Hi, Corporate Leaders. You have a problem. A big problem. It’s called society, and if you don’t think you can or should do anything about it, boy are you in for a rude awakening. Let me break it down for you:
We elect, and then re-elect, a cocaine using, boozing, mediocre-at-best-student as President of the United States. (I’m so glad your taxes went down. I hope it was worth it.)
We have a plagiarist with no real-world experience except as a Senator as our candidate for Vice President. (Well, OK, so much for change.)
We glue ourselves to wannabes for years while letting people with talent struggle. (At least you were able to convert those eyeballs into product purchases.)
We kick kids out of Little League for being too good. (At least your little boy won’t have to know the crushing, devastating pain of—say it ain’t so!—a strike out.)
I don’t know how to say this any other way, folks, but when we prize mediocrity, when we elevate the “values” of “fairness” and “niceness” above “quality” and “character,” we guarantee one thing: failure.
When we can’t win, we can only lose.
And just so that I am totally, completely clear here: if you have voted for Bush, like Biden, have promoted American Idol, or think the League was right to give Jericho the boot, then you have had a hand in creating this losing mentality. Further clarity: even if you didn’t do anything to create the losing mentality, if you run a business and have been impacted by it but haven’t done anything to fix it, then you are complicit.
Now, I know you’re not a loser. It’s not how you see yourself, it’s not how I see you. It’s not who we are. But losering is exactly what we’re doing right now—either actively or passively—and we need to do something about it. Three suggestions:
- Push for more flexible immigration policies, immediately. What’s this got to do with wanting to win? Simple: America needs to reclaim its winning attitude, and—incredibly—as the world’s melting pot, we have the ability to import it. Sooner rather than later, we need to fill our companies with workers who prize success over mediocrity, active choice over laziness, self-sacrifice over “balance.” The fact that we can import dedication, passion, and loyalty is a gift we should never turn our backs on. Get in front of your Congressman—call him/her if you know him/her, write a letter, send an email. We need immigration reform and we need it FAST. We need to get people in this country who have the skills, the desire, and the ethic to get the job done. And if they leave after a few years? Who cares! If we’re not enticing people to stay with better options, better opportunities, better promise, then shame on us, we’re not working hard enough! Reactionaries who pretend that closed borders are the solution to the plight of the American worker, despite noble intentions, cripple our nation’s ability to compete. We need more immigration, not less. If we do everything right but also close our borders, our businesses will not be able to meet their commitments and our economy will shrink as a result.
- Education reform. Long term, education is the only thing that ensures sustainable success. Ignorance may be bliss, but the cost of it is stratospheric. Worse, the price of ignorance grows higher over time, as ignorance simultaneously begets worsening problems and fewer options for solving them. (Climate change, anyone?) We need to be careful here: ignorance can be dressed up quite eruditely, and often is. So let me be plain: by education, I don’t mean rote memorization of factoids spewed out by unchecked sources, vocational training masquerading as true teaching, or any doctrine that discourages questions (yep, including religious doctrine); by education, I mean the development of the capacity for critical and original thought, the inculcation of a love for learning, and a respect for difference of opinion. Education does not mean preparing for a test or manufacturing a GPA! It means exploring the arts, the sciences, history, and language, and making connections across disciplines. It means wondering, hypothesizing, testing, concluding, and wondering anew. It means researching and applying. It means reading. And, though we seem to have forgotten this, it means struggling to do for ourselves tomorrow that which we cannot do unaided today. So what can you do specifically to reform education? If you have kids, start by teaching them to earn their grades rather than argue for them. If you don’t have kids, find a way to tutor someone in your neighborhood; you’re smarter than you think. Or start a book club. Or just turn off the damn TV for a night. Or stop by the local elementary school and buy a computer for the third grade class.
- Health policy reform. Holy crap, how has this not happened yet? Is there a company out there that hasn’t been hit hard by the soft costs of employees who are sick or tending for family members who are? My goodness! Kudos to the CDC for moving toward a more preventative model… now let’s get a process in place that lets me know what the hell I’m eating so I can actually act on the CDC’s advice. Can we start by asking the government to re-establish an FDA that’s not beholden to industry for the funding of key studies, and not beholden to a political party for money, either? We’ve got great companies in the food and pharma industries doing great things… maybe we should make sure that their interests, consumers’ interests, and the overseeing body’s interests are aligned, so we can focus on those great things and not the misalignments in the system? I think that sounds like a good idea, what about you?
