- In-general, What is Professional Acumen
“Professional Acumen” is group based learning & sharing of social, emotional, and logical skills, used to identify and fill gaps, to usefully contribute in achieving group goals; resulting in consistently earning and sharing trust, and related shared respect.
Knowing the above relationships allows a person to more often identify whom is using Professional Acumen, but does not provide the practiced experiences necessary for a person to consistently express Professional Acumen. However, Professional Acumen can be learned; and taught.
Professional Acumen depends upon the ability to teach yourself. To express learned perspectives and relationships consistent with the changing needs of a particular group; being useful. Respect is gained from being useful. Disrespect is gained from being wasteful or otherwise destructive.
Logical Acumen is often learned through Mentored Research. Homework providing problem solving and writing experiences in school, to help provide the logical acumen needed. Critical Reasoning in high school and college providing a more refined understanding of logical consideration. Aspects of Critical Reasoning are taught beginning the first day of school, yet advanced understanding of what makes reasoning illogical, i.e. fallacies, are often deferred until college.
Mentored team based project building helps provide the needed emotional acumen.
While studying and interacting in productive social relationships, identifies the organizational structure, and obligations (expectations with consequences) regulated by social structures.
General Purpose of Human Life
Is there a root from which human life has purpose, that professionalism supports?
“Promote that which sustains evolving the greatest sustainable diversity of ALL life and cultures.”
This is the only purpose of human life that does not result in self-destruction in the long term.
By living as a supporting part of many cultures (family, schools, group interests {insects, reptiles, fungi … everything non-human}, professions, art, music, social media, government, … even fitness clubs) an individual lives as an interconnection that evolves diversity to grow the future for ALL life.
As opposed to destroying what makes life beautiful, interesting, and healthy; diversity.
Stop self-destruction
How Professionalism converts natural self-destructive human behaviors to support a respected purpose to live.
Every thought of humans is self-serving, even when helping others. This is part of how the brain works for survival. However, far more can be consistently accomplished through mutually-serving group interactions. Professional Acumen is the related group communication and growth process.
Success builds based on useful accomplishment. We all must learn to be able to recognize lower risk pathways in achieving goals. High risk efforts usually fail, which means a failure in earning trust. Earning disrespect and disdain.
Developing skills of learning and how to apply what is learned, is extremely important to consistently express Professional Acumen. With consistent application of Professional Acumen, high risk pathways in achieving goals, can be converted to low-risk pathways and successful accomplishments.
Bulls-eye accomplishments are achieved from learning and practice.
A drug addict with their damaged brain is confident, even though they lack the skills to achieve what they say. They have no usefully developed self-respect. Pressure to abuse drugs and alcohol by people you consider friends, or that you initially consider worthy of trust, is in direct contradiction to becoming successful. One dose of a highly addictive substance, can lead to brain and physical deformities, that cannot be cured; i.e. kills the brain and the capacity to be consistently useful. That prevent being able to think at the level needed for continued earned trust. No ability to be trustworthy in handling any complex set of relationships.
This is a letter (click here) of someone who once did well in school, and they wanted to be “in” with the popular group at school.
As an example, how do you go about effective and successful investing in the Stock Market? There are many successful strategies; all of which requires research, learning, testing, optimizing … all of which requires a personal investment in efforts. You don’t know about something, if you choose not to take the time and efforts to learn about it.
Professional Acumen requires a willingness to independently learn, and if competent mentoring is available, to use mentored insights to guide useful personal independent studies.
Most of what a person learns in school is through homework, not the classes themselves. Practicing solving problems and expressing one’s self in writing, develops the brain tissues needed to do more complex efforts. Teachers and Mentors guide study and practiced efforts.
A perspective is a system of mutually consistent relationships. Professional Acumen attempts to realistically develop perspectives that can be consistently applied broadly with success.
Self-deception occurs where gaps in a perspective, are filled with unreasonable relationships. People are considered mentally challenged, criminal, or without Professional Acumen when deception and/or self-deception is evident.
