Velleity

Nerd alert: when I was in Mr. Mellang’s fourth grade class I used a thesaurus to help me write a short paper. I’m pretty sure I got some of the words horribly wrong, and sometime around college I swore off the thesaurus, but I still take great joy in finding the perfect word whose meaning matches the reality.

At a staff retreat I helped plan last week one of the participants introduced me to the word “velleity.” As defined by the free web dictionary it is “a mere fancy that does not lead to action.” The way it was presented during the meeting is less elegant buy equaling meaningful, “a problem you don’t care enough to do anything about.”

The retreat actually went pretty well. We spoke candidly about what needed to be changed, and challenged (maybe even too much) the status quo and spoke about what could be changed to make the place better. What was particularly good was that it seemed like making the place better wasn’t just to make our lives easier, but was centered more or less around the idea of accomplishing of a mission. So, if the retreat went so well why am I still haunted by the word velleity.

I think I’m haunted because trying to define the velleity is a humbling task. Andy Stanley in his book Visioneering brings forth the idea that every great vision begins as a moral imperative. It is the deep feeling within in us that a particular situation or problem is so unjust that it must be changed and we must be the person to do it.

It’s an important, but humbling question to ask, “What do I care about enough that I’m willing to do something about it?” Part of that question makes a person face up to what they are not willing to do anything part. I have joked for years that I don’t care enough about getting in shape to give up donuts. The unhealthy eating might be a problem, and I may complain, but it’s a clear velleity, because I don’t quit eating donuts.

I have a colleague about my age who was recently diagnosed with cancer. I wonder if I suddenly had to face my mortality in a real way that I would feel the moral imperative to better care of myself in order to be around to care for my family.

There is an organizational application as well, because I think it is clear that the things we don’t care enough about to act on that kill us. It’s the organization that talks about tighter cost controls but never puts them in place that ends up in real trouble. It’s the organization that waits for someday to invest in people that realizes at some point it has lost its best and brightest.

If a person doesn’t care enough to act on a problem, then that fact needs to be acknowledged. People and organizations that are honest enough to ask these tough questions seem to be a few steps ahead.