Anatomy of an Organizational Adventure
Elephant in a Meeting Room
(A commercial break in my journaling action, from The Elephant Hunter.)
The anatomy of an organizational adventure can be found by peeling back the layers of what we see and feel at work (not with science and data, that’s already out there.) The adventure lies within the gritty layers and sharply contrasting angles of individual experiences you have in the room, or handling the elephant in the room, and with the net-neutral elephant itself—representing unspoken organizational truth. What it feels like shapes and is shaped by your individual beliefs. We all know this to be true, even if we’ve never thought about it before. What we do or don’t do, say or don’t say, is based on what we believe is right, proper, safe, wise, etc. Whether we like the choices then left us are of no matter after that. We are left believing the options remaining to be appropriate, whatever the reality around us confirms or denies about this perception. Have you or I become an elephant handler or worse, breeder? It’s very possible. How will we know for sure? Only if tagged. How else could we know….
We feel safe and secure in our belief systems. We see no elephants in the room. Or on the flip-side, we feel safe and secure in our beliefs so we are NOT going to point out that huge creature lurking in the room because (Ouch! Hey, watch it!) we believe it is not our place to do so if those around and /or above us haven’t already done it. Perhaps they have and “it’s supposed to be like th(Slam!)is.”