There is a system in the old part of the brain called the amygdala. It controls, in part, our fear factor (fight or flight). In the Neanderthal days it would alert us to real physical dangers that we could respond to with a big club. Once the source of our fear was dead or incapacitated, we cold relax once again. As our civilization progressed, it became unacceptable to club the source of your fear inside your organization – although about 1400 people were killed last year in workplace violence from people clubbing others. So, without an outlet to eliminate the fear, we build up the fear as internal tension/stress that gets converted into anger at oneself and others. We need to get angry at someone/something as a release mechanism.
Fear is a gut response. It causes irrational reactionary thinking. The solution (barring beating someone with a club or using an AK-47) is to use your head – the rational part of your brain, the cerebral cortex. Think and act rationally.
There is a concept that drives human behavior called “closure”. Simply put, when there is some missing data in our environment, we tend to fill in the blanks. The only problem is we tend to fill in the blanks with negative information, not positive. Worst case scenarios, for example. It’s a protection mechanism that keeps us from getting hurt too badly. We fill in the missing information with negative possibilities, then react against these negatives. Prepare for the worst, lower your expectations. These are both irrational thoughts that prevent us from moving forward. The good news, though, is that simply knowing about this concept can change your behavior. Rather than looking at the dark side of every situation, look on the positive (or at least the most realistic) side.
Sure, it’s true that the world is currently experiencing a sea change. Radical Islam’s mission is to take down civilization as we know it. They’re angry at the world for:
1. not seeing the world through their eyes;
2. revenge for past attempts to persecute Muslims and/or demean / defile / misunderstand their religious practices;
3. there’s even a theory that radical Muslims may feel slighted by Abraham (Islam developed through Ismael, son of Abraham, who was never given the credibility or recognition as Isaac (Abraham’s legitimate heir), from whom Jacob was born and renamed Israel. The Jewish/Muslim conflict really boils down, then, to a family feud – a fight for legitimacy in the eyes of God), and;
4. scores of other issues as numerous and there are combatants.
But what’s the real chance you’ll be directly harmed by a terrorist act; pretty remote – much less than getting killed in a car accident, for example. The world has a much more talented law enforcement / intelligence network than has been portrayed in the media. What is the percentage of CEO thugs and thieves versus the number of truly gifted and talented people in those positions in our country’s organizations? Pretty small.
Our economy is strong. It will cycle out of this natural downturn. We may be diverting our attention temporarily because of our irrational fears about terrorism, but this too will pass. Life will change for sure. Dramatically in the short term, then revert to a slighter, more permanent change. But life has always been on the move. We will adapt. Look at where we were 100 years ago. Look at where we’ll be 100 years from now. Once this accounting debacle has been cleared away and we can look at the true and genuine strength of our economy, Dow 15,000 seems much more probable than Dow 5000. I’m optimistic. How about you?
]]>
About a month or so ago a friend of mine was telling me about an article he’d just read on the internet about how WorldCom was caught cooking the books and would likely declare bankruptcy as a result. As I listened to him, I imagined a dark storm cloud forming in the already gray and blustery sky. I thought, “Is this the death knell to our economy as we know it? Is DOW 5000 a real possibility?” Then I said, “Please tell me their auditor was Anderson.” He nodded his head. I breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Fear.
I thought we may just have dodged an economic bullet. Pre 9/11, the economy was already beginning to slide; coming off 10 years of economic boom. This cycling of the economy was very normal. Nothing to worry about long-term. There was the normal number of greedy executives hitting the headlines as they robbed the treasuries of their own companies while layoffs accelerated. Again, nothing out of the ordinary; a few obscene compensation packages seemed a bit odd, considering the slowing economy, but again acceptable in the boom mentality of the past 10 years. We complained but did nothing.
Then 9/11 happened and for the first time in U.S. history, people bent on destroying the American Dream succeeded in creating havoc and fear on our home shores. We thought this could never happen here. We thought we had the best intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the world. We thought we were protected by distance and oceans and deterrent weapons. We thought we knew who hated us and why. We were wrong. To some around the world, we have an arrogance which arose from our sense of security. They are wrong. Our sense of pride in America came, in part, from our system of democratic government combined with our rock solid free market capitalist economic system. It all worked. Even though our economy was going through a normal down cycle, we could ease our anger and fear of terrorism at home by looking at how well our economy held up to this fear; it kept chugging along.
Then Enron happened. It was slap in the face, but not a knockout blow. It allowed the “wink and nod” auditing practices of Anderson to bubble to the surface and wither in the daylight of public scrutiny. Why now?! People were already afraid of external forces over which they felt vulnerable. We didn’t need the extra stress of being afraid of our economic health at the hands of a few corporate thugs. Then came Global Crossing, then Quest, then Martha Stewart, then WorldCom, then… then what.
The psychology of fear is interesting. When one is afraid there is a tendency to strike out in anger; find someone or something to hurt to make ourselves feel better. Even though this doesn’t work, it’s genetic. Animals will even eat their own young when afraid. We’re doing the same thing now. We’re afraid because of terrorism, but we can’t strike out quickly enough or with sufficient victory so we turn this fear inward in anger against our institutions and organizations.
We’re all looking for someone to hang in anger so we can claim tangible retribution. Thus what has passed for acceptable accounting practices in the past (wink) and with a bit of smoke and mirrors has lifted our economy beyond fundamentals (nod), has now become the target of our rage.
We trusted our system even though at times it made little sense. How can a company report so much financial gain when they have no real product to sell? But we asked few questions. Until now. Thank goodness. It was Anderson (the bad seed) with WorldCom. Anderson is already toast and it’s hard to burn ash. But what’s next?
Now that our faith in the workings of the “system” has been disturbed we can all shake our heads say, “I knew something didn’t smell right”. Surprisingly enough, though, I believe that deep down inside, we’re all a bit optimistic; looking for some sliver of silver lining. In general, we are justice seeking, forgiving sorts. Those that did us wrong will be punished (although perhaps not as soundly as we’d like to see), and we will forgive those who were lead astray by others more greedy. Many of you will look in the mirror and feel badly that you were “duped” or perhaps now have to think of the future with a tighter belt. Well, don’t beat yourself up too much. We’re all in the same boat together. We will look for ways of putting this behind us and move towards the future. This too shall pass.
]]>