What Is The Coronavirus Teaching Us?

As this epidemic continues to takes its grim toll around the world, I see us learning and relearning many things, above all  how interconnected we all are —for better or for wore--and how much we can achieve if we join forces and work together against common goals. 

On the positive side, I have never seen the community come together across every sector—business, government, medical, universities, faith-based, non-profits, everyone--as well as  we are at this moment. On a phone conference from my alma-mater,  Yale, I learn that a Chinese  nurse association is not only  sharing their protocols with the United States and other countries but is translating them into English. I learn that scientists are sharing their papers on open platforms so that new insights can be shared everywhere quickly, disregarding claims for proprietary privilege. 

Governors in the Northeast and on the West Coast are collaborating to forge common regulations respecting the reality of inter-state travel in the interest of all their citizens.

Here in Cincinnati, we have some 40+ food distribution organizations working together to get food to the neediest. Most of these didn't talk to each other before. The Greater Cincinnati Fountain and the United Way unite to raise over $5 million in a couple of weeks for a special Covid-19 fund supporting first line workers helping people. Major hospitals no longer act as competitors but collaborators as they jointly plan to ensure there are sufficient. beds to handle the expected surge 

Arch rivals, Apple and Google  join forces to create software that promises to allow people who test positive to register that  fact on their smart phone. This will enable other people who came into close proximity to them to know they might have had the virus transmitted to them.  

Arch rival drug companies, GlaxoSmith-Kline and Sanofi, join forces in an unprecedented partnership to develop a coronavirus vaccine. 

Companies, Procter & Gamble (P&G) prominent among them, have quickly added capability in their plants to produce facial masks, ventilators  and hand sanitizers. To take just two of many examples, P&G's Pampers brand in China has developed a contest for babies to keep busy and in Italy a link to a musical video which shows babies how to wash their hands .

Positively, we have gained a far higher respect for scientifically based data and the uses of technology for communication. Zooms daily active users jumped from 10 million to over 200 million in just 3 months. 

 And we have gained—the hard way-- much greater awareness of the need to  be prepared to respond to future disasters, including ones that impact the entire globe overnight as this one has.  One result of this will be far less willingness to rely on single sources of supply for disaster-critical materials and likely have more of them produced domestically. 

As in any crisis, the relative strength and character of leaders are being revealed. We are witnessing strong leadership in many,  many quarters—governors like Ohio's Mike DeWine and mayors like San Francisco's London  Breed, corporate leaders, medical leaders like Dr, Fauci and Dr. Birx and the heroic healthcare workers on the front line.  Sadly, dangerously,  we have not witnessed it in the President of out Nation.

On the dark side, we are seeing deaths now over 25,000 in our country, over 10,000 in New York alone. and over 120.000 world wide, over 20,000 in Italy, my wife's and my "second home"with the numbers still climbing. Over 16 million workers have already filed for unemployment in the U.S. Hundreds of business have closed, including my son's fast food business in Boston.

Beneath these numbers lies untold grief, fear and uncertainty: "will I have a job?", "will my business reopen?" And there is the loneliness of millions, many isolated in one and two room apartments.

Never have I been so conscious  of my own and my family's privilege.

We are also seeing, starkly, the horrible, deadly consequences of our systemic inequality in people's access to good health and living conditions. I hope and pray we will finally take decisive action to close this gap.  We have long known that the average black man's life expectancy is almost 10 years lower than the average white man. Now, we are seeing this realty play out in the morgues of the nation. There is no excuse not to act on this reality today by providing quality health care for ALL and upgrading livable residential opportunities for the poor. 

Returning to where I started. 

I have never seen more united and determined action by all parts of the community—State. local, private, government, academic,  health care, non-profits, everyone--to battle an existential challenge. 

It is inspiring. It is necessary. 

It is famously and rightly said, "It Takes a Village". Well, we have such a village right here in our community and in our Nation and it is thriving. You can feel its pulse. 

May this spirit of collaboration be long remembered and called on to unite our community and Nation in confronting other existential challenges and opportunities we face.

