Mar
31
Written by:
Sean Obrien
3/31/2009
So I had an hour to kill the other evening. I had to pick up my kids at one of the dozens of places they need to be each week, and I was early, so I moseyed over to Barnes & Noble.
Walking the stacks, I heard some guy talking on a microphone back in the magazine area (where I'm headed) and I immediately felt a bit put out. Who was this chump and why did he need a microphone to talk to the 50 or so people assembled?
"Hrrummpp!"
He was older. He had a short buzz cut and thick Southern accent. He was talking about loving your neighbor or something like that, so I pegged him as some sort of minister.
Now I was getting eggy. Why had Barnes & Noble invited this guy to speak? Who was he? I wanted him to go away so I could look at the magazines. No thank you sir, I'm not interested—at all. Beat it. Scram.
Then I heard the magic words: Habitat For Humanity. Suddenly I realized that this is the guy: Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat For Humanity.
Suddenly I was interested—and ashamed. I was so quick, so eager, to write this guy off because of the way he looked and how he sounded. I didn't give him a chance—didn't want to. And here's a guy who's a total hero, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Here's a guy who has simply and generously made the world a better place. Someone who thought up and grew what President Clinton once called, “…the most successful continuous community service project in the history of the United States.”
And my bias almost caused me to miss him entirely.
How lame.
It got me thinking. As we try to negotiate our daily minefield—made all the more difficult by the economy and various doomsayers—what are missing? What opportunities does our bias make us blind to? What could you be doing differently in your store or company? Who or what will force you to take your blinders off and see your daily surroundings in a new way?
No one likes to have their shortcomings exposed, but it’s quite liberating to see your bias exposed and learn from it.
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