Working Together

I live in one of those parts of the country that is currently getting blasted with a giant heat wave. If that wasn't enough,  just as the temperatures were rising, a big storm came along and ended up knocking out the power at our home as well as hundreds of thousands of others in the region. The result was several days of misery. We faced temperatures hovering near 100 degrees without having the ability to turn on a simple fan. To say the least, it was not fun.  I understand this was a way of life for our forefathers. But in fairness to us, our forefathers never had the sweet taste of air conditioning, so they never knew what they were missing. We did.

But now that our power has been restored and we are in a better disposition to deal with the uncompromising heat, I can more easily look back and see how the shared misery that so many of us experienced actually also brought out the best of our inner communicator. Let me begin with traffic lights. Part of what stopped working were the traffic lights at intersections around town. With those out, drivers had to carefully negotiate with other drivers in order to safely navigate through intersections. Consequently, regardless of the direction from which they were coming, drivers would either stop or slow down to ensure not just their own safe passage but that of other drivers as well.

What happened at out neighborhood traffic lights, and in some cases still is, is a great example of respectful collaboration. More to the point, it is a great example of effective communication. People with apparently nothing more in common than the fact they are drivers and they want to get where they are going safely, identified a greater good around which they could rally and then devised strategies to achieve results that address their mutual needs and interests. Here is the best part: as I write this, in the case of our region, I am not aware of a single traffic accident occurring at an intersection where the traffic lights were not working.