Too Beautiful; Too Wise Not to Share. What's It Means to be "Ahead"

My daughter-in-law, Kim Pepper, shared this with me. Author unknown

What if instead of “behind” this group of kids are advanced because of this. 

What if they have more empathy, they enjoy family connection, they can be more creative and entertain themselves, they love to read, they love to express themselves in writing. 

What if they enjoy the simple things, like their own backyard and sitting near a window in the quiet.
What if they notice the birds and the dates different flowers emerge and the calming renewal of a gentle rain? 

What if this generation are the ones who learn to cook and organize their space and do their laundry and keep a well run home? 

What if they learn to stretch a dollar and learn to live with less?
What if they learn the value of eating together as a family and finding the good to share in the small delights of the every day? 

What if they are the ones to place great value on our teachers and educational professionals, librarians, public servants and previously invisible essential support workers like truck drivers, grocers, cashiers, custodial workers, health care workers and their supporting staff, just to name a few of the millions taking care of us while we are sheltered in place? 

What if, among these children, a great leader emerges who had the benefit of a slower pace and a simpler life to truly learn what really matters in this life? 

What if they are “ahead”?❤️ 

Happy Easter everyone!

Seizing the Opportunity Revealed Anew by Covid-19

Even with—perhaps in part because of—the physical separation which this epidemic demands, we are ever more conscious of how much we mean to each other, how much we depend on one another. We are more aware than ever that because Covid-19 is so contagious, we literally are connected,  what we do effects others and vice versa. 

I see us rallying together as a community (for example in the distribution of food; in companies coming together to chart a course back for the economy), I see States increasingly, even if too slowly imposing standard restrictions recognizing that their citizens may travel to another state spreading the virus which has been less constrained in their own. 

This coming together as a community is going on all over the world. In Italy, the UK, China Russia, everywhere. And it is going on between countries too, as companies work collectively to manufacture equipment which heroic heath care workers need; as scientists and doctors work around the clock to identify and produce an insulin and treatment to eradicate this disease; and as we  monitor and learn from the course of the epidemic in different places. 

It shows what is possible and necessary, when we recognize we really are in this together and that only by acting together can we achieve our goals. 

Jill Meyer, President of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, wrote something this morning which captures succinctly and beautifully that which we must work to sustain and extend from this experience. Our opportunity rests in "making happen what we can and should to tee up a better version of our collective 'us'".

In the past, we have marshaled the power of collective empathy and action at times of existential crises. But as we know, memories have been short. Today, may we marshal the wisdom and the will to carry this collective spirit and action forward, with imagination in identifying the opportunities and dedication to fulfilling  them.

Our world demands it. In no area more important than the threat to our planet from relentless climate change. Like Corvid-19, it calls for united effort by governments, scientists, corporations, and every single person. 

Corporate America and P&G Respond to the Coronavirus Epidemic

 As those of you who read my blogs might recall, I have published several pieces asserting Corporations" responsibility and opportunity to add value and bring support to society and  their communities. At no time is this as important than at a time of crisis like the world is experiencing  right now with the tragic Covid-19 epidemic. 

And corporations are responding. My company—Procter & Gamble is one of them, building on its tradition of over 175 years. How it is doing this is spelled out in this letter to employees from P&G's CEO, David Taylor.  

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We (P&G) have a long history of supporting communities in times of need—and we are answering the call to do even more. We’re stepping up to provide much needed product donations and financial support. Our contributions of product and in-kind support now exceed $15MM and will continue to increase as we work with communities around the world to understand how we can best serve them.

Millions of P&G products are being donated from 30 brands in more than 20 countries, with more on the way. These donations ensure that families who do not have basic access to the everyday essentials many of us take for granted, can have the cleaning, health, and hygiene benefits P&G brands can provide.

Our contributions are broad-based with cash support to ensure disaster relief organizations can meet immediate needs, including hygiene education and medical equipment and supplies. We’re partnering with some of the world’s leading relief organizations, including the International Federation of Red Cross, Americares and Direct Relief, and key regional organizations such as Feeding America, Matthew 25: Ministries, the China Youth Development Foundation, One Foundation, the Korea Disaster Relief Association, the United Way, and more.

