What Change Management has to offer Newtown and Aurora

Change Is Possible

I’m a change management professional, not a politician or lobbyist.  For me gun violence is a reality to be changed, and it can be changed.  It is not an element in the periodic table.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I was born Canadian and am naturalized as a US citizen.   That means that my core value set is often different from many of my American friends.  I don't need to be armed to protect myself from my government or fellow citizens.

In addition, earlier this year – before the Aurora shooting – I witnessed a shooting incident.  It was in a restaurant facility where a crazed husband stalked his wife injuring her and a friend before turning the gun on himself.  The emotions of the patrons ran from: being perplexed to being catatonic to be being terrorized to being thankful.  If any of the Texas diners were packing concealed heat that night they were using a table to protect themselves, not a glock.

So I have a bias.  I believe the level of gun violence in the US can be reduced; not eliminated, but reduced.  I believe there is more to be done than mourn the victims and pray for the families.

What can we learn for Change Management?

1. Recognize the Issue:

Rationalizing the status quo will get us nowhere.  We need to accept that we are not doing enough to protect the innocent – particularly children.

2. Paint a Monet:

There is no detailed answer.  We need to paint a Monet where we can kind of see a pond, a bridge, and a tree.  We can fill in the details as we travel toward our aspirational vision.

3. Create Pressure Through Dialogue:

We need to talk.  We need to create grass roots awareness and pressure.  We need to castigate assailants and memorialize victims.  We need everyone in the gun violence supply chain to feel the pressure and modify their behavior.

Be clear, I’m not talking about big government passing intrusive laws.  I’m talking about a government that leads by facilitating and following.  A government that funds research and creates opportunities for fact based debate.

I believe that we can create a culture that responsibly questions the national attitude toward: gun ownership; the power of firearms on our streets; and even the open worship of gun violence in our entertainment.

We can renew ourselves.  We don’t need a big change in laws to control guns or their aggrandizement in our society.  Prohibition and censorship are not answers.  Responsibility is.

We’ve Done This Before!

Pollyanna, you say!  No, historian.  Look at big tobacco.  Fifty years ago it was out of control.  Big money in big tobacco was enticing vulnerable youth into a life of bad health and likely early death.  Bogie and Bacall gave rise to the Marlboro Man and Camel’s Joe Cool as icons of our culture.

I’m not an apologist for the tobacco industry, and yes I recognize that many laws and regulations have been passed to define where big tobacco can play.  However, I also recognize that public outrage – usually in the name of our children – created limitations that were inconceivable only a few decades ago.  Sure, maybe it was a bad idea to let everyone smoke in packed movie houses, but now you can’t smoke on a restaurant’s outdoor patio.

We didn’t outlaw tobacco and there is no need to outlaw guns.  What we did was classic change management: we recognized the issue; we envisioned an ideal future state; and we created a public dialogue that pressured big tobacco to become a responsible corporate citizen.

We know how to reduce gun violence in the US.  We know how to protect our citizen’s right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  There is no “paint by numbers” answer, but there is a reward.  

The reward is the hard work of moving forward.

Aurora - Shooting Our Own

Dressed to Kill

Well, America is undergoing another week of self-therapy and self-loathing.  The tragic mass murder in Aurora, Colorado has re-opened a deep wound (not a pun) carried by this country.

I'm a naturalized American having immigrated here from Canada in 1995.  America is a great country.  It has a patriotic spirit that fires innovation and entrepreneurship.  But it is also a society full of fear and full of guns.

In March I wrote about a shooting that I witnessed.  My wife and I were having dinner with some friends on a restaurant patio.  Twenty feet away, in the parking lot, gunshots rang out.  

Once the chaos settled down and my wife administered emergency attention to one of the victims we started to understand what happened.  Basically a man was stalking his wife.  They had been separated for several months.  She and some of her friends had come to the restaurant.  When they got back to their car the man opened fire on them before he took his own life.

It took many weeks before all of the facts were known, including the fact that the man’s wife is now confined to a wheelchair for life.

Now my little incident doesn’t compare to the shooting in the Aurora movie house.  But what I do know is that in the few wild seconds of the shooting in the restaurant no one knew what the hell was going on.  Most people didn’t recognize the “pops” as gunfire, and those who did were diving for cover under the dinner tables.

Even if you had been trained to recognize and assimilate the chaos you wouldn’t have had a clue of what to do.  This wasn’t a movie where you've been prepared and are observing the scene from a calm vantage point.  This was reality.  Who was shooting who?  How many shooters were there?  How can I stay alive?

This shooting happened in Texas where we have a concealed gun law.  That’s right, if you are licensed you can sit in a restaurant with a concealed weapon.  Many of my friends “pack heat”.  When playing golf I'm always leery when someone says “good shot!”

Now it is not unreasonable to think that there were several gun totters in the restaurant that evening.  Yet no one jumped up, gun in hand to save the day.  If there were packers in the vicinity they were obvious by their absence.

So what’s my point?  Well, I'm a gun guy.  I see value in guns.  I think there is a valuable lore around families and hunting; and I’ve always been a big fan of various types of target shooting.  There is something magical, powerful, and even primeval about shooting, even when the result can be fallen game.

I also empathize with the second amendment of the US constitution - you know the right to bear arms.  It does make some sense to me that the citizenry should be allowed to arm itself against unjust government – even if the gesture is simply symbolic.  The second amendment goes to the heart of America’s belief in itself.  It represents freedom and sovereignty.  Since it is a belief, it cannot be assailed by the arguments of logic.

But what about the flip side of the belief?  Did the framers of the US constitution want to protect the freedom of disturbed citizens who want to kill other citizens?  Maybe, but I don’t think so.

We seem to have over-interpreted the second amendment.  We are now saying that it’s ok for someone to legally buy 6000 rounds of ammunition, automatic rifles with clips holding 100 bullets, and body armor to protect them against retribution.

All I know for sure is that if the Aurora shooter had come to our restaurant instead of a crazed husband, we would all be dead.

If I have to take my shoes off at airports so people can feel safe, shouldn’t I feel just as safe while eating tacos?