I don’t like going to the deli counter at the supermarket.
Not because I don’t like my local supermarket deli’s selection (it’s fine) or because I think their meats and cheeses are too expensive (they’re fine too, I suppose. I always get the same thing.) It’s because the service is so deplorable, and I hate waiting in line.
Supermarkets at some point apparently realized this, so they came up with the self-serve deli kiosk. It eliminates the need for human interaction for people who don’t want it. Tell me what you want, I’ll take care of it for you, pick it up whenever.
Yesterday, when I was at the supermarket, I used the deli kiosk, like I always do.
And the deli people got one of the items in my order wrong. So now, since there are other people waiting in line, I have to wait in line with them to get the food I actually ordered. So on top of not giving me what I asked for, you are forcing me to participate in a process I deliberately set out to avoid. Talk about a broken system. How do you suppose I, as a customer, was compensated for the time I lost and frustration I endured because of this ordeal?
If your answer was to discover when I got home that the other item in my order was just absolutely horribly prepared, you would be correct.
I don’t like going to Starbucks.
Not because I don’t think the drinks are good (I think they are) or because I don’t like what they ‘stand for’ (I don’t really pay that much mind.) I dislike it mostly because, for me, the cost of a drink at Starbucks isn’t worth what I get out of it.
Today, however, I discovered a Starbucks gift card buried in my wallet. And the first thing I could think of was how excited I was to be able to go into Starbucks and get a Peppermint Latte. Like it was some sort of privilege. Starbucks has chosen to ignore me with their marketing, and that’s fine, because nothing short of free coffee would get me in their stores. But when I am there, I am so overwhelmed with how positive the experience is, and how good it leaves me feeling, that I actively THINK about when the next time is I can feel that good again. All this has absolutely nothing to do with coffee. Talk about great marketing.
If I am paying money in exchange for you doing something for me, I have every expectation that you will do everything in your power to leave me as satisfied as I can conceivably be in the situation, regardless if it’s deli meat or gourmet coffee. Not because I’m worth it (you don’t know if I am or not) or because I feel entitled (even though, as a paying customer, I am) but because you (the service provider) don’t get to decide what satisfies me.
Maybe for me, the wait is worth it because you sliced my cracked pepper turkey* just the way I liked it, or if I know you’ll stagger the cheese slices so they don’t all become one bug clump in the fridge. Maybe the wait has turned me off so much even giving the turkey away wouldn’t satisfy me. Maybe I hate your coffee, but I’m only here because it’s free, so that cheerful smile you flash my way doesn’t register with me.
Wise people say ‘you only get one change to make a first impression.’ But what they don’t tell you is that, while you may have some control over WHAT that first impression is, you have no control over WHEN it is. Maybe I form my first impression the second I walk in the door. Maybe it’s when you ask me if I’m being helped. Maybe it’s whether or not you ask me how I like my turkey sliced. You have no way of knowing, so they only way to win is to do it all. Be perfect. Sure it’s not easy. But in a world where I can get my deli meats and my coffee wherever I want, why would I settle for anything less?
The worst thing we in the Service business can do is wait until our customers are unhappy to treat them with respect and tell them how important their business is to us. I’m not suggesting we water it down by saying it every time; this is just as bad, if not worse. When I was working for a notable local pharmacy retailer, we actually had to do this. When we answered the phone, we actually had to say, ‘Thank you for calling ----, where the customer comes first.’ Most of the time, people didn’t even hear us, and if they did, we said it so fast they didn’t understand us. This sort of hollow rote does not build goodwill with customers. Making them feel special, however… well, everyone likes to feel special.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
"It'll Never Work"
How many times have you heard that?
People seeking to exercise leadership hear that a lot. Representatives of the status quo has a laundry list of reasons why the way things are being done is Fine, Just Fine™, not the least of which is that asking them to change what they're accustomed to represents no small loss for them.
We don't think of these concessions as 'losses,' but that's what they are. To try something new means to concede that what's old isn't working anymore. And the people responsible for what's old will doubtlessly fight tooth and nail to keep it relevant, even if all evidence is indicative of the contrary. This is an important distinction, because this is almost certain to not be the direction the discourse surrounding new ideas will take. People will focus on the concrete and the technical; all the 'practical' reasons why staying the course is an acceptable solution. But when you realize that 'staying the course' got us to the current state we're in, you realize that the only true practical solution is to do the things we haven't been doing. When someone tells you something 'will never work,' it's a safe bet they stand to lose something if it does work. The challenge is to pace that loss at a rate they’ll be able to withstand.
Someone very close to me was recently laid off from their job. You probably know someone who has suffered a similar fate. When I spoke with this person about the circumstances surrounding their layoff, they mentioned to me all the systemic issues within their organization which, had they been addressed, may have saved their job, and the jobs of others at the organization who suffered the same fate. This person was especially distraught because it seemed to them that no effort had been made to address these systemic problems; the organization simply let people go to cut costs.
