Familiarity breeds contempt, children and ? disaster

While pundits, preachers and politicians are still trying to blame someone or some thing for Sept. 11, the real culprit has yet to appear in the lineup. Try familiarity.

It was such a "normal" day in America. Alarm clocks rang, bread was toasted, teeth were brushed, school buses opened yellow doors and airport security scanning machines winked at box cutters. Our shock was not just because someone could use a screaming jet as a missile, but because we missed it.

Familiarity was the real enemy.

Familiarity was responsible for almost 10,000 deaths in the hurricane of 1900 in Galveston, Texas. Familiarity brought our nation to its knees in 1941 when a normal Sunday morning ruptured into a Hawaiian hell. And, familiarity splattered our collective conscience with presidential blood on a warm November day in 1963.

Every news account from the past, and now our agonizing present, keeps replaying the chorus, "it just got by us."

Because of our shared humanity, it will always get by us. We cannot walk around constantly producing vast doses of natural amphetamines (phenylethylamine, norepinephrine, dopamine) screaming, with Chicken Little, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling."

So, how do we live and work in a post- 9/11 America? I have adopted four assumptions.

First, life deals out a bad hand to everyone. If it is not a terrorist, it will be a terminal disease. If it is not a tornado, it will be a tax audit. If it is not termites, it will be toenail fungus. Hey, where are you going to hide?

We assume that the right amount of cash will protect us. We talk about "rags to riches" and fantasize about becoming a Beverly Hillbilly through a question by Regis. A large enough bank balance and the right arrangement of cheek bones will build a wall around anyone in these uncertain times.

Scroll these names across your mind today: President Woodrow Wilson, Con-gresswoman Barbara Jordan, Charles Lindbergh, Jessica Savich, Gilda Radner. Who has a guarantee?

Second, stupidity is a choice. That statement, I suggest, is worthy of framing for your office.

There are times when "external" invaders (disease, weather, circumstances) trudge into our lives. There are other disasters that are caused by a conscious, stupid decision.

I am floating the idea today that Montgomery Ward, Woolworth, People Express, Excite-At-Home, Enron and a host of other business "has-beens" are all the direct result of a group of people making stupid decisions.

What I am hearing right now at my laptop is, "they were the victims of a bad economy, bad timing or a bad business cycle." Horse feathers! Cancer creates victims; stupidity creates Chapter 11.

Third, two heads are better than mine. The most effective antidote for numbing familiarity is to allow the "gadflies" in the door. These are the people who will openly challenge the status quo, ask the hardball questions and leave in their wake lingering questions.

These folks are not always popular, but necessary. They keep organizations and decision-makers honest.

Finally, this is not a dress rehearsal.

Waiting for the perfect time to make the perfect decision to create the perfect life (or business) is a formula for huge amounts of death-bed regret. Perfec-tionism is an illusion. It is a vapor that wafts over us in the closing scenes of "The Sound of Music" or after dressing Barbie and Ken for a night on the town.

Whatever we want our lives, our businesses, our families to be this is the time to take the risk. There is no safety in living.

Three months later, we are struggling to figure out what we can control in this world that wobbles with wrath.

Try familiarity.

(Dr. Cal LeMon solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. His company, Exec-utive Enrichment Inc., can be contacted via the Business Journal at sbj@sbj.net.)