Lessons For Life
The Blind Man and the Needle
I was a little boy, only 4 or 5 years old, innocently watching a scratchy 1950’s movie on a black and white TV, but what I witnessed on that screen stayed with me all my life and, once given a moral twist, contributed to a psychological tool that I have used from that day till this.
I can’t remember the name of the film or the over-riding narrative of the movie but one particular scene instantly delivered me a message that I would turn into one of my own lessons for life … a discipline I would later call “Bombing the airfield!”
The only part of the plot, (the only part that mattered), was a scene where an elderly, near blind man with only tunnel vision was sitting in a comfy armchair in a darkened but friendly room awaiting the arrival of family and a doctor due to visit and assess his health and well being.
Being infirmed, the man was due to be assessed for entry into a nursing home, an outcome he had no intention of encouraging.
Though too young to have grasped the entire nature of the storyline, prior to the arrival of his expected visitors, I was intrigued to see the old man rise out of his chair and make his way to a drawer, (or sewing box), and even more surprised to watch his fingers search for a particular object he obviously wished to locate.
A few seconds later, the man headed back to his chair but not before bending down and placing something on the carpet in front of it.
The next scene showed the man being confronted by his visitors and the conversation homed in on his poor health and his apparent blindness.
Dismissing his visitors concerns, the old man retorted that his sight was fine and he reinforced the comment by stating, “If I was that blind, how come I can see that needle on the carpet?”
The visitors then cast their eyes down to the carpet but couldn’t see anything; until the old man rose up out of his chair, stepped forward, bent down and plucked the needle from the floor!
He holds the object up before their eyes … and then asks them to leave.
OK. Sure. The blind man contrived the situation though, as a little boy, I was less concerned with that fact. Rather, I was intrigued and fascinated to witness the old man think ahead, visualise the apparent threat or impending likely circumstances but then create a condition where he, rather than his visitors, took the lead and the scenario the way he wished it to go.
I’ve used that scenario ever since seeing that old movie as a little boy.
Bombing the Airfield
I call it “Bombing the airfield”, meaning; anticipating a situation or preparing for attack in advance and, in doing so, eliminating a threat before others can “get their planes in the air”, utilize their own resources, prosecute an untruth or pursue some alternate unscheduled or unwelcome agenda.
And no. While we might consider or agree the old man was conniving, deceitful or economical with the truth by having set up the scenario he then played out to his advantage, my own “Bombing the airfield” concept avoids that moral failing and, instead, simply means that, for example, if I have noticed a contractor failing to complete an agreed, contracted element of a service, build or design remit I might have been paying him to perform, I’d do some homework before confronting them.
Meaning, before I actually asked a person to ‘explain themselves’, I’d investigate EVERY conceivable potential reason the task might not been performed properly, adequately or at all, prior, so that I’d know in advance, before a meeting, that a contractor hadn’t, a) Ran out of petrol or diesel, b) Wasn’t an operative down due to illness or absenteeism, c) Hadn’t suffered some mechanical breakdown or d) Hadn’t had to deploy resources elsewhere due to some emergency or incident taking priority.
Airfield bombed!
That way, if an operative or contractor did attempt to offer excuses like, “Yeah, sorry about that. One of the machines had water in its diesel” or made a claim that “Jim didn’t show up today”, I could shut down the lie or counter the excuse immediately.
That said, if I had discovered some reasonable, legitimate reason for an issue or problem, I could volunteer whatever resources were needed to surprise or help out a contractor by moving mountains to help them resolve an issue.
In that sense a bombing the airfield approach works quite beautifully as a fab little management tool to, perhaps, encourage folk to drill into whatever task they may be involved in or responsible for with just a simple remit of ‘understanding the terrain’ they happen to be standing upon.
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