The FDR Legacy

Today is the 65th anniversary of FDR. I have always found him to be an interesting and powerful character in our history. I suspect he may have been even more of a figure of controversy than our current President.
His initial inaugural address is particularly interesting. He describes an economy that to me at least represents a situation similar to what we face today;

"Values have shrunken to fantastic levels: taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen, government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income, the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade, the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side, farmers find no markets for their produce, the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment."

Maybe that seems to be overstating it a bit, but even though the market has passed 11,000 again I have to ask myself if the average American sees themselves as significantly better off than a year ago and wouldn't see some parallels to what FDR described.

I find one of the other statements in his speech intriguing as well;

"...there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency." Is it just me or are we seeing some parallels here as well?

In fact his language may have seemed bombastic at the time and equally bombastic today when he speaks of "waging war against the emergency" in fact he asked for broad executive powers to fight that "war" in a similar fashion to fighting a war against an invader or foreign enemy.

Some of the other concepts that he mentions are interdependency and personal responsibility;
" ...the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others. . .the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors." Although the context FDR was using here was that of participating in the world with other countries I can see its application on a domestic level as well.

I also find his comments about the idea that when there is no vision people perish and the recognition that " happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort."

Roosevelt was a highly controversial figure even in that time. He ushered in a level of government "participation" and social reform that didn't see anything of that magnitude until the Great Society programs under LBJ. His personal influence and control concerned the power structure to the point that they passed the 22nd Amendment to prevent a repetition of his historic election four times.

My point here isn't to suggest that his approach was correct then or now, but I am curious is to what he would think of our current situation and the "progress" we have made in the 65 years since his death. When we take a look at where we are at as as an economy, the state of disengagement and other factors is it time to declare "war" again...?

The "First" Engagement Initiative

Those of you who know me know that engagement, true engagement is an area or opportunity that I feel pretty strongly about (sorry Laurie). I think the emphasis is on true engagement. Engagement in my mind is defined as voluntary or discretionary effort that employees bring to their job everyday. True engagement is when that phenomenon spreads to your suppliers, your customers, and your community.

True engagement is accomplished using a number of tactics and strategies, but it is not a "program", it is a culture that lives everywhere not in HR. You don't accomplish it with pep rallies and reward and recognition programs by themselves. You build the culture and then you live it.

Another area that has intrigued me for a while and is taking on new dimensions in light of the health care debate is the relationship between personal competency and engagement. Personal competency is the stepchild key principle that was embedded into the original constitution, kind of a neglected cousin to personal property. Personal competency was the idea that each of us had the right and responsibility to manage our own futures, that we were not bound by our heritage or lineage. The key is the balance between right and responsibility. In a way doesn't that sound more like a partnership than a hierarchy? Doesn't that kind of sound like engagement in a way?

I have talked about personal competency at length and how to great extent with the coming of the Industrial Revolution a variety of forces combined so that we exchanged our personal competency for a kind of "corporate feudalism", we gave up our "equality" for security like corporate or organizational pension plans, health care benefits, etc. The industrialists were all about this model. Dumbing down skill sets and creating structures based on "compliance" is easier, in the short term. Our Founding Fathers were not real big on the concept of corporations, but that is another story.

When I look at our current situation as it relates to health care I see similar potential issues related to personal competency. I want to go on record as saying that I believe access to basic health care is a right that everyone should have access to, and I do mean everyone. The fact that we have one of the most advanced and expensive health care systems in the world and our morbidity and mortality rates put as at like number 30 is embarrassing to me (think countries like Cuba and Costa Rica). I also believe that access to basic care is good business and good for the overall economy. We are spending upwards of 10% of our GNP on health care on our "stellar" results and the number is getting bigger, not smaller. A big part of that is that people without access to preventative care get their care in ERs, the least efficient and most expensive way to provide it. Since they can't pay for it the costs get passed along to those who can pay, kind of like shrinkage in retail.

Here is another data point for you to consider. According to the American Medical Association sixty percent of health issues (and therefore costs) are related to lifestyle rather than hereditary. In plain terms that means we cause it! The issue is also that if I have not;

• Participated meaningfully in paying for the costs of care for me and my dependents
• Been provided with any meaningful information about what I or my dependents can do to improve my health or reduce expenses
• Been incentivized to change my behavior
• Been educated on the impact of escalating health care expenditures on other parts of the business

then the chances I am "invested" in making changes to my behavior are pretty minimal. No personal competence or engagement here folks!

