“I apologize to you, BP ……..” really?!?!

Vultures ©2010 · Georges Merx Photography

According to USAToday (6/17/2010),

“Rep. Joe Barton, top GOP member of the panel, used his opening statement to apologize — twice — for the pressure put on [BP]. [...] [Barton] has received at least $100,470 in political contributions from oil and gas interests since the beginning of 2009, the second-highest amount among all the committee members.”

It is instructive to learn of these extreme cases of moral turpitude, because they shed a light on how easy it is for democratic principles to be usurped by “business interests.”  The extreme-right is already busy accusing the White House of “bypassing the Constitution to create a Democrat-controlled slush fund by shaking down BP.” What?!

Now clearly, BP is a very rich global conglomerate with deep pockets that are tremendously attractive to politicians having to finance ever more expensive (re)election campaigns.

But when our representatives (in extreme cases, agreed) are so beholden to these donors that they make an open and public mockery of the urgent crisis needs of millions of U.S. citizens and residents along the Gulf coast, it is difficult to react with anything other than shock and dismay.

When we elect representatives from among ourselves to enact laws on our behalf, we naturally expect these representatives to act in our collective best interests. Of course the constant arguments about what these best interest are never end, but it should be clear that we expect our representatives to excel in certain human qualities:

• Common decency and a keen, ethical sense of justice
• A priority on always doing what is right for the people
• A lack of prejudice and desire to properly and effectively represent all constituents, regardless of socio-economic, cultural, gender, etc. status
• Independence from special interests, if they are contrary to the common good
• An urgent priority to get the people’s work done as soon as possible, instead of furthering one’s own career
• A genuine ability and willingness to cooperate for the greater good, even “across the aisle”
• A consistent rejection of corruption

American voters must become smart enough to pick representatives that meet and exceed the simple criteria above, instead of falling victim to false allegiances and shallow talking points.  In this long-term serious crisis mode that America wallows in today, we need to elect representatives that will cooperate to get us out of the crisis, not waste time and bile on attacking the other party, the President, and each other.  We do not need obstructionists!

Making good decisions for your child

Gone Sailing

“I think that a lot of people are judging me by the standards they have for their teens and other teens that they know … and thinking ‘she’s exactly like them,’” [Abby Sunderland] said. “They don’t understand that I’ve sailed my whole life and I do know what I’m doing out there.” (Abby is the 16-year-old teen who had to be rescued from the South Indian Ocean last week.)

This very statement by the teen speaks for itself: teenage defiance is part of the process of transitioning from child to adult, and in that context, serves its purpose.  But that two adults, Abby’s parents, would have allowed their child to set off on an incredibly dangerous, incredibly challenging sailing trip without even a person to accompany her, apparently in order to beat some irrelevant record, defies all reason and justification.

Fortunately for all concerned, the teen was rescued, at substantial cost and some risk to the heroic (and grown-up) rescuers.  This incident nevertheless puts the parents in a terrible light of irresponsibly risking the life of their own child.  Is it not obvious that the absolute first responsibility of a parent is to keep his|her child safe from harm?  There is no other common sense view here than to accuse the parents of gross misjudgment.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where children are given excessive powers early on: we now ask our toddlers what they would like to eat; when they would like to go to bed; we beg them to please not throw toys at guests; and we carefully avoid scolding them or exposing them to any criticism.  We have come to believe that discipline is somehow counterproductive, and that we should instead give children what they demand, incidentally whether or not we can afford it.  We excuse these parental lapses with our guilt (the children spend all day at daycare), or peer pressure (their friends have Polo-brand clothes, too).

This does not work, because acquiring good judgment is a very difficult-to-develop human trait that does not mature until into one’s twenties.  Common sense is simply not sufficiently developed at 3, 5, 11, or 16, because it is based on experience.

Back therefore to parental responsibility:  the cardinal rule can only be to keep our children safe, at least in those areas where we have control.  Abby ending up in the middle of the Indian Ocean by herself obviously violates this simple rule.

Doing good things with your money

Meg Whitman (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

According to the Boston Globe (June 5, 2010), “[California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman], the former eBay chief executive[, ] has spent more than $81 million so far — $71 million from her personal fortune.”

Now of course, we can all do with our money what we want, shouldn’t we?  This is a free country, after all … or is it?

Whitman is estimated to be worth $1.2 billion.  While we may imagine to benefit from the freedoms bestowed upon us by the Constitution and our cherished Democracy, we are really subject to a rapidly increasing dominance of a super-rich oligarchy: the only news is that they are no longer all seasoned, cigar-chomping white males.