And my friend is not alone. When you look at how downsizing is handled from an organizational perspective, the level of work avoidance present is blinding. For one, it’s never, EVER, discussed at all, in any sort of open forum. It happens unexpectedly, a quick fix to right the rocking ship. It is done with little regard to the effect it will have on the organization (read: the people who make up the organization), both present and now-former employees, not to mention investors (a wise man once told me that, when an investor sees a company downsize, he gets his money out.) Downsizing and layoffs are stop gaps; they don’t stem the tide of inefficiency. They skirt around the problem, they don’t tackle it head-on. What a shame. What a waste. Sure, all the organizational think tanks in the world won’t stop the economy from nosediving, but that doesn’t let us off the hook for doing whatever is in our power to ameliorate the situation as best we can. Now is not the time for technical solutions, nor is it the time to look to others to solve our problems. What if we all got together and had a talk about little adjustments we can make to save our companies money? What if everyone came up with three ideas for how to be more efficient? People may be quick to say it’s a bad idea, and I’m sure they’ll have lots of perfectly good reasons why.
What if you try a hundred little things, a hundred new ideas, a hundred different ways to change?
What if every single one fails? People are often quick to say 'we failed. It didn’t work.'
What they may not realize is that you just succeeded in finding a hundred things that don't work. And knowing what doesn't (and won't) work is just as important as knowing what does (and will) work.
So don’t be afraid to fail. Weigh your interpretation of the problem against competing perspectives. Ask the tough questions. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. The easy way out is usually not a viable long-term solution; how can it be? If the problem were an easy one to solve, we would have solved it already.
So keep on failing. Keep on being wrong. Eventually, if you’ve been paying attention, and with a little luck, maybe you’ll be right.
People seeking to exercise leadership hear that a lot. Representatives of the status quo has a laundry list of reasons why the way things are being done is Fine, Just Fine™, not the least of which is that asking them to change what they're accustomed to represents no small loss for them.
We don't think of these concessions as 'losses,' but that's what they are. To try something new means to concede that what's old isn't working anymore. And the people responsible for what's old will doubtlessly fight tooth and nail to keep it relevant, even if all evidence is indicative of the contrary. This is an important distinction, because this is almost certain to not be the direction the discourse surrounding new ideas will take. People will focus on the concrete and the technical; all the 'practical' reasons why staying the course is an acceptable solution. But when you realize that 'staying the course' got us to the current state we're in, you realize that the only true practical solution is to do the things we haven't been doing. When someone tells you something 'will never work,' it's a safe bet they stand to lose something if it does work. The challenge is to pace that loss at a rate they’ll be able to withstand.
Someone very close to me was recently laid off from their job. You probably know someone who has suffered a similar fate. When I spoke with this person about the circumstances surrounding their layoff, they mentioned to me all the systemic issues within their organization which, had they been addressed, may have saved their job, and the jobs of others at the organization who suffered the same fate. This person was especially distraught because it seemed to them that no effort had been made to address these systemic problems; the organization simply let people go to cut costs.
And my friend is not alone. When you look at how downsizing is handled from an organizational perspective, the level of work avoidance present is blinding. For one, it’s never, EVER, discussed at all, in any sort of open forum. It happens unexpectedly, a quick fix to right the rocking ship. It is done with little regard to the effect it will have on the organization (read: the people who make up the organization), both present and now-former employees, not to mention investors (a wise man once told me that, when an investor sees a company downsize, he gets his money out.) Downsizing and layoffs are stop gaps; they don’t stem the tide of inefficiency. They skirt around the problem, they don’t tackle it head-on. What a shame. What a waste. Sure, all the organizational think tanks in the world won’t stop the economy from nosediving, but that doesn’t let us off the hook for doing whatever is in our power to ameliorate the situation as best we can. Now is not the time for technical solutions, nor is it the time to look to others to solve our problems. What if we all got together and had a talk about little adjustments we can make to save our companies money? What if everyone came up with three ideas for how to be more efficient? People may be quick to say it’s a bad idea, and I’m sure they’ll have lots of perfectly good reasons why.
What if you try a hundred little things, a hundred new ideas, a hundred different ways to change?
What if every single one fails? People are often quick to say 'we failed. It didn’t work.'
What they may not realize is that you just succeeded in finding a hundred things that don't work. And knowing what doesn't (and won't) work is just as important as knowing what does (and will) work.
So don’t be afraid to fail. Weigh your interpretation of the problem against competing perspectives. Ask the tough questions. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. The easy way out is usually not a viable long-term solution; how can it be? If the problem were an easy one to solve, we would have solved it already.
So keep on failing. Keep on being wrong. Eventually, if you’ve been paying attention, and with a little luck, maybe you’ll be right.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Who shut the dogs down?
