Bad Apples on This American Life

[Aaron VonderHaar]

Hi everyone, I was listening to a podcast the other day that reminded
me of the HeroCamp concept:

From This American Life 12.19.2008,

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=370

"Prologue.
"A bad apple, at least at work, can spoil the whole barrel. And
there's research to prove it. Host Ira Glass talks to Will Felps, a
professor at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, who
designed an experiment to see what happens when a bad worker joins a
team. Felps divided people into small groups and gave them a task. One
member of the group would be an actor, acting either like a jerk, a
slacker or a depressive. And within 45 minutes, the rest of the group
started behaving like the bad apple. (13 minutes)"

It got me thinking about whether I'm acting like a bad apple when I'm
in groups... and also, along the lines of HeroCamp, how might I be
acting in a group that would make me a "good apple", having desirable
and productive traits so strongly that they rub off on other people?

Cheers,

--Aaron V.

[Jay Cross]

Aaron,

We delude ourselves when we think we act/think/exist independent of our peers. The bad apple example is a bummer. Thankfully, it is balanced by the good apple experience. Good people push their peers to do good. The HeroCamp ideal will be realized if we create a contagious critical mass of good-apple behaviors.

I fantasize that we could help spread the good apple meme with some powerful sloganeering. "Be all you can be" was a great one, adopted by the Army but only after a deep soak at Esalen Institute. Hero memes are more like "Take responsibility for your own shit" and "Let's make the world a better place" and "If you don't have time to be an everyday hero, what's your excuse for living?"



jay

Jay Cross
Internet Time Group
Berkeley, California