Instead of feeding her obviously enormous ego by running for California Governor, why not use that same 80-some million dollars to help the State and its suffering population directly?  Or has Ms. Whitman really convinced herself that this “investment” in her campaign is the best way to help our State?!

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have clearly shown the way: instead of feeding their own egos with nasty and expensive political campaigns, they put their money directly into charitable activities.

Rich politicians are a scary commodity for at least the following reasons:

• Their wealth insulates them from the lives of their (potential) constituents to an excessive degree.
• Their egos are often oversized, because they acquired their wealth and power in the corporate world, an inherently undemocratic environment, where senior executives are coddled and catered to.
• They can literally buy their elections by overpowering their competition with massive marketing campaigns; they are not just buying their elections, they are buying public power: this is deeply undemocratic.
• With money comes responsibility: if we live in a capitalist system where company executives can amass over a billion dollars, this opportunity ought to come with substantial responsibilities, and maybe restrictions, such as  not being able to parlay that corporate income into massive political power within a very short time frame.

Does wealth (Whitman) or notoriety (Schwarzenegger) make for good politics?  Whether it may, or may not, is not as disturbing as the very fact that a society where it increasingly takes either, excludes the average citizen from the political system to a point, where democracy becomes a farce.

Shameful!

Gas prices at two stations in San Diego, Pacific Beach, on June 1, 2010, half-a-mile from each other:

Huge differences in prices at stations on Garnett

Comments?

Democratic practices in management?

(Copyright 2010 Georges Merx Photography)

In recent months, we have seen a number of large corporations at their worst, most recently British-Petroleum PLC.  When dealing with difficult problems, companies and their executives regularly lay bare their systemic communication and decision-making shortcomings.  In the latest case, this has led to false, overly optimistic information being released repeatedly by BP executives, resulting in great damage to BP’s global image, and ultimately its capitalization.  It is hard to imagine that BP’s technical experts shared their executives’ optimism in these cases …

In politics, humanity has concluded that principles of democracy, however incompletely implemented, are superior to dictatorial leadership, for at least the following reasons:

• Decisions are based on information: an environment that encourages open, positive-and-negative information exchange among all levels of contributors leads to better information and therefore to better decisions.
• Humans function better when they are treated and can view themselves as equals.  They must feel that they can speak up, without negative consequences to themselves or their careers.
• Freedom should not stop at the factory gate: carrying over outdated antagonisms between workers and management is unproductive. Cooperation, not compromise, must drive 21st century management best practices.
• Democracy implies individual rights and protection of those rights: this has worked well in politics, it works well in business, too.
• When leaders are appointed without their underlings’ input, the workers’ loyalty to its management is compromised from the start.  A better process for corporate advancement must prioritize active input from those subject to the new leader’s management.

In business, we hold on to top-down structures, as if in business, autocracy were somehow superior to participative practices. Of course, leadership and decision-making require authority, but the current prevailing business model is outdated in its focus on subordination.  The disastrous ethical-business and public-relations failures we have been watching on cable news, from the big banks, to AIG, to GM, to BP, can in part be attributed to poor communications in those organizations.  When it still takes  ”whistle blowers,” who must risk everything to externalize serious problems in their companies, we know that the corporate communication structure is unhealthy; instead, the modern corporation needs to embrace a few key democratic principles that will help it avoid dismal decision mistakes like the ones we have seen in recent months:

• Any employee should be empowered to “stop the presses” – a proper independent ombudsmanship* should exist in every company.
• Executives must avoid “circling the wagons,” suppressing the information flow when under stress.
• Organizational structures should favor a bottom-up approach: the manager’s primary role is to support and enable the workers (as it is the workers who create the business’s value);  control and direction must become subordinate to enablement.
• Companies are organisms like any other: a fair and proper balance of resources, rewards, and opportunities favors long-term excellence;  in contrast, “short-term-itis” in support of profit maximization and executive enrichment inevitably leads to the eventual demise of the organization.

Executives must understand that the real corporate knowledge lies first with its workers at all levels; continuous, intense, respectful communication with those who produce the business’s value is a prerequisite for good decisions.  No executive-level experience or external consulting resources can come close to creating the value already available in the hearts and minds of the company’s own employees, however junior, or “low-level.”  When executives make decisions for workers without walking in their shoes, bad results are highly likely, especially when those poor choices are overly motivated by unjustifiable cost minimization.

