{"id":13407,"date":"2020-11-23T20:15:36","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T20:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/948294437a.nxcli.io\/?p=13407"},"modified":"2020-11-23T20:15:36","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T20:15:36","slug":"the-covid-thanksgiving-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/23\/the-covid-thanksgiving-paradox\/","title":{"rendered":"The COVID-Thanksgiving Paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The single most important and challenging responsibility of leadership is to bring people together in the shared pursuit of accomplishing truly worthwhile things.<\/h3>\n

I recently saw a quote by the author Simon Sinek, “A small team, committed to a cause bigger than themselves, can achieve absolutely anything.” It caused me to think just how daunting of a task this is at any time but particularly at this moment. The challenge isn’t just finding or attracting people who are committed to a shared sense of purpose. It is easy to identify where the fabric of a group frays in the presence of disagreements, but the damage caused by failing to manage our agreements is far worse.<\/p>\n

The global COVID-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on the past year. Now, Thanksgiving marks the start of what has traditionally been the holiday season, complete with celebrations beginning with family gatherings and reunions and the season of company office parties as we weave our way into the New Year. I don’t think I can recall a time when more people were more ready to welcome in the new year and bid a final goodbye to the year we’ve had. It is a season of hope and gratitude when we celebrate the human spirit and all that is good in the world. But, rather than the holidays bringing us together, we are cautioned to stay apart. It is not just the physical separation that is causing distress, but the emotional, social, and ideological distancing that is far more troubling and insidious.<\/p>\n

It is not necessary to physically be together for us to join together in a shared effort. Great worthy causes have been propelled by those who are otherwise strangers to one another\u2014but connected by a shared sense of purpose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While our beliefs may be invisible, they shape the behaviors that identify us to others. People may deem you to be friends or foes solely based on their perception of what you believe. That perception is what creates a group-think-bias that can derail the best efforts of a team: especially a team that seems to be committed to a powerful cause.<\/p>\n

I experienced this myself just the other day.<\/h3>\n

Like many families, we are struggling to decide how to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We already abandoned the larger gathering of family that would ordinarily travel to get together. A smaller, more intimate celebration seemed not just more appropriate, but in many ways more appealing. Because of a combination of medical vulnerabilities to the Corona Virus and the professional responsibilities of several of us \u2013 given that among us are conscientious medical professionals, we elected to take heed of the warnings against such gatherings and employ some necessary measures to protect us. It was an active decision we made \u2013 because we all agree that we can be safe, none will be traveling, and all of us frequently see each other anyway.<\/p>\n

Rather than defying common sense \u2013 we agreed that we would resist carelessness and stupidity by exercising the same level of caution that those of us who provide essential services have employed since the first and worst days of the pandemic here in the New York area. We would make our celebration of our commitment to resilience through restraint as opposed to abstinence.<\/p>\n

Then I began to recognize the paradox.<\/h3>\n

I reached out to my family and explained that everyone must be comfortable with being uncomfortable about our plans. Getting together this year was not necessary. I posed some questions.<\/p>\n

How are we truly feeling about our plans? We all love and crave a great Thanksgiving feast and small gathering. Are we prepared to be hyper-vigilant? Are we taking into account and ownership for the risks and possible (not probable) consequences?<\/p>\n

I repeated that I am willing to be extraordinarily cautious – and still feel this way – but also think that it is OK not to get together this year. Moreover, not gathering might be an even more powerful way to celebrate what matters most to us.<\/p>\n

I shared with them one of my favorite studies about group dynamics and confirmation bias called “The Abilene Paradox” by Jerry Harvey – who identifies the issue is often not our being in disagreement – but the failure to manage our agreement openly. When we fail to express our views out of concern for how others might feel – or how we impact what we presume others want – we find ourselves all traveling together on a trip to Abilene – that no one wants to go on!<\/p>\n

I needed to be sure that we were not only in agreement but also consciously acting in agreement. The last thing I wanted was for us to get together simply everyone believed that is what the others all want \u2013 when perhaps everyone agreed that we would be better off not getting together at all.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, we will be gathering on Thanksgiving, albeit with extra preparation, clear guidance as to how we will behave, and a clear understanding that, as a family, we can commit to working together to make sure we have a safe and happy Thanksgiving this year \u2013 and for many years to come.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The single most important and challenging responsibility of leadership is to bring people together in the shared pursuit of accomplishing truly worthwhile things. I recently saw a quote by the author Simon Sinek, “A small team, committed to a cause bigger than themselves, can achieve absolutely anything.” It caused me to think just how daunting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13409,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13407\/revisions\/13409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}