Expressing a lie can be criminal; earn distrust, shunned from opportunities, and potentially incarcerated. To express self-deceit is mentally weak; earning distrust, shunned from opportunities, and self-esteem harmed. Both intentional and unintentional deception makes a person untrustworthy.
A mutually supporting group that consistently expresses common sense, builds far more sustainable growth than an individual can sustain by themselves; professionalism.
Every 10 years, the purchasing power of saved money decreases to about 2/3 of its original earned value. Money must be invested with at least a 6% annual profit to maintain its value in the United States.
Common investments include:
- getting an education as a politician, physician, engineer, scientist, software applications developer…
- flipping houses
- stocks
- real estate leasing
- real estate investment
- real estate management
- becoming a general contractor
- buying and selling businesses
- investment broker
- creating a bank or other financial institution
- … Professional Acumen and passion are required to participate productively in any of these investment opportunities.
Skills in consistently expressing Professional Acumen, provide the mental tools to learn how to invest successfully.
Types of organizations that stagnate without significant growth are: mafia, clubs, dictatorships, kingdoms … any organization infected by an administrative mafia.
Emotional Intelligence and Social Acumen are not at all valued, understood, nor taught in public schools. Yet these are critical skills to be successful as an adult.
The languages of English and literacy (common foundation of expression), art (emotional expression and physical coordination), and science/mathematics (logic) are manipulation skills (STEM). But Professional Acumen (social and emotional skills of group interactions coupled with logical relationships), are not taught nor practiced commonly.
Students are expected to learn Professional Acumen themselves, without ever knowing what Professional Acumen is.
Teachers attempt to give students what they need to be successful to sequentially complete each year of classes. But consistently expressing Professional Acumen is not an expectation.
Currently, many students graduate without ever having a strong grasp of Professional Acumen. Not able to set and implement priorities. Not able to work productively with other diverse people and groups.
Students before they become a valuable part of success using common core skills, permanently damage their ability to think productively, with alcohol, drugs, violence, and criminal thought processes.
Common Core public education provides most of the environment for learning pieces of Professional Acumen; without putting it all together to be practiced. Hoped is that teachers and parents learn to teach Professional Acumen here, to eliminate much of the homeless and crimes of the future.
Additionally, giving students the insight as to how Professional Acumen works, and giving them the opportunities to practice mentored expression of Professional Acumen, helps students to teach themselves how to consistently earn Respect, and gain access to significant opportunities.
“Learning to teach yourself” is a practiced set of skills that are key factors in being perceived as intelligent:
- consistently having a healthy body
supporting the delicate needs of the brain - persistence (strength to be useful), and
- practiced expression of useful relationships/skills
This is why mal-nutrition, marijuana and abuse of other drugs, nicotine (addictive insecticide), huffing glue, industrial chemical contamination, and any other chronic disruption of brain synapse and/or neuron processes, causes what is commonly cited as mentally impaired, or in urban slang, meat head, lame, dumb, blown… without common sense.
Just as drugs and alcohol can corrupt the mind to make consistently expressing Professional Acumen impossible. Corrupt practices of individuals within a group/organization, tend to abuse group/organization resources, … and opportunities. Very often, those recruited to become part of Administrative Mafia are chosen because of their weaknesses, and are easily micromanaged (enforcers). Administrative Mafia often do not possess the skills needed to be competent in the appointed position they hold. They are not respected, and often earn disdain from those who are actually productive.
Foundation of Professional Acumen
Dictionaries are only archives of commonly used interpretations of words and phrases by everyone, to include the uneducated. Very often definitions are vague and have inconsistent relationships with other words. A lexicon is a system of definitions that intentionally are mutually consistent to provide a useful means of interacting with a perspective.
