A long time ago, or so it seems, I heard about a lecture. And though I never attended it, I can never forget it, either.

I was visiting NY for the first time. After magical visits to Austin and Boston I found myself in Manhattan…

While waiting in a bagel shop somewhere for my friend, Motti – who had excused himself to take an important phone call – I found myself sitting at a table next to a man and his small son. And a conversation was struck…

Pretty soon we were talking about all sorts of things and it transpired that this man was a Doctor who worked for the UN, in the Public Health section. Among other things, he shared a story from when he was in Medical School. Though I don’t remember the teller’s name, or much else, this story of his has stayed with me:

"An important visitor was giving a lecture at our university and all the medical students were invited to attend. I found myself sitting in a crowded hall as D. A Henderson* gave a lecture on the eradication of Small Pox…after the lecture was finished, question time began, with journalists firing questions at the Dr…

 Then one man asked "Dr. Henderson, now that you’ve tackled small pox, what is the next disease you will work on eradicating?"

 He paused for a moment, and considered the question. And then answered: "Mismanagement."

I was reminded of the story today at lunch, and thought I would share it more widely than my lunch table. Of course you may also find it a helpful story when speaking about ‘Healthy Leadership’ in Organisations…

Oh and the Dilbert cartoon above. It actually relates to a story of mismanagement I experienced: A leader of an organisation whose Marketing Committee I was asked to sit on (pro bono) actually told me ‘it’s a secret’. And it wasn’t just me he wasn’t sharing it with…his staff hadn’t seen the plan since the day they made it together in a strategic planning session…but that is whole other story.

* Though I am not 100% sure the man was Donald (D.A) Henderson I am pretty sure it was as ‘Dr. Henderson’ is the name I recall from the story I heard…and given the role D.A Anderson played in the eradification of small pox (see literature) suggests the story is a true one. If you were there – well do let me know!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 6:58 pm and is filed under change, conversation, dialogue, stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.