I'd like to share a true story with you.
This morning I woke up, and like every other morning, I headed to the bathroom, which is right outside of my bedroom. However, this time I was
hearing this noise coming from the bathroom, an odd noise that I couldn't identify. It sounded a little bit like a scratching noise, but I just
couldn't put my finger on it.
My mind immediately started thinking that some little animal had gotten in the house and somehow gotten itself trapped in my walls. Part of that
didn't make sense, but in early autumn my wife and I thought we might have chipmunks in the house, and actually had an exterminator lay traps in
the attic to see if we'd catch anything; we hadn't. Still, I wondered if maybe something had gotten in the house. The noise was coming from behind
this cabinet we have on the wall, and though it sounded a bit off, my mind immediately went into containment mode; if there was something in the
bathroom, I wanted to keep it there.
I went and got something that covered the entire bottom of the doorway. I got something else to block the ground access to the living room. I
closed the doors to both my bedroom and my office, but I also got a tennis racket, which I keep in my office, because I'd heard it was the best
way to get a bat, and though I knew we didn't have bats, I figured it would work if I happened upon a mouse or a chipmunk. Then I pulled up my
'brave' and went into the bathroom. I didn't see anything, and I kept banging the tennis racket on the floor and the wall, wondering if anything
would happen. There also wasn't anything in the bathtub or sink. I didn't see anything, but the noise continued. I decided not to open the cabinet;
I didn't want anything jumping at me if I didn't have to deal with it. Within 45 minutes, the sound finally stopped, and I thought that maybe it
either had passed away or had gotten tired.
For awhile, I forgot about it and went about my business for the day. I didn't hear the noise anymore, but wondered about the smell that my wife
told me would be coming within a few days. I wondered about that because, oddly enough, there was a smell coming from the bathroom, and it wasn't
unpleasant. I thought maybe I was going crazy thinking about this animal somewhere in my walls.
My day consisted of a couple of meetings, then a networking event later in the evening. After the networking event, I decided to stop at Barnes
& Noble to see what new books they might have in the business motivation area; I love those books. I came across a new one titled
Our Iceberg Is Melting, and decided to sit down and read it for a bit.
I ended up reading the entire book in 30 minutes; I speed read, but it was also a short book, and a very easy read. One main point in the book is
how you sometimes have to tackle something you don't want to think about in order to move forward and get things accomplished.
It was still on my mind when I got home. My wife was already home, and, after about five minutes, I remembered the incident from earlier in
the day and wanted to show her where I was hearing the noise. My wife is the fearless type, especially after I told her the story. She had
put the cabinet up, so she knew there was no hole behind the cabinet, but she also thought something in my story didn't sound quite right.
She slowly opened the cabinet, and,... it turned out that the noise I was hearing wasn't a dead animal at all. Seems that a can of shaving cream
had decided to do a slow mini-explosion in the cabinet, not so fast that there was a big bang, but slow enough so that it covered a lot of items
in the cabinet with soap, and it explained the noise because a part of it had sounded a little bit metallic, and because it also sounded rhythmic,
I hadn't thought it was all that organic myself; I just wasn't taking any chances.
Of course we laughed about it, but that, and the book, made me think about how it often it goes on in business. Any time something is wrong
in a business, someone either knows about it or has witnessed something and decided to stay quiet. Many people witness harassment every day
and keep it to themselves because they don't want to get involved. Someone might see something leaking somewhere, and decides it's not their
business so they stay quiet. Someone sees a manager taking credit for work a co-worker did, or sees a co-worker being bullied by that manager,
and keeps their mouths shut because they don't want the attention turning on them. Sometimes managers see things aren't going right, but they
don't say anything because they don't want someone deciding that maybe that manager was the one to blame in the first place.
Think about it. In today's world of financial crises and inappropriate behavior by CEOs or other upper level management personnel, is there
one person who really believes that someone, probably many people, didn't know those problems were coming, but decided it was in their best
interest at that time to keep it to themselves? Think about what happens to some whistleblowers in the corporate world. The best that can
happen is that they lose their jobs, but win awards on the back end. The worst that can happen is they not only lose their jobs, but are black
balled in their fields of expertise and have to find another profession.
Why are people afraid to do the right thing? Luckily, not everyone is afraid, at least not all the time. But everyone has a
point at which they'll stop themselves from going further into finding out what the truth is about something. When it's your personal life,
well, each person gets to make that decision for themselves. When it's your professional life, though, and you're in a leadership position,
it's your duty to do the right thing if you want to be a competent and trusted leader of people. So you discover skeletons; that's your job,
because you can never correct anything you don't know about.
As for me, no deceased animals in my walls; I will sleep well tonight.