When the Urgent Sets the Agenda

Management/Business guru Seth Godin had another of his amazingly insightful posts a couple weeks ago. Specifically it was about the problem with cable news (of all political persuasions!) Here are a few of them:

1. Focus on the urgent instead of the important.
4. Unwillingness to reverse course and change one's mind.
8. Top down messaging encourages an echo chamber (agree with this edict or change the channel).
12. Unwillingness to review past mistakes in light of history and use those to do better next time.

Now, lest we think this only applies to news organizations like (both) MSNBC and Fox, Seth concludes:

If I wanted to hobble an organization or even a country, I'd wish these twelve traits on them. I wonder if this sounds like the last board meeting you went to...

It reminded me of a situation I heard of last week in another area where the "urgent" became the "important" with no sense of history, mistakes, or new ways of seeing things. From top down comes the edict where those who know the best can give the only right answer. Fear plays a huge part in this that Godin doesn't directly address but is implicit. The more fear we are given the more likely we will go along with it. We feel, and therefore act, as if we have no choice.

It is so easy to be sucked into the almost tornadic cycle that prevents change and instead ends up circling the wagons. It is sad for the organization; it is even sadder for those caught up in its impersonal result.