P&G people across the world are stepping up to use our innovation, marketing and manufacturing expertise to directly support our communities for the greater good.

We have installed new lines to start production of hand sanitizer in five manufacturing sites around the world, using it to ensure our people can continue operating safely and sharing it with hospitals, health authorities and relief organizations. We are expanding manufacturing capacity further in additional facilities in the coming weeks and will have a capacity of at least 45,000 liters per week when fully operational.

Work is underway to produce critically needed face masks at nearly a dozen P&G manufacturing sites around the world. We’re up and running already in China. We have teams working to install capacity in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and will quickly begin production in the coming weeks. This is important for several reasons:

1. It will increase the supply of masks for hospitals, first responders and other organizations by reducing market demand for production and industrial use;
2. It helps us create a safe working environment for P&G people;
3. Longer term, it will allow us to directly help many communities across the globe where there is unprecedented need for protective supplies. 

And we’re not stopping there. Around the world, P&G people are evaluating how we can be of service to the communities who desperately need help. We’re in this together and working side-by-side with retail customers, suppliers, agency partners and government officials to do our part. We’re using areas of P&G capability and know-how to develop and deliver solutions to protect those who are most vulnerable. We’re funding startups with innovative ideas and partnering with established companies who have complementary capabilities. We’re also using our marketing and communications expertise to encourage consumers to support public health measures to help flatten the curve and slow the spread of the virus. 

We cannot predict how and when this crisis will end but we’re committed to be part of the solution. We have mobilized the full capabilities of P&G and our partners to help out in this time of need, and we will be there for our employees, consumers and communities—stepping up as a force for good—however long it takes.

David Taylor

Our Nation in a Two Front War

Our Nation, indeed all Nations —and their people and governments-- have not been so challenged since WWII and the Great Depression. 

We must wage and win a simultaneous two-front"war"— for the health and economic sustainability of the nation's people .

All sectors of our nation:  business, education, religious, medical, media, public and private, government at all levels, the people at large, all of us, must work together decisively to win this "war". Moving fast and aggressively is of unique importance since the geometric spread of the coronavirus is rapid and a nation or any entity pays a gruesome price if it delays the containment measures (isolation; social distancing), allowing the virus to achieve critical levels of penetration. 

After a slow start, partly attributable to the President's denying the reality of this unique threat, I am encouraged by what I see the Federal government and our State of Ohio doing at this moment. Different sectors of the government are coming together. Private-public partnerships are forming as they did in WWII, for example to provide more test equipment, necessary medical supplies, expertise on communicationI and more.

 I see leaders being data driven and seeking and applying learning from other nations who experienced—or responded to-- this virus at an earlier date than we did. Most importantly, I see leaders with deep professional competence  at the Federal and State and Local levels stepping forward together to lead the effort. They are providing transparent, frequent updates on the reality and the impact of the health and economic of the virus

 As the experts and history of this virus tell us: we are still at the critical early stage. We know the health crisis will grow over the next several weeks. We don't know how far nor nor how long it will wake for the threat to dissipate to the extent we can relax the social isolation steps which have been and will continue to be implemented. But we do have a good idea scientifically and from what  has happened in other countries what actions the public—all of us—need to take to lower the curve of the spread and incidence of this serious infection. We also know the economic dislocation will be immense in lost jobs and income. 

On the economic front, we will need to implement what in historical terms might be described aa a modern Marshall Day plan in the need to take comprehensive and decisive action, the best analogy in my mind is the action the Nation had to take to address the devastating consequences of the Depression with its 25%+ unemployment. Fortunately, compared to the Depression, our economy entered this unexpected challenge far stronger than was at the time of the Depression. 

Our challenges at this moment in time seem to be to be three: 

1) Each of us following the best containment actions;

 2) Being ahead of the wave of more people needing hospitalization with adequate hospital beds, medical supplies and medical personnel.

3)  Putting in place dramatic and rapid economic support for individuals (cash supplements, assured free heath coverage ) and for the recovery of businesses, large like the airlines, and small and medium size business, where the loss of jobs will be greatest.

