Standing Up For What is Right—The Perilous Position of Senators Portman and Alexander

The Trump trial has been draining.

Today it has also become depressing as I witness the abandonment of integrity.

Why do I say this?  In this moment, because I read that  Republican Senators Rob Portman and Lamar Alexander, say they will vote "no" on having witnesses. They arrive at this decision even though they acknowledge that the President did indeed use the power of his office by holding up duly authorized aid to try to get the President of Ukraine to announce an investigation of his principal opponent, Joe Biden,. A charge Trump has repeatedly denied. In other words, they acknowledge he has lied in addition to having  done what the Impeachment charge states.

 And beyond all that he has sought to cover it up.

These two Senators explain their decision to vote "no" by in essence saying the evidence of his guilt is so clear to them that witnesses  would not add anything to it even if they confirm what has been alleged.

They assert that while the President's actions were "inappropriate", they do not rise to the level of being an impeachable offense.

For me this is incomprehensible. If this isn't an impeachable "abuse of power" what is?

I search for an analogue in Corporate life which presents an example of the abuse of power for personal benefit--and not that of the institution.

Imagine a CEO of a company learns that a subordinate employee is poised to disclose an act of serious sexual impropriety on his part. The CEO goes to the employee promising a big promotion in return for his not making the disclosure.

The Board of Directors learns of this. The CEO denies it happened. Do you think any Board Member believing the allegation was true would describe this as "inappropriate" and stop there? That CEO would be fired.

But what if some board members were uncertain of the truth of the allegation?  After all the CEO is denying he made this proposition. Now,  the Board learns there were two first hand witnesses to the CEO's conversation with the employee. Do you think the Board would decline to hear from these witnesses?  Of course they wouldn't.

The stated positions of Senators Alexander and Portman fly in the face of all I have learned, believe and tried to honor when it comes to ethical behavior. At a minimum, they should have sought first hand witnesses to confirm or deny the charges of the House of Representatives.

Earlier today, I read something Teddy Roosevelt said in response to sharp criticism he  received for having asked Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House in October, 1901. He was affirming his conviction that he did the right thing.

"I say that I am 'sure' this is the right solution. Of course I know that we see through a glass dimly and, after all, I may be wrong; but if I am then all my thoughts and beliefs are wrong, and my whole way of looking at life is wrong. At any rate, as long as I am in public life, however short a time  that may be, I am in honor bound to act up to my beliefs and convictions".

Roosevelt speaks for me at this dark moment.

The Vital Role a Company Can Play in Our Lives Today

THE VITAL ROLE A COMPANY—AN INSTITUTION LIKE PROCTER  & GAMBLE—CAN  PLAY IN OUR LIVES TODAY

Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs, raises a bone-chilling question we are facing starkly today:  “Have we lost faith in everything?” 

Levin reminds us—not that we need a reminder—that we are living through a social crisis:  vicious partisan polarization, culture war resentments and an epidemic of opioid abuse. And I would add—a disregard for the truth. 

What are the roots of these symptoms, he asks.   He points to a loss of the structure of social life which gives us shape and concrete meaning and identity, as individuals and together.  And, in turn, he links this to a collapse of confidence in institutions of all kinds:  public, private, civic and political.

Levin points to a major institutional dereliction as a cause of this collapse:  “The failure to even attempt to form trustworthy people, and a tendency to think of institutions not as molders of character and behavior but as platforms for performance and prominence.”

Pause and reflect on that statement for a moment.  It contains a great deal of truth. Tragically, in my view, it applies to the office of the President as it is being executed by Donald Trump. 

I was moved to reflect on Levin's statement because of my career at Procter & Gamble. 

Without for a moment claiming perfection, from the day I joined Procter & Gamble over 55 years ago, it was an institution which was a molder of character and behavior.    How?  Through its unwavering commitment to doing what is right; to pursuing truth, no matter where it leads; to respect for open debate; and to excellence and continued improvement.

Like my colleagues, I came to believe that I had a personal responsibility to preserve this character of trustworthiness and these values.

