The identified patient…

M. Scott Peck in his book, People of the Lie, tells about how he and his peers refer to their “child aged” patients.  They would describe the children they worked with as the “identified patient.”

Peck was an exceptional clinical psychiatrist and respected as a forward thinker in his field.  He was an expert.  Someone worth studying.  Someone worth your attention…

I work with mostly CEO’s and small business owners.  When they come to me, they come because one of their peers has told them about our work and what it’s done for them.  Our first meeting is very predictable.  Nine out of ten times here’s how it goes.

The CEO starts the conversation with a response to my easy peasy question, why are you here?

They proceed to tell me about the “identified patient.”  It goes something like this.  Chet, they say, I’ve been told about your work and it sounds very interesting what you are able to do.  We’ve got a fairly good situation here at the XYZ company.  There is, however, room for improvement.  What they are about to tell me they anticipate will be unique to them and to their system.  They will question whether we could help them due to the nature of their problem.  After the proper setup, they will lower the boom and tell me their predicament.  It will go something like this…

You see, we’ve got a real “problem child” running _______.  (fill in the blank with one of the following:)

Sales.

Finance.

Operations.

H.R.

Engineering.

Our Board.

Our Executive Committee.

You get the drift.  They want me to fix their “problem child.”  Help them “get on board.”  Turn them into one of them.  Chet, they tell me, once they “get it,” we’ll be golden.

Why is it that so few parents seek the help of higher council themselves and yet demand that the same higher council get busy fixing their problem child?  The same reason that CEO’s make the same mistake.  We’ve not married the truth.  We’ve not developed a team of truth tellers.  We’ve been spinning some kinda shit for so long that we actually have started to believe it ourselves.  We’ve fallen in love with the lies we’ve been telling others and ourselves for so long that we don’t even see it as spinning.  We’ve not chosen to look in the mirror.  We’ve come to believe that we are the ultimate authority, the head of the system, the “dad,” and we no longer question ourselves, nor do we want you to.  We are the problem but we invest our time, energy, and effort toward fixing you, who is only a part of the problem.  Funny, huh.

Peck, seems to align with our non clinical study…

Through his study and his years of clinical work Peck discovered that the real patient, the real person in need of help, was most often NOT the child.  “Put most simply,” according to Peck, “we usually find that the child is not as sick as it’s parents.  Although the parents have identified the child as the one requiring correction, it is usually they, the identifiers, who are themselves most in need of correction.  They are the ones who should be the patients.”

This is “why” we start our work with you, the leader.

Remember, every leader gets exactly the team he or she deserves.

Want a better team?

Become a better leader.

Period.

How’s that for some pyscho- babble…