Wandering with Reckless Abandon

I am sorry.

I will rephrase this: Please forgive me.

For those of you that were not there, I gave this poor soul some really nasty looks and thought none-too-pleasant thoughts about him as he backed up traffic for quite a while.

Since begining my present position selling Fine Ford Automobiles I have entered into a world that I was relatively unfamiliar with: rush hour traffic. Now, I had endured commute traffic in previous occupations, but this is a more consistant version where it takes me 25 minutes to get to work in the non-rush periods, but during rush hour it takes me 90 minutes. Because I am a geek, I have begun to analyze the way traffic works. I have decided that both the Baltimore Beltway and I-83 need more lanes… and I have begun to really see the value in good, clean, undisturbed flow.

It amazes me the impact that one vehicle going 35 in the left lane can have on traffic for quite a distance. The slowing that occurs because of people manuevering to get around him, the manuevering to get around the people that are manuevering to get around him, and so on and so forth…

I am a fan of flow.

I am a fan of watching things move the way that they were designed to. I remember when I was growing up how I would love to find puddles and trickles of water and create intricate lakes and ponds and canals for the water to flow through (no wonder people thought I was odd). I love watching the flow of a system, seeing how each part affects another. This is why I love leadership, and team building so much. I love being part of the process that shapes and develops the culture and flow of an organization… And I love being able to help the organization flow more freely.

As I look around it never fails to blow my mind how many organizations operate without any kind of flow. How there are so many organizations (churches, business, civic groups, etc.) operate in a disjointed manner where one person driving 35 in the left lane is throwing everything out of whack, and causing the entire organization to be disjointed, ineffective, and futureless.

The power that the left lane driver has is enormous. The power to cause all of the traffic behind him to swerve and slow, causing others to swerve and slow, causing others to… you get the point… So, the question becomes how do you lead through this?

So far as I can tell there are a few possibilities…

First, you can ram the guy from behind. This can be very effective in getting your point across, but not so effective in allowing there to be any kind of flow afterwards (plus the insurance bills involved are monstrous after this). We have all heard stories of what happens when one person enters into a situation with guns a blazing trying to force change… and we have all heard the stories of the aftermath. Not only does it fail, it generally leaves the organization in worse shape than before (and more entrenched in their ways).

Second, you can continue to swerve and pass. While this can be limitedly successful (it gets you out of the situation), it still leaves the problem intact. Many times an organization will swerve around an issue in an attempt to keep the peace. Basically they semi-ignore the problem… swerving around it when they have to deal with it, and leaving it behind them at the first opportunity. This tends to be the path of least resistance, because it does not involve people having to leave thier comfort zones to tell another to speed up and get with the program. Unfortunately the problem is allowed to persist for years and years… hurting the overall effectiveness of the organization and causing bitterness, resentment, and a sense of frustration.

Lastly, you can deal with the issue. This is where my metaphor breaks down (unless you are a policeman and have the authority to pull someone over and tellingn them to get with the program). Basically there is a time in every organization where people need to suck it up and do what needs to be done. These are the times when you need to pull the guy over, confront him with the issue, show them the disjointedness that they have caused, and help them to move forward in a way that allows the entire organization to regain its’ flow.

This probably qualifies as one of those posts that should be catagorized under the duh section, but it has been something I have been talking through with a bunch of people lately. So, I continue to strive each day to improve my own flow (ok, middle school snicker moment), and to man-up when I need to, that I might be able to positively impact the flow of those around me and the organizations that I am part of…