Is This Our Future?

I was reading an article on Newsweek.com today titled Doughnut- Hole Country and I have to tell you some of the parallels I saw in this article about brain drain in rural communities made me pretty uncomfortable. The article is based on an interview with authors of the book Hollowing Out the Middle.
The premise of the book that much of America’s rural “heartland” is shrinking in terms of population, experiencing “brain drain”, and seeing their economies spiral downward. Although they are talking about 700 counties stretching from the Dakotas to Texas some of the reasons this is happening and the outcomes look eerily familiar.
One of the reasons they feel this has happened is that the K-12 educational system is largely focused on “Achievers”, kids who are seen as “smart” and are guided towards university educations in the larger cities where they are more likely to succeed, and to stay. The students who are seen as less “accomplished” receive less focus and attention. They are also more likely to stay in the community.
Much of the “heartland” has traditionally been known for an agrarian economy. It is where much of our food is grown, but large “agri-businesses” now control much of the property and the production. Family owned farms are diminishing. Many of the remaining population doesn’t have the skill sets to work in “new” industries like computer technology, health care, sustainable energy and other emerging sectors.
These same geographies are disproportionately affected by global “outsourcing” and the relocation of jobs to other countries. This causes further disruption to their economies. The interesting effects of outsourcing include the fact that much of innovation occurs in the manufacturing process. When you outsource that process you also outsource the innovation that comes with it. Some might argue that this is a form of social and economic Darwinism, the “strong” communities survive and thrive, and it is natural selection. Unfortunately one of the ancillary effects is that people follow and you also see the resulting issues like high crime rates, homelessness, and other “benefits” of these clusters in big cities. People move to the cities to access broader and richer social service infrastructure not available in smaller communities.
Here are some of the parallels I see between what the authors describe and our own community:
· A significantly shifting economic base. Lane County was primarily built on the base of the extraction industry- aggregates and timber. As these industries have been reduced by legislation and technology we have not replaced them with a new viable economic infrastructure. Whether we want to admit it or not dollars from those industries built much of the infrastructure we all enjoy including our cultural centers and our world class university.
· Educational elitism. I remember being part of the Contact 2000 program on several occasions here in Lane County. This was an iniative where we went out and spoke with businesses about impediments to growing or even keeping their businesses in Lane County. I was told by several that a major issue was the availability of a workforce with the requisite skills. They felt that the educational system was very academically oriented. Pursuing a “trade” or craft was discouraged. They even pointed out that most of the high schools and even our local community college discontinued or reduced vocational educational programs like wood shop, automotive repair and even home economics. Better to be a “college educated” restaurant server than a trade person.
· The “left behinds”. We have several generations now in Lane County who in past generations would have pursued family wage jobs in those extraction industries that I mentioned previously. That isn’t an option for them anymore.
· Population shifts. Because of our fragmented economic base and poor affordability index we are experiencing another parallel to the “heartland”. The 4J school system is facing issues regarding funding and school closures because of the shrinking k-12 population in its boundaries. Young families have moved out of Eugene in large part because they can’t afford to purchase a home in “urban” Lane County. The combination of voter initiatives limiting property valuation and taxation and Eugene’s desirability for “retirement living” added to the lack of industrial tax base exacerbate the issue. It also puts pressure on smaller communities who in many cases don’t have the infrastructure to support the influx of population.
· Our bright young people are leaving the community. We haven’t created an economic base for them to stay. There are no major employers or industries for them to work in post graduation. So they go to Portland or Seattle or somewhere else.
If I seem like I am being critical, I am. I came to Lane County over 20 years ago. I was drawn by an excellent school system for my children, access to a world class university, and the livability of a relatively small community. I was one of the lucky ones to benefit from working for an employer who paid national scale wages. I was concerned then that the high technology base that I joined was small. I was lucky, when I lost my job I was able to transfer my skills to an entreprenurial role providing consulting to new businesses that located here.
We recruited our last major new economic player to Lane County in 1994 with Levi Strauss. Sony, Shorewood, Hynix and others have come and gone. Some see their departures as corporate manipulation; having worked in Fortune 100 corporations I saw it as a function of a world economy.
In truth we were not very hospitable in large part to these employers as well. We complain about the taxes we deferred, but refuse to recognize the millions they spent in wages, infrastructure and related investments. I for one saw the tradeoffs and being in our favor. We contributed to if not caused the decision to build the new hospital in Springfield rather than Eugene because we allowed political agendas rather than a regional economic strategy to drive our actions.
During the Clinton Administration we received an “allowance” from the Federal government for a period of six years in the form of the Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act to help us defray some of the impact of lost revenues from restrictions on our extraction industries. It was clear it was intended to be a bridge while we developed a strategy to make up for the loss. Our Congressional delegation has been able to extend some of that funding for an additional two years, but what have we done with our eight year lead time? Wasn’t that sufficient time to develop a strategy? I would defy you to find a business that gets eight years warning that their funding is drying up.
I applaud the efforts to build sustainable businesses and to foster entrepreneurialism, but I think we need a broader more cohesive strategy.
Our rural communities suffer from the impacts even more. I would suspect that more of the “left behinds” are represented in communities like Oakridge, Marcola, Elmira, and others than the South Hills of Eugene or Thurston.
The “brain drain” is being played out especially in the area of health care. We have a critical shortage in the number of trained health care professionals in the state of Oregon ranging from CNAs to nurses and physicians. We have one medical school in our state located in an urban area. Studies say that a significant portion of health care professionals stay where they complete their training; this even further impacts our rural communities. Their best and brightest that go to Portland to attend medical or nursing school are not likely to return “home” to practice their craft.
I don’t want to be a “carpetbagger”, someone who enjoys the fruits of what this community offers, but plies my trade elsewhere. One of the “haves” rather than “have nots”. I don’t want to avoid the downtown because of empty buildings and the homeless or not use the library because I don’t want to risk punching out an obnoxious kid panhandling me for change. And the next time I read an article about “Doughnut-Hole Country” I don’t want it to be about the community I live in. The time for rhetoric is done. We need to step up and create and implement a real strategy. Now before we read about us in Newsweek.

