October 4, 2015
Alice: Every forty-five seconds someone in the United States sustains a head injury.
Fred: Omigod! That poor guy!
Fred’s misunderstanding is an example of a mismatch between a problem statement (There is a head injury in the United States every forty-five seconds) and the problem level (“Ah,” thinks Fred, “she is talking about one person”). The result of such a mismatch? Confusion, misunderstanding and, at times, conflict.
Consider the plight of Donald E. Miller Jr. who in October 13, 2014 appeared before Judge Allen H. Davis of the Hancock County Probate Court in Hancock, Ohio. Mr. Miller wanted to get a driver’s license and when he applied to the Department of Motor Vehicles he discovered that he was not eligible. You can’t have a license he was told because you are dead! It seems that in 1994 his ex-wife, claiming that Mr. Miller had disappeared and wanting to apply for Social Security benefits for their two daughters, requested that a court declare Mr. Miller dead. Which is what it did.
When Mr. Miller told Judge Davis that he couldn’t be dead since he was in court conversing with him, the judge replied with the judicial equivalent of “Sorry, you’re out of luck.” Once the State of Ohio declares that someone is dead and three years pass, the judge told him, the judgement can not be reversed. “I don’t know where this leaves you,” the judge told Mr. Miller, “but you’re still deceased as far as the law is concerned.”
Mr. Miller was trying to address a personal problem. He needed a driver’s license and since such licenses are granted by the state, that’s where he turned. The State of Ohio, operating as it does at the Societal/National level, was concerned with Mr. Miller’s existence at a legal bureaucratic level. Even the fact that he was in court, obviously alive, pleading his case made no difference. If the law says Mr. Miller is dead, then he is dead. And dead people don’t get licenses to drive.
Examples of Mismatches Between a Problem Level and a Response
The Cary Grant Frustration:
Among the many sources of conflict in our lives is the continuing tension between being an authentic person – being ourselves in a natural and open way – and performing the roles that society assigns us. At a society level, nurses are supposed to be helpful and considerate; teachers patient and understanding; clerks responsive to customers with smiles and helpful attention,;and polices officer friendly and respectful. There is no better example of this tension than the lament of Archie Leach, aka Cary Grant. “Everybody wants to be Cary Grant,” said Leach. “Even I want to be Cary Grant.” Long before Cary Grant existed, Archibald Alexander Leach was reasonably comfortable being Archie Leach. Once he became Cary Grant, however, it was a different story. The Cary Grant who appeared on the screen was a persona always out of reach of Archie Leach, and Leach spent the rest of his life grappling with the discrepancy. Being Archie Leach was one thing, but being Cary Grant- except in the movies -was beyond him.
Actress Rita Hayworth, who was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, expressed the same frustration – tinged with sadness – when she was quoted saying, “Men go to bed with Rita Hayworth, and wake up in the morning with me.”
Robert Redford reported a similar frustration. Accosted on a Hollywood street by a group of tourists, he was asked “Aren’t you Robert Redford?” His answer casts light on the mismatch between the individual person and a societal image and reputation: “Only when I’m alone,” Redford answered.
The mismatch? Archie Leach, Margarita Cansino, and Robert Redford, famous as movie stars, were all uncomfortable fitting into the roles their fans expected them to play as if they were the people they portrayed in the movies.
The “Knees Go Home” Mismatch:
In March of 2004 Barbara Toone entered the hospital to have a knee replaced The next day when the nurse came in to change the dressings on her knee, she asked “When do you think I can go home?” Without missing a beat the nurse replied on her way out “Knees go home after four days.”
“I remember feeling so hurt and angry,” Ms. Toone wrote in a letter to The New York Times on August 18, 2005. “I had the instant image in my head that I was a knee, sitting in my wheelchair, not a person but a body part. It is a very painful memory.”
When Ms. Toone was treated as if she were a “knee” rather than the unique and special person that she felt she was, she was deeply offended.
The “Have You Passed Gas Yet?” Mismatch:
Mary Duffy was lying in her bed half-asleep on the morning after her breast cancer surgery when without warning a group of white-coated strangers filed into her hospital room and surrounded her bed. Without a word, one of them leaned forward, pulled back the blanket, and slipped her nightgown from her shoulders. Weak and confused, Ms. Duffy still managed to exclaim in a voice tinged with sarcasm, “Well, good morning to you, too!”
