Jim Salvucci. Ph.D.

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1/21/2021

​Negative Paradigms Can Be Positive Paradigms Too

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split photo and negative of sculpture of eyes
Several of my recent blogposts have offered examples of behaviors, particularly among bosses, that are considerably less-than admirable. Now, I am a firm believer that one should acknowledge, own, correct, and learn from one’s mistakes as a matter of course. Doing so requires strength of character and mind. In contrast, dodging mistakes is a mark of cowardice and fecklessness. Still, it is not enough to learn just from one’s own mistakes. There is another rich vein of error to mine for lessons: the mistakes of others, particularly those that manifest debilitating habits of mind or reveal adverse patterns of action.

​Chronic error can be a great teacher.
Certainly, one should also seek to learn from the positive in others as a rule. The admirable strengths, virtues, and accomplishments of others can serve as a guide for our own behavior and help us to develop best practices as we go about our business. Others’ successful strategies offer paradigms that we can adapt to our own uses. But I want to talk about how others’ failings can, in fact, serve just as usefully or even more so as guides toward better behaviors in ourselves if we conceive of them as negative paradigms
photo negative of zig zag sculpture
photo of zig zag sculpture
Using negative paradigms, just as with using positive paradigms, is most effective when not a rote reflexive mode. If you slavishly ape the behaviors and practices of someone you admire, you likely will discover that success does not transfer directly from one person to another. Circumstances may differ, styles may differ, personalities may differ, and so on. For instance, if the person you admire uses gentle humor to motivate people but your sense of humor is more sardonic, you may struggle to imitate your model's successful formula. Despair not, though. Just take what you can learn from this paragon and adapt it to yourself and your style.
It stands to reason, then, if positive paradigms do not always simply transfer one-to-one from person to person, then learning from and applying negative paradigms will not necessarily be a matter of just doing their opposite. Just because x is wrong doesn’t necessarily mean that negative x is correct. Life is way more complex and much more fun than that.
negative and photo of outdoor sculpture
Here is an example. Years ago, I had a boss who constantly and indefatigably toiled and was proud of how hard he worked. He firmly believed that his work ethic was, in and of itself, an objective good, and I quickly bought into that line of thinking as well. 
After all, his belief is one of our most powerful and enduring cultural assumptions: that work, any work, is inherently virtuous. I started imitating him. Soon I too was too busy for anything. I came in early and stayed late, just like him. I worked on holidays and fretted about taking vacation, just like him. Think about that. I stressed over taking a vacation. How perverse is that?

​I lost perspective.


Over time, I started to see that while he was a hard worker, he was miserable and, worse, all his striving actually produced little of great value. I then reflected on what I was missing in life due to to my budding workaholism and how my own efforts generated little of value. In fact, after a certain point, value decreased the more I worked. I resolved to make better choices and started prioritizing more judiciously. Soon, although I was working less, my output improved, as did my outlook on life.

The behavior and habits of my boss had served as a wonderful negative paradigm, but if I had just done the opposite of him, I simply would have stopped working. Instead, I took what I learned from his errors and applied it to myself, adapting it to my style and the needs of my position. To be sure, I worked plenty hard, but I also began, as they say, to work smart.

As this story suggests, negative paradigms can be just as and even more instructional than positive paradigms. They not only offer models to avoid, but they can give one perspective that is not readily accessed otherwise. Negative paradigms offer powerful insights when we perceive how things are done wrong and can inspire us to reconceive how to do them right, but negative paradigms are only one tool for self-awareness and improvement.  My own practices have evolved as I have paid heed to a mix of negative paradigms, positive paradigms, candid introspection, and research to determine how to best achieve my own goals while adhering to my principles and values. Applying each of these elements, these tools and paradigms, is critical to formulating an effective approach to one’s distinctive success. In this way, even the negative can be a positive.
Split of photo and negative of man's eyes

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12/24/2020

Human Decency as Superpower

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​A short while back I wrote about the power of decency, but what about the superpower of decency?
At the end of November 2020, an emergency physician in California tweeted a thread that went viral. The doctor, Taylor Nichols (@tnicholsmd), related the story of treating a particular patient in the midst of the pandemic, a time when so many, and none more so than medical professionals, have been physically and emotionally challenged beyond their limits
Super doctor male
Dr. Nichols' patient was struggling to breathe and begging the doctor to save his life. When his shirt was removed for treatment, the medical team, which Nichols described as "a Jewish physician, a Black nurse, and an Asian respiratory therapist," could see that his body was defaced with Nazi symbols, including a swastika tattooed prominently on his chest. As they set about treating the patient, Nichols reflected that a man with such emblems of hatred inked on his skin had likely devoted himself to devaluing, or worse, the lives of the very people working to save his. Nonetheless, the team prepared to intubate their patient, a procedure that would expose them to considerable risk of contagion in this age of COVID.

The scene Nichols paints deserves further rumination.

Think about it. Here we see a patient whose naked flesh proclaims his raw hatred for these individuals who risk their own health and lives to preserve his life even as they know their success would free him to continue to promote his noxious views and threaten their wellbeing and that of their families and loved ones.. 