As I have written,  this war presents striking similarities to what out Nation faced and needed to do in the Great Depression and in WWII. It is often said—and it is true—that it takes a monumental existential threat to drive us to collective, decisive action. We have that existential threat today. 

We of course will get through this. The question is how fast and to what degree we will minimize the harm to people. 

By coincidence, I just started the new best-seller: "The Splendid and the Vile: a Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz". I am lifted by Churchill's spirit and wisdom as he addressed the British people—this during the first month after becoming Prime Minster in the dark days of May, 1940.  "It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the moment. It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage." 

And then this shortly after the fall of France: "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour'". 

So may it be for us.

Raising Kids—The Role of Kindness

(This is a  letter I wrote to my four children and their spouses. I decided to post it on my blog)

I  read an interesting and important article in the recent issue of The Atlantic which I thought I would share with you.  It was written by Adam Grant and Allison Sweet Grant on the subject of raising kids.  It is well worth reading in its entirety.  In a nutshell, it presented persuasive evidence that “children who help others end up achieving more than those who don’t.”  As evidence, it cites academic progress in later years and overall success in life as relating closely to how the children were rated as being helpful or not by Kindergarten and early grade teachers.

The article draws on knowledge from psychologists and evolutionary biologists to explain this.  In part, it comes down to the reality that concern for other people promotes supportive relationships.  Students who care about others tend to see their education as preparation for contributing to society—an outlook that inspires them to persist when difficult studying is required.  Interestingly, research shows that “kindness can also make kids happy in the here and now.”  Psychologists call this “the helpers high.”  Economists refer to it as the “warm glow of giving.”  Neuroscientists find that generosity activates reward centers in our brains.

Reading this article brought me a smile because I thought of how many times I have seen personally and read reports from your children’s teachers of how they care for other classmates.
  

I was talking the subject of kindness with a fellow P&G alumni last week.  She quickly signaled her agreement with the thesis in raising her own two girls, but she took the conversation in an unexpected direction as she talked about the role of “kindness” in a workplace culture.  She applauded it; she felt it very important.  But she asked me for my perspective on what she described as the “soft under-belly of kindness”—that occurring if we do not bring candor and courage along with it.  I told her I knew exactly what she was driving at.  I experienced this challenge in my own life.

So, how do you try to ensure that kindness doesn’t lead to a lack of decisiveness and candor in a relationship?  Here is how I explained I have tried to resolve this.  

I have tried to keep three precepts in my mind, especially as I am dealing with a personal subject which could hurt the feelings of another person or be something, in hearing, they wish weren’t true: 

1.      I start by trying to answer the question for myself:  “what is the right thing to do?”  

2.      Is what I would say something that the other person needs to know for his or her own benefit?  They may not like to hear it, but they need to know it. 

3.      Do I convey it in a way which expresses my deep respect and caring for the other individual, so that I have a reason to believe they will understand that whatever I am saying is intended for their benefit?

Maggie (my daughter-in-law) once asked me a question the answer to which comes at this same subject in a different and perhaps simpler way.

 She asked me how do you think through what to say to someone with whom you disagree.  My response was to answer three questions:

1.      Is what I am going to say true?

2.      Is what I am going to say necessary; that is, will my communicating it lead to a better outcome?  Am I doing it for the benefit of achieving a better outcome, not just to make myself feel I have done something?

3.      Is this the time and place to have the communication or should I do it in a different place (perhaps one-on-one and fewer people or at a time better suited to achieve a constructive outcome)?

I hope this is helpful.

Why Brexit? What Comes Next?



Warning: This blog is long and in part contentious

The Politics of Pain:  Post-War England and the Rise of Nationalism by Fintan O’Toole

Fintan O’Toole spins a dizzying, intellectually bracing and mind-opening tale in his new book.

Explaining the “why” of Brexit, O’Toole traces its roots to deep British psychological traits, illuminated by rich perspectives from history (the 100 Years War to World War II) and literary references ranging from Shakespeare to post-World War II novels.  

From this often “sporty,” sometimes smile-producing and incisive history comes the compelling explanation for me of the “why” of Brexit.  It raises important questions and demands of the British people (and all of us) for the future.