The following is a lexicon for relating to Professional Acumen:
Professional Acumen = Self-Esteem (the trust gained from sharing useful information and/or skills with peer groups; social and emotional acumen) + logical thinking (critical reasoning) + predicting consequences with an emphasis on sustaining support of desired outcomes
Method to Teach Professional Acumen – Click Here
“Persistence” and “Attention to Detail” allow for productively expressing Professional Acumen with greater consistency. Those lacking these skills often are excluded from significant opportunities, unless they become “Yes-Men” within an Administrative Mafia.
Respect = the communication process of sharing useful information and/or skills with a peer group and the associated trust conveyed.
“Expectation” is broad predicted outcomes, relative to a consideration.
“Obligation” is “Expectation” with inferred consequences; mostly unspoken.
Disdain = the communication process of sharing non-useful and/or destructive information and/or skills with a peer group and the associated distrust conveyed.
Self-Respect (learning to convey a level of trustworthiness for shared useful relationships) = the conveyed level of trust one has in the accumulating collection of contributions resulting in Respect and Disdain received. From a combination of all social groups engaged. Through empathy the individual detects from the trust conveyed to them by all of the groups.
Self-Respect is common to all groups, and the Respect/Trust generated from the combined experiences in each group contributes in part to the total number of situations a person can usefully express Self-Respect. Self-Respect comes from learned experiences, and is used to generate body language and voice inflections to accurately and without deception, to guide others.
Self-Respect shared within a group, allows the group to more accurately assess risks, and apply useful efforts appropriately.
A person that is Arrogant has difficulty in expressing Self-Respect, and instead tends to express loathing of others. Arrogant people are difficult to work with as they do not know how to generate mutual trust, so they tend to micro-manage efforts and exclude the useful advice of others. Arrogant people tend to rise into positions of corrupt leadership; and stagnate growth.
Self-Esteem (usefulness specific to each group) = is attributed by others of a group as the accumulating collection of useful outcomes relative to teaching one’s self useful information and skills; the trust one has in-general that they are usefully recognized in providing support for the needs of the group they selectively choose to engage. Self-Esteem is built by accurately detecting through body language and voice inflections of others, the groups conveyed trust as a whole.
Self-Confidence = is attributed to one’s self as the accumulating collection of useful outcomes relative to teaching one’s self useful information and skills; the trust one has in completing a related proposed task.
Self-Confidence is largely related to previous practiced experience. While Arrogance is largely related to excluding competent influence in the control of an allocated resource and/or opportunity.
Self-Confidence and Arrogance have similar body language; but, Self-Confident people/coalitions consistently teach themselves new useful information/skills to share with their groups. While Arrogant people are subversive and manipulate rhetoric, they loath others and have no intention to share useful information.
Arrogant people spend more time thinking of ways not to lose their political position, than time spent on usefully serving the beneficial groups in which they are a part.
in serving each group.
Self-Respect guides how to attribute trust to others
to guide mutual participation in ALL groups.
How Professional Acumen is Usually Learned
Everyone has some common sense. A baby learns quickly how to get fed on demand. However adults must:
- “choose wisely”, “to research and teach themselves the most USEFUL path to achieve and sustain a desired quality of life for themselves, their family, friends, community, and coworkers
- adults are required to reasonably predict the future
- predicting the future provides Access to Opportunities
- children learn by many thousands of parent interactions over 20 years, what to expect in diverse situations
- none of us learn what to expect in all situations
- many are not so fortunate to have mentored training
- many become victims of brain damage before they learn the skills to reasonably predict future consequences, and determine what paths they must follow to create their future
- choose paths that build resources in support of being able to take new pathways that require more resources, to participate with reasonable certainty
- resources might be knowledge related to being broadly prepared while backpacking, …or starting a business
- choose pathways that provide support in acquiring access to new significant low-risk opportunities throughout life and build goals to be sustained for life
- set priorities and follow them, despite the efforts of those unworthy of respect, those who corrupt useful development through waste, fraud, and abuse of other people’s developed resources; destroying the development of significant low-risk opportunities; leaving high risks and insignificant opportunities for their family, friends, coworkers, and community to suffer
- become an individual, and to have useful influence within family, work, and community
- actively and consistently share respect, and development of opportunities and related additional access to under-utilized resources, with those who have proven themselves worthy of respect; those trusted to accurately represent themselves and their skills, i.e. those with Self-Respect.