John Keller nails why Question 3 was such a disaster, and its passing spells trouble for all of us, which my friend Cody summed up in a rant he posted here. We Bay Staters can all expect a nice big tax hike to cover the revenue the states dog tracks were bringing in form gambling and alcohol sales. Combine that with the passing of Question 1 (whether or not to repeal the state income tax), and the only conclusion one can come to is that we Massachusetts folk just looooooove to pay our taxes.
Because our bridges and roads are in crackerjack shape.
And Boston Public Schools? Don't kid yourself, best in the land!
And don't forget, those police officers who sit and drink coffee and talk on their blackberries while on 'construction detail' aren't going to pay themselves.
I'm ranting, I know. But what we have here is a sort of moral relativism (save the dogs!) combined with a pragmatic naivete (not being aware of the fact that a huge chunk of state revenue was coming from these tracks, and that we're going to foot the bill for the difference.)
The 'No on 3' people ran a campaign which was rather obviously doomed from the start, as its appeal was only to those who were affected by it (they ran on a platform of unemployment; that passing the question would put track employees out of work).
My opinion is they could have fared much better had they taken a page from Jess Bachman from WallStats.com, and done a pictorial, numerical representation, of how much money the tracks brought in to the state, how taxpayer revenue would be used to pick up the slack, and show each taxpayer about how much they would be expected to pay.
Because our bridges and roads are in crackerjack shape.
And Boston Public Schools? Don't kid yourself, best in the land!
And don't forget, those police officers who sit and drink coffee and talk on their blackberries while on 'construction detail' aren't going to pay themselves.
I'm ranting, I know. But what we have here is a sort of moral relativism (save the dogs!) combined with a pragmatic naivete (not being aware of the fact that a huge chunk of state revenue was coming from these tracks, and that we're going to foot the bill for the difference.)
The 'No on 3' people ran a campaign which was rather obviously doomed from the start, as its appeal was only to those who were affected by it (they ran on a platform of unemployment; that passing the question would put track employees out of work).
My opinion is they could have fared much better had they taken a page from Jess Bachman from WallStats.com, and done a pictorial, numerical representation, of how much money the tracks brought in to the state, how taxpayer revenue would be used to pick up the slack, and show each taxpayer about how much they would be expected to pay.
It is a privilege to fight
Thank you to everyone for the comments in my post on Prop 8. Please keep the dialogue going; change cannot happen in silence.
As I mentioned in that piece, I think the first big step the community at large needs to take towards mobilizing the change they with to realize is to get everyone on the same page, and put an end to the splintering which seems to hold the community back. The dialogue I saw there is a positive start, and it is my hope that conversations like this are being carried on across the country. Prop 8 has woken everyone up to the realization that we are not ready for legislation on this issue yet. The issue is like a green banana; it is not yet ripe. Our question should not be 'how do we peel the banana?' It should be 'how can we expedite the ripening process?' A yellow banana is far easier to peel than a green one. And even if we were to force the peel off the green banana, we may find that in doing so, we have made the fruit undesirable.
While you all are here though, and I have your attention, I'd like to share something with you which I hope will both a) give you some perspective on where I as the author of that piece am coming from, and b) Give you a tool which you can bring back to your respective factions to wield in the fight against bigotry.
As the first sentence of my piece on Prop 8 indicates, I think Prop 8 serves as a fantastic study in a concept known as Adaptive Work. While everything that adaptive work entails is beyond the scope of this missive, if you feel that there is some truth in what I've penned, I strongly encourage you to take 10 minutes or so and peruse some of the other things I've posted on this blog under the tag 'leadership' (pay special attention to the post labeled 'Boogers of Truth.' How did attack ads play out in this process? How could the community have approached this problem differently to defang it?)
If you'd like to know more about this concept of Adaptive Work, you may also enjoy this article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. It was co-authored by a man named Ronald Heifetz, A man whom I have quoted often in this blog. He is the 'inventor' of this concept of Adaptive Work, and his eloquence and writing style are superior to mine in almost every way.
Be mindful of where Heifetz says problems are born, and who is responsible for solving them. What does the word 'leadership' mean in the context of Adaptive Work, and how has the gay community failed to exercise it? What is a 'leader?' What does leadership carry with it? Is the problem the community faces a Technical one or an Adaptive one? One of the anonymous commenters mentioned that people have been 'speaking out' for years... Within the context of Adaptive Work, is this a Technical Solution?
If you have any questions about Adaptive Work, or would like to know more, please feel free to leave a comment in this post. I will answer it as best I can, and if I cannot help you, I will do what I can to find you an answer. Just do not let the embers of passion in your souls burn out. There is too far much at stake. This fight is too important.
