Abraham Lincoln Speaks to Us Today

 

Abraham Lincoln Speaks to Us Today--The Greatest Threats to our Nation’s Long-term Health are Internally Imposed, not Externally

President Abraham Lincoln is often cited for his warning about the internal threats to American democracy. The most famous instance of this idea can be found in his Lyceum Address, delivered in Springfield, Illinois, on January 27, 1838. In this speech, Lincoln talked about the dangers that could bring about the downfall of the United States, arguing that these threats were more likely to come from within than from external enemies.

He stated:

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

More than ever, perhaps since the Civil War, those words serve as a warning and call to action for us today. 

In recent years, I have lamented how many adversaries we have turned into existential enemies rather than viewing them as competitors.  Today, our existential enemy list would be headed by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.  Yet, while acknowledging the genuine and serious issues embodied in those threats, if we step back, do we seriously and objectively believe that any of these nations possess the resources, the global appeal, and even the intent, to deny the United States a pre-eminent, even if not unilateral, claim to global leadership?  

 

I don’t think so.

Think about it.  No other country in the world has the resources or power which America has today:  a currency that is convertible and has pride of place in the world's financial markets. Deep pools of capital readily available to stimulate innovation and the formation of new businesses.  The soft power stemming from a university system unmatched in the world.  The appeal, even if tarnished, of America’s culture, no better evidenced than the country’s unique attractiveness as a destination for immigrants.

 

I’m not suggesting we are living in a benign and friendly world, free of conflicts and competition.  We don't. We never have. There are military threats and actions that need to be confronted and economic policies that we need to pursue to ensure that our nation’s natural advantages which stem from the diversity of our people and richness of our resources are allowed to play out fairly.  And, there is one overriding external threat that must be confronted on a global basis:  climate change.  However, with all of that said,  I will argue that the greatest threat to this nation’s future is rooted in our internal governance structure and relationships with one another.  It flows from a number of factors, including: 

 

·       The corruption of our ability to govern effectively, to make happen those things most important to the future, culturally, economically and politically. 

 

Our system of government today is plagued by greater polarization than has existed since the Civil War.  It is fueled by many factors, including social media and fractured news channels that cater to deepening and individual points of view rather than encouraging with conversation.

 

The legitimacy of our government structure is undercut by gerrymandering and by the decline in both institutional and inter-personal trust.

 

·       We are continuing to fail to provide families with the support and implement educational policies and structures to close the long-standing and still-widening gap in work and life preparedness between people of wealth (largely inherited) and those of below-average income.

 

·       We continue to fail to implement an immigration policy that will continue to bring people of talent and ambition to this country as we have in the past.  This is going to be more important than ever in the future to compensate for the declining fertility rates impacting our nation and all of the developed world.

Obviously, confronting and addressing these gaps and challenges represent generational tasks.  They loom larger today than ever.  Above all else, they will call for strong, value-based, personal leadership at every level of government and public service, leadership directed not at bettering one’s personal position but selfless leadership dedicated to strengthening the fabric of this nation so that it will only endure but thrive in the pursuit of the vision which the founders of this nation embarked on 350 years ago.

What Defines the Most Effective Board Members I Ever Worked With

 

Sometime ago, I was asked to write an article for a magazine addressing the question:  “What were the qualities of the finest board members with whom you ever worked?”

 

That was an interesting topic, I thought.  I decided to approach it not by thinking about the qualities I would enumerate.  Instead, I started by identifying the ten finest board members, for profit and non-profit organizations, I had the privilege of working with.  There were close to 100 men and women on that list. It wasn't easy but I selected "the top 10.”  I then stepped back to ask myself a simple question.  “Why did I pick them?  What did they have in common?"

 

Here is what I found:

 

1.         Every one of them approached their board membership as if it were their own company for which they were responsible.  Their attendance and their participation mirrored what I would have expected if they were a member of the management of the company in terms of commitment.

 

2.         Their goal was to support the CEO and management in contributing to sustaining the success of the company and to honor their responsibility to shareholders to protect their interests.