The addict destroys their own brain, and destroys the brains of others by pushing people into addiction (brain damage). Addiction causes large gaps in common sense. More than half of all prison inmates used marijuana before getting caught. Drug-use prevents adequately predicting consequences; and therefore causes high risks for anyone associated with them related to career plans.
Drama and feeling “In the Dark”
Drama relates to political influence, not at all related to actual issues.
“In the Dark” relates to the result of political influence to create layers of members that have actual different ethical treatment.
The result is an unethical control of group resources and opportunities that are managed in support of agendas different than intended by the group; i.e. mafia. Often there are multiple mafia competing for dominant control over allocation of resources; wasting resources, disabling growth, endangering overall group security in supporting intended group purposes.
People are not born to be respected, but some people/groups learn to overcome self-deceit and take the initiative to learn things beneficial to their groups to earn respect; and learn to express Self-Respect to convey an accurate level of confidence in their task related abilities. This allows the group to act usefully in achieving intended goals. Groups often overlap family, friends, work, political representation, classes, clubs, future employers, mentors …
CORRUPTION =
(in-general, to include weakening a mafia)
THE HARM OF SYSTEM INTEGRITY
(specific to organization mission)
UNETHICAL AND/OR ILLEGAL ALLOCATION OF ORGANIZATION RESOURCES AND/OR OPPORTUNITIES
If a person wants to apply their passion, and efforts contradict the purposes of the group, they should not squander group resources and opportunities on their personal interests. Instead, they should develop a different group and instead ethically acquire resources and opportunities to promote the independent group’s mission and intents.
RACKETEERING = ANY COALITION OF TWO OR MORE PERSONS AND/OR CORPORATIONS ACTING WITH INTENTION TO PROMOTE CORRUPTION
TREASON = ANY SOCIAL GROUP REPRESENTATIVE WITH INTENTION TO WEAKEN SOCIAL GROUP SECURITY FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROMOTING CORRUPTION
Treason can be with respect to localized organizations, or nationally. In a perfect ethical society, treason at any level indirectly is treason at the national level. However, because of the complexity of individual health, logical, emotional, and social systems throughout society, treason within an organization does not mean that treason at the national level is necessarily implicated.
MAFIA = A social group that imposes selective ethics for different classes of its members, and excludes intentional ethical treatment of non-members.
Mafia rarely, if ever, broadly develop new significant opportunities. Therefore, its members suffer stagnation, the motivated leave, and eventually the organization perishes.
To break up an entrenched mafia, monitor for corrupt practices and arrogance. Arrogance is the loathing of others, and is an indication of incompetence; problems with social, emotional, and/or logic skills.
- Eliminate those that abuse drugs and alcohol because they cannot consistently express common sense; impaired brain function.
- Then relocate related personnel into positions without influence in previous duties. Evaluate them on actual performance, and not loyalty.
- Provide every person with an accurate assessment of their innate value to the organization mission and vision.
- Do NOT reward loyalty, and provide resources and opportunities to those who are competently productive, not the politically affluent; this builds passion throughout an organization. Passion is usually valued more than financial compensation, as a result the organization gets more done with less resources.
- To break up Administrative Mafia in large organizations, like government. Remove access to financial resources; financial resources based on real return on investment and not falsified and misleading documentation. Mafia leadership is most often micro-managed; leadership has no real skills themselves. Without continuous funding they quickly lose effectiveness and competent leadership rises into positions requiring common sense.
If a mafia is just forming, do not over react. Often the initiation of a mafia is because a weakness in the organization was found; or a new organization development is particularly useful, but under utilized. Instead, re-organize to focus upon the organization mission. People that have a passion for developing a particular strength, can be provided mentored support to ethically support the organization. To prevent developing an administrative mafia to support the passion of one agenda.
