Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid … or the Molotov Cocktail

Taboo of Organizational Leadership Change

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it . . . But even the truly living and even life-giving things that went with that stream did not thereby prove that they were living or life-giving. It was this other force that was unquestionably and unaccountably alive; the mysterious and unmeasured energy that was thrusting back the river.

~ G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 1925

You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

~ G.K. Chesterton

In the Harvard Business Review, a distinguished clinical professor of leadership development and organizational change once observed a president of a company who refused to give up power: “It was taboo in the company to talk about replacing him . . . Senior executives didn’t dare bring up the matter. The board was made up of loyal friends who were unwilling to tackle the problem." (Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, The Dark Side of CEO Succession)

This taboo certainly exists in the nonprofit sector, including my own GC tribe. Been contemplating this taboo in light of some Chesterton and Solzhenitsyn. The quotations above are a few standouts. More honorable mention at the end of this post that are just as stirring.

These radical en-courage-ments now blend with the poetic charm of this gem from Missouri-born author, poet, essayist and playwright: “To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.” (T.S Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, 1933)

Not quite enough for one man’s entire life, but mine has certainly benefited from intentionally doing what’s useful, saying what’s courageous, and contemplating what’s beautiful. Thus, the result is today’s poem. While applicable to any leader at the top of an organization, this senior-leadership-taboo tendency is certainly observable and becoming more widely recognizable within my GC tribe. At times like these, I do wish it were much more true that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” (Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1821). 

Today’s poetic entry (for the next gathering of your prophetic version of Dead Poets Society) utilizes two expressions. Imagery is enhanced by understanding their origins.

First, the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" is used to describe either blind obedience or blind loyalty. It is a figure of speech referring to a group who are holding an unquestioned belief or philosophy without really examining why.

It’s also a slang expression used to refer to a person or group who knowingly go along with a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of peer pressure or political correctness.

Followership is essential, but here it is at its worst. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” was coined after a delusional, pseudo-guru led his cult group to kill themselves by drinking from a vat of grape-flavored drink laced with cyanide.

Second, a Molotov cocktail, sometimes shortened as Molly, is a bottle-based incendiary weapon used by street criminals, rioters, gangs, and terrorists. The term "Molotov cocktail" was coined by the Finns in World War II. It’s a pejorative reference to Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, who was one of the architects of a pact with Nazi Germany. Finland had hoped to be supported by the Nazis if they were invaded by the Soviets.

The name's origin came from the propaganda Molotov produced during the War, mainly his declaration on Soviet state radio that the bombing missions over Finland were actually airborne humanitarian food deliveries for their starving neighbors. As a result, the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet cluster bombs “Molotov bread baskets.” So, when the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack Soviet tanks, the Finns called it a cocktail to go with his food parcels.

In addition, toxic substances were added to the mixture to create a suffocating or poisonous gas when it exploded. This effectively turned the Molotov cocktail into a makeshift chemical weapon.

Don’t Ye Drink the Kool-Aid

I’m your Director for life 

No Chair term limits to debate 

Ye just don't mess with ol’ Hoppy

Woe to ye Board, dare not be late 

On May 4th, when we push out 

This killer “Resolution” 

Accept the “Future Proposal” 

Without any future solution 

Now you could die to escape 

All the way to heaven’s gate 

But a Board quorum just won’t do 

So if St. Peter asks why you’re late 

Tell him that St. Hopler requires 

That ye all back him to the hilt

Why, just tell St. Pete that ol’ Hop

Has yet to get this movement kill’t 

We planted GC Churches 

For His Majesty the King 

Regions and megachurches 

And all sizes in between 

But I’ll kill a movement faster 

Than the world has ever seen 

‘Coz I’m the only Director 

You’ll ever know while GCCing 

For some, it’s an anxious scene 

All that's missing is the King 

Somehow left off the agenda 

Of the big May 4th Board meeting 

Yet something wells up deep inside 

But you must take it all in stride? 

‘Coz you dare not make a motion 

Wait, let your conscience be your guide? 

There's a mixture of emotions 

Angst and grief now mix with pride

Yet ye stop yourself from cryin’

But it's difficult to hide 

There’s a sadness in dissolving 

With no plan for what's ahead 

Hop’s endorsed brotherhood breach 

The defrocked nagging in your head 

‘Til they bury your remains 

Behind Brent’s evergreen woodshed 

And so you pray for the accused 

But Hopler’s with ye till your dead 

The dirty little secret 

If we don’t get 75 percent

Have more votes, then vote again 

Unless someone will repent

So as the June vote gets cast 

Will a three-fourths vote prevail? 

So, don’t ye drink the Kool-Aid 

It’s a Hoplerov cocktail 

Aah, but some regional leaders 

Dream of a movement revolution

With legit history and core values

“Resolve” is the root of “Resolution”

I don’t need a church to tell me I’m wrong when I know I’m wrong; I need a church to tell me I’m wrong when I think I’m right.

~ G.K. Chesterton

The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.

~ G.K. Chesterton

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956