People most frequently fail to see reality because they choose to ignore or resist changes in the external environment. For example, The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article entitled, “To Trim Their Costs, Some Companies Cut Space for Employees,” in which it repor- ted, “Last year, Connie Plourde and the other sales representatives at American Telephone & Telegraph Co.’s Sacramento, Calif., office lost their desks. They were given laptop computers, cellular telephones and portable printers and told to create ‘virtual offices’ at home or at their customers’ offices. It wasn’t an easy change for the extroverted, 19-year AT&T veteran, who delighted in the camaraderie of the
workplace. ‘Until the real-estate people came in and started moving our cubicles out, we just continued to come in,’ she recalls. ‘It was a comfort zone, I guess.’” Ignoring or refusing to deal with such a change can quickly thrust you Below The Line, when you sit waiting for the “good old days” to return. According to the Journal article,
“‘The office isn’t a place to come, sit down and stare at a computer screen or talk on the phone all day,’ says Dun & Bradstreet’s Michael Bell, one of a new sort of corporate real-estate manager pushing such changes. ‘If you want to do that, you can do it at home.’ It is far from clear, however, whether corporate decision makers - who climbed the ladder at a time when clout was measured by office size and location - are ready to embrace what Mr. Bell has dubbed the ‘un-real-estating’
of corporate America.” Resistance to such a trend could, however, undermine the competitiveness of a company that has found itself in a dogfight for market share. Larry Ebert, director of real estate at Ernst & Young, says there will be a lot of “cultural resistance” to such office changes. If those changes are inevitable, then those who resist them will inevitably fail.
To illustrate another common reason why people fail to see reality and their own responsibility for that reality, consider the current family “dysfunction game.” While most people agree that the home environment affects a person’s habits, it has become fashionable, even epidemic, for adult children to blame all their woes on dysfunctional childhood homes. Compulsive shopping disorders, sex addictions, poor eating habits, alcoholism, spouse and child abuse, work ruts, personality disorders, uncontrollable urges to please others? “It’s not my fault, it’s my family’s fault.” Talk show hosts from Oprah to Do- nahue to Geraldo daily exploit America’s penchant for playing the
“dysfunction game” by parading celebrities such as Roseanne Arnold, Gunnar Nelson, Patti Davis, Kitty Dukakis, and many others across the nation’s television screens, perpetuating the notion that none of us need shoulder full responsibility for our problems. The raging popularity of such shows emphasizes just how much the nation’s television audiences enjoy hearing other people recount their victim stories. In turn, many TV watchers use such victim stories to justify their own Below The Line behavior, making the blame game a new national pastime. After all, according to popular lecturer and author, John Bradshaw, 96 percent of the population comes from “dysfunc- tional” families.
While we agree that family problems can plague people far beyond their childhoods, we take issue with Bradshaw’s claim, not just because we question the accuracy of the percentage, but because reliance on that percentage lets 96 percent of the population off the hook for their current behavior. If you comfort yourself with the knowledge that 96 percent of your fellow Americans can blame their dysfunction- al families for their problems, you’re probably stuck in the victim cycle. Oh, you may justly feel early experiences have contributed to your problems, but chalking everything up to those problems prevents you from taking charge of your life and doing something about your problems. In this sense, the current dysfunctional fad strikes us as just one more indicator of people’s inability and unwillingness to acknowledge their own accountability. Fortunately, many experts and writers, fed up with the extremes to which the dysfunctional game has been taken, are encouraging people to see the reality of their own responsibility. A new book by Wendy Kaminer entitled I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional, a parody of the best-selling I’m Okay, You’re Okay, criticizes the popular recovery movement and all the self-help gurus because they too greatly diminish individual ac- countability. In a USA Weekend article, “Dysfunction Junction,” author Tim Larimer chides, “With all due respect to the recovery movement and other self-help trends, some experts say the time has come to grow up, quit whining and give Mom (and Dad) a break.” Larimer also quotes Frank Pittman, well-known therapist to communications mogul Ted Turner and many others, who admits that his profession has encouraged the whining of millions of Americans: “A society full of victims is a bunch of people who have a free pass not to take re- sponsibility for their actions.”
Given this “It’s-not-my-fault” climate, it’s not surprising that people find it difficult to see reality and accept their own accountability, but it’s also gratifying to see Kaminer, Larimer, Pittman, and the following excerpt from a mortgage company ad that appeared in 1992 poke fun at those who fail to See It at a time when it is painfully obvious:
THE TOP TEN EXCUSES FOR NOT REFINANCING WHILE INTEREST RATES ARE LOWER
2. “I like double-digit interest.”
3. “I like higher payments.”
4. “The bank needs the money more than I do.”
5. “I didn’t know I could.”