Levin urges us to ask this simple question in moments of critical decision:  “Given my role in this institution, how should I behave?”  

That is the question I and my colleagues have tried our best to answer.

Trustworthy values that put doing what’s right above doing what’s expedient lies at the heart of a strong culture.  This can never be taken for granted.  Its value is incalculable in attracting men and women of character, building their spirit within the organization and retaining their loyalty over time, and its value is incalculable in preserving the trustworthiness of the institutions themselves. 

 

Shattered Illusions—Yet Hope, Purpose And Determination Prevail

While I wrote this on New Year's Day, 2020, I posted it initially on the day celebrating the life of Martin Luther King.  His life reminds me of one of my favorite texts of the Talmud: "You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it". In the same spirit, I would offer this thought: "While we won't build a perfect world, we can build a better one".

I am reposting it today, the 4th of July,  because the enormous challenges which have hit our community and   Nation since that posting make the message even more relevant today. As I write in my short essay:

"I am lifted by the recognition that  we as a nation have been able to pull ourselves out of very deep abysses, though never without persistent and brave work and strong leadership". 

**************************************************************************

 January 1, 2020. Now at the age of 81, I never would have thought I would live long enough to write this. And do so with good health, and with my wife,  Francie at my side. We are blessed.

It is a fair time to look back and to try to look forward. 

The past couple of years present me with what I have to describe as many "shattered illusions".

Thirty years ago, I hoped and rather thought that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would result in Russia becoming part of a greater Europe in way or another.  Instead, over the last five years, our relations have turned adversarial. We are in a virtual new "Cold War". 

Thirty years ago, I hoped and rather expected that the economic development in China, which has proceeded far faster than I had anticipated, would lead to greater democratization.  That is not happening.  To the contrary, China is becoming intensely nationalistic and more repressive, especially to its own citizens.  While probably always destined to be competitive economically, we are today coming to see each other as enemies.

As recently as ten years ago, I continued to marvel at the European Community as a shining example of how countries who were former enemies could come together to advance their combined economic and, to some degree, political interests.  Today, that Community is fragile, buffeted by renewed nationalism and the prospect of the U.K's. leaving. 

Ten years ago, I along with countless others, celebrated the election of President Obama. I hoped and rather expected he would help bring the nation together and bring progress in racial understanding. Without faulting Obama, that has not happened. We have seen once again that the racial divide is deep and persisting. 

Ten years ago, I never could have imagined that the nation would elect a president of the United States possessing a character and acting in ways that would have him fired from Procter & Gamble or any other valued-based organization. 

Ten years ago, I would have found it hard to believe that the quagmire created by our tragically ill-conceived entry into Iraq would still have the Middle East in turmoil, with millions of refugees and thousands of people dying daily and proxy wars tearing up Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Nor could I have anticipated that the planet-threatening impact of climate change would become so devastatingly clear and scientifically affirmed yet so many still deny its very existence and the actions to confront it are so inadequate.

So too, the risk of nuclear disaster continues to increase as more nations (North Korea and Iran) develop the capability, existing treaties between Russia and the United States are on the verge of being abandoned, and the arms race gains new traction and, still, the key leaders of the U.S., Russia and China fail to sit-down at a table to figure out what exactly we’re going to do to contain this threat.

Five years ago, I never would have dreamed that the very existence of such a thing as truth would be questioned nor how difficult it would be to discern what it is, given the presence of fake media and the polarizing impact of media channels that are echo-chambers of existing polarized views.

And I could go on, but I won't.

Rather, I step back and I reflect on the incredible array of things for which I am grateful.

Above all, as always, Francie and my children and their spouses and our grandchildren. Good people. Honest people. Caring people. All in good health. Thank God. They are my most certain hope for the future. 

There are so many loyal friends, many close at hand.  And many distant, though still close in spirit.

There is Procter & Gamble, coming back strong in the business and in spirit. 

There is the success of Preschool Promise, already evident in kids being better prepared for kindergarten, the outcome of three decades of work.  And the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative continues as strong as ever.  

