Holding Back or Forging Ahead
A most meaningful yet unique quotation came across my desk. John Chancellor, the American Journalist, spent the vast amount of his career with NBC News. Researchers and archivists cannot find the source or the reason for John to say, “The avenues in my neighborhood are Pride, Covetousness, and Lust; the cross streets are Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth. I live over on Sloth, and the style on our street is to avoid the other thoroughfares.”
In a career in healthcare and biomedical sales, one sees a lot; some gross mistakes with and without remorse, excellent records of employee performance, and then those whose records are clean, that is, there is nothing there. The one whose history has nothing to show is the one that stands out. “Nothing to show” means the team member did nothing. It causes one to ponder; which individual has led the better life, or is it a dead heat?
Being called to an emergency event in a hospital called a code blue is an intense time for healthcare professionals. The staff of many departments rushes to the scene. It is a matter of life and death, saving a person from a drug overdose, seizures, breathing distress, or cardiac arrest.
No matter how much or how well the training one possesses for situations, some handle the crisis better than others. What is particularly disturbing is noticing the one who does not participate. The one team member holds back. Why? Is the individual fearful of the consequences of taking action? Does this healthcare provider not know what to do? Is this person afraid of making a mistake in front of his team members? Worse yet, are they lazy, letting someone else do the work?
Many careers teach the importance of acts of commission as well as acts of omission. Acts of commission are easily recognized; someone did something. Whether proper or improper, someone committed an act. A pharmacist correctly fills a prescription for a patient and provides medication counsel. Another pharmacist dispenses the wrong medication and incorrectly types the incorrect instructions. These represent acts of commission.
But acts of omission may be harder to detect, for the simple fact, nothing occurs. A more straightforward act of omission to witness is a pharmacist who knows that his customer is deathly allergic to penicillin. Yet, he fills a prescription for penicillin because a physician wrote for it. Due to the pharmacist’s act of omission, the patient suffers a severe allergic reaction. So many times, it is doing nothing that leads to lives of regret.
No one said that forging ahead is easy. It is much easier to follow the path of least resistance. Witnessing one mending the errors, correcting mistakes, and walking down the right way, albeit a challenging one, is always a beautiful story to watch and see the success unfold.
Nothing is more disturbing to a leader than to see a colleague who has done nothing. Living a life sitting in the bleacher seats and never being on the playing field is one who misses out on life and the opportunities for a successful career. More importantly, what potential benefits to society, the employer, his or her family, and his or herself is the “bleacher bum” holding back if he or she would take action?
Writers, philosophers, and spiritual leaders declare it in so many ways; it is better to risk and do something wrong than to sit our lives and do nothing. It is better to forge ahead than hang back.