At the outset, the book recounts Britain’s tentative, reluctant entry into the Common Market.  It recalls that it did not get off to a good start.  The decade after the U.K. joined was, in fact, “the most dreadful of the post-war era, a litany of racial conflict in England, nationalist discontent in Scotland and Wales, war in Ireland and perpetual strikes everywhere.”  The years in which Britain decided to join and then settled into membership of the Common Market were notably “panicky.”

A feeling grew that England had become a victim, and how unfair that was, with all they had done for the Continent.

Three conditions combined:  the disappointed expectations (the positives of belonging to the Common Market were not emphasized); the need for a scapegoat (the Common Market); and the erosion of the welfare state.  Together, they called out for an action that would set Britain free and reclaim its independent glory.

A feeling grew seeing the U.K. as a “vassal”—a vassal of the Continent, especially Germany—yet still imbued with pride.  

O’Toole asserts Britain was playing the role simultaneously of the “underdog” and the “over dog,” fueled by some by the idea of a reinvigorated Anglo empire.  

For many, Brexit came to be seen as imperial England’s last stand.  The Brexit campaign put together two fears:  the loss of Britain’s status after 1945, being the older one; losing the privilege of whiteness as immigration increased being the more recent.

For people who feel anxious about losing their status, self-pity is attractive because it contains righteous anger with assurance.  You are reassured because you know you deserve a great deal.  You’re righteously angry because, for some reason, you have not been getting what you so obviously deserve.  

This same dynamic explains the appeal of many of President Trump’s supporters.  

In Britain’s case, it was the EEC acting as a virtual colonial oppressor, preventing Britain from getting what it deserved, especially recognizing all that it had contributed to the victory in World War II.  Many imagined Britain as “a colony, with its own deep traditions that had been annexed by a European super-state.”

O’Toole makes it clear that “being angry about the European Union isn’t a psychosis—it is a mark of sanity.  Indeed, anyone who is not disillusioned with the EU is suffering from delusions.”  O’Toole calls the Union to task for moving away from “evidence-based economics”; for not recognizing there are 123 million people in the EU at risk of poverty, a quarter of the EU population.  

This has been allowed to happen because the fear of social and political chaos went out of the system.”

The EU had forgotten some of its founding precepts.  It knew at the beginning that, “if things are not held together by a reasonable expectation that life will get better for ordinary people, they will fall apart.”  

O’Toole continues, “Working class communities in England, like their counterparts in most of the EU, are absolutely right to feel they have been abandoned.  The distress is real, and Brexit gives the pain a name and a location—immigrants, and Brussels bureaucrats.  It counters their sense of powerlessness with a moment of real power—Brexit is, after all, a very big thing to do.”

But, O’Toole concludes, clearly showing where he stands:  “It’s still self-harm.  For the cynical leaders of the Brexit campaign, the freedom they desire is the freedom to dismantle the environmental, social and labor protections that they call ‘red tape.’  They want to sever the last restraints on the very market forces that have caused the pain.  They offer a jagged razor of incoherent English nationalism to distress then-excluded communities.  It is exhilarating and empowering.  It makes English hearts beat faster and the blood flow more quickly—even it’s their own blood that’s flowing.”

The most surprising thing I took away from the book is O’Toole’s well-documented assertion that underlying the drive for Brexit was the English people’s rapid drive to choose “to be English rather than British and, therefore, becoming alienated from British governance.”

He cites several research studies that show a dramatic turn in recent years on the English population prioritizing an English over a British identity.  These were not rogue studies.  In some parts of England, particularly the Northeast and Northwest, the contrast is overwhelming.  Not so much in London.  There was little recognition of this shift in the mainstream and political discourse even though it was going on in the minds and hearts of Englishmen.  Interestingly, the Scots and Welsh identified the layer of government most influencing their lives to be their own country; almost none the EU.  England for years was the exception.  

In part, O’Toole believes this has grown from the establishment of the Scottish parliament in 1999 and other “small nation liberation movements.”  I would note the same development occurred in Russia post 1989 as it drew back to its singular individual identity as Russia rather than being part of the Soviet Union.

