Wednesday, January 06, 2021

Urgency and the Dragon



If you've ever seen situations where people seem to lack urgency during an obvious crisis, think back to the old monster films and insert a strange plot twist: a dragon is approaching a village and yet the peasants seem to lack any sense of urgency

Here are some possible explanations:

  • They are frozen with fear.
  • They believe they have a lucky charm.
  • They don't believe it's a real dragon.
  • They have been warned many times before and each time, nothing happened. The dragon wandered off to terrorize another village or returned to its lair.
  • They are afraid that if they take vigorous action now, they'll be expected to do so every time someone runs in with a dragon sighting.
  • It's more sophisticated to keep cool and scoff at danger.
  • They don't think it is their responsibility to fight the dragon. The knights should earn their status.
  • They have no idea of how to fight a dragon.
  • They're tired of fighting dragons.
  • They don't think the dragon will do much damage.
  • They feel they can outrun the dragon.
  • They are planning to blame everything on their worthless mayor.
  • They've been thinking of moving from the village and plan to be gone by the time the dragon arrives.
  • They are quietly enjoying the crisis.
You often see rough equivalents of these in real crises.

[Photo by Sean Thomas at Unsplash]

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