As I mentioned in that piece, I think the first big step the community at large needs to take towards mobilizing the change they with to realize is to get everyone on the same page, and put an end to the splintering which seems to hold the community back. The dialogue I saw there is a positive start, and it is my hope that conversations like this are being carried on across the country. Prop 8 has woken everyone up to the realization that we are not ready for legislation on this issue yet. The issue is like a green banana; it is not yet ripe. Our question should not be 'how do we peel the banana?' It should be 'how can we expedite the ripening process?' A yellow banana is far easier to peel than a green one. And even if we were to force the peel off the green banana, we may find that in doing so, we have made the fruit undesirable.
While you all are here though, and I have your attention, I'd like to share something with you which I hope will both a) give you some perspective on where I as the author of that piece am coming from, and b) Give you a tool which you can bring back to your respective factions to wield in the fight against bigotry.
As the first sentence of my piece on Prop 8 indicates, I think Prop 8 serves as a fantastic study in a concept known as Adaptive Work. While everything that adaptive work entails is beyond the scope of this missive, if you feel that there is some truth in what I've penned, I strongly encourage you to take 10 minutes or so and peruse some of the other things I've posted on this blog under the tag 'leadership' (pay special attention to the post labeled 'Boogers of Truth.' How did attack ads play out in this process? How could the community have approached this problem differently to defang it?)
If you'd like to know more about this concept of Adaptive Work, you may also enjoy this article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. It was co-authored by a man named Ronald Heifetz, A man whom I have quoted often in this blog. He is the 'inventor' of this concept of Adaptive Work, and his eloquence and writing style are superior to mine in almost every way.
Be mindful of where Heifetz says problems are born, and who is responsible for solving them. What does the word 'leadership' mean in the context of Adaptive Work, and how has the gay community failed to exercise it? What is a 'leader?' What does leadership carry with it? Is the problem the community faces a Technical one or an Adaptive one? One of the anonymous commenters mentioned that people have been 'speaking out' for years... Within the context of Adaptive Work, is this a Technical Solution?
If you have any questions about Adaptive Work, or would like to know more, please feel free to leave a comment in this post. I will answer it as best I can, and if I cannot help you, I will do what I can to find you an answer. Just do not let the embers of passion in your souls burn out. There is too far much at stake. This fight is too important.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Some thoughts on Proposition 8
I’ve been thinking a lot about Prop 8 out in California lately, and I think this is an interesting case study in Adaptive Work. Let’s take a look:
Prop 8, on its surface, was a referendum on Same-Sex marriage in the state of California. My thesis however, is that it goes much deeper than that. It was a referendum on the gay community’s ability to affect adaptive change. And, as the polls indicate, they have failed in a big way.
I for one am glad Prop 8 passed. Not because I am in favor of banning same-sex marriage; I have and always will consider myself an ally of the gay community. I believe that this change is inevitable, that the acceptance of gays, and subsequently, their marriages, is only a matter of time. I am glad Prop 8 passed solely for the reason that it is a great example of democracy working in symphony with change. Or preservation of the status quo, as the case may be. You can debate me on the semantics of this all you want, how the LDS church basically bought themselves the verdict, how black voters were instrumental in the result, but, and I aim to explain this in more detail, assuming that position not only misses the point of Prop 8 entirely, in the latter case, it intimates that the democratic opinion of those first-time voters, who came out in record numbers to make their voices heard, does not matter. It borders on passive disenfranchisement, and hints at what I believe is a toxic undercurrent in the gay community.
I mentioned in the previous paragraph that I believe mainstream acceptance of same-sex relationships and marriages is only a matter of time, but this position comes with a very noteworthy caveat: The gay community cannot and will not gain acceptance until they:
Before I address the above points, let me comment briefly on the notion that this decision is merely a function of time and money; that Prop 8 passed solely because the LDS church (ironically enough, an institution which supported polygamy) pumped cash into a campaign, and that was enough. Because it wasn’t. That’s an incomplete worldview, and I suspect a lot of people who believe this deep down know that it isn’t true. The worldview of a person or group of people was there long before the marketing ever got there. These people believed what they believed before Prop 8 was even on the table; I highly doubt anyone was seriously contemplating the sanctity of marriage, saw one of these ‘Yes on 8’ ads, and suddenly had an epiphany that marriage is sacred. And if there are any people who honestly DID have this experience, it is very unlikely that they alone would have been the difference. Unless of course, they told their friends. This marketing merely gave these people who ALREADY BELIEVED gay marriage was wrong a story to tell, and a vehicle to spread it. And I believe that here is where the gay community is hurting the most. With that in mind, let’s look at the 3 points above:
The gay community is not united. At least it doesn’t appear united to me, someone on the outside (and I’m not even too far removed). This is a very serious problem the community needs to address, and they needed to address it yesterday. I have a friend who is a gay black man, and he once told me about the pressure he feels within the gay community as a gay black man; that there is an undercurrent of passive racism within the gay faction. Now I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, but regardless of whether or not it is, is perfectly represents my point: Not everyone in the community is on the same page. Yes, most, if not all of them, want equal rights. But there are various interpretations of what 'equal rights' means, and probably just as many arguments over how best to achieve it. This divisive infighting is toxic, and is probably the biggest barrier to equality the community must overcome. The best way to overcome this, from an adaptive perspective, would be for someone to step forward voluntarily (it cannot be someone elected in any kind of democratic process) to stomach the discontent of the community, quell the infighting, get everyone on the same page, give the work back, and focus their energy outwards on creating the unrest needed to affect the change. The status quo does not need a figurehead upon which to pin their aspirations of entrenchment; the LDS church can remain faceless (as it did) and do what the people running this campaign aimed to do. The gay community, however, cannot. They need a face, a person, upon whom to hang their hopes, and that person has to be someone who is unafraid to disappoint their followers. And it cannot be Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or any other elected official, so to pin it on these people is both unfair to them, and dangerous to the gay community, as they are letting themselves off the hook. These people can work in concert with my mythical figurehead (As John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson did with Martin Luther King), but they cannot be the person. These people can be silent enablers and allies of the community, but they have their hands in a lot of jars right now, and being too vocal compromises their ability to be successful leaders in other areas. So don’t pin it on them.