6. “I didn’t know who to call.”
7. “I’d probably only save a measly few hundred bucks each month.”
8. “My current mortgage company never told me about any lower rates.”
9. “I couldn’t trust myself with any extra cash.”
10. “I couldn’t think of anything to do with any extra cash.”
11. “The dog ate my loan documents.”
That ad amused us, and the whole dysfunctional movement would strike us as funny, if it weren’t so dangerous to our country’s well- being. Sadly, in the long months before election day on November 3, 1992, most Americans grew disheartened with what they perceived to be the endless excuse making of the Bush campaign, which even- tually guaranteed the president’s election defeat. In the eyes of many Americans, Bush never did face up to the realities of a declining economy. Not surprisingly, President Bush was not the only elected government official who paid a “career limiting” price because of Below The Line behavior. Consider, for instance, these excuses for overdrafts at the now-defunct House Bank as reported in The Wall Street Journal during 1992:
Representative Mary Rose Oakar, a Democrat of Ohio who sat on the House Administration Committee that oversaw the House Bank and racked up 217 overdrafts, said, “When I came to Congress, they didn’t tell us there was another way to get your check.”
Representative Robert Mrazek, a Democrat from New York with 972 overdrafts, said, “I have never bounced a check.”
Representative Tim Penny, a Democrat from Minnesota, blamed his overdrafts on his office manager.
Representative Edolphus Towns, another Democrat from New York, attributed many of his 403 overdrafts to embezzlement by a former employee.
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Representative Newt Gingrich, a Republican from Georgia and House Republican Whip, dismissed his overdrafts as “no big deal.”
Such failure to see reality has grown rampant in American society.
Again, on the lighter side, look at these actual descriptions people wrote on accident report forms that were published by the Arizona Safety Association:
“Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have.”
“A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.”
“The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.”
“I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home.
As I reached the intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision.
I did not see the other car.”
“As I approached the intersection, a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before.”
“An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle, and vanished.”
“The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him.”
“The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.”
“The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of the way when it struck my front end.”
Each of these drivers, not to mention all the folks in Washington, couldn’t come to grips with the reality of their situations. How much better for them, the victims of their negligence, and the country at large, if they could only
1. Recognize when they are in the victim cycle;
2. Realize that remaining in the victim cycle not only ignores the real problem but leads to increasingly poor results; and 3. Acknowledge and accept reality as the first step toward accept- ing accountability.
Acknowledging Below The Line behavior and facing up to “the reality” of your situation takes courage. Failure to muster that courage results in an unwillingness to pay the price for greater accountability and results. In most troublesome situations, people do know, in the back of their minds, that acknowledging reality means they’ll have
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to do something about their situations, first viewing their situations differently, then acting differently to improve their situations. Viewing a situation differently often means getting comfortable with the fact that you did something wrong, admitting that you yourself could have done more and didn’t, or deciding that since you can’t do any- thing to remedy the situation you may as well move on. Doing something differently about your situation often requires doing things you dislike doing, such as taking a risk you’ve been avoiding or confronting an issue or person you’ve been ignoring. At Hartmarx Corporation, the Chicago-based maker of men’s suits, the board of directors failed to confront the inability of the company’s chief exec- utive officer, Harvey Weinberg, to halt a string of losses that eventu- ally totaled $320 million. Only then did the board force Weinberg to resign. According to The Wall Street Journal, the board didn’t act sooner because it “didn’t want to be seen as pulling the plug too early.” Unfortunately, the “wait-and-see” attitude significantly con- tributed to the value of the company’s stock falling from $600 million to $200 million.
Embracing such realities can prove difficult because doing so in- volves shedding the protective cocoon of a victim story. It seems so much safer to remain in the victim cycle, but the cocoon really offers only an illusion of safety because eventually the time will come to pay the piper for your inaction. When you give yourself permission to do nothing about your situation, when you don’t act, don’t learn, don’t acknowledge your responsibility, don’t admit having done wrong, don’t face the facts, don’t give up the sympathy that a victim story attracts, and don’t look for what else you could do to achieve results, your behavior gets you nowhere. To get somewhere better, to improve your situation, and to solve your problems, you must abandon the illusion of safety Below The Line and take the risks associated with rising Above The Line.
When you encounter a difficult situation, ask yourself whether you want to remain mired in the difficulty or attempt some sort of breakthrough to extract yourself from the situation. Even the most habitual victim would rather be leading a better life, but achieving a
“break through” usually requires a “break with” past actions and atti- tudes. That means that any person feeling victimized must replace his or her victim story with a willingness to see things as they really are and not as they appear to be from the tenuous safety of the victim cycle. To create a better future, you must often break with the past.
Failing this, you will, sooner or later, suffer serious consequences for your inaction.