 

3.         These were individuals who, when they spoke up, you listened to them closely.  What they said was likely to be fresh, significant and never said simply to announce to the boardroom that they were present. 

 

4.         They showed courage in speaking up in supporting what might be a controversial board motion or, in some cases, to object to it.  The first board member who speaks in a board meeting carries more than an average amount of weight.  There were many cases when I was CEO when a board member speaking up on a controversial proposal made the day. 

 

5.         They were willing to have a direct conversation with the CEO, usually privately, to provide their advice on an important issue on which they concluded the CEO was struggling.  This is a priceless attribute of a board member.  I can recall instances on boards on which I served going up to the CEO after he/she had made a proposal that was not adopted and telling them that I knew they felt strongly about the issue.  I urged that he go back to the board and make it crystal-clear how important approval of this was to the future of the company.

 

6.         While his or her commitment was to the success of the total enterprise, the strongest board members I worked with usually picked one or two areas where they particularly focused.   One board member I recall focused like a laser on innovation.  Another on insuring that consumers’ in poorer, underdeveloped countries were recognized and served through our product and pricing strategies.  Another that we were doing everything we should to advance the careers of women and minorities.

 

7.         Lastly, these best board members respected and worked well with other board members.  They were not out to show that they were special or that their ideas had to prevail. They were team players even as they maintained their independence. 

 

It would be hard to overstate the value I have seen outstanding board members provide.  This makes it important to choose a board carefully.  It is also vital that the relationship between the CEO and the board be open and transparent.  Boards respond to CEOs who genuinely want their input.  CEOs won’t agree with their board members all the time; sometimes they may even feel they “get in their way.”  But they’re open to input. They seek it.  They value it.  Board members recognize this and they respond.  

 

I’m a great believer in honest, candid annual reviews of board performance carried out by the Chair of the Board or the head of the Governance Committee. The results need to be shared openly in conversation with the CEO and the entire board.

The Decline of Happiness and the Decline of Marriage

David Brooks devoted one of his recent columns to the subject of marriage.  “Marriage, not career, brings happiness” the headline reads.  The sub-headline:  “Intimate relationships affect everything else you do.”

 

Nothing new about that, we’d say. 

 And there are statistics that back it up, and there is another statistic that is alarming in this regard:  the decline and the percentage of adults who are married.  

In 1950, 78% of adults 18 and older were married.  That number has fallen by 30 percentage points.  It is now 48%.  I suspect there is a lot of loneliness and unhappiness tied up in that decline.

 

Last month, a University of Chicago economist, Sam Paeltzman, published a study in which he found that marriage was “the most important differentiator” between happy and unhappy people.  Married people are 30 points happier than the unmarried.  Income contributes to happiness, too.  But not as much.

 

As Brad Wilcox writes in his book, Get Married, “Marital quality is, far and away, the top predictor I have run across of life’s satisfaction in America.  Specifically, the odds that men and women say they are ‘very happy’ with their lives are a staggering 545% higher for those who are very happily married compared with peers who are not married or who are less than happy in their marriages.” 

 

Why has the percentage of adults being married fallen so far? I can’t prove this.  I’m not inclined to identify it as strict “cause and effect,” but I believe this decline in marriage rate relates to two developments over this period:  the increase in incarceration, particularly of men. The overall incarceration rate has increased over four-fold, from 93 inmates per 100,000 in 1950, to 419 today, and the rate among adult men is 10 times higher than women.

 

The other trend is the percentage of adults regularly attending church.  That has declined from a level of about 50% in 1950 to little more than 25% today.  The decline has continued year-to-year.

 

I, of course, am not suggesting that a fully satisfying and rewarding life cannot be lived outside the state of matrimony.  In some cases, being part of a bad marriage is far worse than being single.

 

However, I believe these trends are implicated in the pervasive loneliness and lack of fulfillment so many people feel today.