Which brings me to the second point of creating and sustaining discomfort in the greater community. In order to get everyone to pay attention to the struggle, you need to make people uncomfortable. Put the problem in their faces and force them to look at it. The gay community has so far been very ineffectual in this regard. The civil rights struggle of the 60’s and 70’s was so successful because, when people turned on their televisions, they saw protesters being hosed, beaten, arrested. They could not ignore the struggle of their fellow Americans. The gay community has hardly come close to matching this level of disequilibrium. They had an opportunity when Matthew Shepherd was murdered, but they squandered it by making it a matter of policy and legislation, which is as Technical a solution as you can get. In a big way, Fred Phelps won that battle, because, in attacking him, the community took their eye off the ball, and as a result, became marginalized. If the gay community hopes to realize the shift in American values necessary for true equality, they must make their fight one of passion and emotion, not of legislature and policy. The fight will be long and uphill, but if someone from the community steps forward and can get everyone to keep their eye on the ball, there is no reason why they can’t be successful. Prop 8 is not about policy; is never was. It represents a failure on the part of the gay community to make their struggle an emotional one for people whom it doesn’t affect. This is what allowed the LDS church to play on people’s fears and get then to the ballot box; the gay community didn’t do enough to challenge this notion and display their values as truly being in line with those of the people who would seek to make them second-class citizens. Scapegoating the LDS church allows the gay community to let themselves off the hook for not doing enough to being the change to the hearts and minds of their fellow Americans; it’s a copout. Sure, they had something to do with it, but remember what I said earlier: Those prejudices in the hearts and minds of the voters were there before the LDS Church. The Church managed to put those fears in play. Gays did not do enough to quell them.
They need to make people uncomfortable, and be in control of moderating the level of discomfort; know when to turn it down if tensions are running too high, and when to turn it up if people are losing interest or getting complacent. I don’t have my finger on the pulse of the gay community, so I have no answers for them on how best to do this, but this is their last big obstacle to affecting change. Once again, we can look to comparable struggles throughout history for how best to do this. When Martin Luther King Jr. assembled 200,000 black Americans and spoke to them from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, people paid attention. But what often goes unnoticed are the endless hours he and people like him put in to get to that point; speaking, lecturing, writing, doing the hard work to unite the black community and convince them that the pain they were being asked to endure was a worthy price to pay for equality. No one in the gay community, as far as I can see, has even come close to that.
So where do we go from here? What can we do to help move this change along? We on the outside can continue to offer our support to our embattled friends; and vow to stand with them in their struggle. But we cannot solve their problems for them.
The community needs to unite themselves. Without widespread unity, the cause is lost. End of story.
The community needs a leader. Someone upon whom they can hang their hopes, but at the same time, someone who is unafraid to disappoint them, and pace the work, both internally and externally. Someone who can work with allies in legislature to move things along from a policy perspective, but does reminds their constituents of their ultimate responsibility for the change.
The change is possible, but it won't come from legislators; it has to come from within the gay community. They have to affect people in a way that makes them WANT to change. The LDS church did this with Prop 8. I hope, for the sake of my recently married cousin, my coworkers, and our country, that the gay community has the fortitude and the dedication to rebound. The shift can happen, but not without them.
Prop 8, on its surface, was a referendum on Same-Sex marriage in the state of California. My thesis however, is that it goes much deeper than that. It was a referendum on the gay community’s ability to affect adaptive change. And, as the polls indicate, they have failed in a big way.
