From My Heart

I sit at my computer tonight with a pensive heart. It isn't just Haiti, although that gives it a focus.
I will freely admit to being a romantic. I love great stories and heroes. I love happy endings and noble causes and stories about people who displayed more integrity and courage than I have.
I'm not seeking solace or absolution, just thinking out loud.

We have an interesting set of choices before us. In many cases we are angry and disillusioned. We feel let down . Our economic security is at stake. People we trusted let us down. Where do we go?

I believe in people. I have been castigated about my focus on engagement and the power or relationships, but honestly I have have yet to see a more powerful force than a group of committed people in support of a common cause.

I have been and aspire again to be a "leader". Leadership is a a trust between those who "lead" and those who "follow".

For many years our philosophy was "Think Global, act local". Perhaps it is time for us to both think and act locally. Washington and "world leaders" can offer insight, but perhaps we need to embrace more solutions one person, one family, one community at a time?

From my heart. What do you think?

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?

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?