Applying the best of democratic practices to corporate governance will help avoid the decision and communication disasters we have had the chance to witness repeatedly over the last few months, whether from Toyota or BP.

(KM.Management Consulting works with executives to restructure their organizations to improve information and decision flow.)

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*) An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing the broad scope of constituent interests.  (Wikipedia.org)

A straight-shooting guy

A radio journalist referred to Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen this morning as a “straight shooting guy,” with some admiration.  Having heard Cdr. Allen speak, I agree with his assessment.  Maybe we have finally reached a turning point where “talking points,” “politically correct,” and “spinning” the truth are becoming politically incorrect, and where the truth, i.e. straight talk, is becoming more popular again, expected again, even when the truth stings or fails to provide all the answers.

It has become the excruciating habit of one of our (still) major parties to claim that “the American people” this, and “the American people” that.  Hopefully, this shameless talking-point usurpation of the genuine will of the people will come to a screeching halt, at the latest when November elections will surprise the pundits and show that “the American People” are not as stupid as those falsely professing to speak for us seem to think we are.

The American People can distinguish hard-fought, albeit imperfect progress and good will from an across-the-board, hateful obstructionism.  The American People will show their dislike for the strong-arm tactics of those ultra-conservative legislative leaders reviled in public polls to force their more moderate colleagues to vote against reasonable legislation.  And the American People will recognize the  depraved hypocrisy of holier-than-thou conservatives and Tea Party obstructionists for what it is and keep the Democrats in power.

Now, is that the best outcome for the country? Hardly … The progressives have their own blind sides that hurt our prospects, and amassing new debt and new government powers is not the right solution for our common future.

The best outcome of this year’s election debacles would be a Grand Coalition to deal with the enormous problems facing our nation – and the world – in this second decade of the new millennium: the European sovereign debt crisis, the massive oil spill, the energy crisis, the immigration crisis incited by the Arizona Immigration Bill SB 1070, and the ongoing Great Recession and unemployment crisis all conspire to make this a very dangerous decade, during which much human misery is likely to foment unrest and reactions all over the world.

Do we really need another fascist or communist experience before we learn that we must cooperate on solutions, lest we cede power to less benign forces?

The conservatives’ politics-as-usual approach to these crises is extremely disturbing and irresponsible.  Yet the Democrats in many ways are only reaping what they sowed during the acrimonious Bush years.  We do have the first great president in decades: maybe it is time for partisan politics to take a back seat to working across government branches and “across the aisle” to ensure that mainstream reforms can be implemented efficiently and for the good of all, under the President’s competent leadership.

The American people want our elected representatives to circle the wagons – in a positive fashion, instead of weakening ourselves further from within.  So let’s hope that “straight talking guys” (and gals) will begin to prevail, win in November, and replace those who play politics with our prosperity and freedom.

Prison, Norway-Style

For those of you who think everything is done best in the United States, please do read the following: 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html?hpt=T2 …

Fairness …

Our United States of America locks up more people in jail or prison, proportionately, than any other nation in the world! 

At least when you pay your exorbitant California State taxes, where the prison system accounts for over 10% of the state budget, do you at least wonder for a moment, why this remains the U.S. approach to crime and punishment, so different from our allied, ancestral, and democractic counterparts in Europe?

Our prison system perpetuates crime, instead of reforming and educating criminals to return to society as productive members.  It breaks people to the point where they will never again function normally.  It is among the most barbaric (in)justice systems in the world, perpetuated by a cultural affinity for revenge, instead of forgiveness.  “An-eye-for-an-eye” should have gone out of fashion over 2,000 years ago, except for its thriving success in the U.S. justice system, supported by an ever-growing appetite on the part of too much of the population for harsh and harsher punishments.

The Norwegian example in the Time Magazine(TM) article above speaks for itself: isn’t it time that we join the advanced civilizations of the world, focus on returning prisoners to society, in the process dramatically reducing our exorbitant incarceration costs while making society safer, stronger, and fairer? 

But then of course, Norway has no Second Amendment that encourages the proliferation of guns, collectively deserving of the title “weapons of mass destructions,” given their ubiquity in violent crimes across the nation (and even in the Mexican drug wars, where many of the weapons used reportedly come from the U.S.).  Other initiatives such as reducing access to firearms would therefore have to accompany humanizing the U.S. justice system and imposing fair sentences that focus on rehabilitation over cruel, unproductive punishment. 

But would that leave enough work for the hundreds of thousands of lawyers, judges, and law enforcement professionals, who all profit handsomely from the current system?!

Comments?  Dissent? Agreement?