Nazi tattoos are not some deplorable cosplay fad. They indicate a commitment to white supremacy and to classifying specific groups of people as subhuman or not quite human and decidedly intolerable. His Jewish doctor even recognized one tattoo as the insignia of the SS, who were responsible for designing and executing the "Final Solution," otherwise known as the Holocaust. Perhaps, you may argue, this patient had an explanation for the repugnant tattoos, such as he got them in prison because he needed the protection of a gang, or some such thing. Perhaps he had or would come to regret them. But why so many? And why keep them? 

Reasserting the Human in Humanist

Nichols describes himself as a humanist in his Twitter profile, which can indicate a number of things. Based on his story, I would guess that he means that he derives his morality from serving humanity rather than from the doctrine and mores of an established religion, dogma, or code. If I am right, Nichols' humble commitment to the service to others is a stellar example of humanist morality in action. Clearly, the point of his thread is not to garner praise for himself and his colleagues for doing their jobs. Indeed, the narrative culminates in a moment of crisis when, exhausted by months of battling COVID in the face of those who deny its existence and reflecting on the hatred this particular patient expresses via his body markings, Nichols hesitates. 
That is the point of his thread. Not that Nichols and his team treated a loathsome man they were obligated to treat, but that Nichols is human enough to equivocate in his moral and physical fatigue. It is a story of human beings taxed beyond their limits. And Nichols is a skilled enough storyteller that he ends it there without revealing if the team went through with the procedure. We are left to conclude that they did, that they finished with this racist patient before moving on to their next patient. 
super doctor female
Again, the story is about Nichols' moral dilemma in the fog of his exhaustion. 

​It is a story of human decency decently told in 280-character bites. It even starts in medias res. For Nichols and his colleagues, this nightmarish scenario is just the quotidian, the day-to-day routine. Worn down as he must be, he still constantly does the right thing, the decent thing, no matter his feelings. His story is a companion to that of Jodi Doering, a nurse in South Dakota who told her tale of moral outrage in the midst of gruesomeness on Twitter and CNN at around the same time. She spoke of patients who deny the existence of COVID and call her names even as they are dying of the disease. Like Nichols and his team, she continues to care for them in the face of their hateful contempt. Her Twitter profile, which now apparently lists her name as Jodi Orth (@jodiorth), has a banner that reads "Be a Good Human," sadly an increasingly radical stance. In fairness, I must note that her testimonial has been disputed as exaggerated. Whatever the case, as Nichols observed, simply continuing to treat patients in the midst of COVID denial and hostility to medical personnel from a wide swath of the population is demoralizing in the extreme, and even more so in a place like South Dakota where the governor herself has abetted the spread of the disease and openly contributed to the widespread denial and consequent contempt for medical professionals.

These tales of frontline medical professionals, but two samples standing in for an untold number of told and untold stories, are more extreme than what most of us will ever experience. Still, they are clear instances of the power of decency, of remaining "a good human," in the face of horror.

I would go even further. For those of us in other walks of life, it is hard to imagine having to face anger, unreason, resentment, and hatred every day from the very people you are committed to serving, be they patients on a gurney or governors in the statehouse. Practitioners in other professions may confront similar dilemmas, (law enforcement officers, teachers, and, yes, even lawyers come to mind), but not perhaps in such stark terms and under such constant duress.

​In this way, maintaining basic human decency, being a good human, is not just a power, but it is a superpower. It takes an extraordinary amount of fortitude to assert decency day in and day out even without the onslaught of abuse and offense that medical professionals, these human beings, face. Maintaining decency along with its attendant virtues of integrity and compassion is simple but not easy, for it is not enough to declare "I am an honorable person, a good human" or to merely intend to be a virtuous person. Decency demands constant vigilance, vigilance that itself is enervating, which is partially why Nichols flagged for a moment before proceeding to work on his patient.

Human decency, being a good person in the face of it all, is indeed a superpower. It is an act of heroism that may just save us all. While it is not as cool and fanciful as the ability to fly or turn invisible or punch through brick walls, it remains the only superpower that challenges our humanity and thereby the only one that can help make us fully human.

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    Well, Actually...
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    Tools+Paradigms

    Each Thursday I post my thoughts on a variety of subjects in hopes of encouraging readers to challenge their received wisdom and cultural assumptions. I offer Human Tools+Paradigms that are designed to appeal to shared values and guide readers as they make decisions, solve problems, and just navigate the daily world. While these pieces are aimed at leaders and managers, I hope that others will find benefit in them as well. I welcome comments and responses to my posts via the comment section at the end of each on or, if you prefer, directly to my email. Also, please use the social media links to share and comment.

    Jim Salvucci, Ph.D.

    I am a former English Professor and academic administrator with experience at several institutions in the U.S. and Canada. I have a broad background in management and leadership and have mentored countless faculty, staff, and students, by offering them Tools+Paradigms to help them rethink their assumptions and practices. The Human Tools+Paradigms I present in this blog capture what I have learned from working with them and from my experience and research. You can read more about me here.


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