The Trap of Focusing on What is Unimportant
Sometimes I think our society is so caught up in appearances, that we are blind to the bigger picture. We seem so caught up in the need to take action when there is a perceived problem, that we place taking any action above taking the appropriate action. We have gotten to the point where we prefer to attack symptoms rather than taking the more difficult, and ultimately more productive, path of attacking what causes the problem.
We often mistake efforts to control behavior as teaching. I send my daughter to middle school each day to learn, but sometimes I think they spend more time trying to control the children’s actions than they do exposing them to opportunities to experiment and grow. I was bemused when she came home one day and told me that you were subject to detention if you used the popular phrase “hump day” on the school’s grounds. I suspect the time they spent coming up with and enforcing that rule could have been much better spent on some of the gaps I see in the classroom.
We mistakenly believe that we can legislate desired behaviors among people. Not long ago New York City Mayor Bloomberg, in a stated effort to fight obesity and diabetes, outlawed the sale of sugary drinks over the size of 16 ounces in all restaurants, fast-food joints, delis, movie theaters, sports stadiums and food carts. Surprisingly, before this shortsighted law went into effect, it was ruled unconstitutional and lost again on appeal though in October of last year, the highest court in New York agreed to hear a final appeal.
We live in a country governed by freedom of choice and part of the beauty of freedom of choice is that people are forced to face the consequences when they make inappropriate choices. In a nutshell, there is no better way to learn than through mistakes, so why are we trying to take the ability to learn from our mistakes away from people through legislation.
Throughout history we have seen government try to outlaw things like the sale of alcoholic beverages (prohibition laws), prostitution, gambling, speeding on the highway and many other things with little or no success. There is plenty of evidence that laws have little to no effect on human behavior without some social pressure mixed in. People generally agree that murder, stealing and child abuse are bad things that need to be discouraged. But without the social constraints, those laws would be just as likely to be disobeyed as our laws against gambling and speeding are today.
Without buy-in from the people, most laws are surprisingly ineffective. Creating a culture that places high value on certain behaviors is difficult, but once in place, will continue generating those desired behaviors through social mechanisms and thus create more efficiency. It has been shown before that public humiliation and shame is a far greater deterrent than jail time for many lesser crimes.
Today we suffer from too many rules and as a result have become desensitized to most of them. When I work with a team or business that is implementing a new culture, my first piece of advice is to make sure to have so few rules that everyone can recite them when asked, and the fewer the better. As I have posted previously less is usually more.
As Og Mandino said: “Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along.”