There is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, challenged financially but now with what, from all appearances, is strong leadership.

More broadly, as Nick Kristof points out in a recent column, in the long arc of human history, 2019 has probably been the best year ever.  Why does he say this?  It was probably the year in which children were least likely to die, adults were least likely to be illiterate and people were least likely to suffer excruciating and disfiguring diseases.

Every single day in recent years, another 325,000 people got their first access to electricity; more than 200,000 got piped water for the first time; and some 650,000 went online for the first time.

The greatest calamity for anyone is to lose a child.  That used to be common.  As recently as 1950, 27% of all children died by the age of 15.  Now, that figure has dropped to 4%.  

 I continue to believe in the power of love and respect for our fellow man to triumph over hate and envy. 

I am lifted by the instinct to do what is right and the unending examples of how with courage and determination and by working together, we have been able to accomplish what seemed to be impossible. I am lifted, too, by the recognition that  we as a nation have been able to pull ourselves out of very deep abysses, though never without persistent and brave work and strong leadership.

I would close with these words which conclude Jon Meacham's "The Soul of America"

"For all of our darker impulses, for all of our shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight.  There is, in fact, no struggle more important, and none nobler, than the one we wage in the service of those better angels who, however besieged, are always ready for battle".

The Kind of Leader We Need Today

The Kind of Leader We Need Today—Jean Monnet

Not many people know of Jean Monnet.  I didn’t, until I saw an extremely positive reference to his leadership in a book I read which led me to purchase his Memoirs. 

Monnet was born in 1888 in Cognac, France.  After finishing school at 16, his father sent him to London to work for the family-run Cognac trading business.  He traveled the world, at still less than 20, visiting Canada, the United States, all of Europe, including Russia, Egypt and more.  In the process of his travels, he developed the strong conviction that the peoples of the different countries needed to work together.  That was certainly true of the cognac business.  They produced in just a couple of villages in France.  They sold it to the world.  

Unable for health reasons to join the military in World War I, Monnet began his lifetime career with a proposal to the French government to coordinate war supplies with Britain.  It worked and when the United States joined the war, they were brought in, though they proved to be reluctant partners.  

After the war, he committed himself to the League of Nations and was named the Deputy Secretary General at the age of only 31.  

Between the wars, he returned to run the family business and then moved into international finance, where he worked closely with various European countries, including Romania, Poland, and China and even helped set up a bank in San Francisco.

Monnet’s driving passion to bring countries together bore fruit again with the Monnet Plan in World War II, with the oversight of the purchase of war supplies. He developed a close relationship with President Roosevelt.  

After the war, his career reached full flower.  He authored the Schumann Plan (named after France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs).  It placed all German and French production of coal and steel under one High Authority in 1950.

This was the predecessor to the formation of the creation of the Common Market, the European monetary system and the European Parliament. 

Monnet’s life was dedicated to convincing leaders to work to achieve common interests by understanding the benefits of cooperation.

It was not easy and the challenges he faced and the fact that he overcame them is something to be kept in mind. Indeed, I find it hopeful, as we survey what would have been the enormous disappointment of Monnet in the likely exit of Great Britain from the European Community.   Perhaps he would not have been surprised.  He had experienced Britain’s and (the U.S.’s) hesitancy in joining a continental supra-national governance structure.

Following the end of World War I, in early 1919, the United States withdrew from the partnership and imposition of controls to coordinate the availability of raw materials and their pricing to in the various allied countries.  The U.S. representative wrote that such a combined Executive “was contrary to the views” of the U.S. government which “intended that pre-war (conditions of) trade should be restored as soon as possible.” 

As the French representative said to Monnet at the time, “That’s the end of the solidarity we worked so hard for.  Without it and without the altruistic, disinterested cooperation that we tried to achieve among the Allies, and should have extended to our former enemies, one day we’ll have to begin all over again.”

