed. Your state of mind will decide what opportunities you seize. It will decide how resourceful you are and it will allow you to spot meaningful coincidences.

By having a list of questions to ask you actively choose to create the most powerful mind states to accomplish your moment-to-moment intentions. Your state of mind can be thought of as your intensity of mood plus your expectation or outlook. As you rehearse your list of questions on a daily basis, they will soon enough become habitual. After all we continually ask ourselves questions throughout the day that create a mood for us. The problem, is that we usually ask the same questions, and repeat the same moods, or worse, we ask dis-empowering questions that prevent effective action.

Choose questions that will allow you to experience the successes you've had
and what you're most happy about currently. You can ask, "What am I most proud about right now?", or "What possibility most excites me right now?" Once you have a powerful mind state you become open to bountiful possibilities.

An interesting metaphor to consider is a communication device, like a radio or cell phone. A communication device is a "receiver" and "transmitter." However, to properly "receive" or "transmit" the intended message the device needs to be properly tuned. That is, noise has to be eliminated, and the channels need to be open and calibrated. We naturally wish to communicate or transmit ourselves to others congruently. We also wish to be able to "receive" or understand the messages that are being sent to us.

The only way we can tune ourselves, is by first calibrating our mind state to a positive one. One that is receptive to receiving, and one that is capable of transmitting effective and efficient signals. A state of mind that expects success, that feels free, that extends love, that anticipates a win, is an example of a powerful empowering mind state. If our mind state is negative, then effective transmission of our signals is cut off, regardless of how much we desire to communicate the message. Additionally, if our mind state is negative, we become rigid and incapable of receiving a message, regardless of how beneficial or important it might have been for us. Our specific dependence on this continual communication implores us to master our mind state and habituate them to properly enhance the grandeur of our lives.

Angel Armendariz

Playing The Role - a Lesson from a French Emperor

The effective use of your body is extremely extensive. Actors for instance learn the necessity of adjusting their bodies to convey or communicate roles and status. For instance wide stance with an elevated forward chin enhances status. It tells the audience that you're somebody. On the flip side by adjusting your feet to be pigeon-toed, keeping your head tilted down slightly, and collapsing your chest signifies lowered status.

These are two extreme forms of using your body to convey status, but the discrete use of such subtleties allows you to adjust your role accordingly. For instance if you are meeting with a high powered attorney to discuss tempered litigation, and you want to show dominance and status, then you can act in a more dominant matter by allowing your chin to be forward, head high and standing tall. Additionally you can take up more physical space; this is a signifier of status and importance, typically used in acting scenes to make the actor appear larger than himself.

If on the other hand, you want to play a submissive role strategically, then you can consciously close in your space a little. You can narrow your space and bring in your shoulders slightly. A leveled or slightly below level chin will suffice to show submissiveness. Acting submissively does not mean you are, or that you will allow yourself to be steamrolled. It is used as a strategy to engage the other party on their own terms, giving you the ability to position yourself in a more subtle fashion. Additionally, playing a slightly submissive or cooperative role is one of the best ways to disarm whomever you are dealing with.

Napoleon, the infamous French emperor, used such a strategy against the Austrian and Russian armies in the battle of Austerlitz. After having received intelligence that Napoleon appeared confused, and had assumed a defensive position, the Austrain/Russian forces descended for the kill. Napoleon had staged a perfect submissive role, and by making the enemies believe he was submitting, he made them fall right into his trap. The outcome was one of Napoleon's most impressive victories.

Keeping the Grand Strategy in mind, that is, by keeping the end in mind; you can choose the appropriate strategy to gain advance towards your preferred outcome.
(excerpt from upcoming book on Communication)

Angel Armendariz

The Result of Creating Patterns of Success

Confidence - the result of creating patterns of success over time.

Confidence is the state of mind necessary for effective action, courage, and execution. The degree of confidence someone has is directly proportional to the sum of successes one has had. The more successes the more confidence. Recency also plays a role; if we've had great success recently our immediate confidence skews high. If we've had recent failures our confidence skews low. Though we tend to let personal experiences and random circumstances decide our confidence, we must realize that confidence is a variable under our direct control.

I've seen first hand what the damage in personal confidence can do to individuals. I've witnessed top sales performers flipped into vulnerable incompetents because of the inability to properly refine their confidence. In relationships loss of confidence tends to lead us backwards and we may seek to rekindle half-hearted romances that were never really what we wanted. Confidence is a very real and very powerful quality that must be managed and developed as much as other crucial faculties for personal, business, and social efficacy.

There is a huge tool at our disposal that we rarely make use of. That tool is our minds. More accurately, our ability to experience a scenario in our minds. Countless studies, and anecdotal reports from high performers, has confirmed that actively experiencing a success in our minds is almost equivalent to actually having the experience. Neurological studies have confirmed that through active imagination the same areas of the brain become active that become active during a real experience.

