Your problem child…

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. 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 but there’s always room for improvement, they will continue until they conclude by questioning whether we could help them due to the nature of their problem. Finally, they will lower the boom and tell me their predicament. “You see, Chet, we’ve got a real “problem child” running _______.”

You can fill in the blank any number of ways – it won’t matter. The bottom line – 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. The problem, of course, is the leader doesn’t get it. The leader doesn’t see the problems roots…

Why is it so few parents seek the help of higher council themselves and yet demand the same higher council get busy fixing their problem child?

The same reason 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 bullshit for so long we’ve come to believe it ourselves. We’ve fallen in love with the lies we’ve been telling others and ourselves for so long we don’t even see it as spinning. We’ve looked out the window and failed even so much as a glance in the mirror. We’ve come to believe 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 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.

Want a better team?

Become a better leader. Get busy busting your own butt. Get busy looking in the mirror. Discover your integrity gaps and slowly, pain stakingly, shut ’em down. Good. You and your entire system just got better…