Monnet’s response would sum up what we are seeing today.  Referring to the words of the French representative, “They were the words of a generous man, but what part could he play in the peace, in a world where nations were once more sovereign, each of them preoccupied with recovering its former influence?  No one now could argue that collective action was necessary for sheer survival; no politician could realistically propose, even for the common good, limiting the sovereignty that each of our nations had won back at such a price.  There is no point in trying to apportion blame for this return to past habits; it was simply that Nature had returned to its normal course.  It was to take many years, and much suffering, before Europeans began to realize that they must choose either unity or gradual decline.”

These observations were made a century ago.  I think they would apply today.

We are seeing once again a rebirth of strong nationalism thwarting, at least for now, the drive for mutually beneficial alliances serving a common purpose.

However, let me be clear. I am not pessimistic about the re-emergence of such alliances in the future, though sadly it may take not only years but decades to achieve. 

 I believe there are at least three major irresistible and inevitable global realities that, in the end, will lead people, based on their basic desire to survive, to work together.  Those three driving realities are:

• The threat of climate change.  Climate change threatens the very existence of life as we know it on our planet.  We are becoming increasingly aware of this. How could we not with temperatures rising, glaciers melting away, seas rising and earthquakes increasing.   However, it has not yet reached, indeed has not even come close, to being seen by the public and their governments as a true, existential crisis.  It’s perfectly clear we will not resolve the climate crisis unless nations are working together against common goals and are sharing learning on how to achieve them.  The time will come, I submit, when climate change is seen as an existential threat to our planet. I just don’t know how much more damage we will have to witness. I fear a great deal. 

• The ever-existent and growing threat of nuclear disaster.  Here again, the threat is intellectually known, but it is far from having reached the crisis proportion that will lead the leading countries of the world to work together.  Indeed, the treaties between the United States and Russia which put in place some degree of control over nuclear weapons are becoming unraveled.  The START treaty will soon expire. Iran and North Korea appear to be developing nuclear capability. What will it take for the world leaders to see the need to unite to thwart this overhanging threat?   I  pray that we will see the need without having to experience a real-life demonstration  of how a nuclear weapon utterly destroys human life.  Sadly, frighteningly, I believe it may well take such a disaster.

• A third global reality which is inevitable and continuing to move ahead with lightning speed is technology and its many faceted impacts, including privacy, the communication of knowledge,  its impact on jobs  and commerce,  the related threats of “cyber-warfare” and the ambiguity of  and difficulty of ascertaining what is "truth" itself.  Today, many counties (e.g., China blocking Facebook) and in some cases blocs of counties (e.g., EEC) are grappling with how to create their own rules and mechanisms on how to manage at least some of these impacts. But without having any idea on what form it will take, and knowing it will be extremely difficult, I believe at some point, we will come to see we need to have to have global agreements on the use of many uses of technology. The question is how much pain will have to be suffered before we take the appropriate (difficult) action. 

This tension and likely oscillation between local (national) and global (international rule-based) allegiance and governance will continue throughout history.

We make a mistake if we don’t recognize that peoples’ loyalties start naturally “closest to home”—with their families, their community, their nation and then the broader world.  We make a mistake in our pursuit of global scale and cooperation if we forget the role of  the nation.  In its own much smaller way, that’s been true of Procter & Gamble. We have moved over the last three-quarters of a century to manage our businesses on an increasingly regional and global basis in order to take advantage of scale efficiencies and achieve faster dissemination of best-in-class technology.  In the course of doing this, however, we have from time to time lost sufficient recognition of  local differences that demand tailored product design and marketing. 

However, the  need to see and treat the world as a whole on certain key issues (a few of which I have identified above)  with supra-national goals and governance mechanisms is inevitable if we are to preserve life on earth as we know it.

In doing so,  we face a burning and haunting question:  Is it only possible for countries to work together on a sustained basis when they see themselves facing a crisis which threatens their very existence, such as World War I or World War II-- a crisis which they come to recognize they cannot overcome alone?   

Realistically, I believe the answer if "yes.”

To be sure, we can point to some examples where cooperation depended on something less than confronting an existential threat.   Joint exploration of space and coordinated attack on AIDS and other healthcare threats might qualify as examples, though I would question whether these brought the sustained, integrated effort the threats which I cited earlier will require. 