As a former HR executive I can also tell you that most organizations strategy to deal with the rising costs of benefits is to;

1. Cost shift to employees through higher deductibles, co pays, etc
2. Reduce benefit offerings
3. Eliminate categories of employees from coverage

Is it just me or do these methods seem to miss the root causes as well?

I am not going to belabor that point and make this about health care.

I guess my point is that maybe just maybe the Founding Fathers intended personal competency to be the first real engagement initiative. My personal engagement model is based on five elements:

• Respect
• Responsibility
• Information
• Equitable rewards
• Mutual loyalty

Is it just me, or do there seem to be some parallels between that and personal competency? Maybe personal competency and true engagement are both about doing things with rather than to people ?

Were the Founding Fathers really that visionary, I wonder......?

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.

The Power Of Relationships

As you all know I agree with Margaret Wheatley that the most important influence in organizations is relationships; not systems, not technology, but relationships.

I had the occasion to join a friend last evening with a friend and colleague of his I hadn't previously met. I found his friend to be charming, personable and very articulate. As our discussion turned to the inevitable " so what business are you in", he said that he worked for an organization that distributes a pharmaceutical type of product that is manufactured in Europe. What was especially interesting was that he shared their "distribution" network was almost exclusively based on relationship selling; no large sales force , no "cold calling". It is based on trust and referral.

A week or so ago I mentioned an article by Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford. He opined that much of the issue with health care in the United States is in many ways relationship based; most Americans rely on their employer for health care and for economic security. Compared to other countries our "safety net" is pretty small. He talked about the effects of stress about their employment and the accompanying systems like health care tied to employment and the direct correlation to health care issues. I agree with him.

I read some articles and listened to a couple of "idea casts" on BNET this week that illustrated the same thing from a different angle- the relationship between employees and leaders and how in these times especially employees watch their leaders for any sign of positive or negative events or signs. They do that normally, but in these times it is exacerbated to the nth degree. Marcus Buckingham says the most important attribute of leadership is clarity- people want to believe their leaders have a vision.

My own personal research validates information published by Peppers and Rogers, BlessingWhite, Gallup, and others about the power of engagement. I am talking about true engagement which includes customer, employee, shareholder, and stakeholder. Organization's with high engagement outperform their competitors consistently and by an order of magnitude. Engagement is about relationships.

I have written and spoken a lot lately about social networks and their increasing importance in communications strategy. I believe that social networking is about relationships.

I have also written and spoken about the "social contract". In historical times the poor were tied to the wealthy. They literally "belonged" to the property or estate for hundreds of years. The American "experiment" was all about eliminating that. You could come here and reinvent yourself.
You could homestead a piece of property of start a business. Then we ran out of frontier. Consistent with the rest of the world the Industrial revolution occurred. We exchanged the value of personal competence for the promise of "security" in return for "obedience" The power of the great capitalist was tempered only by the labor movement. That was about relationships,
however dysfunctional.

The "world" economy changed that social contract. American industry was not always dominant, our quality suffered and correspondingly so did our market share. Interestingly much of the "new" management models like lean manufacturing and TQM have very strong relationship components to them. U.S. companies retreated from economic security in return for "loyalty". Traditional pension plans are almost obsolete. The parental relationship between employers and employed relative to health care is in crisis mode. Our health care model is parental. We don't address root causes of costs, we shift them around. People don't want to share responsibility for their health or the costs of treating them. That is a relationship, although another dysfunctional one.

I am not suggesting that a "parental" model is appropriate. Anybody that has ever heard me speak, worked with me, or read any of my writing knows better. I rather like the concept of "personal competence" and relationships founded on mutual respect and honesty between employer and employed, taxpayer and government, supplier and customer, and individuals. A relationship based on respect, information, and mutual responsibility and built on a foundation of trust. Maybe I am just nostalgic or misguided, but I think that is what the Founding Fathers meant so many years ago when they formed this country.

Tomorrow is Independence Day, maybe a good day to reflect on what they meant and the critical relationships in each of our lives. I think that is what I'll do, how about you?

