One metaphor that I like to think of from time to time is the one of men in a foxhole in WWII. These men are young guys from small towns. They have traveled across the world to Europe or Asia to defend freedom. They sit at night in the foxhole telling each other that it will be okay, that tomorrow won't be the day they get killed, ambushed or lose a leg. It's a powerful image.

I was thinking about that image today, when I was sitting in a meeting. A meeting that never needed to happen, where everyone who attended just told everyone else what a great job they are doing (even if by all rational measures some of them are not). There weren't enough chairs so I had to sit on a table near the perimeter of the room, physically and psychologically apart from what was going on at the conference table. It made me feel better, because as much as they thought the conference table was a foxhole, it wasn't even close.