The importance of seriousness in all things cannot be underestimated. However, seriousness—or the lack of it—depends on the values in place; and seriousness as a basis for effective communication (and effective leadership in business) is rarely emphasized or supported. But, how can anyone develop a level of competence or ability but through the consistent and serious application of diligence? There is no other way to develop effectiveness, efficiency, profitability and ability except through taking matters seriously, so seriously in fact that when work has to be done, when answers have to be found, when solutions have to be created, they can be. Competence is the result of seriousness. Therefore, competent communication is the result of seriousness. However, seriousness is value-driven and character oriented. An individual must take a matter seriously, and to do that, the matter is must be valued. Reasonable people do not laugh off serious matters, and business is a serious matter, not just because profitability is at stake, but also because many people from customers to employees (including their families) depend on profitable business operations. This is always true. However, it is rarely emphasized in business schools or in the media, because they tend not to take character seriously.
Competence is the result of taking things serious over time: tasks, projects, concepts, and competence. If seriousness is not practiced in important situations, then people receive no training in how to be serious. It then becomes impossible to develop any respectable level of competence. Competence comes with the serious application of principle. In other words competence depends on dedication. To apply a principle requires several things. First, competence requires knowing the principle involved. Second, competence requires knowing that a principle must be applied. Third, competence requires knowing how that principle can be applied to a situation, which often requires the ability to extrapolate since all relevant facts are often not known. These factors of competence are fundamental. So, why are they rarely if ever emphasized in school, which is the most influential introduction to training and competence that most people will experience in their life times? In addition, the factors of competence also require a certain level of self-trust (one of the three pillars of the Shinsei Method™), which in turn is developed through a serious and dedicated effort, which of course requires concentration. Competence and character cannot be divorced from each other because competence requires a dedicated and long term competence to struggling with important questions and finding practical answers. This necessarily implies certain character traits: discipline, dedication, diligence, and an appreciation for the value of long term thinking. These traits can be developed only in an individual with a certain level of seriousness. Therefore, concentration requires seriousness. However, compulsory education at least in America tends to demean the value of seriousness in favor of “fun,” ease, quantity, and speediness, which all emphasize and train individuals to be oriented toward the short term. In other words, school “training” impedes the development of one of the most crucial values in business, management, leadership, communication, and life: long term value. To achieve long term oriented value such as competence despite this trend, it is crucial to acknowledge the trend, and go in a different direction. This could be called the essence of leadership. However, it most certainly requires a certain level of inner-strength, inner-balance, and especially self-trust. To buck a trend requires a high degree of certainty towards the new direction, and towards the individual values that motivate the decision to take a new direction. If many other people take a different course, there is a significant amount of pressure to “go with the flow,” to “get with the program,” to “go along and get along.” To resist that pressure requires inner-strength, inner-balance, and trust in the self.
Business training especially business school training tends not to emphasize principle and how principles are interconnected. However, it is precisely this insight that makes experience so valuable. People who learn to solve problems over a period of time gain insight into what they do. However, they only incorporate that insight into future operations if they take that experience seriously. In other words, they must value learning and experience. How is this achieved if a majority of school training propagandizes individuals to take learning—and thus experience and ability—lightly? This is easily seen in the way school programs are structured. Not to inculcate a lasting understanding, but to get students “through” programs the fastest way possible while touching on as many small points as possible. What does this approach communicate? The importance of practical ability and permanent competence? Or, a superficial, short term focus? Moreover, if a long term commitment is required to develop or improve something, how can a high level of integrity be expected to develop? Again, integrity is a value-oriented, character-driven ideal that is developed over the long-term with a long-term commitment to develop it. Ability like incompetence builds on itself.
These points demonstrate the importance of value in everything. Seriousness is a value, but it can only be an important value if it is first recognized to be important. Second, to have meaning, seriousness must be supported by the conduct of the people involved especially those in “leadership” roles. If seriousness is rewarded in word, deed, and money, it will tend to develop in people. Individuals then will inculcate a by-product benefit to this style of training. They will incorporate the importance of the long term, which of course is clearly needed for planning, strategizing, mentoring, or resolving conflicts. It will become serious training, and a training in being serious. This underscores the importance of principle and how principle molds the process, the people, and results. It also demonstrates how results are determined and defined through the ideas and practices that dominate particular situations. In business, managers have control over which ideas and practices define the business. The culture that is established will also define and shape the results and the quality of those results. The same applies to education, family, community, etc. In a culture that promotes and rewards seriousness, people will gain training in seriousness and in how to be serious. Seriousness establishes the foundation for developing skills, traits, and talents that depend on a certain level of seriousness, and that form the basis for professional competence. On the other hand, when a lack of seriousness is promoted in the various cultural trends, in the way people are compensated, in how important topics are treated or omitted, in the importance of ideas, and in which ideas are important; or in the emphasis on socializing over substance, people will be trained. What is the quality of that training? How competent are the people that this type of training produces?