Cautious Optimism

I just read a post on MSN that causes me to be cautiously optimistic. In the post it describes President Obama's desire to reposition much of the bailout strategy to community banks and small businesses. I think that would represent an excellent move.

I run a small business and work with many others. While I have seen many of the large financial institutions benefit from the bailout and in fairness pay back much if not all of the bail out money I can't say I have seen enormous quantities of the money "trickle down" to small businesses or lenders loosen up and provide loans to help refuel a real recovery.

As a "little guy" while I am pleased to see the stock market creeping back up I am not quite ready to declare the recession over. I live in a world of intimacy. I deal with my clients one on one. I see them continue to struggle. The community I reside in still has high unemployment and relatively low affordability, the ability for people to buy a home relative to their income. There is no grand strategy to deal with this issue in our local economy that I have seen.

I am not going to blame all of where we are on the "big banks" and the Administration. I have felt and still feel that the recession represented and continues to provide an opportunity for community banks and credit unions to step up and play a bigger role in their communities and how people see them. I have been pretty underwhelmed by the innovation and risk taking I have seen to date.

I hope that if the President is successful in this new direction smaller banks and credit unions "invest" in their communities rather than follow the example of the mega banks. At least in theory we are part of these communities. I am a big believer in the concept of think globally, but act locally.

So I will be curious to see what happens. For those in the "community" banking world if these funds come through it will be our opportunity and responsibility to step up. It has been easy to hide behind the excuse that we didn't benefit from the first round, but what will we do with our turn at bat if we get it?

A Case for Civility

I spend some time discussing a lot of different issues with people. I like to think of myself as reasonably open minded and tolerant, perhaps erroneously. I actually posted a question on LinkedIn a few months about anger and got some interesting reactions.

This last week has provided several interesting illustrations for me about the anger and energy that is out there.

The first are the comments and vehemence of reactions to President Obama being awarded the Nobel peace prize. Although a lot of the reaction has been that it represents a non event or that it has been awarded prematurely if not inappropriately other reactions have been angry and frankly nasty.

I responded to a poll on LinkedIn indicating my thoughts, the award was premature, but that being an optimist I was hoping perhaps it was awarded proactively as a catalyst and got back a response telling me how wrong I was. When I responded that I hadn't actually endorsed it the person wrote me back again telling me I was wrong for not being more strident in my denunciation of all things Obama.

If you really want to see an exercise in venom , my second example involves the blogs/comment streams regarding various sportscasters predictions and comments about everything ranging from college football to professional golf. It is some nasty stuff.

I read earlier this week about a Delaware school districts decision to transfer a six year old to reform school for six months because he brought an eating utensil to school. The utensil includes a blade which makes it a weapon under the school's zero tolerance policy. In the interests of "consistency" and the concern about perceived potential racial bias the policy does not take into consideration the circumstances, academic record of the student, etc. As you might suspect I think this policy is not well conceived or administered. I wonder if the folks who crafted it are available for further consultation on the Le Garrett Blount incident (sarcasm intended).

What was really striking was the comment stream initially directed at the school district, but then involving the parents, racial profiling, and even managed to blame President Obama for this one.

Several felt that the mother is criminally negligent and should be incarcerated for as a substitute for her child's suspension, others accused people of protesting the punishment of being racially biased, comparing the issue to a child who brought a handgun to school and killed a classmate. Quickly the discourse devolved into name calling aimed at each other and incorporating the right to bear arms, etc. Pretty nasty.

