Committee Comfort

Committee Comfort

It has been said that a camel is just a horse that was created by a committee. You’ve probably witnessed the process yourself. Put any twelve decision-makers in a room together, and they can’t seem to make a decision at all. Worse yet, they create something that suits the members–a camel of their own making.

Ghandi says numbers are the “delight of the timid.” At some time or another, we all want the comfort of being surrounded by others with interests common to us. Maybe it’s on sales meeting day when the discussion turns into a gripe session. Maybe it’s around the proverbial water cooler, or in a training class we’ve just taken. Wherever the group meets, the results are often the same: a lack of action backed up by all the reasons that justify the inaction.

Look around. Do you see one or two individuals who spend little of their time with the group? Sometimes called “loners,” these are usually also the over-achievers, the top producers in life and business. They know where they’re going and they don’t need a committee’s approval to do it. The chairperson of the committee says those types aren’t “team players.”

Being human, it is certainly normal to seek the comfort of others, and there’s nothing wrong with that! In the case of the few that Ghandi described as “the Valiant in spirit,” however, their strength comes from their accomplishments. That same spirit is in each of us; the part of us that wants to strike out on our own. You can do that by resigning from the committees of your life, and become a committee of one! Just think–you’ll always have a unanimous vote!