There Can Be a Tendency

There can be a tendency to:

• Make options a choice of "either-or" instead of "both-and."
• Achieve and then drop our guard.
• Study everyone but ourselves.
• Favor peace over justice.
• Put people and procedures in neat little boxes.
• Underestimate the amount of time needed to make serious changes.
• Mistake words for action.
• Tell stories to ourselves.
• Confuse fairness with equality.
• Overlook the effect of procedures.
• Ignore our own words.
• Assume that knowledge automatically follows certain appointments.
• Procrastinate about the unpleasant.
• Think that formal education is linked to common sense.
• Communicate indirectly with well-blanketed words.
• Believe that enemies just don't understand our good intentions.
• Redouble failing efforts.
• Pick the path of least resistance.
• Sabotage our own efforts.
• Cling to the dysfunctional.
• Accept flattery if it is well-done.
• Placate the aggressive.
• Overlook the quiet producers.
• Confuse cruelty with wit.
• Preserve a plot for weeds.