Peeing in the Pickles

Warning: This post contains some gross elements.
The gross-ness is important, but...
...put down your cheeseburger and lemonade before proceeding.
Trust me on this one.

In my brothers home town, a well known fast food chain was shut down in January 2008 because one of its employees urinated in the pickles. Yep, I'm not kidding. Health Inspector shut them down. Yuck (aren't you glad you put your cheeseburger down now!).

This got me thinking. I am doubtful the guilty employee woke up that fateful morning last January and told himself while brushing the corn flakes out of his teeth, "Today is the day, today I will pee in the pickles." No, you can't understand the "why" of this situation by looking at one isolated event frozen in time.

It's like seeing a large tree out in a field. It stands tall and strong and then one day, CRASH, it falls to reveal a rotten, hollowed out core. It is at that moment you release that tree has been dead for years and despite your perspective of health and strength, the tree was hollow and decaying on the inside.

The fast food restaurant manager needs to look deeply at the culture she is fostering. What culture hollows out a young man to point he would resort to peeing in the pickle jar? How does the restaurant's culture contribute to his decay?

This isn't a post focusing on society's responsibility for an individual's actions. People are still responsible for what they do. Let's talk about you, not society. Let's talk about your responsibility to the culture all around you.

BIG IDEA OF THE POST:
Every day.
In every organization you participate in.
Your actions either promote your organization's culture or pollute it.
There is no middle ground.
In fact, because of the delicate nature of culture, you may be polluting your culture simply by doing nothing and sitting on the sidelines.

• After work, ask, did i promote or pollute today?
• After Church, ask, did I promote or pollute today?
• After school, ask, did I promote or pollute today?
• After family time, ask, did I promote or pollute today?

I need your ideas. How do we keep the tree from hollowing? How do we keep our people and ourselves from peeing in the pickles?

Engagement grows as promoting grows as polluting shrinks.