Dealing with Pre-programmed Work Scripts

Have you ever considered leadership through the filter of a self-flushing toilet?  This isn’t a 6th grade playground conversation. Consider: self-flushing toilets have a little glass eye that watches as you sit.   I experienced one of these at LAX airport.  I approach the little beast, I extract one of the nifty paper seat covers from the dispenser, I lean over to put it on and the toilet eye must have seen me, because as soon as I placed the paper cover on the seat, the toilet flushed and the sewage god sucked it down its throat.  “Okay.  I’ll try again!”  So I grab another one.  It tears.  I grab a third. IT TEARS. I successfully extract number four in one piece!  I lean over to put it on the seat, and the blasted toilet eats another!  “Good grief,” I think.  I try again.  Yep, you guessed it: number five tears.  Number six does not.  So, now I go special OPS!  I’m literally standing on the side of the toilet completely stealth, hiding from A TOILET so it doesn’t know I’m there!  I place down the seat cover and before it knows I’m there, I sit!


No doubt, you’ve probably experienced the same laughable set of events.  I share all this, not to be childish, but to make a point.  Our circumstances trigger automatic responses in others.  My being in front of the toilet signaled a process.  The toilet says, “I will wait until I think Buck is no longer here and when he’s gone, I’ll flush.”  That pre-programmed script, which executed in error, caused me to repeat my task until I was able to accommodate it.  We see the toilet as incapable of knowing our desires…it’s just doing its job…setting a trigger when it sees something and flushing when it doesn’t. I would be emotionally immature to get mad at the toilet.  I'm not surprised when the toilet operates in error, because it is doing what its script demands: watch for someone, wait till gone, flush.  Pre-programmed scripts are a part of every leader and every follower. Yet, when individuals follow their scripts, we often slam, deride and criticize them: we get angry, describe them shallowly and become critical of them.  When people unwittingly follow their pre-programmed scripts, can we strive to give them the same grace we do a self-flushing toilet? Perhaps with some patience, we can adjust our approach and find a way to work together in unity.

Click here to subscribe to It's a Buck's Life

Know anyone who would appreciate this post?  Pass the Buck.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Emotions as Tools: Feel Your Interactions

Friday night 10:19PM, my mother is in the emergency room: she feels like she can’t breath; she’s not getting oxygen. Six years of cancer treatments led her to this day. Her body is giving up. My sister and I try to comfort her; all I can do is just stand there. She’s in pain. The nurse gives her a shot of morphine to help. That was it. The shot relaxed her enough, she quit fighting to breath and in five minutes she died. The shot only sped the inevitable. Her body had already quit. The doctors wanted to try and keep her alive, and I was the one that said, “Let her go. She’s done.” I went home and cried like I have never cried before. Crying so deeply that I couldn’t breathe. I sat in the shower for two hours and couldn’t stop. Only twice in my life have I experienced crying at that depth. Click here to subscribe to It's a Buck's Life Change scenes. It’s 2PM on a Saturday. Beautiful music is playing. Double doors swing wide open across the room from where I’
Read more

You Are Worth More Than That!

Image
A young girl is told by her dad that she looks fat in her clothing: her dad, functioning out of his inability to communicate. A young boy is told by his teacher that he’s not applying himself: the teacher speaking out of her inability to understand how the boy learns and frustrated that he’s not with the rest of the class. Think back. You had one or more experiences like this; likely they were defining experiences and may even hurt now as you remember. These memories are damnable, destructive and debilitating; and, today I want you to see them for what they are. If I were horrible at money management, would you form your investments on my advice? If my marriage were a wreck, would you formulate your marriage on my opinions? Why, then, would you allow yourself to be defined by comments others have spoken out of their inabilities? The phrase “you’re stupid” was likely told you by someone who was competitive and needed to feel better about his or her self. The phrase “you damn
Read more

Are You Sitting on your Wag

Image
I have a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier named Peanut Butter: we call her Peefee for short. Over the last nine years, she’s become more human than dog. We talk to her and believe she understands our language, we assume she can speak to us, we even convince ourselves that “she just wants to be with us” when we’re sitting around, despite the steak on our plates. After all, Peefee would never be so shallow as to spend time around us because of what we can give her—she’s way too sensitive for that. She’s often the first one to greet me when I walk in the door; always brimming with exuberance and excitement. Irrespective of any doubts I may have about her actions or emotions any other time, I know for a fact she is excited to see me at the door. I think the fact she can express honest emotion at one point only makes the times she reacts out of selfishness that much more difficult to discern. After all, if she can greet me with happiness and excitement at the door, couldn’t that mean s
Read more