“If the wife and I’s a fussin’, brother that’s all right. ‘Cause me and that woman bought a license to fight. Why don’t you mind your own business? Mind you own business! ‘Cause if you mind your business then you won’t be mindin’ mine. Mindin’ others people’s business seems to be high-toned, while I got all that I can do just mindin’ my own. Why don’t you mind your own business? Mind your own business! ‘Cause if you mind your business then you won’t be mindin’ mine!”
– Lyric from “Mind Your Own Business” (1949) by Hank Williams (and reprised by his son, Hank Jr, aka “Bocephus”)
One of the challenges is that everyone’s business is more public than it used to be. Socially sure, with Snapgram and Instachat and FaceSpace, blah, blah, blah…
And so it is at work, too. The “matrix” rules, and not the one from the cool movie with Keanu Reaves. The matrix tricks us in to believing that we’re co-dependent (bad) vs. inter-dependent (good). Sales want to tell Ops what to do. Ops wants to tell IT what to do. Product wants to tell Finance what to do. Finance and IT want to tell everyone what to do. But if we’re minding other people’s business, then we can’t be minding ours. Actually, everyone wants to tell everyone else what to do, sometimes instead of doing what they ought to do.
It takes more work to be interdependent. It takes more forethought to work with another team than to second guess them. It takes more effort to see the world through the eyes of the people we want to criticize, and to shout at, “You’re doing it all wrong!” It takes more empathy and compassion to spend a moment wondering what their “filters” look like, and what experiences or fears might be affecting their thoughts, words and actions.
And, it’s worth all that.
Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” (John 8:7) Hank (and his son — and about 23 cover recordings, as near as I can figure) sang, “Why don’t you mind your own business…?” So whether our preference is Jewish carpenter / savior of mankind, or hard-partyin’, Rockabilly, Country-legend — our marching orders are clear.
We ought to mind our own business.
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