The thing to realize is that we all have different ways of visualizing. Some of us "feel" experiences. Others "hear" or "see" experience. Usually it's a mixture of all three. To properly calibrate your most effective form of visualizing you can simply recall, as vividly as possible, a time when you experienced supreme confidence. Analyze the way your recall this experience, and re-experience it in detail. Use that template to craft new experiences of success in your mind.

Napoleon Bonaparte for example, visualized his goals in intense details. In the beginning of the campaign he could see its last battle clearly in his mind. He would point out the exact spot it would end, his predictions proved uncannily correct on an ongoing basis.

Create the patterns of success in your mind, repeat it, and perfect it in your mind as well as in reality.

Angel Armendariz

Beyond Good and Bad

Beyond Good and Bad
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Experience is utility. Utility is the value of a thing to be used for certain ends - basically its usefulness. For example a set of tools are 'utilized' to perform certain mechanical tasks. Experience in and of itself has utility. What I mean by this is that every experience serves as a tool for use to expand our possibilities.

Often, we filter our experiences through a lens that tags circumstances and situations with a 'bad' label or 'good' label. This way of thinking is ancient. Ancient in the sense that it is obsolete and dangerous. To truly make utility out of experience we must create new filters through which we can 'see' reality through a pragmatic lens.

We can see value and utility in all experiences by asking questions that guide our awareness and focus. For example, instead of presupposing a situation is good or bad, you can ask "how is this situation useful.' Also, we can ask 'what opportunities does this situation present?'

By stopping yourself short of analyzing a situation as good or bad, it gives you a chance to apply a new filter and gradually acquire a habit that will increase your quality of life.

- Angel Armendariz

The Element That Hinders Accomplishment

The term 'reverse salient' is a term used in warfare that refers to a constraint or limiting process of an advancing military force. It refers to a point of weakness in an attack; or a lagging element that threatens a military force from accomplishing its mission. Inevitably, having components of any advancing system fall behind foreshadows impending doom.

A reverse salient can be broadened to encompass any system that evolves towards a goal. That is, personal growth, business development, even relationship growth. Without conscious awareness of reverse salients among these domains we risk sabotaging the whole enterprise.

A common reverse salient among individuals and groups is adaptability. Many groups and individuals become good at antiquated methods and procedures. Having become experts at old methods these groups and individuals struggle to "see" a different or better way of achieving their specified outcomes. When adaptability isn't actively nurtured, then it becomes a weak point. Being, a weak point, this reverse salient then becomes a blind spot that can leave the group or individual exposed to danger.

Almost every sales organization I have ever encountered is weak at this point. They are experts at old models that are only half-heartedly applied. Curiously enough, many organizations try to teach or coach best practices, but fail to understand that the message must be bought into and effectively sold to the sales force for the knowledge to become actionable.

To become aware and either cut or fix a reverse salient we must first become aware. To do this we must ask, what part of the process is hindering advancement of this particular enterprise? How would bringing this part of the system up to speed effect the results we are seeking? What can I do to strengthen this reverse salient and make it a strength.

Another insight into the use of the reverse salient concept has to do with zooming in. Most of us work from a strength position. That is we tend to work in things we are strong at. Being strong or effective in a profession for example would lead us to believe that a reverse salient isn't present. However, truthfully, a reverse salient is always present. To leverage this concept we need to zoom in to our specific profession. By doing so we can ask the questions previously mentioned, and inevitably surface a few reverse salients that could potentially lead to accelerated results, enhanced competence and effectiveness, if properly brought up to speed.

In a nutshell, reverse salients are sources of potential growth, and acceleration within systems that are made to advance and evolve.

- Angel Armendariz

Giving Away Today for Yesterday

What are the most pressing and urgent issues on your plate today? Are they perhaps similar to what they were yesterday? I think we can agree that we all have pressing issues that are so internal, that they seem to silently gnaw at our insides. So I ask this question now "How are you going to handle today's problems with yesterday's tools?"

It's interesting how even though we are given a new day full of potential, most of us sell it for yesterday's sentiments and yesterday's troubles. What is the cost of playing footsie with yesterday's issues for the next five years? Assessing a cost to our actions can many times clarify situations and expand our awareness.

To overcome yesterday's issues and pressing matters we must work on ourselves. More accurately, we must grow and be bigger than we were yesterday. Working on the same problem with the same tools in the same manner is futile. But, as Jean Gebser once said:

"All work, genuine work which we must achieve, is that which is most difficult and painful: the work on ourselves."

Work on oneself does not happen by accident, it must be methodically planned for, it doesn't act on you, you must act on it.