The doctor seemed not to hear, and using Ms. Duffy’s naked chest to illustrate his points, launched into a lecture about possible complications of post-operative treatment for breast cancer surgery to the half-dozen medical students who clustered around the bed.
After what seemed like an eternity to Ms. Duffy, the doctor turned abruptly and spoke to her for the first time: “Have you passed gas yet?”
After a pause, she replied: “No. I don’t do that until the third date!”
The doctor seemed surprised. “He looked at me as if he’s offended, like I’m not holding up my end of the bargain” said Ms. Duffy.
When the senior doctor treated her like an object to be examined, prodded and poked, Ms. Duffy was insulted.
Rule or Personal Exception?
Social systems are governed and managed primarily by Rules and Roles. Rules are created so that individuals who are members of the system know what is acceptable and what is out of bounds. The primary purpose of rules is to insure that order replaces the confusion and chaos that inevitably occurs when large numbers of individuals attempt to work together. Roles serve the same purpose, creating order out of chaos by defining the attitudes, values and behaviors that the people who occupy formal positions in an organization are expected to embrace.
While in theory we all understand the importance of rules and the value of roles,they also lead to a serious problem: As individuals, we often see ourselves as exceptions to the rules and deserving modification of the roles. Author Charles Handy describes his attempt to get such an exception:
“I once visited a therapist for consultation. Each consultation started on the hour and ended up after fifty minutes, at ten minutes to the hour. Once I was twenty minutes late, held up by a traffic jam. At ten to the hour the little clock pinged. The psychotherapist stood up to signal that the consultation had ended.
“But I haven’t had my fifty minutes,” I exclaimed. “Is anybody coming after me?”
“No,” he said, “but your time is finished.”
“But I started late,” I said. “It was the traffic. It delayed me unavoidably.”
“That’s your problem,” said the therapist, turning away, “not mine.”
Handy wrote that he left the office seething with anger and frustration. “How dare the therapist treat me this way – me!” His anger came from the therapist’s commitment to the rules and his unwillingness to make an exception. However, as Handy reflected on the experience, he came to the conclusion that there was an important lesson to be learned. All of his life, Handy wrote, he had always expected to be treated as if he were special and that for him exceptions should be made. The therapist offered him another perspective: that there are rules and constraints that we all need to learn to live with.
Excellence or Excrement?
In the movie Dead Poets Society, the academic year at Weldon Academy begins with great pomp and ceremony. All the boys come marching into the great hall behind four banners upon which Four Pillars of Weldon Academy are inscribed: Tradition, Honor, Discipline, and Excellence. During the opening ceremonies, in response to a loud and demanding question from the headmaster, “What are the Four Pillars?” the boys spring to their feet and shout in unison: Tradition, Honor, Discipline and Excellence.
Later, as the boys gather in a dorm room, smoking forbidden cigarettes, one of them shouts derisively, “What are the Four Pillars?” The boys gleefully shout back their responses:
Travesty! Horror! Decadence! Excrement!
The institutional values that form the foundation of the academy are turned into ridicule and disparagement by the boys for whom the Four Pillars were supposed to serve as beacons. The adults don’t have a clue about the level of mismatch that exists between the institutional values they hold in high esteem and what the boys really think!
The Mismatch Between National/ Societal and Personal Levels in War
When the leaders of nations decide to go to war, they are not the ones who fight and die for their country. It is the young men and women of the country who are expected to make this sacrifice. The task for leaders and politicians is to convince the young people that it is an honorable and wonderful thing to fight for their country and that they should be happy for the opportunity. No matter the arguments they offer – and there are many – at the end they always end up echoing a line of poetry written by the Roman poet Horace (65 BC – 27 BC): “Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.” (“It is sweet and glorious to die for your country.”)
The experience of the soldier on the battlefield is neither sweet nor glorious but just the opposite: painful, disorienting, physically and psychologically damaging. This mismatch between the politician’s idealism and the soldier’s personal experience is captured by British poet Henry Treece in his poem Conquerors:
By sundown we came to a hidden village
Where all the air was still
And no sound met our tired ears, save
For the sorry drip of rain from blackened trees
And the melancholy song of swinging gates.
Then through a broken pane some of us saw
A dead bird in a rusting cage, still
Pressing his thin tattered breast against the bars,
His beak wide open. And
As we hurried through the weed-grown street,
A gaunt dog started up from some dark place
And shambled off to die at least in peace.
