The High Cost of the Actions We Don’t Take

Reading Time: 2 min 

Topics

Column

Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers.
More in this series

During the third season of HBO’s brilliant series The Sopranos, Carmela Soprano, played by Edie Falco, visits a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist pushes Carmela to recognize her accountability as the wife of murderous mob boss Tony Soprano.

Here is an edited version of the exchange:

Dr. Krakower: You’ll never be able to feel good about yourself, you’ll never be able to quell the feelings of guilt and shame that you talk about as long as you’re his accomplice.

Carmela: You’re wrong about the accomplice part, though.

Krakower: Are you sure?

Carmela: All I do is make sure he’s got clean clothes in his closet, and dinner on his table.

Krakower: So, enabler would be a more accurate job description for you than accomplice. My apologies.

Carmela: So, you think I need to define my boundaries more clearly, keep a certain distance, not internalize my …

Krakower: What did I just say?

Carmela: Leave him.

Krakower: Take only the children, what’s left of them, and go.

Carmela: I would have to get a lawyer, find an apartment. Arrange for child support …

Krakower: You’re not listening. I’m not charging you, because I won’t take blood money. And you can’t either. One thing you can never say is that you haven’t been told.

Krakower’s insistence that Carmela own the unwashable stains of enablement should have special resonance for anyone in a position of influence today, no matter how starkly different the details of your life may be.

Most of us don’t actively promote hatred and violence, or aim to keep others down, or purposefully contribute to a less hospitable world. But we do strap on blinders. We rationalize, deflect, and deny. We follow the easier path. And we own every choice we make. The greater our power, the greater the weight each choice carries.

We can choose not to engage in improving the world. We can seize on every advantage available to us and our companies without thought to the consequences. We can act as if the planet and the global economy are not among our most critical stakeholders. We can join the crush of others who are just hoping to play out the string: keep our heads down, meet our numbers, collect our bonuses, and abdicate long-term responsibility to the next generation.

But when we make those choices, we do violence against the future.

The alternative is to have the courage to accept a more difficult reality: The only way we can protect what we love is by actively pursuing a stable, just, and sustainable world. Every action has a consequence. Every inaction perhaps even more so.

One thing you can never say is that you haven’t been told.

Topics

Column

Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers.
More in this series

More Like This

Add a comment

You must to post a comment.

First time here? Sign up for a free account: Comment on articles and get access to many more articles.

Comments (5)
Pandurangan Muthukrishnan
"The world is a dangerous place to live. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. – Albert Einstein"
Greg Montoya
It's true, a "stable, just, and sustainable world" does ensure we have predictability and consistency when making decisions for ourselves and our families.  But as I read the column, I couldn't help but think how easy it is to ask someone else to make the tough decisions.  It's easy to ask someone else to make the difficult sacrifice.  

I'm not convinced "we do strap on blinders."
There may be some people, but I'd prefer some context around what this refers to so I could better understand the author's intentions.
Ivan Rosa do Nascimento
Sem dúvida, os nossos valores, aquilo que creditamos, a nossa essência é colocada a prova a todos os estantes, principalmente dentro das organizações.  Muitas vezes somos
alertados,   a inercia  tem um preço caro no futuro bem próximo na maioria das vezes.

[translation: Without a doubt, our values, what we credit, our essence is put to the test to all shelves, mainly within the organizations. We are often
alerted, inertia has an expensive price in the near future most of the time.]
Victor M Soriano R
All my life I have had this thinking, make a better world,  tiny decisions makes great things. 
I leave two jobs, In previous jobs I  speak my mind  and they want that I Just dance into the sound of its music, and do not worried about consequences, I have not the guts but ethic, then I leaved my jobs, But I never regret for that. Now I do a meaninfull job that I like and a feel great. Thanks for your grear topic.
Michael Greene
"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King, Jr.