One thing for sure.  We will require the commitment to a common purpose seen to be of utmost strategic importance by EACH of the nations involved. Only this will  lead to the deeply integrated joint effort and governance necessary to achieve it.  

Monnet’s Memoirs provide an eloquent description of what underpins an effective joint effort. He cites Britain’s Sir Jay Walter Salter, explaining what made possible the international cooperation in World War I:

“The work could never have been successfully achieved if daily association had not development mutual confidence.  Given the proper personal relations, many things can be explained which would never be put on paper or stated in a formal meeting (so that) the limits of concession can be explored (enabling)  national policies (to be) formed and fixed in the first instance within them instead of beyond them.  But the delicacy of such work, and the difficulty of the questions of loyalty and good faith involved, are obvious.  It is only possible at all under conditions of personal confidence and long personal association.”

Monnet agrees with Salter.  Personal friendships played a great role in all the successes in which he was involved, as they have in all I have been involved.   However,  Monnet goes on to make an extremely important point that once again underscores the importance of having a common existential purpose.  

“Friendship, to me, is the result of joint action rather than the reason for it.  The reason is, first and foremost, mutual confidence.  This grows up naturally between men who take a common view of the problem to be solved.  When the problem becomes the same for everyone, and they all have the same concern to solve it, then differences and suspicions disappear, and friendship very often takes their place.  But how can people be persuaded to approach the problem in the same way and see to it that their interests are the same, when men and nation are divided?”

In posing that question, Monnet admits that at that time (1919), he did not have the answer.  He had seen that “danger had (brought countries) together; victory threatened to dissolve them.  Friendship would not be enough and danger was no longer there to force us together.  What kind of institutions, what international laws, could be established to take the place of necessity?”

Monnet’s subsequent career would answer that question as the European Common Market was formed by demonstrating convincingly that there would be enormous economic benefit in countries having unified policies and that it also would stand as a bulwark against the threatened expansion of the Soviet Union.

The challenge was to make the actuality of these benefits real and persuade the peoples of the participating countries of their reality.  Those benefits have to be perceived as large enough to overcome what inevitably will be the complexity of regulating key issues such as currency and control of national budgets and, though it could not be foreseen at the start, immigration, which has rocked the European Union more than any other.  It may be the principal reason why Brexit was supported by a majority of the British people. 

Given the inherent complexities, it is essential that the benefits of the cooperation be constantly updated and communicated to the publics. There are bound to be complaints; one needs to know the positives. I question whether this has been well done. 

Another fact that clearly emerges from the history of the European Common Community and Jean Monnet is that the establishment of transnational government controls requires extraordinarily strong and persistent leadership.  It is hard to imagine the Common Market happening as it did if it were not for Jean Monnet and Robert Schumann of France and Konrad Adenauer of Germany. 

Who are the leaders today who can unite the major nations of the world to confront the threats we face? I don’t know.  I can only hope that if history is any indicator, which it usually but not always is, leaders will ultimately emerge to deal with these issues of existential importance. I only hope and pray that they do so before these crises reach a life-destroying boil. That risk stares my children and mygrandchildren, all of us , in the face.

Human Beings are Mean-Making Creatures

 

“Human beings are mean-making creatures.  A politics that is unable to translate its positions into some sort of transcendental language, pointing to something greater than the individual, will ultimately fail.”

 

This from the writer Ed Simon in a New York Times op-ed on December 30.  

 

No truer words have ever been written.   They explain what provides force for leaders to lead, whether they be fascist dictators, preaching a superiority of a certain group of people, or a Democratic leader like Nelson Mandela, who calls for us to honor our most noble instincts of courage, perseverance and forgiveness.

 

This same desire to be part of something bigger than our individual selves is what makes the purpose and values and principles of a company like Procter & Gamble so powerfully motivating and attractive.  It’s why people join the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center or the Holocaust Center.  

 

It is why we dedicate our highest priority and bring our greatest love to our families and very closest friends.