The Audacity of Hope

I have written quite a bit over the last few weeks about engagement and personal competency among other things. I actually think that these two things have the opportunity to contribute pretty significantly to the issues we face.
To support my position I would point out the $200 billion annually that the American Mental Health Association says we are losing to "presenteeism". I would also point out that organizations that successfully embrace and implement an engagement strategy enjoy competitive advantages in productivity, profitability, and sustainability. Only 30 percent of organizations have implemented such a plan. Maybe they can do more for us than relying exclusively on government support from the stimulus package.
I think the time has come for us to look at new models and new partnerships. The old models aren't working.

I had some positive things happen this week that cause me to believe that we may come out of this ok.
I had the opportunity to accompany my son on an interview of a colleague I respect very much. This gentleman and his family represent an old fashion sense of values that " to whom much is given, much is required". They have quietly, but methodically provided leadership in their community for five generations. It was especially rewarding to hear him discuss how his personal leadership model had evolved and how he had embraced "engagement" as a model for community development. He told my son that "people support what they build and own" and how he had come to a place of recognizing his role as a "visionary" and explorer, but the most important part of that role was to pass ownership of the vision and its outcomes on to others. It wasn't his success that was critical, it is the success of the vision.
What was even more exciting is that he had asked his nephew to participate in our discussion. His family was not only personally "paying forward" in the community, he was providing the role modeling and the expectation to the next generation that the same would be expected of them. His nephew seemed absolutely committed to that prospect and prepared to embrace it as well.
Quite bluntly those values are not being taught in most of our business schools. While we revere explorers- we teach mapping. We focus on data and systems, not communications and engagement. Technology and information are important, but they don't create engagement. It is good to know that they are being taught.

I had an opportunity as well to catch up with a former protege. He has demonstrated the capacity and capability to lead and I am pleased to see an organization recognize that. It was really meaningful to hear him discuss taking conversations we had and problems we had worked on in a previous "life" and use them as learning opportunities for his current staff. He too recognizes and embraces the concept of "paying it forward". It was also great to hear him talk about a multi year strategy to move the organization from compliance to commitment. He recognized both what needs to occur and that it is a process rather than an event.

I have commented before that I think the current generations or not as complacent or disloyal as we describe them. They just reject a lot of our models.

Our current models encourage people to exchange personal competency for "security". Unfortunately we can't provide security anymore either. A lot of people "grew up" in an environment where the employer provided their health care and their retirement. We took those competencies away from them. Now we want to either give the responsibilities back or have the government manage them. When we began losing ground in productivity our first reaction was protectionism and the second was off shoring. Neither of those sound like personal competency either.
We are angry at the financial services organizations and the automobile manufacturers, but haven't we been complicit there as well? We took the loans and we bought the cars.

The young people I had a chance to interact with said a couple of things that stuck with me. You must role model the behavior you expect and you must hold yourself personally accountable. They seem to get it. They also seem to recognize that people need help seeing a different way to do things, especially when it was never expected of them or encouraged.

I am hoping that our current crisis provides the catalyst to explore a different model between employer and employed and between government and citizen. Let's not be enablers, let's be partners. I think that is what the Founding Fathers had in my mind when Madison suggested a central government to deal with the issues of the "great and aggregate". One could make an argument hat considering where we are as a society with health care, education, and productivity the government has a role, but that role should be limited to catalyst and facilitator.

So my "hope" springs from two sources; the courage and commitment of my colleague and people and families like his, and the "emerging" leadership I see willing and able to explore a new model.

The "Right" of Personal Competency

I was helping my daughter with an assignment this week and came across a concept that I hadn't focused on in a very long time if ever- the "right" of personal competency.

It would seem that back in the day the Founding Fathers wanted to ensure two very important rights that they felt were absent in the feudal societies and relationships that we left behind in Europe. Everybody is very familiar with personal property rights. Our right to own property, build a business, and generally prosper. You don't hear nearly as much about the right of personal competency; the right to express yourself, market your skills, and literally to "reinvent" yourself.

In Europe, and in fact in a lot of the world, your "destiny" was somewhat predetermined. Literally during the feudal period the "serfs" were tied to the land. You could not leave or relocate without your "Lord's" permission.

There were a lot of riots and other ugly history associated with collective bargaining as well, the right of individuals to bargain for the value of their services was not provided in that society.

In the early days we had what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of land so anyone could "reinvent" themselves. Everybody was at least theoretically equal.

The Industrial Revolution changed a lot of things. We moved from an agrarian to an industrial society. Mass production allowed for a lot of things to be "dumbed" down.

The American history relative to personal competency isn't very attractive either. The railroads, industrialization of manufacturing, and exhausting our supply of "frontiers" created a new feudal system. The "new" nobility didn't think much of collective bargaining either- it was the late 1930's when the right of unions to exist and groups to bargain became a protected right.

Corporations began "taking care" of their employees. I'm not saying they did it out of altruism, rather they did it because unions demanded it or because they wanted to avoid unionization so they provided it proactively.

Employees of corporations began to expect their employer to provide employment security, health benefits, and retirement. Our labor relations laws still infer a lack of competence on the part of working people. Employees traded obedience for security and employers didn't include them in decisions about how we were going to do things. We have changed some of this with things like TQM, lean manufacturing, employee engagement programs, and other initiatives; but we still don't discuss many things with employees like adults.

Those things include : how we make decisions about compensation, factors affecting the costs of health care, and others. We don't always act like our employees are competent adults. What happened?

I like to think that my two models- Managing Whole People and Moving from Compliance to Commitment are in concert with what Jefferson and others had in mind with the right of personal competency. A system based on mutual respect, responsibility, information, rewards, and earned loyalty.

What do you think, is it time to go back to the future? Is personal competency both a right and a responsibility?