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Indian’s Tear
Many
of us grew up at a time when “littering” was pretty much our right –
after all, we (or our parents) paid the taxes that built and maintained
the highways, we could throw stuff out of the car window if we wanted
to….and a lot of people did just that. Small fines that were never
levied on offenders did nothing to stop us – after all, it was our
right.
The
second Earth Day in March 1971 was the television debut of Keep America
Beautiful's public service ad, "People Start Pollution, People Can Stop
It". One minute that changed America. Forever.
We
watched an Indian paddle his canoe up a polluted river, past belching
smokestacks, eventually parking his canoe at a litter-strewn river bank.
He walked to the edge of a highway, and watched as the occupant of a
passing automobile thoughtlessly tossed a bag of trash out the car
window to burst open at the Indian's feet. When the camera moved upwards
for a close-up, a single tear was seen rolling down the Indian's face as
we heard the narrator dramatically remind us, "People start pollution;
people can stop it."
The
next morning it was no longer our right to litter. Littering was
morally wrong, something only stupid bad people did. “Green” was more
than just a color, it was a cause, and would soon become a lifestyle.
We didn’t need the threat of a fine to make us dump our trash in a
receptacle instead of out the car window – we put trash in a proper
receptacle because we were good and decent people, and that’s how people
like us behave.
The
important thing, from a business management perspective, is that the
official penalties for littering, the fines, didn’t change that
evening. The enforcement of littering laws didn’t change overnight
either. We changed. We quit littering because we believed it was
wrong.
Our
littering wasn’t better managed. That’s the whole point. The
government and the anti-littering people had tried to manage litter and
litterers, and they failed. Then they changed how we viewed litter, and
we managed ourselves.
Management is important and necessary. So is inspiration, and being
part of something bigger than ourselves. |
