Apply Reason and Test Analytical Claims
There’s a “balloons in a hallway” story that occasionally reappears on social channels. There are a couple variations on the story. Sometimes it’s hero is a professor. Sometimes it’s a kindergarten teacher. Once it was even a Marine drill instructor.
The gist of the story is that cooperation leads to success or happiness or some sort of kitten-hanging-from-a-branch, pull-together message—but its “official” message really doesn’t match the facts. (In fact, I often suspect these are often trial balloons—excuse the pun—to get unsuspecting people to start trusting an unknown site, so later the site can spread misinformation and distrust, but we’ll address that another time.)
A common aspect of the story, is a space is filled with a bunch of balloons, each balloon with a group member’s name written on it (sometimes it’s ping-pong balls or similar things).
First the whole group is told to go into the space (often a hallway) all at once and all are supposed to find the respective balloon with their own name on it. As you’d imagine it becomes confused mayhem.
After a time, the leader (whether teacher, prof, sergeant) stops the mayhem and proposes a new method: As each person picks up a balloon, if it’s not their balloon, they give it to the person whose name is on it. Suddenly all the objects are quickly with their human match.
The sender concludes that by putting others ahead of yourself, you achieve happiness, success, victory or whatever.
It sounds like a lovely motivational poster.
The problem is, that the second method only works if the participants know each other. If they don’t, it would create even more mayhem as the searching participants add a cacophony of voices calling out for help to identify the unknown Ashtons, Blakes and Colbys in the space.
In any situation, someone may pitch a cure-all solution, often for a problem you might not actually have. That’s the whole basis [SPOILER ALERT for “The Music Man,” a 65-year-old Tony Award-winning musical and the 60-year-old movie based on it, and its revival on Broadway in 2022] behind the flimflam artist who bilks River City out of money for band instruments and uniforms to quell teenage rebellion due to the town’s new pool table—“Trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with P, which stands for Pool,” as one song explains.
In short, make sure you understand the problem you’re facing. Does your team see a problem, or did a stranger just fill your hallway with balloons, creating a balloon problem where there wasn’t one to be solved?
As I’ve said many times before: Most problems are awareness problems. When you know what you’re facing, it’s easier to find the right solution.
It’s the basis for my reasoning that the real path out of these cycles of COVID-19 surges and ebbs and surges again is to test, test, test our way out.