I for one am glad Prop 8 passed. Not because I am in favor of banning same-sex marriage; I have and always will consider myself an ally of the gay community. I believe that this change is inevitable, that the acceptance of gays, and subsequently, their marriages, is only a matter of time. I am glad Prop 8 passed solely for the reason that it is a great example of democracy working in symphony with change. Or preservation of the status quo, as the case may be. You can debate me on the semantics of this all you want, how the LDS church basically bought themselves the verdict, how black voters were instrumental in the result, but, and I aim to explain this in more detail, assuming that position not only misses the point of Prop 8 entirely, in the latter case, it intimates that the democratic opinion of those first-time voters, who came out in record numbers to make their voices heard, does not matter. It borders on passive disenfranchisement, and hints at what I believe is a toxic undercurrent in the gay community.
I mentioned in the previous paragraph that I believe mainstream acceptance of same-sex relationships and marriages is only a matter of time, but this position comes with a very noteworthy caveat: The gay community cannot and will not gain acceptance until they:
- Create unity within their faction and get everyone, EVERYONE, on the same page.
- Be unafraid to create and sustain disequilibrium.
- Focus everyone’s attention on the issue, and not let them off the hook.
Before I address the above points, let me comment briefly on the notion that this decision is merely a function of time and money; that Prop 8 passed solely because the LDS church (ironically enough, an institution which supported polygamy) pumped cash into a campaign, and that was enough. Because it wasn’t. That’s an incomplete worldview, and I suspect a lot of people who believe this deep down know that it isn’t true. The worldview of a person or group of people was there long before the marketing ever got there. These people believed what they believed before Prop 8 was even on the table; I highly doubt anyone was seriously contemplating the sanctity of marriage, saw one of these ‘Yes on 8’ ads, and suddenly had an epiphany that marriage is sacred. And if there are any people who honestly DID have this experience, it is very unlikely that they alone would have been the difference. Unless of course, they told their friends. This marketing merely gave these people who ALREADY BELIEVED gay marriage was wrong a story to tell, and a vehicle to spread it. And I believe that here is where the gay community is hurting the most. With that in mind, let’s look at the 3 points above:
The gay community is not united. At least it doesn’t appear united to me, someone on the outside (and I’m not even too far removed). This is a very serious problem the community needs to address, and they needed to address it yesterday. I have a friend who is a gay black man, and he once told me about the pressure he feels within the gay community as a gay black man; that there is an undercurrent of passive racism within the gay faction. Now I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, but regardless of whether or not it is, is perfectly represents my point: Not everyone in the community is on the same page. Yes, most, if not all of them, want equal rights. But there are various interpretations of what 'equal rights' means, and probably just as many arguments over how best to achieve it. This divisive infighting is toxic, and is probably the biggest barrier to equality the community must overcome. The best way to overcome this, from an adaptive perspective, would be for someone to step forward voluntarily (it cannot be someone elected in any kind of democratic process) to stomach the discontent of the community, quell the infighting, get everyone on the same page, give the work back, and focus their energy outwards on creating the unrest needed to affect the change. The status quo does not need a figurehead upon which to pin their aspirations of entrenchment; the LDS church can remain faceless (as it did) and do what the people running this campaign aimed to do. The gay community, however, cannot. They need a face, a person, upon whom to hang their hopes, and that person has to be someone who is unafraid to disappoint their followers. And it cannot be Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or any other elected official, so to pin it on these people is both unfair to them, and dangerous to the gay community, as they are letting themselves off the hook. These people can work in concert with my mythical figurehead (As John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson did with Martin Luther King), but they cannot be the person. These people can be silent enablers and allies of the community, but they have their hands in a lot of jars right now, and being too vocal compromises their ability to be successful leaders in other areas. So don’t pin it on them.
Which brings me to the second point of creating and sustaining discomfort in the greater community. In order to get everyone to pay attention to the struggle, you need to make people uncomfortable. Put the problem in their faces and force them to look at it. The gay community has so far been very ineffectual in this regard. The civil rights struggle of the 60’s and 70’s was so successful because, when people turned on their televisions, they saw protesters being hosed, beaten, arrested. They could not ignore the struggle of their fellow Americans. The gay community has hardly come close to matching this level of disequilibrium. They had an opportunity when Matthew Shepherd was murdered, but they squandered it by making it a matter of policy and legislation, which is as Technical a solution as you can get. In a big way, Fred Phelps won that battle, because, in attacking him, the community took their eye off the ball, and as a result, became marginalized. If the gay community hopes to realize the shift in American values necessary for true equality, they must make their fight one of passion and emotion, not of legislature and policy. The fight will be long and uphill, but if someone from the community steps forward and can get everyone to keep their eye on the ball, there is no reason why they can’t be successful. Prop 8 is not about policy; is never was. It represents a failure on the part of the gay community to make their struggle an emotional one for people whom it doesn’t affect. This is what allowed the LDS church to play on people’s fears and get then to the ballot box; the gay community didn’t do enough to challenge this notion and display their values as truly being in line with those of the people who would seek to make them second-class citizens. Scapegoating the LDS church allows the gay community to let themselves off the hook for not doing enough to being the change to the hearts and minds of their fellow Americans; it’s a copout. Sure, they had something to do with it, but remember what I said earlier: Those prejudices in the hearts and minds of the voters were there before the LDS Church. The Church managed to put those fears in play. Gays did not do enough to quell them.
