Telephone Posts and Priorities – September 1, 2024

LEARN A LITTLE:

Telephone Posts and Priorities

A few weeks ago, I was traveling to a meeting a few hours away. As I transitioned to the rural countryside, I noticed all of the newly erected telephone poles lining the highway. At 55 miles an hour, each pole appeared very large as I came upon it and sped by. Of course, it rapidly diminished in size as I came upon the next one. Passing the telephone poles on the long curves heightened the perception.

This was not the first time I had had this experience, so it was not a surprise when the wisdom of C.S. Lewis came back to me. “The crisis of the present moment, like the telephone post, will always loom the largest.”

The timing was interesting because I had just spent some time talking with a CEO regarding a crisis his organization was facing. Crises are interesting phenomenon that we all experience in our personal lives as well as in our work lives. If we are to flourish, keep on going and sustain our efforts, we must learn how to respond to a crisis. Critical events demand our immediate attention.

A crisis may present itself in our personal lives as a heart attack, the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease, death of a spouse or loss of a job. On an organizational level, corporate leaders may experience a dramatic loss in revenue, a major lawsuit or loss of certification. Failure to respond could result in economic ruin. In reality, almost everyone responds to a crisis, but it is also evident that some individuals respond better than others to these difficult moments.

A point I would like to emphasize is that not every telephone post is a crisis. A cold, a headache or car trouble, while problematic, do not, by definition, constitute a crisis. Organizationally speaking, late reports, poorly attended committee meetings, interrupted web access or slow copy machines are not crises either, although these occurrences may be quite annoying.

Determining the severity of a situation or condition requires a certain amount of skill and experience. During the course of the day, leaders may be called upon to address a wide variety of circumstances that call for managerial action. And such situations may come in quick succession, just as the telephone poles fly by on the road. This seems to be especially true in human service organizations where people problems are essentially being treated with people.

It is vital for organizations to correctly sort and discern whether these events are indeed crises. Incorrect identification can lead to an unnecessary flow of corporate adrenaline that will quickly exhaust employees.

Unfortunately, some managers purposefully “frame” situations as crises in hopes that they will gain greater employee productivity or advance some particular objective. In fact, it is not unusual to come across managerial consultants who recommend creating a “culture of urgency” to accomplish their aims or personal ambitions.

Lewis’ observation reminds us not to let the most immediate concern or problem dominate our actions. Reacting to issues of less significance as though they are crises will jeopardize the accomplishment of what’s most important to the organization.

We cannot allow the present to preempt the importance of the future.

LAUGH A LITTLE:

REFLECT A LITTLE:

READ A LITTLE:

The Good Life:

Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

Robert Waldinger and Mark Schulz (Simon & Shuster, 2023)

The Good Life is a book that shares good, solid advice for living a fulfilling life. The authors, psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, MD and psychologist Marc Schulz, PhD, the Director and Associate Director of the Harvard University Study of Adult Development, share some truly interesting information.

What makes this book unique is that it is based on research that began in 1939 and continues to this day. It is the oldest longitudinal study on record. Essentially, it explores research findings and offers the reader practical application through personal stories and case histories of the study’s participants. If you are not a fan of this approach, you might not like the book.

The authors state that “many of the most significant findings came after the participants had already lived much of their lives.” In fact, one of the key thoughts in the book is: “…it doesn’t matter how old you are, where you are in the life cycle, whether you are married or not married, introverted or extroverted, everyone can make positive turns in their life.”

The Good Life offers many recommendations for living a more fulfilling, flourishing life. Some of those insights are shared below.

• “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period.”
• “People who are more connected to family, friends and community are happier, and especially healthier than people who are less connected.”
• “Lonely people live shorter lives.”
• “The capacity of relationships to affect our well-being and health is universal”
• “Relationships are the foundation of our lives, intrinsic to everything we do and everything we are. The engine of a good life is not the self, but rather our connection to others.”
• Just as we need to be physically fit, we need to be socially fit. “We tend to think that once we establish friendships and intimate relationships, they will take care of themselves. But like muscles, neglected relationships atrophy. Our social life is a living system. And it needs exercise.”
• Included in a chapter entitled “Facing the Music” is a model for facing challenges and life’s difficulties. Called the W.I.S.E.R. Model, it suggests that when we face emotional stressors we need to slow down and take the time to move from an automatic response to one that is more thoughtful. The stages are:

1. Watch
2. Interpret
3. Select
4. Engage
5. Self-reflect.

• “Psychological inheritances can run very deep—sometimes too deep to easily recognize. Beyond the physical features that we inherit from our biological parents, we acquire habits, perspectives, and models of behavior from family members. Our most important experiences, both good and bad, are not just memories. They are emotional events that leave tangible impressions on us, and these influences can shape our lives for a very long time.”
• “No single element of a person’s life fully shapes their future.”
• “One thing we can be sure of—nobody we encounter in life can ever be fully known. There is always more to discover.”
• “Judge each day not by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you sow.” – William Arthur Ward
• “What if the value of work—even work we dislike—lies not just in getting paid, but also in the moment-to-moment sensations of being alive in the workplace and the feeling of vitality we get from being connected to others? What if even the most ordinary workday presents real opportunities for improving our lives and our sense of being connected to the broader world?”
• “For many of us, at a deeper emotional level, work is where we feel that we matter—to our workmates, to our customers, and even to our families, because we are providing for them.”
• “Each person must find their own way of mattering to others.”
• The loss of in-person contact as we move as much work as possible into the home may have a significant impact on the mental health and wellbeing of workers.”
• “Friends diminish our perception of hardship—making us perceive adverse events as less stressful than we might otherwise see them—and even when we do experience extreme stress, friends can diminish its impact and duration.”
• “We live in a world that hungers for greater human connection.”

Until next time,
Art Dykstra

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