GOVERNMENT / ADMINISTRATION = A formalized structure not dependent upon whom occupies positions in office, whereby the structure largely determines the day to day operations, and interfacing social groups evolve local mechanisms of who benefits at whom’s expense, based on the ethical consistency imposed by the structure (Constitution, Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, Operations Manual, Process Forms and other structure based mechanisms)
One should determine if what they want to engage is a Government, or a Mafia. The method of successful participation strongly depends upon which structure is being used. In a mafia, loyalty and seniority are rewarded using organization resources, and competence is of little value (corruption rewarded). In government, competence and competent productivity are valued with priority over corruption.
TEAMING = Forming a group skilled in Professional Acumen to passionately research and develop new significant organization opportunities.
Incremental creative developments spawned from passion (a knowing of innate value in a group) creates new access to under-utilized resources, improves efficiency, and develops new significant opportunities made available to the organization. When an ethical organization prospers, so does its members.
EMPIRE BUILDING = is the unethical and/or illegal allocation resources and/or opportunities issued to the less productive and/or incompetent to reward loyalty (creating Yes-Men, micro-management), to entrench corrupt leadership, and diminish productivity for, and diminish value of the organization.
Insights Regarding Corruption
Administrative Mafia tend to form because a small group values loyalty over competence. They convey to each other through body language and voice inflections the mutual trust in loyalty. Because of this, they rise inappropriately into positions of leadership; killing organization passion to serve the organization mission. Destroying productive diversity, destroying the power of interactive division developments, squandering resources and opportunities that would normally support organization growth.
Empire Building broadly kills passion within an organization; obstructing the useful formation of Teaming. Teaming creates teams of competent personnel and/or coalitions to grow a greater number of opportunities. Mafia creates teams of personnel and/or coalitions to squander and hord available opportunities. Empire Building creates an Administrative Mafia.
ANY “Empire Building” done within a government administration is an act of forming a Mafia, is Racketeering, and is Treason.
Part of Civil Rights is that Representation is Free of Treason.
Self-deception is the greatest destructive quality, because it tricks a person to take an easy path that prevents them from making logical decisions and following needed priorities.
When organization personnel serve leadership interests not strongly related to the “intended mission” of the organization, then they are a part of an internal “administrative mafia” within the organization, instead of serving the interests of the organization.
Feeling “In the Dark”, is from not making a persistent effort to develop group related information/skills. For people with weak skills in expressing Professional Acumen, this is common. But they can be taught.
However
“Administrative Mafia” intentionally prevent useful participation in the group, to force ethical and/or competent members into subservient positions, or to cause them to ultimately leave the group. Very often, the competent are over-worked to provide for the needs of the group, are forced to accept responsibilities for staff known to be incompetent, to intentionally drive them out of the organization. For professionals, not allowed to fire the staff they are in-charge of, can potentially result in losing their professional licensing. The competent professionals must leave to protect their future related to family and community. The organization suffers due to the loss of competence, and the promotion of incompetence.
Administrative Mafia kill Passion to serve the Mission
“Administrative Mafia” broadly kills PASSION in serving the organization mission.
Because the “Administrative Mafia” provides no useful mentoring related to intended goals (usually criminal in nature), the best efforts of an ostracized member results in unintentionally sharing useless information/skills (wasting time) and/or engaging destructive efforts (wasting resources). This is “Evidence” used by the Administrative Mafia to justify expulsion of a member. This is not the fault of the ostracized member, they are being set up for failure. The group then conveys more Disdain than Respect to create “in the Dark”, a void in empathy. A lack of useful body language and voice inflections normally used by group members to usefully guide each other. The ostracized are powerfully expressing the need to be mentored, while the Administrative Mafia intentionally ignore them. Through empathy the person senses the distrust of the group, so their Self-Esteem suffers; “in the Dark”.
