Coughing and Respect

Seth Godin just wrote a blog post about how Keith Jarrett stopped a concert because someone was coughing. He thought it was a sign of disrespect.

I remember Simon Carrington conducting my students in the All-State choir a few years back. There were 250 students in front of him and, of course, lots of coughing. He stopped rehearsal and said "you can control your cough. Please don't cough anymore. Its distracting." Suddenly, silence. He was right, the students did stop coughing.

Makes me think about expectations. Which expectations are reasonable? How powerful can we become if we raise those expectations together?