Today, I realized that politicians have completely lost touch with reality. Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, wrote to President Obama asking him to approve more deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. I had sympathy for him and the plight of the people of the state when I saw him out advocating for sand berms that would protect the wetlands that are critical to the ecosystem and sustainable industries of the gulf coast. Read it and be amazed at the stupidity of the request. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/bobby-jindal-obama-letter_n_599226.html .What does the man smoke? It must be something the rest of us would be put in jail for smoking.
Ron White, a comedian who participated in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, says it very simply. “You can’t fix stupid.” There is oil spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico at multiple thousand barrels a day and this bone-headed politician seems to think that approving more wells is more important than fixing today’s problems. Where did he buy his blinders?
I recognize what is happening. Project Managers experience this all the time. All the lessons in the world won’t ensure that the stakeholders will do anything different than they have ever done before. Most of the time, they would rather whine than change. We see the same mistakes made over and over and over and over again. It happens because the process of using the lessons of today to prevent the same situation tomorrow was never taught in school. There is a wise philosopher that said “Stupidity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different outcome.” So Governor Jindal, “What have you learned from this experience?” Based on your request, “nothing!”
My thought for the day is “The cosmetic stuff is easy but stupid lasts forever.” I think that I have Ron White to thank for that quote too. The reason for lessons-learned, risk management, contingency planning sessions and leading from the front is so that “we get different outcomes than we are getting today.” If we want different outcomes, then the decisions must be well reasoned and safety must come before money. It would help immensely if people would think before they record their stupidity for posterity.