They need to make people uncomfortable, and be in control of moderating the level of discomfort; know when to turn it down if tensions are running too high, and when to turn it up if people are losing interest or getting complacent. I don’t have my finger on the pulse of the gay community, so I have no answers for them on how best to do this, but this is their last big obstacle to affecting change. Once again, we can look to comparable struggles throughout history for how best to do this. When Martin Luther King Jr. assembled 200,000 black Americans and spoke to them from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, people paid attention. But what often goes unnoticed are the endless hours he and people like him put in to get to that point; speaking, lecturing, writing, doing the hard work to unite the black community and convince them that the pain they were being asked to endure was a worthy price to pay for equality. No one in the gay community, as far as I can see, has even come close to that.
So where do we go from here? What can we do to help move this change along? We on the outside can continue to offer our support to our embattled friends; and vow to stand with them in their struggle. But we cannot solve their problems for them.
The community needs to unite themselves. Without widespread unity, the cause is lost. End of story.
The community needs a leader. Someone upon whom they can hang their hopes, but at the same time, someone who is unafraid to disappoint them, and pace the work, both internally and externally. Someone who can work with allies in legislature to move things along from a policy perspective, but does reminds their constituents of their ultimate responsibility for the change.
The change is possible, but it won't come from legislators; it has to come from within the gay community. They have to affect people in a way that makes them WANT to change. The LDS church did this with Prop 8. I hope, for the sake of my recently married cousin, my coworkers, and our country, that the gay community has the fortitude and the dedication to rebound. The shift can happen, but not without them.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
They tell me you're good with numbers. How nice.
This morning, American Express announced that because of the credit crisis, they're going to lay off 7,000 people.
This exact same morning, ExxonMobil announced that its quarterly profits were a record-setting 14.8 Billion dollars
Let's have some fun with these numbers, shall we?
Let's assume that each of the 7,000 AmEx workers who are in danger of being laid off have an annual salary of $100,000 (which is a completely unreasonable assumption, seeing as how it is far more likely they will be blue-collar workers, but $100k is a nice round number, so we'll stick with that.)
The aggregate annual salary of these people is 7,000 * $100,000, or $700 Million.
If we were to take that $14.8 Billion in profits and ExxonMobil just posted, and pay the annual salary of each of those 7,000 AmEx workers, ExxonMobil would still have $14.1 Billion dollars in profits.
And remember, we're talking PROFITS here, not revenue. Profits means what they have after they spent all the money on production, manufacturing, shipping, paying their employees, taxes, debt, everything. This is all gravy money here, folks.
So even after paying the salaries of 7,000 now unemployed Americans, ExxonMobil has more than $14 Billion left. What can you buy with $14 billion?
- You could feed 2.7 Million families for a year (assuming a family spends about $100/week on groceries. I know I spend between $40 and $60.)
- Build 20,000 Wind Turbines, each producing 700 Kilowatts (source: http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/index.htm). 700 kilowatts times 20,000 wind turbines
-Cut each of the 9.5 million other unemployed American workers in the country a check for almost $1,500. That's about half the amount every American taxpayer is expected to contribute to the Government-backed bailout bill.
Meanwhile, we have a Republican Party trying to convince us that government oversight isn't necessary, unless there's a crisis. John McCain implies that, because Barack Obama wants to prevent a situation like this form happening again, that he is somehow a socialist.
I consider myself an economic conservative, but even a free market shouldn't get this out of hand.
This exact same morning, ExxonMobil announced that its quarterly profits were a record-setting 14.8 Billion dollars
Let's have some fun with these numbers, shall we?
Let's assume that each of the 7,000 AmEx workers who are in danger of being laid off have an annual salary of $100,000 (which is a completely unreasonable assumption, seeing as how it is far more likely they will be blue-collar workers, but $100k is a nice round number, so we'll stick with that.)
The aggregate annual salary of these people is 7,000 * $100,000, or $700 Million.
If we were to take that $14.8 Billion in profits and ExxonMobil just posted, and pay the annual salary of each of those 7,000 AmEx workers, ExxonMobil would still have $14.1 Billion dollars in profits.
And remember, we're talking PROFITS here, not revenue. Profits means what they have after they spent all the money on production, manufacturing, shipping, paying their employees, taxes, debt, everything. This is all gravy money here, folks.