Overcoming our pressing issues requires work on some of the following:

- emotional intelligence (self awareness, self discipline, etc.)
- cognitive intelligence (mental know how, etc.)
- social intelligence (interpersonal effectiveness, building relationships, etc.)
- physiological intelligence (health, fitness, etc.)
- spiritual intelligence (faith, love, etc.)

If we fail to plan on developing ourselves through each of these dimensions, we will sacrifice our tomorrows for our yesterdays. Our freedoms to build a better future will be forsaken for yesterday's bittersweet sentiments.

- Angel Armendariz

Perfectly Increasing Returns and The Time Killer Cult

Perfectly Increasing Returns and The Time Killer Cult
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Investing can be a tricky game. After all its partially gambling on anticipated outcomes. What if you knew with almost 100% certainty what the result of an investment would yield? What if you could invest in perfectly increasing returns?
You can! What is the most powerful non-renewable resource you have?...Time!

Time is the most valuable, precious, non-renewable resource available to us. It is continually being spent by each of us in some form. The big question is whether your time is being invested or wasted.

How can we invest our time? Naturally, an investment supposes that there will be a return on the investment (ROI). So ask yourself this - What are the returns I'm receiving on my daily investments of time? For some, they might invest in harnessing a skill necessary to evolve professionally. Still, others might invest in development of their children.

Here's were time management deserves its spoils. Time management is the equivalent to your financial advisor in investing. Exact, purposeful allocation of your time is necessary for accurate results, according to what we wish to have as our life's ROI. Brian Tracy, executive consultant, says for instance that time management is not an auxillary in our life, but should be the very structure about which we build our days from.

One of the biggest enemies of skillful time investing are time killers. Time killers are those "entities" that didn't receive the memo that time is running out. These time killers seek to waste not only their time, but voraciously eat up other people's time. The only way to stop these killers is using a fancy two letter word that can be hard to say - NO.

The most successful individuals in all avenues of life invest their time wisely, they know the value of these investments, and thus they easily decline or say no to time killers. Tiger Woods for example, after one of his most impressive victories of his career said no to celebrating, and to the astonishment of most people was eagerly back in the gym at 5am the very next morning. That's skillful time investing at its best.

- Angel Armendariz

What Is The Purpose?

What Is The Purpose?
Category: Blogging

As you look at a current result that that doesn’t sit well with you, can you figure out how it came about? In retrospect it is a lot easier to see the parts that came together to create a certain result. I’ve come to gather that we don’t consciously create disasters. We do create them, and some of us more frequently than others.

If you can regress and analyze the steps that led to disaster you can probably correlate the result to actions that were taken without purpose. What I mean by that is an action or more precisely a conglomerate or sum of habitual actions that resulted in a horrible outcome.

Example: If you are out of shape or overweight, you probably didn’t purposefully become so. It was more than likely the result of actions taken without a purpose, actions taken out of comfort and momentary pleasure.

By their very nature purposes are things that live in the future, and hence taking actions based on current feelings as opposed to future pleasures leads us to act without purpose and create results that hurt.

Every action will create a result, and we are constantly creating something. To build towards our purposes we must be accountable for our actions. We do this by asking ’What will be the result of this action?’ The more often you ask this throughout the day the more likely you will take consistent action that will lead to meaningful purposes.

Angeol Armendariz

What Do You Want? How Bad Do You Want It? & How Are You Going To Get It?

To create a meaningful and engaging film or play the following questions must be easily answered by the protagonist - what does he/she want, how bad do they want it, and how are they going to get it. The plot then centers on overcoming the obstacles and challenges faced toward reaching the desired goal. Of course the higher the intensity of the protagonists want, the more powerful and convincing the actor will be. And the more challenges faced and overcome the more appealing the storyline.

The actors role is not that much different than real life. Our decisions to want something, and to want it badly ultimately dictates the roles and strategies we play in order to achieve them. Invariably life throws a continual series of roadblocks, challenges, and numerous obstacles on our path to our desires fulfillment. It seems as if a form of Murphy's law is continually in effect to obstruct the intended end result.

Any goal worth achieving will have countless resistances to overcome. That is a given. The most critical part of the whole scheme of things is the answer to the question: How bad do you want it? The more intensity you can associate toward your desired outcome the easier it will be to muster the will necessary to overcome the impending obstacles surrounding your goal. If you can't say with 100% conviction that you will do absolutely anything, that you will sacrifice anything to achieve your goal, then all obstacles encountered along your life path will scare you to death and leave you helpless and crippled; usually leading to acceptance of conformity and complacency.

The bottom line is this - to be taken seriously, to have the best chance of success, and be believable you must be convinced you can have what you want, and have an internal intensity that shows through your actions. Someone who actively is doing something to accomplish a goal is more believable and more certain of success than someone who only wishes or postpones. Lack of action means lack of belief in yourself.