Turtle or Hare- Part Deaux

Last week I talked a little about organizations in this spiraling economy determining whether they wanted to be a "turtle"; retreating into their shell, or a hare seeking opportunity. I wanted to continue that theme a little bit.
The official "prognosticators" have grimly stated that our current economic situation is 1) likely to get worse before it gets better and 2) likely to last at least twelve moths. So what do we do with the time? Here are some of my suggestions:

• Plot your strategy. How many "overnight" successes have you met that spent years refining and executing their strategy whether personally or professionally. In my last position we took some time to reflect and refine our strategies and then launched a multi point strategy with excellent results. (see my case study- a New Paradigm for Credit Unions). Several competitors commented to me later- we thought you guys had given up- you were massing for D -day!
• Examine your team. Anybody else tired of hearing everybody parrot Jim Collins about getting the right people on the bus? You can't just talk about it, you have to do it! If organizations are cutting budgets or slashing product launches and cutting marketing expenses before looking at the performance metrics of your organization and assisting the bottom 10 -15% off the bus you aren't doing what you need to do!
• Look for "blue ocean". Are you proactively looking for new opportunities and new markets? Are their opportunities to bring your product or service into a new sector?
• Examine your systems. I agree with Collins; the enemy of great isn't bad or awful, it is "good" as in "good" enough. Do you have efficient systems in not only data management, but in business intelligence? Is the data being turned into meaningful action plans and being disseminated to the right people?
• Do you have clarity? Marcus Buckingham tells us the most important role of leadership is clarity. Clarity of purpose and vision. Richard Rumelt of UCLA tells us that the key role of management is to remove or minimize ambiguity. Employees need to understand their role in the organizations plan, especially at times like these.
• Do you have an engagement strategy? If you don't you are not alone, but here are some arguments why you should start now. In my article on "presenteeism" I shared with you that we lose $200 billion annually to productivity drain from people who are not fully engaged, are dealing with personal concerns, or just taking up space. In my series on Compliance to Commitment(TM) and engagement I shared the corollary- organizations with high engagement enjoy 21% higher per capita productivity rates, 60% lower turnover, and outperform their peer group averages by 100% on key financial metrics. Their employees see themselves as part of the solution and actively participate in creating solutions, not whining or abandoning ship.
• Are you playing as a team? When business get in trouble or experience tough times I typically see the executive team "huddle" in a conference room making all the decisions: what do we cut, who do we cut, what do we do? Here is a tip- employees at all levels support decisions that they participate in much more consistently than decisions that are imposed on them. I am not suggesting a vote, but giving employees an opportunity to participate in the how if not the what or at least informing them and getting their input conveys respect and value. If your management team and staff can't contribute to these kinds of decisions you might ask yourself why they are part of your team.

I remember hearing that Native Americans ate when food was plentiful and rested when the opportunity presented itself. I also read in Malcolm Gladwell's latest book the difference between a "rice" culture and a "wheat" culture. A rice culture is not seasonal, when you are not planting and harvesting you are preparing for the next growing season. In our "wheat culture" we spent the winter months inside - sounds a lot like "turtling" to me.

So I hope that I have given you somethings to consider. Comments always welcome.

Managing Whole Relationships

The last week has been interesting. The holidays always cause me to pause and reflect about the year that has passed and the year that lays ahead.
This week has been especially interesting because some things I have been working on for a while are approaching completion.

I have believed for sometime that we need to redefine our employment relationship in the U.S.
In many ways I think it resembles the ancient system of serfdom and royalty.
Organizations have replaced the royalty, but we expect "fealty" and "loyalty" in return for taking care of our employees. The concept of taking care of employees really bugs me. You don't take care of adults. You partner with them. You reach covenants and understandings about mutual expectations and mutual benefits. You exchange ideas and value. You hold each other accountable and you invest in relationships.
There may be leaders, but leadership comes from creating a meaningful vision and clarity and giving people a reason to follow you. It is not a hereditary right that comes with a title or position.

This week my first book went to the printer. People ask me how long I took to write it and I answer somewhat whimsically that it took my thirty years to write it, and about six months to write it down.

Over the last 30 years I have been a consultant, manager, executive, and I hope a leader.
My book is about those experiences and the things that I learned and the mistakes that I made. It is also about a new model that I believe in- a partnership model. We take care of each other.

I hope it is a good book. I have worked hard on it and I have been blessed with the patience and investment of a number of people who have helped me shape it and edit it and make it better. It is a reflection of our collective effort, not just mine.

We are faced with some challenging issues right now and for the foreseeable future. The world economy, health care delivery and costs, famine and terrorism, and a bunch of others.
I think we need to deal with these issues collaboratively.
We need to partner with our employees and communities and look for solutions that are different.
People are complicated and messy. Organizations take on all those issues and add their own. Societies just increase the scale.
2008 has been hard, but I have learned a lot and done things and met people that I probably wouldn't have without that catalyst.

I think I would like to spend 2009 working on knowing and appreciating "whole people" better and working with others to create new better models together.
I don't want to take care of people I want to share relationships and experiences with them. I don't want to complain about what is, I want to participate in what could be instead.
What do you want to do as you "wrap up 2008 and move into 2009?