No one had had told us that victory was like this;
Not one amongst us would have eaten bread
Before he’d filled the mouth of the grey child
That sprawled, stiff as stone before the shattered door.
There was not one of us who did not think of home.
We See Ourselves as Special
Among our most important psychological needs is a desire to be seen as an individual. Since most of us experience ourselves as unique, valuable, special and important, we want and often expect others to see us that way too. We want to be recognized, listened to, taken into account, and, when decisions are made that will affect our lives, consulted. While most of us understand that we are also member of categories – employees, patients, soldiers, lawyers, teachers, engineers, fathers, students – and while we tolerate at times being categorized this way, when it matters to us we resist being classified as an “object” rather than a person. Elie Wiesel, author and holocaust survivor, takes this desire and transforms it into an imperative: “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Indeed, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, its own treasures, and some measure of triumph.”
We Are Often Disappointed
But Wiesel’s admonition, while admirable, is unrealistic. Perhaps we should see in each person his or her own universe with its own secrets, treasures and triumphs. Yet it is another matter entirely when we actually try to do this. When it comes to learning widely and deeply and about others’ “secrets, treasures, and triumphs,” we can only manage it with a few people, fewer perhaps than the fingers on one hand.
A picture of an older woman – I will call her Mary – appears in a full-page ad in a newspaper: The caption under the photo reads “I am not a senior. I am a person.” Yes Mary, you are a person, but mostly to yourself and to a few other people. You are not a “person” to the insurance company that sponsored the ad but rather a client or a customer and a potential source of income as well as a possible cost . You can hope to be seen as a “person” to your husband, children, grandchildren, but even that perspective will be limited. They will usually see you as an occupant of your several roles: wife, mother, grandmother. Eventually, your children may come to see you not just as their mother, but as a person in your own right. But that is rare. We seldom see our parents as other than the adults who raised us.
Most of the people that Mary encounters in everyday life will see her not as a person but as a member of a category: Her doctor sees her as a patient, the druggist as a customer, the server in the restaurant as a diner, the flight attendant on an airplane as a passenger, the government as a citizen, the Social Security Administration as a number and on and on. If Mary expects that the doctor, the druggist, the flight attendant, or the server in the restaurant will see her as a “person” she will be disappointed.
Here is the essence of the Mismatch Problem: We see ourselves as special, worthy of special attention and we would like to be treated this way. Yet those who are assigned to give us this attention see us as “objects:” To them we are primarily employees, patients, clients, customers, students, soldiers, human resources, voters, citizens and so on.
Not Either/Or But And/And
For those who serve, treat, take care of us, and direct our actions, this dilemma is real. In theory they know that the patient in a wheelchair is also a person, that the student seeking guidance and direction is more than just a student, that the customer complaining about the service is a person who lives in a universe with its own “secrets, treasures and triumphs.” But their immediate reality is that they see hundreds of “special people”every day and they all cannot treated be special. They do not have the time, the inclination, or the energy to delve down into the personal side of their lives. And perhaps even more important, they do not have the permission from society to do so!
The mismatches that occur as a result of this dilemma can be managed. The first move comes from the side of those of us who expect special care and attention. Mary, whose example I discussed earlier, can give those who care for and serve her some slack. Those who serve others in their roles as doctors, clerks, or teachers face difficult challenges: their professional lives consist in large part of endless problems which come hard and fast, one after another. Unless she is in a crisis situation, Mary can learn to accept that it is usually unrealistic for her – and for the rest of us as well – to expect or demand that she be given special attention.
An example of a person who gained this understanding is contained in a letter written by Bruno Dupont to the editor of the The New York Times in 2005:
While I was hospitalized for surgery for peritonitis, one thing that really struck me was that [while] doctors are human beings…in order to perform grueling tasks like surgery or intubations, they have no choice but to do away with human feelings. That shift from person to patient may be perceived as degrading, but it is also vital to medical staff, because there are things you must to do a patient that you wouldn’t dream of doing to a person.The next move belongs to those who are on other side: doctors, clerks, judges, military officers, teachers, lawyers. While it is true that society establishes rules and constraints on what is permitted and acceptable when serving others, that need not be the end of the story. Those who offer services to others should not forget that the people on the other side of the desk, or in the wheelchair, or in the hospital bed, are more than employees, customers and patients. They are also unique and special persons who want to be seen as valuable and worthwhile.
