Darwin Awards

Occasionally I have laughed at the antics on Rude Tube where silly people do silly things. In ‘Jackass’ the movie, these are taken to a different level and daft people do dangerous things.  Finally, anyone familiar with the Darwin Awards knows that they are awarded posthumously to people, who through their idiotic actions, have removed their genes from the human pool.  We marvel at the stupidity of our fellow man displaying varying levels of lunacy yet we don’t even think about the slow form suicidal actions of modern life such as being chronically overweight, drinking excessively or smoking. The outcomes are just as fatal but the extended timescale means the events cannot be captured on a two minute video. Also, since so many of us are in danger, it feels intrusive and uncomfortable to have someone expose us.

In my case it took a hospitalisation to help me change course.  I hadn’t made a connection between my own diet and my health believing that because I was very active I could eat anything I wanted. That I had developed bad habits may have been blindingly obvious to others. Some may even have tried to tell me, but until the student in me was ready, the teacher could not appear.

I’m reminded of my marketing studies where we learned that for an organisation to have a strategic perspective required that it regularly examined its operational effectiveness within the changing environment. It’s all too easy for organisations to maintain momentum in a direction that’s no longer helpful. Markets are opportunistic and unforgiving. If the organisation doesn’t change direction it will die.  Often the organisation’s principals either don’t know what’s coming or don’t believe it will affect them. Either way, ignorance is no more a defence for the business than it is for the individual with his damaging lifestyle. Change programmes in organisations are notoriously difficult. It is necessary, but not sufficient, for its leaders to enounce intention and give direction, because until staff engagement is achieved, true change cannot happen. Cultural inertia in organisations is akin to subconscious resistance in the individual.

By the time an individual’s health has degenerated to the point where they suffer a vascular event, or an organisation enters receivership, independent life may no longer be viable. Survival then depends on the swift and expert intervention of external bodies. Environmental change drives corporate product demise just as apoptosis (self destruction) is accelerated in tissue cells in response to physiological factors. But product evolution and cellular replication are natural processes that of themselves are not life threatening. Indeed, the action of upgrading products or replacing defective cells is what maintains corporate or physical health.  It is much more appropriate to proactively maintain health rather than attempt to regain it after the damage is done. Effective tracking of health performance, be it a personal physical profile or a corporate ‘dashboard’ of key performance indicators can provide warning that things are out of balance. Unfortunately there’s still no guarantee that the ‘patient’ will heed the warning. Evidence of Darwinian misadventure litters the corporate world.

There will always be richly deserved Darwin awards but there will also be daring and mould breaking performances as individuals and organisations expand frontiers.  We marvelled at the world’s athletes in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic festivals of sport, but for me, the truly out of the ordinary heroics belong to Jeb Corliss. Watch his wingsuit adventures in ‘Grinding the Crack’ on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfph3iNC-k . Maybe we need  ‘Freud Awards’?