Afraid of Change

I heard on NPR the other day that although several states that are known as "blue" states offered housing to the displaced citizens of New Orleans, they were roundly rejected (this may explain why we don't have our lodger yet after posting on MoveOn's database).

For many of us, especially during times of trauma, the unfamiliar is terrifying.  But perhaps more so for the very poor, who often have never had the luxury of seeing anything beyond the place where they were born.  I read a quote in the NYTimes from a woman displaced into a military camp near the woods -- she was profoundly scared by all the trees nearby (assisted in her terror by strict camp-wide warnings not to enter the woods).

In the first few days of the disaster, there were multiple accounts of people who said they would rather die than leave their house, even as the water crept up around them.

Who among us takes this fearful attitude toward our career, or a business or divisional strategy?  Or political strategy?  Executives need an "exchange program" that takes them into new territory, to get their synapses firing.