A Treasure Found at Home

There seem to be a lot of people in corporate America who are afraid of Things Going Wrong. I hear a lot of worried voices trying to get answers; trying to make things more complex than they are, as if concise is Too Easy.

So I do this?

Yes.

And then what?

And that’s all you need to do.

So I just do this?

Yes.

And how do you know what to do next?

[unspoken: How could I not?]
Well, we can tell by what you give us what needs to happen next.

So all I do is this?

Yes.

Or the woman who will go on and on and on and…when a simple two sentence explanation will suffice. And worse, she doesn’t actually answer the question.

It’s a way of protecting themselves, I suppose. The more they say and the more buzz words they use the more difficult it sounds to other people so no one asks detailed questions and they look smarter/more awesome somehow. Except to those of us who can see right through what’s going on, stop the monologue and say, “Actually, XYZ so Q.”

Then there is that moment of silence before she says, “Oh, yeah yeah,” like that had been what she was explaining all along.

It’s easy to blame it on corporate culture and buzzwords and all that, but I don’t think that’s really the key. Today is the last day of a large four day meeting. There are a lot of people in from out of town for this, so they’ve catered breakfast (OJ and pastries) and lunch for each day. A number of them went home last night since this last day really has a different focus. The people who are catering breakfast were called and told we only needed half the normal order.

What did we get?

The normal order, with each pastry cut in half!

What aren’t we teaching our children which lets them think for themselves? What *are* we teaching our children which keeps them eternally on auto pilot? Where is the pride in our work–in ourselves–which makes thinking something through, asking accurate questions, and *listening* second nature?

If children aren’t getting this from TV, school, books, video games, friends, neighbors, etc, what can I do to help instill that confidence in the few children I have influence with?