Perhaps I am overly tolerant of others viewpoints. Has "social media" eliminated all the rules? Have we lost our ability to "agree to disagree". Do we need laws and "policies" to "explain" to us what appropriate dialogue is with each other.

The school's defense of their policy was "consistency". Those of you who know me recognize this is one of my least favorite words because in our new vernacular it means I don't have to use judgement as long as I follow "policy".

I will freely admit to being opinionated, intense, and maybe even at times overbearing and appearing arrogant. I strive for and will continue to be civil.

Is it just me or have we become desensitized to civility kind of like sex and violence? Your thoughts appreciated.

Mandate or Mistake?

Why do I suspect that I was not the only person to be surprised by President Obama's selection as the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace prize? I have to admit I am still processing my reaction.

The reaction from the "right" is pretty typical, the award indicates how shallow the world is, recognizes Obama's "star" power, but little else etc. Are we in the U.S missing something that the rest of the world sees? Did we miss and continue to miss how polarizing the actions of the last administration were in how the world saw us?

From my own personal context I do see this award as a bit "proactive" if not premature, but at the same time I have often heard that "good" managers use recognition reactively, while great managers use it proactively to create an environment for even greater performance.

What a change to see the U.S seen as a beacon again. We can ask ourselves whether or not given some of our domestic issues that this is where we should concentrate, but is there room on the agenda for both? To those that are critical have we given this President a reasonable time to create meaningful change, he has been in office nine months. In that nine months he has definitely created a profound effect in how the world sees the United States. Maybe not a bad start.

Barrack Obama may be the most polarizing President since Lincoln. When I read some of the diatribes about him I wonder how it is that he has created such fear and agitation in such a short time. We still have leadership of the other party claiming or a least condoning claims that he isn't an American citizen and is a secret Muslim. Are they that afraid of the potential change he represents? I don't have any issue with disagreeing with a candidate or even voting for the other "guy", but do we have to demonize?

Perhaps this award represents the "audacity of hope", not only for the United States, but for the world. To me it speaks of the yearning of a lot of people for a different way of interacting together in a collaborative fashion.

There are a lot of scary things going on right now. The situation in the Middle East is far from resolved and we still have miles to go before we have repaired the fundamental infrastructure of own society on issues including health care and employment. In our President's defense, he didn't create any of those issues he inherited them.

I am an optimist by nature. I am going to interpret the award as a mandate and a sign of hope that the President will continue to grow into his role as both a domestic and world leader and will contribute to leaving the country and the world a better place when he leaves office then when he found it. I do not and will not always agree with everything he does, but as is my nature and my imperative I will withhold judgment and try to evaluate the "whole person" that he represents.

To those that want to reject the award I caution that is what has characterized us in the world for a long time, incapable of recognizing and accepting others right to see things from a different perspective. We don't have to agree, but do we need to impose our viewpoint or ridicule that of others we disagree with?

I would be curious to hear your reactions, especially those from the international community.

What Is Real Leadership?

I just had the opportunity to read an article about Bill Hawkins, the CEO of Medtronic . The article describes for me an example of real leadership.http://www.bnet.com/2436-13058_23-348860.html?tag=homeCar

Medtronic as the name implies manufactures products that are medical in nature, products like pacemakers, stents, and related things. Products that can and have substantially affected thousands of people's lives. Products that if they work improperly can cause enormous harm or even death.

Two months into his tenure as CEO Hawkins was informed that there was a potential problem with their latest product, a stent that stimulates the heart. The stent could possibly fail either not providing the stimulation or providing it when it wasn't necessary.

The product is FDA approved and the data he had available was within "acceptable" limits, but they suspected there were issues. Withdrawal of the product almost guaranteed negative consequences including the stock price, company reputation, and potential litigation. Hawkins and his team made the decision that continuing to distribute the product was inconsistent with the core values of the organization and withdrew the product. As you might suspect they suffered the consequences. The stock price took a dive and is only starting to recover now, almost two years later. They have some protection from litigation because the product was FDA approved, but that might change.

Did Hawkins make the right decision, I would say yes. He made a decision to support the core values of the organization and stakeholders over shareholders. Shareholders and employees were affected without question, but the risks to patients and human life was determined to be the compelling issue.

It is interesting for me to contrast this decision as it compares to other decisions we have seen made by "leaders" in the private and public sector ranging from bonuses in the financial services sector, elected officials who acted in a pretty "unleaderly way, and others.

You hear a lot about leadership these days and what it means and what it takes. To me leadership is defined by your actions not your words. I am sure Hawkins has his detractors, but I still like to hear about people who act with integrity. That defines leadership to me. What do you think?