  

"Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea from Ancient Athens to our World" Author James Miller

As I read, I am increasingly impressed by this book, an important reason being its relevance to my experience at Procter & Gamble as a unique institution. 

 

In a short 250 or so pages, Miller makes it clear to my satisfaction that the efforts that have been made to put in place “pure democracy,” meaning that theoretically every person is involved in a decision, has too often led to perverse outcomes.

 

While democracy is said to have been operative in ancient Athens, and it was to a degree, the fact remained that a large percentage of the population in so-called democratic Athens were slaves.  Many could not vote.  Those that could vote, were very involved as individuals.  But history shows we have been unable to take that to scale.

The success and failure and the tension that rests within each attempt at democracy has been impacted by many human tendencies and instincts:  the desire for power, for money; the inherent conviction by most people, that some people (meaning “we”) are better than others. 

 

The creation of our own Constitution in 1781 reflected the inherent distrust of the capacity of ordinary citizens to make decisions.  There was the belief that had been reflected in previous political arrangements that decisions need to be made by a “meritorious elite who would govern on behalf of all, with a dispassionate regard for the common good.”

 

Of course, what people view as the “common good” has varied and always will vary.  Therein lies the source of conflict.

 

Communism, brought to reality by the 1917 Revolution in Russia, was premised on the idea that everyone is equal and should have a say in what the government should do.  It didn’t take long for that to devolve into Lenin’s and other leaders’ deciding that they needed to decide what was right for the common people.  Greed and the quest for power took over.  The same thing happened in the French Revolution.  It started as quest for everyone to be involved in decision-making; it quickly descended into chaos and then the creation of an autocratic dictatorship. 

 

We see these same instincts in our own democracy today.  Differences in what people see as the common good.  The drive by officeholders to stay in office. 

 

Robespierre centuries ago captured the reality in addressing the Convention debating the French Constitution.  The challenge faced by every great legislator, he declared, is to “give to government the force necessary to have citizens always respect the rights of citizens and to do it in such a manner that government is never able to violate these rights itself.”  Rarely had this challenge been met, Robespierre said, because history was generally a story of “government devouring (individual) sovereignty” and of the rich exploiting the poor. 

 

This deep-seeded conviction that the “common man” is not able to decide individually or in the aggregate what the right thing to do is has been prevalent throughout history, to this very day.  Walter Lippmann wrote almost 100 years ago, “The individual man does not have opinions on all public affairs.  He does not know how to direct public affairs.  He does not know what is happening, why it is happening, what ought to happen.”  As a result, the common interests, he concludes, “can be managed only by a specialized class,”  by informed commentators (like Lippmann himself, in Lippmann’s haughty opinion) with an in-depth knowledge of the facts pertinent to formulating reasonable public policies.  This attitude, driven by self-interest yet, to some degree, the recognition of reality has been the governing force in the development of political systems everywhere over time. 

 

Joseph Schumpeter, in the 1940s, said it only a bit differently:  “Democracy in modern societies like America, as it has come to actually exist, involves voters selecting the least objectionable of the available candidates chosen by rival political priorities to rule over them.”  Here again, this greatly oversimplified view of reality captures an uncomfortable degree of truth. 

 

 

Certainly it has been proven that it is unrealistic and undesirable to attempt to rule totally by consensus.  Ultimately, there needs to be a structure of decision-making.  That is true in business and it’s true in political life, but at the same time, I insist, that it is possible for business or government to reflect, if not perfectly, largely the common good. 

 

Our experience with participatory democracy teaches the limits of any regime of consensus, which risks silencing disagreements over alternatives that are important to debate openly, I believe.  I believe modern institutions can do more to appeal to an engaged people’s capacity for reflection and collective deliberation.  As one American philosopher wrote, “We sometimes expect too little” from our democracies “precisely because” we prematurely give up on an “aspirational theory,” one that realistically faces the question “of whether more can realistically be expected.” 

