I love fables and parables. I used them to explain things to my kids when they were small, and I use them in leadership courses to illustrate common management and governance issues. See if this one hits home.
Jack is sitting at a traffic light, preparing to turn left onto a major highway. It’s not very busy this time of day. In fact, nobody is even stopped in any of the four directions except him. Jack could just run the light and be on his way.
But Jack is a rule follower and sits quietly to wait for the light to turn. Looking down the road to his right, he sees a semi-truck traveling rather quickly toward his intersection. He wonders why the driver is in such a hurry.
Jack’s light switches to green and he prepares to make his turn. After all those law-abiding minutes, he finally has the legal right to be on his way. But the semi is still barreling toward Jack’s traffic junction, showing no sign of slowing down. “But it’s MY TURN,” Jack says as pulls into the intersection.
Yikes! I am not sure I want to think about the death and destruction that follows our mythical Jack. But his stubbornness at being right has clearly overtaken his common sense and survival instinct.
The moral of this story? My daughter summed it up for me once.
Just because you’re right, doesn’t mean you should.
