[Editor's
Note: Many of you may be faced or will be facing difficult decisions
about how and what information to share with your managers and
employees. The following article may seem to some to be an unusual addition to our collection, but it has a poignant message for CEOs and business owners from that renowned management guru, Mr. Rogers. Simple, direct, honest and open communication is always best.
Even if you can't fix it, explain it. I
once asked my then toddler daughter why she liked to watch Mr, Rogers.
She replied, "Because he talks to me, Daddy."
This
article, when we first shared it in 2003, evoked a visceral response
and had the highest reader response rate of any other single Issues for
Growth e-letter. February 19th marked the 50th anniversary of
the debut of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Somehow, in today's world, when
we need direct, honest, open communication, it seemed like a great time
to republish this. -dpm]
He Was Not Afraid of the Dark¹
If
you remember Mister Rogers as being as warm, fuzzy and innocuous as a
cardigan sweater, then you did not really know Mister Rogers. It is true
that Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was an island of tranquility in a
children's mediasphere of robots and antic sponges. And in real life,
Fred Rogers, who died last week of stomach cancer at age 74, was
evidently as sweet and mild mannered as the kindly neighbor he played on
TV. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he didn't smoke, drink or eat
meat, prayed every day and went to bed by 9:30 each night. To cynics and
parodists, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was a namby-pamby zone of
pint-size feel-goodism, and Mister Rogers himself a wimpy Stuart Smalley
for tots.
But
part of what made Mister Rogers' Neighborhood great and unique is that,
for all its beautiful days in the neighborhood, it was also the darkest
work of popular culture made for preschoolers since perhaps the
Brothers Grimm. Mister Rogers was softer than anyone else in children's
TV because so many of the messages he had to impart were harder. That
your parents might someday decide not to live together anymore. That
dogs and guppies and people all someday will die. That sometimes you
will feel ashamed and other times you will be so mad you will want to
bite someone. He even calmed fears that may seem silly but to a child
are real and consuming - like being afraid to take a bath because you
might be sucked down the pipes. Mister Rogers gently sang, "You can
never go down/Can never go down/Can never go down the drain."
In
other words, Fred Rogers knew that childhood, which we mis-remember as
carefree and innocent, is a time of roiling passions, anguish and
terror.
His
show, the first version of which debuted in 1963, was his professional
way of doing what he had done as a boy in Latrobe, Pa., when he played
with puppets to calm himself after hearing scary news reports. And
perhaps one reason his death touched adults so deeply is the feeling
that Mister Rogers left us when we could especially use someone to teach
us to manage our children's fears, and our own.
The
last original episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood aired on Aug. 31,
2001 - a scant 11 days before we needed him to explain the biggest Big
Inexplicable yet. He returned to tape public-service announcements on
how to talk to kids about the Sept. 11 anniversary, but the anxiety has
only built since then. War jitters, orange alerts and duct-tape mania
have rendered literal our most childlike, monsters-under-the-bed fears:
that a tall building can collapse like a house of cards, that something
bad can seep in ghostlike through your window and hurt you. ...
... We relied on Mister Rogers to explain death and hurt and sadness, not to eradicate them.
CEOs, business owners and senior executives might take a few lessons
from Mister Rogers. For instance, that an explanation of a bad thing is
only reassuring if it is straightforward and direct. Mister Rogers spoke
softly, but he never soft-pedaled. And he knew how to be both
compassionate and authoritative. He was "Mister" Rogers, after all,
never "Fred." He wore a tie even when he dressed down. He also respected
children's intelligence, and while he used the Land of Make-Believe to
teach lessons, he never puffed up kids with false promises and fantasy.
There is no more un-Disneyfied sentiment in children's pop culture than
the title of his song Wishes Don't Make Things Come True.
PBS'
website offered tips for helping children cope with Fred Rogers' death.
"You may be surprised," it said, "to find that you're more upset than
your child." But that should surprise no one. Kids, after all, will have
hundreds of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood reruns to help them through
their spooky moments. But who is out there today, in any neighborhood,
to reassure grownups that we can never go down the drain?
¹ In a nervous age of orange alerts, who will take the place of Mister Rogers?
By James Poniewozik Monday, Mar. 03, 2003 Time Online Edition
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