So even after paying the salaries of 7,000 now unemployed Americans, ExxonMobil has more than $14 Billion left. What can you buy with $14 billion?
- You could feed 2.7 Million families for a year (assuming a family spends about $100/week on groceries. I know I spend between $40 and $60.)
- Build 20,000 Wind Turbines, each producing 700 Kilowatts (source: http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/index.htm). 700 kilowatts times 20,000 wind turbines
-Cut each of the 9.5 million other unemployed American workers in the country a check for almost $1,500. That's about half the amount every American taxpayer is expected to contribute to the Government-backed bailout bill.
Meanwhile, we have a Republican Party trying to convince us that government oversight isn't necessary, unless there's a crisis. John McCain implies that, because Barack Obama wants to prevent a situation like this form happening again, that he is somehow a socialist.
I consider myself an economic conservative, but even a free market shouldn't get this out of hand.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Perfect Failure
I have a lot to write about. I've not forgotten about this blog. Life has just been busy. There is something I want to get off my chest, however, before yet another day gets wholly consumed.
I had a conversation on my way to work this morning about how the first step in adaptive work is to focus everybody's attention on an embedded problem in a community. get people to sit up and pay attention. Then, and only then, canyou begin the process of mobilizing change.
My conversation this morning started about whether or not Barack Obama would be able to do this, and, after gaining people's attention and getting everyone on the same page, keep us focused long enough to give the work back to the people, to prevent us as a society and a nation from becoming globally irrelevant.
My conversation then moved on to September 11th, and how this was a shining example of an event, as catastrophic as it may have been, which immediately and completely, got everyone on the same page mentally. Almost overnight, every single person across the country had their attention focused on the very real issue of a problem. We were there. We were ready. We were paying attention, and we all knew SOMETHING had to change. And we were prepared to work towards that change.
My conversation then devolved into me pontificating about how the Bush Administration took this golden, once in a lifetime opportunity to affect change, and squandered it as wholly and completely as one can squander an opportunity laid before them. Their incredible success in focusing people's attention in the aftermath of September 11th was erased unilaterally by their unprecedented failure to hold and maintain our attention. As a student of leadership, you cannot find a better example than 9/11 of a situation which is conducive to affecting change, and you cannot find a better example than the Bush Administration of a person (or persons) in position of authority squandering that opportunity so completely. This should be in every single major written work on leadership, specifically Adaptive Leadership. As you can see, this was a failure on every level.
In closing, and the real reason I started this rant, please take a second to read this quote from Donald Rumsfeld. This is from a speech he gave to the staff at Whiteman Air Force Base on October 19, 2001. Chronoligically, we can assert that Rumsfeld said these words while he still had our attention; while our minds were still open to the idea of change. You can read the complete address here, but the quote which says the most to me is this one:
It's a perfect failure.
I had a conversation on my way to work this morning about how the first step in adaptive work is to focus everybody's attention on an embedded problem in a community. get people to sit up and pay attention. Then, and only then, canyou begin the process of mobilizing change.
My conversation this morning started about whether or not Barack Obama would be able to do this, and, after gaining people's attention and getting everyone on the same page, keep us focused long enough to give the work back to the people, to prevent us as a society and a nation from becoming globally irrelevant.
My conversation then moved on to September 11th, and how this was a shining example of an event, as catastrophic as it may have been, which immediately and completely, got everyone on the same page mentally. Almost overnight, every single person across the country had their attention focused on the very real issue of a problem. We were there. We were ready. We were paying attention, and we all knew SOMETHING had to change. And we were prepared to work towards that change.
My conversation then devolved into me pontificating about how the Bush Administration took this golden, once in a lifetime opportunity to affect change, and squandered it as wholly and completely as one can squander an opportunity laid before them. Their incredible success in focusing people's attention in the aftermath of September 11th was erased unilaterally by their unprecedented failure to hold and maintain our attention. As a student of leadership, you cannot find a better example than 9/11 of a situation which is conducive to affecting change, and you cannot find a better example than the Bush Administration of a person (or persons) in position of authority squandering that opportunity so completely. This should be in every single major written work on leadership, specifically Adaptive Leadership. As you can see, this was a failure on every level.
In closing, and the real reason I started this rant, please take a second to read this quote from Donald Rumsfeld. This is from a speech he gave to the staff at Whiteman Air Force Base on October 19, 2001. Chronoligically, we can assert that Rumsfeld said these words while he still had our attention; while our minds were still open to the idea of change. You can read the complete address here, but the quote which says the most to me is this one:
We have two choices: Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter.When you think about what it takes to mobilize change using the mechanisms of Adaptive Leadership, you really have no choice but to stand in complete awe of how Rumsfeld misses the point.
It's a perfect failure.
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