In the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, bartender Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death on her way home from work in Queens, NY. According to accounts at the time, 38 people heard her screaming for help and did nothing. Most were alleged to have said they didn’t rush to help or call the police because they assumed someone else would.
Later investigations showed people indeed tried to help, but by then the story was viral. The incident led to the identification of a psychological phenomenon known as the Bystander Effect, which holds that the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely any one of them will intervene.
In the quest to be less of a BLAMEr and more of an OWNER, it’s important to consider the power of DOING SOMETHING.
When we lived in Maryland, our neighbor, two doors down, was a hoarder. The neighborhood kids referred to him as Messy Marvin.
Messy Marvin hoarded trash. I would see him early in the morning while heading out for a run. He unloaded bags of trash from his van and carried them into his house. In the Summer, you could smell the trash as soon as you walked outside. It was a public nuisance.
I wanted to report Messy Marvin, but assumed my other neighbors had already done it. That didn’t stop me from getting irritated, shaking my head at him as I drove by, and bitching to my wife about it. Finally, I discovered that all the neighbors assumed someone else would report Messy Marvin. Knowing that, we as a neighborhood lodged a complaint and soon the county came by to inspect, slapped a big fine on Messy Marvin, and mobilized an army of roll-off dumpsters and a very unlucky work crew to clean the place up.
Now that we knew what to do, we regularly reported Messy Marvin when his trash piled up. All told, we witnessed three big cleanups in 14 years. The last time I drove past our old house while traveling on business in Maryland, I noticed that the house had changed hands and looked totally different. I’m not sure what became of Messy Marvin, but the hoarding problem was no more.
It’s easy to complain about things. It’s even easier to assume somebody else will fix the chronic problem that plagues us. I’ve learned that most problems tend to go unreported, a victim of the Bystander Effect. If you want to move from BLAMEr to OWNER, taking action rather than assuming others will, is your best option.
What chronic problem or issue will you work to resolve this week? Some things never improve by themselves.