Cigars, Collaboration, and Civility

We are in the beginning stages of renovating our living room. The necessity of this was reinforced when an 82-year-old brother sent us a box of pictures taken over the past half century. While looking through the old photographs on Sunday during our annual "Super Bowl of Wings" party, we noticed that our living room has not been updated in several decades. At our chapter meeting Monday several proposals were presented by an interior designing group. During Q&A time, a chaotic and out-of-order session commenced with nearly everyone sharing his opinion about the proposed ideas. Since I was trying to hold this meeting under an hour, after several minutes I called the meeting back to regular order and moved on to committee reports (We succeeded in holding it under an hour).

Remembering last night, collaboration took place. Fortunately, the chapter widely accepts the general motif of the renovation—a rustic yet collegiate atmosphere where, if cigar smoking was allowed in the house, it would look appropriate in our new living room. One comment stood out that was not about the details of the ideas, but about other projects in the house; he said there were more pressing projects to spend money on than the living room. An older member of our chapter, who sits on the alumni board, realized that this statement could squelch our current state of creative thinking and energy, so he quickly answered the concern by saying the board is dealing with other house projects too. Collaboration was easily achieved for several reasons: we all bought into the vision of renovating our living room; we all come from similar backgrounds and have similar tastes or have learned to appreciate those of their brothers, and professionals did the hard work of putting together pictured proposals of options that increased excitement. Conflict was mitigated because each brother shared his opinion in an atmosphere of civility—even though some ideas received laughter.