How to kill community

I sat down in the auto service customer waiting room. Three others were there. Two of them were women who talked with each other about local news, Christmas shopping, weather and road conditions. I had brought "Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot" (second time through) and hoped to read some. Of course, there was a television set in the room, but it was turned off. An employee walked in and said, "We've got to get the TV on in here." He found the remote and fired up the box. The easy comfort in the space evaporated. Conversation stopped, reading became more difficult and focus (more like blank stares) turned from people to whatever was passing for news and entertainment. If only one of us had stopped him. We might have kept community going for a bit longer. One of the best pieces of coaching I ever heard was, "You just can't any better watching TV."

Cognitive Hijacking at the Hospital

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices studies doctor road rage in the hospital. The NYT reports; "40 percent of hospital staff members reported having been so intimidated by a doctor that they did not share their concerns about orders for medication that appeared to be incorrect. As a result, 7 percent said they contributed to a medication error...Every nurse has a story about obnoxious doctors. A few say they have ducked scalpels thrown across the operating room by angry surgeons. More frequently, though, they are belittled, insulted or yelled at — often in front of patients and other staff members — and made to feel like the bottom of the food chain."
Are there organizations more loaded up with anxiety than hospitals? These are places where sick people and their worried families hope for life saving help. Emotional triangles are created. And medical personnel, with litte or no understanding of emotional triangles, succumb to the anxiety.

The Lessons of Peter Senge

15 years ago, I became a fan of Peter Senge, through his book, The Fifth Discipline, the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.
Among the lessons I learned and use in my consulting is today's solutions are usually tomorrow's problems.
Like this;

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2008/11/25/the-flex-fuel-fiasco.aspx

The future for non-anxious leadership

Overparenting posses a threat to the development of future non-anxious leaders.
New Yorker's Joan Acocella reviews “A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting” by Hara Estroff Marano, an editor-at-large at Psychology Today.
Money quote: Overparented students who avoid or survive college meltdowns are still impaired, Marano argues. Having been taught that the world is full of dangers, they are risk-averse and pessimistic. (“It may be that robbing children of a positive sense of the future is the worst form of violence that parents can do to them,” she writes.) Schooled in obedience to authority, they will be poor custodians of democracy. Finally—and, again, she stresses this—their robotic behavior will threaten "American leadership in the global marketplace".

The Car Guys

The auto CEOs traveled in their corporate jets to D.C. Imagine those corporate PR group meetings where the appearances were planned. Some brave soul probably thought and maybe even said - at some risk - "It would look awful if the boss went to Washington in the G-4. Let's suggest he fly commercial." The thought was either unspoken or shot down. "Who'se going to tell him to do that? Not me!" Fast forward to the review meetng after the boss returned. There was surely hell to pay.
Anxious organizations are gridlocked. Clear thinking, problem solving and courageous speaking are casualties. Thinkers stop thinking. Unless leaders in the auto industry learn to calmly face their own reality, financial success is unlikely.

Philadelphia

My wife, my sister and her husband and I are starting a new ritual; travel somewhere interesting together. We visited Philadelphia over a recent weekend. I have traveled extensively, but I had never seen the Liberty Bell or Independence Hall and Square. As we stood in the room where our country was born I was deeply affected by the space and the contemplation of what happened there. A few days later I voted in the presidential election. There's an incredible line of connection between the room in Philadelphia and the polling place in my little town in Minnesota.

Fear Factor Flu

It's spreading. (See our Healing Leaders Newsletter dated 10/9/2008.) A recent workshop, containing material on how to manage anxiety, experienced a dramatic drop in registered attendance. Those pulling out gave as one reason; "I've got to put the time into selling a couple more deals. They might be the last deals I'll do."