The burning man

The G-Man principle (anonymised to protect the innocent) .…or how to survive when working for an organisation super resistant to change without burning out

Recently I was working with a large organisation and feeling the stress building as whenever I tried to help them avoid what felt like obvious challenges (brick walls) they tended to just hit the throttle and run straight into those challenges (brick walls).

Two of my super experienced and capable colleagues seemed to have less stress than I did so I asked them how they managed to remain calm. The first one. I remarked I was having trouble sleeping and felt like I was getting paid a lot of money and just being ignored. The answer? “If you’re not sleeping well at night, buy a better bed.” Funny but not helpful.

The second answer came from G-Man. It is going to get a bit metaphorical, but the conversation went something like this:

G-Man: “You see people about to set themselves on fire. You advise them that this will hurt and if they did this instead they could avoid the pain. They ignore the advice and light the match, then run around screaming. You don’t like to see people hurting so it causes you stress. I on the other hand have developed a large tolerance to seeing people running around on fire. I advise them: there’s a better way to do this but if you insist on doing it your way then feel free to set yourself on fire. I’ll help you put it out if you need. Then he can watch them do it. Repeatedly, because they usually set themselves on fire and run around like crazy until it burns out then they pour some more fuel and set themselves on fire again. Once they get tired of this they quite often come back and say “G-Man, didn’t you have an alternative way you mentioned?” And then he takes away their matches.

My takeaway was, besides to develop a larger tolerance to others pain, that you can only really succeed if the people you’re trying to help ask for help and then importantly accept the help when it arrives.