With this as background, O’Toole reaches the rather unexpected conclusion that, unable to exit Britain, the English did the next best thing and left the EU.   “The long history of displacing on to the European Union the unresolved anxieties of England made possible a deft transference: if you can’t secede from Britain, secede from Europe.”  I am unable to judge the correctness of this conclusion. But it is worth considering.

Stepping back, O’Toole views Brexit as a “gesture based on something imaginary:  an enormous overstatement of the power of the EU on the governance of England.  Something big has been erased but nothing has really been revealed.  Englishness is no better expressed after the Brexit vote than it was before it.”

As an aside, there is an aspect of the support for Brexit which reminds me of the current situation in the United States.  O’Toole cites as a “great mystery of Brexit” being “the bond it created between working class revolt on the one side and upper class self-indulgence on the other.  There would seem to be an unbridgeable gulf of style and manner, let alone of actual economic interests” between the two groups.  

There is a similarity here between the support we’re seeing for Trump in the U.S. between many in the working class who believe he is the answer to their frustrations and many of the most wealthy who see what he is accomplishing economically through the elimination of regulations and tax reform, to be to their and the nation’s advantage.

There is another analogy between contemporary British and U.S. politics.  We’re seeing a showman arrive on the scene in Britain in Boris Johnson, just as we have in the U.S. with Donald Trump.  O’Toole explains the breakdown in the effectiveness of the major parties as an explanation for this.  The Tories and Labor in Britain; the Democratic and Republican Parties in the U.S.; at least the traditional wings.  This has allowed the emergence of populist leaders who would have been inconceivable in more stable eras.  In fact, the same thing occurred in Germany in the 1930s with Hitler and in Italy earlier than that with Mussolini.

*****

The final brief section of O’Toole’s book presents a spirited call to action.

“England can no longer afford an eccentric ruling class.  The harm is all too real:  the indulgence of eccentricity brought clownish absurdity and self-centered recklessness into the heart of political power.  Figures who would have been enjoyably ridiculous in a Dickens novel now get to determine a nation’s fate for a generation.

The other toxic waste from the fated myths of English character is pain—as—redemption.”  

There is an antidote, O’Toole writes.  “There is nothing innately shameful about the idea of England as a distinct political community—why should it not be one?  Indeed, it is perfectly possible to see the re-emergence of England as the final stage in the dismantling of Empire.  There is surely enough in the English radical, socialist and liberal traditions to inspire a more positive sense of national belonging.  There is surely in one of the world’s great cultures, enough wit and energy and creativity and humor to infuse Englishness with hope and joy instead of pain and self-pity.”

“A nation state is, first and foremost, a shelter.  In the hard rain of neo-liberal globalization, people know they cannot be fully protected.  But they do reasonably expect an umbrella over their heads.  The problem is that the umbrella is broken...for too many, hollow.  Brexit is part of a much larger phenomenon and it speaks to two much wider truths.  One is that it is not possible simultaneously to ask people to trust the state and to tell them that the state has no business in any part of their lives in which the market wants free rein.  The other is that the gross inequality produced by neo-liberalism is increasingly incompatible with democracy and, therefore, in liberal democracies, with political stability.”

O’Toole concludes that “what we’ve seen with the lid off is the truth that Brexit is much less about Britain’s relationship with the EU than it is about Britain’s relationship with itself.  It is the projection outwards of an inner turmoil.  A part of that process of change must be reserved for a more sense of Englishness.  In order to move forward, England has to move on.  It has to dismantle the archaic political system that effectively disenfranchises millions of voters, to rid itself of the vestiges of feudalism, to generally allow communities to ‘take back control’ of their lives.  It has to reanimate the spirit of social reform that created its great liberal and social democratic movements.  If there is ever to be a time after Brexit, it will come when the people who share the current British state really do begin to negotiate with each other, collectively and honestly, who they are and where they belong.”

This short summary could serve as a coda, I believe, for much of what we need to do in the United States, today and tomorrow and in the years ahead.

It is no small task.  It will require us to re-establish trust in one another and between our parties.  It will require strong people to step up and brave the challenge and vicissitudes of seeking and gaining public office and then work together to implement improvements that benefit all the peoples