The Enemy Within

The real Y2K bug has a painfully familiar look.

BY RICHARD THIEME

Y2K is a planetary event, a bright radioactive dye in the arteries of our hive mind. And these days, the hive is buzzing.

Our species can look pretty stupid. The comic strip "Dilbert" is a hit because everybody in it looks dumb from the point of view of the one smart person in the room: you, the reader. Y2K looks that way too, except it isn't just a room. It's the whole planet.

And yet...what looks stupid is often an evolutionary adaptation that helps us survive. Like short-term thinking.

The Human Side of the Cyborg

Denial is one of our best defenses, keeping us from being overwhelmed while we process data at deeper levels. Many individuals, businesses and countries ignored Y2K because it wasn't an immediate threat. This includes the programmers who set up an entire civilization for a fall.

So although we "knew," on some level, that computer code and embedded chips were two digits short of a full year, we skipped merrily through the woods like Little Red Riding Hood. But now a real wolf is at the door, and we've finally learned to pay attention.

But that's only part of the story. Many people have been working on Y2K for years. They understood that Y2K is not so much a computer problem as a project management problem, a war against a familiar enemy: our short-term thinking. We are now marshalling our forces and coordinating logistical support for the duration of that war. But chips and computer code define only half the battlefield. The other half is the head and heart of every community affected by the bug, from a technical workgroup to a planetary civilization.

In all wars, the best-laid plans explode into chaos on the battlefield. As foot soldiers cope with real bullets, the news back home must be managed so civilians are enlisted in the cause, their resources mobilized, rather than paralyzed by terror. The truth must be told in ways that call forth our best efforts.

Y2K broke into our consciousness with a rash of alarming reports predicting the breakdown of society. Journalists, televangelists and purveyors of survivalist gear exploited the ignorance and fear of their various digital flocks.

Questions from clients and online readers grew fearful: Should I convert cash to gold? Buy guns? Move to a commune defended by its own militia? As the first line of collective defense--denial, minimization, rationalization--gave way, fight-or-flight kicked in. But fight what? That left flight. But where should I run? Where should I hide?

Ironically, primordial responses such as these were triggered even more strongly in sophisticated intellectuals who thought they were beyond them. Their hidden "shadow selves" made them easy prey for millennium fever. Now they've headed for the 'Net, TV and print the way many fled for the hills a thousand years ago, the last time we imagined that the universe ticked to our little culture's symbolic clock.

To Tell the Truth

Now, the first mass adrenaline rush has just about played out. Profiteers will do their best to keep it alive. Meanwhile, utilities and banks, local governments and military forces continue their mundane tasks, fixing billions of lines of code, replacing millions of chips and switches.

But wars also require leaders that inspire the troops, keep civilians enlisted in the cause, and see clearly through the smoke and confusion of the battlefield. Their task is to articulate a vision of possibility and promise linked to our real experience, then close the gap between them.

Human beings are remarkably resilient. Once we realize that a threat is real and break it down into bite-sized chunks, our capacity for heroic response is remarkable. All those doomsday scenarios projected into the future forgot that feedback loops enable an organism to self-correct.

Some critical systems may very well not be ready. Redundant backup plans

for every contingency have been developed, from worldwide social unrest to a few dark nights here and there. The human dimension is critical now, because that will determine what happens next year.

Too much anxiety and fear can shut us down, making us feel helpless. Fritz

Perls said excitement is nothing but anxiety plus oxygen. So the task is to pump up that anxiety and short-circuit the hardwired fight-or-flight response.

In any list of coping skills, the fact of community is always at the top. Community works. If the enemy is us, as Pogo said, the task of leadership is to turn the enemy into an ally. We are the problem, but we are also the solution. Once the truth of the battlefield is out and we know what we're really up against, the best as well as the worst of humanity can show up.

(BULLETS)

We don't know what we don't know. Yes, there will be disruptions. Yes, the stock market will (over)react. Yes, millennial fever will be contagious. But a "time out" from our frantic pursuits isn't all bad. We can see things in the dark when we are quiet that we can't see when the lights are on.

Hey, this is Planet Earth, not a Hollywood set. The universe can be dangerous. Stars explode, galaxies collide. Better let go of things we can't control and manage the rest.

Successful project management includes the human dimension. Managers and leaders are responsible for telling the truth in a way that mobilizes our resources and shifts us from an us/them mentality to "we have a problem."

In an insecure world, security begins with the acceptance of insecurity. Then we can build structures that create security from the inside out--structures of collaboration, threaded with feedback loops, in which we are all held accountable to agreed-up goals and values.

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