Workplace Calisthenics

It was never about Elian; it was always about projection.

Even though our emotions were scoured with every second of videotape, the violent end to the Elian Gonzalez epic was never really centered on this child. Adults used this kid to scream political epithets at their enemies.

This shipwrecked child was paraded, prodded and prostituted for every ounce of meaning in his 45-pound frame. Elian was a projective device, not a child.

Projection is the psychological practice of using a seemingly unrelated object to safely talk about important, personal issues.

For instance, I will often supply a high, squeaky voice for my dog (who I will hold in front of my face) to speak to my wife about the laundry that "someone" was supposed to have picked up today. The dog is a projective she is being used to say the things I don't have the testosterone levels to utter.

I plead ignorance on Cuba. I do not know what it is like to have my country taken over by a despotic regime. Nowhere in my family's photo album do I have to look at relatives who are hundreds of miles from me because of political fences.

But I do know that Elian should have not been ground up in the gears of gratuitous geopolitics. The really obscene scene was not the snatch of this child on Easter weekend, it was the five months of watching adults act like children.

Have you noticed any projection at work lately? Elian, for my money, comes to your workplace every day.

The business owner (sole proprietor) who lives to work uses one popular form of projection. This person believes never taking a vacation is actually laudable, works at least 60 hours a week, has to check his Palm Pilot V to remember the names of his children and insists that the staff share the same evangelical zeal for the organization. Behind his back, whispers cascade down the corridors about the company being his baby.

Forget the baby this company is he.

These people buzz through staff like suckers in Nixa or become highly defensive when new ideas are suggested, showing this first type of projection. The rest of the staff thinks they are just talking about the organization, but the owner believes it is a personal attack.

The second projective device at work is territory. It seems the great land rush of the 1800s holds only a candle to someone who has worked his or her way up in an organization and, as a fitting reward, was given the acreage of a job description. And may the Almighty provide you with protection if you step on this holy ground.

Have you ever wondered whether someone has a life when you watch their veins make a grand appearance at the suggestion that other people camp on his land? This project is the sum total of who he is. He will cease to breathe in and out if you violate the bureaucratic fence line he has constructed.

The third form of projection has to be the company car. Here is the icon of total career success. When someone cruises down his neighborhood streets sporting the winter white exterior, accented by freshly buffed black walls with the small cell phone antenna poking out the rear window all is right with the world.

If you want to know whether this car is a projective that screams, "I have made it," watch what happens when the said automobile is repossessed in a downsizing disaster. Dial 911.

The missing skill for us, and all the parties in the Elian Gonzalez fiasco, has to be sucking it up. When we don't get what we want, whether it is political power, organizational responsibility or standing ovations we must refuse to play games with other people and things to say what we want to say. If you cannot say it (because you want to stay gainfully employed), then suck it up.

You will have to forgive me, but I have to go. My wife is coming home soon and I think our dog wants to give her mistress a piece of her mind!

(Dr. Cal LeMon solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. His company, The Executive Edge, can be contacted via the Business Journal at sbj@sbj.net.)