The What that is offered to patients, customers and others is largely defined by society. The How it is done belongs to us. Those of us who teach, serve, nurse, instruct, and direct, will bring to that interaction. our experience and expertise But together with our expertise we can also bring kindness, patience, consideration and respect.
Find Matches, Avoid Mismatches
There is a story about a retired military captain who ran his household as he did the army company which he commanded in his previous life. Each morning he would blow a whistle and wait for his family members to line up for inspection. With solemn step and baleful glare he would march down the line from wife, to 18-year old daughter, 13-year old son, 9-year old daughter and finally to 5-year old son, criticizing each one in turn for deficiencies in their achievements of their household and educational responsibilities as well as lapses in cleanliness and dress. After handing out several demerits for gaffs and gaps, and just before he shouted “dismissed,” the youngest child spoke up: “Permission to speak,” he said.
Surprised at the audacity of the boy, he responded “Permission granted.”
“What do I have to do to get a transfer out of this goddamned outfit!” said the boy.
This story is humorous because it is a clear example of a “mismatch.” By treating family members as soldiers, the retired captain offends, insults and may alienate the members of his family. If his inappropriate behavior continues, perhaps other members of the family would also like to “transfer out.”
A match between level and solution occurs when teachers remember that their students are “students” and treat them skillfully and appropriately. A mismatch occurs when they cross the line from teaching “students” and begin defining them as special friends or companions.
A match occurs when a boss treats his or her employees as important members of the organization. A mismatch occurs when he or she goes beyond organizational constraints and in a misguided attempt to meet his or the others’ needs, becomes abusive or involved in personal or sexual relationships.
A match occurs when governmental officials treat all citizens the same. A mismatch occurs when they surreptitiously offer special goods or services to one person or one organization that are not available to others with similar problems.
The work of teachers, bosses, government officials, as well as lawyers, surgeons, clerks and engineers consists for the most part in finding and dealing with problems. It is “Good Work” when it includes matching the remedy or solution offered with the level at which the problem is located and then adding in kindness and understanding as part of the process. Problems in interpersonal relationships require actions that are appropriate for the members in the relationship; problems in organizations should lead to actions that involve organizational issues and problems; problems in government need to be addressed with actions that improve the quality of the lives of the governed. Finding and making appropriate matches between problem level and remedy may reduce the number of people who would like to “transfer out” of families, marriages, communities, organizations, or countries.
In an earlier chapter I described a New Yorker cartoon in which a stern-looking judge looks down from a high bench at a clearly distraught man who is about to be led away to prison and says: “For heavens’ sake. It’s not the end of the world. People are sentenced to prison every day.”
We laugh because we find it to be humorous. And it is humorous because there is an unexpected twist at the end. Beyond the humor, however, the mismatch between problem level and remedy can be clearly seen. For the judge, speaking from the perspective of society, the event has no special meaning. He has probably sentenced hundreds of of “convicted felons” to prison. If he saw the man before him as a “person” and not as a convicted felon, it would be counter-productive. And what could he do even if he did see him as a person? In his role as judge he could not forgive him and tell him not to commit any crimes in the future. Only a “person” can forgive another.
For the man on his way to prison, however, we can assume that it was an event with transcendental meaning. Yes, it is true that “people” are sentenced to prison every day. But this is the judge’s perspective. The hundreds of people that he has sentenced were not “persons” to him in the same sense as the man who stands before the judge sees himself. They had become “defendants, criminals, or convicted felons.” This man, standing alone in the courtroom before the judge, hearing the sentence being pronounced, is upset because he sees himself not as a convicted felon but a unique and special human being: a “person.” While what is happening is commonplace for the judge, for this man it is a singular event and perhaps the most terrible and traumatic experience of his life. Now, however, he has become more than a “person.” Society has determined that he is primarily a convicted felon on his way to prison. He must expand his identity to include the judgment that he is unfit to live in society. He has a new role to play.
If the judge had used language that matched his perspective with the problem level, he would have said something like this: ” I am aware that you are suffering great pain at this moment. But this is not my primary concern. Justice has to be served. You have been found guilty of committing a crime and it is my duty to sentence you to prison according to the law. I take no pleasure in this. My hope for you is that after you pay your debt to society, you will straighten out your life and live the rest of it as a law-obeying citizen.”
There is no laughing here. It is not funny. There will be no joke in the New Yorker with the judge saying these words. But it is illustrative of a more appropriate “match” between the problem level and the judge’s approach.