There are countless issues facing businesses today. Every once in awhile, it helps to step back and put them into a broader context… and when I look at our ability to think strategically, follow direction, handle ambiguity, and do all the things we expect strong employees to do, I keep coming back to the fact that the context in which we live, at the moment, doesn’t allow for these skills to manifest.
It’s going to be a grind; there are many issues entangled with these three, from wage rates to taxes to countless execution challenges. It’s going to take awhile. Nonetheless, we need to address the core. Now.
Posted under Leadership, How to Self-Destruct, Current Trends
This post was written by Seiden on August 27, 2008
Thanks for discussing the issues. I often discuss the issues on Union Leader newspaper website http://www.unionleader.com. I ran for United States Senate from New Hampshire in 2002. I graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1992 with a BA Degree in Political Science and a minor in Economics. You might want to run for elective office in the future. I recommend The Art of War by Sun Tzu translated by Samuel B. Griffith, John Locke, The Federalist Papers, the second revised edition of STRATEGY by B.H. Liddell Hart which deals with strategy and military history, Machiavelli’s Discourses which I like more than The Prince, and
THE COMING GENERATIONAL STORM
What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns. They discuss Social Security, Medicare, and other topics.
I have e-mailed Vox Populis to The Green Papers http://www.thegreenpapers.com and you might want to as well.
I hope you will often discuss the issues in the future.
I hope the Federal government, State governments, and businesses will help fund free education websites that have top teachers and top students teaching k-12 subjects, college subjects, and graduate school subjects via video, audio, notes, and other things. This could help many teachers and students increase their incomes. This would benefit businesses that need to improve skills of their employees, homeschooled students, and others as well. Music, art, history, foreign languages, writing, logic, geography, math, sciences, engineering, and many other subjects could be taught.
I hope businesses will endow many teaching positions in k-12 schools and help fund during the school day tutoring, after school tutoring, and weekend tutoring. I hope businesses will help fund Dale Carnegie type sales training for teachers to help them be more effective. Teaching is a form of selling and many teachers would benefit from having top sales people teach them their skills.
I hope businesses will help fund cooperative education programs in junior high schools and high schools so that their students will obtain similar types of experiences that students at Northeastern University obtain. This may help reduce the drop out rate and get students to do better in school. This may help them obtain more scholarships.
The federal government and State governments should have fewer education mandates so that local governments may innovate more. Some local governments might want to have longer school days and shorter school years. Some local governments might want to have shorter school days and longer school years. Some schools might want to have some classes have 70 students taught by very good teachers instead of 2 classes of 35 students each taught by lousy teachers. They might want to see if they are able to get more high school students and college students as volunteer teaching assistants or paid teaching assistants.
I hope donors to colleges will demand tenure for high quality teachers. Teaching should be as important or more important than research work.
If the Federal government and State governments spend more money on buses within cities and buses between cities, fewer families will need to have 2nd cars and 3rd cars and emergency room visits and hospital stays caused by air pollution may decrease. If people have an easier time getting to jobs and from jobs, the governments may not have to spend as much money on food stamps and Medicaid.
Governments should stop punishing people for being married and encourage marriage. A married couple should pay a lower tax rate than 2 single people. A married couple should be able to qualify for food stamps and Medicaid when they save more monthly and earn more monthly than 2 single people. This will make it easier for 1 parent to stay home with the kids. This may help reduce poverty over time.
The federal government should stop taxing interest from savings accounts and dividends. This will help people reduce the need for Social Security. Millions of middle class people obtain dividends from mutual funds. The more capital available to businesses the more money they have to hire employees, train employees, for plant & equipment, and for research & development. Economic growth and per capita income may increase.
Congress may want to pass a 2 percent national sales tax that is placed on most items other than food, shelter, health care, and education. If the national sales tax is adopted, the federal income tax on individuals and businesses should be reduced at the same time. Some of the money obtained from the national sales tax should be used to fund Social Security and Medicare. The national sales tax would take in some of the money being earned in our nation’s underground economy.
People and businesses should be allowed to buy into Medicare or a health insurance plan similar to the plan members of Congress have. People and businesses should be allowed to buy health insurance plans sold in other States.
I discuss many issues on http://www.myspace.com/kennethstremsky
I won’t post a 3rd article
I love this post. A rant based on verifiable facts meant to shake us up plus specific recommendations on how to change things. Great!