Unless a person is skilled in breaking up “Administrative Corruption”, they will most often be happier and feel more passion in participating as a team member, by finding a different group to support. Active consistent “useful” communications related to group goals and mentoring, are absolutely required to achieve group desired outcomes. Passion is the routine knowing of worth to the mission of the group. Administrative Mafia actively destroy passion within corporate culture.
“Administrative Mafia”, an Actual Criminal Organization
In-general, “Administrative Mafia” have the intent to support actual crime within administration; illegal allocation of group resources and opportunities. Incompetent personnel promoted because they are incompetent or their environment controlled through by micro-management. Micro-management often is an indication of both an incompetent supervisor and an incompetent manager. The incompetent extend unreasonable loyalty because their position and rewards depend upon doing what they are told, unconditionally.
This is the “Glass Ceiling” women and minorities have had to suffer in the past related to racism and sexism; and currently. Loyalty to a person is a greater priority than loyalty to the company mission. Company resources and related opportunities are delegated related to loyalty instead of competence; squandering resources that otherwise benefit growth. Those in control of allocating resources and opportunities are manipulated into becoming micro-managed.
Employees should avoid people and peer groups where Drama persists; the company deserves better. Drama is “creating emotional stress with no useful outcomes”; a political influence not related to actual issues. If there is actual meaningful evidence shared it is useful communication; communication without evidence is Gossip, Scuttle-butt, and Rumors; all are forms of using Drama for political influence. Critical Reasoning, evidence-based Critical Thinking, and expert Mentors should provide the resources to identify gaps in proposals, and provide for sustained mission-centered group passion.
Those participating in Drama have no intent to teach themselves something useful (develop meaningful evidence) to share with their peer group(s); so they are or become Arrogant (loathing of self and/or others). No accomplishment occurs and they rely on self-deceit to develop a sense of unjustified entitlement. They tend to lie, cheat, and steal because they unjustly want what others justly develop. Arrogance often is an indicator of a willingness to falsify company documents. Creating gaps in understanding company performance issues. Arrogance (loathing of self and/or others) is cause to suspect increased risks associated with their efforts.
No one ever gives a person Respect !!!! Individual social politeness, or in the case of an organization wanting to develop more resources, is to offer a person or company the opportunity to Earn Respect. Abuse of this opportunity kills future mutually supported growth.
Self-confidence is built from personal accomplishments. A feeling of certainty that types of useful tasks can be completed.
Self-Esteem accumulates from the total of events within a peer group where respect and disdain are conveyed (trust and distrust). Self-Esteem is sensed by empathy, and is conveyed by the group members.
Self-respect is different than self-esteem. Self-esteem guides oneself toward better serving the group. Self-respect is used to accurately guide others through body language and voice inflections; accurately conveying to the group the level of certainty regarding what is being expressed. Together, Self-respect and Self-esteem provide social communication based in logic, emotions, and social acumen to work together, and reward each other equitable to broadly build passion in supporting the mission.
Professional Acumen REQUIRES acting on ones own initiative and persistence to research and learn how to usefully contribute to the needs of the group mission. A person skilled in expressing Professional Acumen, is well experienced in searching for and learning on their own to support the company mission. Do you know/understand what your company mission is? Does the administration audited actual evidence indicate abuse of labor hours, lack of competency, inappropriate allocation of opportunities, or waste of resources; i.e. corruption.
An “Administrative Mafia” is illegally allocating opportunities and/or resources to further their agenda instead of the Company Mission; i.e. Racketeering. Traitors to the Company. This is a form of embezzlement.
By understanding the relationships of Professional Acumen, a person with Professional Acumen is able to detect related weaknesses in others and interact with them usefully, by compensating for risks those people will likely generate in their efforts. While at the same time, allowing for other group members to compensate for our own weaknesses. Together, a group skilled in Professional Acumen can provide much more, with realistic confidence, with less resources, sustain company passion, and more efficiently drive growth.