Whether you’re at home or at work, taking action is important. Sometimes it can mean having an uncomfortable conversation or two—but if you don’t stand for something, who else will? After all, you can’t cross the ocean by staring at the water.
|
|
I hope this note finds you well and enjoying life. Today, when I walked into my office, I happened to notice this plaque that I picked up a few years ago.
“You can’t cross the Sea by staring at the Water”. Hmmm. Seems like it’s telling us that we need to take action to move forward. We can think about something all we want, but unless we actually take action, we’re not going to move forward.
I think about that a lot—especially in context of our businesses, personal lives, and national agendas. Colin Kaepernick took action a couple of weeks ago and decided to not stand for the National Anthem because he felt that the Anthem represented the United States, which he feels is not treating Blacks with the same equality as Whites.
I may not agree with how he went about it, but it did cause a dialog to occur—an important dialog. Frankly, it’s a topic that is uncomfortable to talk about. Equality, or the lack thereof, is a challenging topic to discuss; and it’s imminently more challenging to create solutions that work. But, we can’t start to fix a problem without first recognizing that it is one.
I’m white, and believe me when I tell you that I have never worried about being discriminated against. I have never worried about walking down the street or driving a nice car and getting pulled over by the police simply because of the color of my skin. I never worried about not getting promoted at work or not making as much as my peers simply because of my heritage. I don’t know what that feels like, but I can imagine how uncomfortable and on-edge that might make someone feel. I applaud Colin for having the courage to take a stand on a critical issue and I applaud the USA for allowing our citizens the freedom to express themselves.
I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this topic. Will you engage in this uncomfortable conversation? Will you start a dialog at your company or with your family to bring more clarity to this issue? Are you creating a culture in your company and your family where everyone feels like they can raise issues and talk about difficult topics?
Will you take action—or just keep staring at the water?
Thank you,
Jeff Van Fleet
President & CEO
Lighthouse Technologies, Inc.
Software Testing | Quality Assurance Consulting | Oracle EBS Consultinge
