Tales of Our TimesBy JOHN BARTLIT
New Mexico Citizens
for Clean Air & Water
Think Big, Think Again, Think Of Ways To Improve
A close look at modern institutions—such as big companies, big political parties and lobby groups—finds a most peculiar approach to self-promotion. The custom is so familiar we forget how really bizarre it is. The oddness is unmistakable when we see it on a human scale: A man walks up to you on the street, sticks out his hand with a smile and says, “Hi, my name is Joe. I’m perfect.”
You might hold back a laugh, hurry away or call the police. The last thing you would do is believe the nut case. Not many would take him as a friend or consider doing business with him. Yet, this queer method is the model for the mass messages commerce and politics supply for the public. No wonder trust is as scarce as furry fish.
Big organizations, like people at times, too sharply act like poor bumbling Joe. The feeling that festers, although slower to form, is exactly the same as on the street. It can be no different. One of our strongest instincts tells us that nothing is perfect. Being believed is the least likely outcome of any claim to being nearly so.
I suggest a better approach, one rooted in continuous improvement. In other words, make a pitch for being a good work in progress. The dynamics are wholly different. The usual pitch proclaims, “We know the answers. We are full of virtues.” In contrast, the theme of continuous improvement is, “We see the weak spots in what we do and have ideas to fix them. We strive to make them work and work out more ideas. Examples are X, Y and Z.”
Stack up and weigh the merits on each side. On one hand, we find a person, corporation, or faction wanting to be seen as impossibly perfect. On the other side, we find the insight to see flaws of our own, not just in someone else; the honesty to report them; and the ideas and agility to improve some of them. Ignoring obvious blind spots is a vice. Insight, honesty, ideas and agility are all virtues. Why not put your best side forward?
A page from history may help. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president first to cope with the Great Depression. He did not attack the problem with “here’s what we need to do,” since nobody knew. His approach to the havoc was to try things … many things, watch to see which ones helped and stop the rest. Then try more things. Insight, ideas, and agility are the ways to improvement and success.
The urgent wait for a remotely perfect outcome is long and immensely frustrating. We don’t arrive at final solutions very often, if ever. And we rarely know when we get there. By contrast, improvements can be seen as they happen. And they lead on to the next round of improvements. Each is a step on the proverbial journey of a thousand miles.
Another look may help clarify the problem with the public face of large organizations. At times I say, “act like a person.” The instincts of common sense do not become null and void when words come from a giant. Why should they? Any giant group has as little chance of being perfect as a person does. We know it in our bones.
So a big organization would do well to act like a person, not some imagined, perfect creature. Efforts to appear flawless don’t pass muster. Critics find faults with great ease, which congeal into proof that the company is a confirmed liar. Improvements are not an end-all, yet more progress is a working approach.
Insight, honesty, ideas and agility build a useful way to move forward. Be done with, “My name is Joe. I’m perfect.”