 

I believe this line of thought permeates the Purpose of Procter & Gamble.  It recognizes the need for balance in the stakeholders whom we serve and in how we carry out the responsibility we have to these stakeholders.  It does this with the humility of recognizing while we won’t ever achieve perfection, we can and must continue to learn how to do better.

 

I return, as Miller does and as I always have, to Vaclav Havel who, as much or more than any other philosopher, guides my thinking.  He posits that the view that democracy “is chiefly the manipulation of power and public opinion and that morality has no place in it” means the unacceptable loss of “the idea that the world might actually be changed by the force of truth, the power of a truthful word, the strength of a free spirit, conscience and responsibility—with no guns, no lust for power, no political wheeling and dealing.”

 

When Havel wrote his essay in 1991in “Summer Meditations,” he was overseeing Czechoslovakia’s reformation as its first freely elected president.  “I am convinced,” he remarked, “that we will never build a democratic state based on rule of law if we do not at the same time build a state that is—regardless of how unscientific this may sound to the ears of a political scientist—humane, moral, intellectual and spiritual and cultural.”  “The best laws and best conceived democratic mechanisms will not in themselves guarantee the legality or freedom or human rights—anything in short, for which they were intended—if they are not underpinned by certain human and social values.”  He concludes as I do:  “I feel that the dormant good will in people needs to be stirred.  People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently and help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence.”

 

It is the Culture and the Purpose built on this type of conviction that has made Procter & Gamble the company I admire and love.  May it always be so.

The Past Repeats Itself--The Second Coming of the Klu Klux Klan--Its Echoing Today

 

Linda Gordon’s The Second Coming of the Ku Klux Klan:  The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition reveals a piece of history I had little known.  I write about it because of its striking similarity to much of what we see today.

  

At its heart, the success of the second KKK during the decade of the 1920s was based on grievance: a feeling of being looked down on by the so-called “elite” and the power of being part of an anointed group seeing itself committed to patriotism and America in its purest form.  In modern parlance, committed to Making America Great Again.

 

The suspicion of intellectuals and elites was vividly conveyed.  The Imperial Wizard, the leader of the Klan, declared proudly:  “We are demanding a return of power into the hands of the everyday, not highly cultured, not overly intellectualized but entirely unspoiled and not De-Americanized every citizen of the old stop.”

The book reveals the crowd-pleasing spectacles the KKK held, similar to the Trump rallies today.

 

As today, the Klan used criticism of their movement as “more evidence of victimization.” 

 

Their animus toward and fear of immigrants echoes what we see today in the far right movement.  As one Klan article iterated:  “Strange, shoddy has lately crept into the loom on which we weave our destiny…ominous statistics proclaim the persistent development of the parasite mass within our domain—our political system is clogged with foreign bodies.”

 

What is most remarkable about this statement is that it appeared not only in Klan publications but in McClure’s Magazine-- a popular mainstream monthly known for its progressive era muckraking, publishing Mark Twain, Lincoln, Steffens and Jack London, among other distinguished writers.

 

So why you might ask, haven’t we heard more about the second Klan?  Partly, because it faded quickly over a period of only about ten years. 

The reasons for its demise, writes Gordon,  include the heavy involvement of its leadership in corruption and scandal.  People also finally got tired of the rituals and bombast.

 In truth, the leaders brought themselves down. 

Turning to today, will Donald Trump and his far right MAGA supporters bring themselves down?  Not so far, despite the innumerable scandals. Particularly as far as Trump is concerned, it would be hard to conceive of more, but so far they haven't brought him down or significantly undercut the loyalty of his still large base. 

However, it is worth remembering that the second KKK movement did not dissipate overnight.  Indeed at its peak in the mid to late 1920s,  Governors from many states and mayors from many major cities remained open, proud members of the Klan. They played a major role in denying the democratic nomination in 1924 to Al Smith, a Catholic, following their strong, viral, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish fervor. 

As I say, it took a decade but the American people finally woke up to what was happening, as they also did 70 years ago in finally turning aside the crude and malicious assertions of the once-very popular Senator Joseph McCarthy. 

