Seeing Fear Junction Clearly

I found a new way to help teams reach significant breakthroughs in a recent session, and it relates to my essay on “Fear Junction”. This was a story I told in one of my newsletters about the electrician who told the fable – not of a real electrical switch box – but of a real and personal daily decision point – where we must choose to be open, candid and honest – or miss the chance to do so.

So at the start of the session, I handed out the newsletter and related the story of Fear Junction – and drew on a flipchart a walking path that reached a “Y” intersection. The intersection represented the decision point: do we discuss this difficult issue now? Do we turn right at Fear Junction, where right leads to constructive confrontation, and ultimately and eventually to resolution of the problem?

Or do we turn left, not face the issue, get sucked into the same failed reaction, and “kick the can down the road” once more. Problem is, on the flipchart, and in real life, this choice literally loops back around to the same point some time later, and delays the problem so that we’ll have to face it again and again.

The key to taking the “right turn” and facing the difficulty, is in placing an image of something precious at the Junction – perhaps God, perhaps the big Ten Year Goal, perhaps just an image of ourselves no longer having the tension and stress of having this unresolved issue. This gives us the courage to swallow hard, compose our thoughts, and confront the issue right then.

In this session, I noticed a significant issue come up. I saw the hesitation. On an impulse, I flipped the chart to the “Y” drawing and said “Make no mistake, we are now at Fear Junction”, tapping on the “Y” intersection.

What followed, after a pause and some stammering, was open and honest discussion about an issue that needed to be aired. It was painful, but honest. And that team began the journey on the path to true resolution of a longstanding challenge.

EOS is all about Vision, Traction and Healthy. And Healthy is all about turning right at Fear Junction.