When Adults Act like Children

It’s up to an organization’s leaders to create a culture that fosters collaboration.
Russ Linden

Consider the following: The long-running feud between the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was recently examined in a Washington Post article that described truly astonishing turf battles between the agencies. The attorney general ordered the agencies to merge and share certain databases, but the FBI refused; the agencies have refused to share critical data at crime scenes, hampering efforts to apprehend criminals; the FBI created its own program to train bomb-sniffing dogs, even though the ATF has run a high-quality training program for years. And, perhaps most astounding — at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, when 30 ATF agents arrived to do whatever was needed — the FBI commander at the site told them to leave.

When you learn of such behavior, one question cries out for an answer: "Why don’t these people grow up and act like adults?" Indeed.

So, what do you do when adults act like children?

By Russ Linden

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