While I may be too optimistic I believe that provided we continue to push back against the demagoguery of Donald Trump and his congressional supporters,  truth will out and we will find our way back closer as we have before to the essence of what our Nation stands for at our best.

 

The Israeli and Palestinian Conflict--Looking Back Fourteen Years

Yesterday, the Israeli Parliament (KNESSET) passed a major piece of legislation which will limit the Supreme Court of Israel from overruling legislation created by the KNESSET on the basis of its “reasonableness.”  It’s striking how differently this is being received: it is being bitterly opposed in Israel by a large portion of the population. Throngs of protestors continued to gather in Israel yesterday following the ruling.

Here in the U.S. it is being viewed very differently by the New York Times and, on the other hand, the Wall Street Journal.

 

The Times’ columnists, including Nick Kristof and Thomas Friedman, declaim it as “ushering in a precarious new era, defining a nationwide protest movement.”

 

In striking, but to me not surprising, contrast, the Wall Street Journal describes the reaction as a “panic attack.”  It describes the media and political response to the ruling as “overwrought” and asserts that, “It probably won’t make as much difference as either side claims.”

 

Who am I to judge what difference it will make in time?  Much depends on what happens next. What I am certain of is that quite apart from this legislation Netanyahu and his conservative colleagues are continuing to advance a condition of apartheid as evidenced by the continued expansion of settlements on the West Bank and their inhuman treatment of Palestinians, not only on the West Bank but in Jerusalem.

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

 

As I write this I am drawn back in time.I am struck by how what I see happening now was previewed in notes that I took on a trip to Israel fourteen years ago which I made with a fellow P&G retiree and dear friend, Fuad Kuraytem, and my daughter-in-law Maggie. 

 

The date is October 15, 2009.  Thanks to Eason Jordan, who was accompanying us on this part of the trip and had served as the former head of CNN International, we had a private meeting with then-Prime Minister Netanyahu.  Here are excerpts from my notes which I dictated at the time.

 

“The meeting clearly evidenced Netanyahu’s ‘commanding presence, articulateness and ability to make his case.’” 

 

“He was excited to hear that my Chairmanship at Disney followed that of George Mitchell, who is now the U.S.’s chief negotiator in the Middle East and who I know has been very frustrated by Netanyahu’s entrenched position on expanding the settlements.  I asked him about these (settlements), noting that they were a roadblock in negotiations.  He responded immediately (and vehemently), saying:  he did not feel they were the real issue.  That, he said, was the Palestinians’ unwillingness to agree to a sovereign nation on agreed borders.  (In fact, this had been agreed by Arafat years earlier.)  

He (Netanyahu) went on to make the case that the land had really belonged to both religions over time (conveniently ignoring the reality that this area had been consigned to Palestinians and that the Jewish settlements occupied only about 3% of the land area when the Jewish state was formed).   He also conveniently side-stepped the fact that the settlers are occupying choice areas and non-contiguous sections of the West Bank, making a unified Palestinian state ‘impossible.’”

 

“In the end, he indicated that he had made a proposal to the U.S. that he felt would resolve this issue.  I have no idea what that might be yet.  I hope it is meaningful", I wrote at the time. 

It wasn't meaningful.

 

As I review these notes, 14 years after my visit, it is clear that Netanyahu’s mindset and actions have not changed. He continues to pursue policies that in any honest reading of the word, boil down to "apartheid".  They must change if the long-sought peace is to be obtained and justice is to prevail. 

  

A Chilling and Dangerous Assault on Truth

Read this and you will hear echoes from 200 years ago of slave owners' absurd justifications for slavery in the history to be taught today per recently published standards by the Department of Education of Florida.

If you are like me, you will find it hard to believe. This assault on truth must be turned back.

This week, the Florida State Board of Education approved new standards for Black history, which requires students learn that slaves “developed skills” that could be “applied for their personal benefit.” And when teaching about mob violence against the Black community, such as the Tulsa massacre, teachers must note the “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”