Читать книгу Epidemic Leadership - Larry McEvoy - Страница 24

In May 2008, a few months into my CEO tenure, Cari Davis, our marketing and communications director, stopped in one day and inspected my whiteboard scribbling. Cari had been born in the hospital and grew up in our community. She was educated on the East Coast, had served on the board, and had taken a position in the organization a couple years earlier. She and I had been talking about how our communication, both formal and informal, could reinforce old or new patterns in the organization's function.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It's a map. Of our disease.” I pointed to various interconnected people, locations, and issues, outlined as dots and boxes with connecting lines. “I thought it was just here”—I pointed with my marker—“but then it showed up here”—I pointed again—“and then here. It's not every single person, but it's an awfully high percentage. It seems to be everywhere.”

“What's the disease? ‘We've always done it this way’?”

“Oooh, I like that,” I said. “But no. It's this.” I pointed to the CPD lettered within the big circle. “I call it Chronic Proliferative Dysphoria.”

“Sounds medical.”

“It does,” I said. “It's a silly little term I made up for our organizational syndrome: unhappy people creating more unhappiness and proliferating it across their work, constantly, to the detriment of our results, our ability to change, and our vitality. That's my doctor's diagnosis.”

“You're right.” She studied the circles and initials. “It is everywhere. So how do you cure something that's everywhere?”

“Not sure yet. Not by surgery. I am positive the high power of the CEO megaphone is not going to cure this disease. I wish we had a vaccine, but it's too late. We need to replace the bad disease with a good one. We have to find out what that good disease is. Yesterday.”