The Criteria for Assessing the Rightness of An Organization Design

March 3, 2021

 Neil McElroy, a former CEO of P&G and who also served as Secretary of Defense for President Eisenhower, once  described the two basic tests of the rightness of any organization design this way:  to what extent does it 1) advance the growth of leadership brands and 2) provide an environment where women and men can grow in their abilities and satisfaction from the work they do. 


John Gardner in his magisterial book, "Self-Renewal" captures the timeless essence of the second test. 

"We shall discover that what counts is not the size of the organization but the patterns of organizations.  It is possible to continue achieving economies of scale and still give attention to human needs.  Too often in the past we have designed systems to meet all kinds of exacting requirements except the most important requirement of all—that they contribute to the fulfillment and growth of the participants.  We must discover how to design organizations and technological systems in such a way that individual talents are used to the maximum and human satisfaction and dignity are preserved.  We must learn to make technology serve man not only in the end product but in the doing".
 

Twenty Years Later—The Debate About "Political Correctness" Continues, As Well It Should

February 24, 2021

 If I needed any further evidence that few things are new, I gained it as I went through some of my wife, Francie’s old files.  One is on the subject of political correctness, with various clippings from 1991.  I could be reading them today.

 
The Wall Street Journal carries an editorial:  “Political Correct Newsrooms" which tells the story of how Juan Williams, a black journalist, still present today on Fox News, had “been taken hostage by the Washington Post because he was “saying nice things about Clarence Thomas” who, at the time, was being considered for the Supreme Court.  He was being accused of sexual harassment by Professor Anita Hill.

We see Thomas Gephardt, a conservative columnist on the Cincinnati Enquirer, lamenting “political correctness at UC.”  One professor at the university had recently written a guest column “about the effort of academic/afro-centrists to turn history upside-down to get across their point of view.”
 
Describing what is going on in university campuses, Gephardt wrote that, “taken together, they reflect a profound change in the tradition of free, open civil discourse.  How ironic that the once enslaved universities of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are rejoicing to see their intellectual shackles loosened.  Who would have imagined that new, politically correct shackles would one day be visited upon by their American counterparts?”
 
There was this poem entitled “The Politically Correct Christmas.” 
 
            No welcoming crash in the village squares; 
            It went the way of the school-day prayer.
            A multi-cultural spending spree
            Is what Christmas is turning out to be.
 
Followed by:
 
            Santa’s features are pictured in a bright rosy hue,
            But minorities require black or brown too.
            That stump of a pipe in his teeth has to go;
            It’s offensive to all non-smokers below.
 
Finally, here is the conservative national columnist, James J. Kilpatrick.
 
He writes, “There is something fundamentally ridiculous in the new orthodoxy of the politically correct.  In today’s academic world, words do summersaults.  ‘Diversity’ means ‘sameness.’  Free speech carries a heavy cost.
 
The general idea in these intellectual zoos is that all cultures are equal.  There is no longer such a value as ‘merit.’  The rule applies to language.  It also applies to music, with the result that Mozart is no better than rap.”
 
And still from Kilpatrick, "On many campuses, students risk suspension or expulsion if they are heard voicing any ‘discriminatory’ or ‘disparaging’ remarks about another student’s race, sex, religion, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry or age. Maybe the process of corruption will soon run its course, but don’t bet on it.  Those who love our Western inheritanceness had better get off their rumps and fight.”

All of this twenty years ago. 
 
*****
 
So what, as we are hearing almost the same issues today, twenty years later, do I view as a correct position on this issue?

In a word, the issue is complex. 

White privilege is a reality. Racial bias, at least for the majority of us including me, is a reality. And as we have seen more clearly than ever during the past year, racial injustice is a reality.  

Yet, we are making a major error—moral and intellectual—if we allow these realities to justify allowing an unexamined assertion by a minority that he or she has been the victim of racial bias to lead to conclusions and actions which impugn and deny the value and rights of another person, including the right to free speech. 

We have seen that recently at Smith College where an unfounded and on examination false accusation that a couple of people were racist has resulted in harm to them in their employability and state of mind. As has been true on many other campuses, discussion on the merits of the case is being inhibited by an inappropriately morally tinged sense of "political correctness" which is impeding getting at the truth. As a Smith Professor said (as reported by the "New York Times"-2/25/2021), "My impression is that if you're on the wrong side of issues of identity politics, you're not just mistaken, you're evil". 

I fear "political correctness" is running off the rails. We hear discussion of whether statues memorializing Thomas Jefferson should be taken down because he owned slaves. Reading Shakespeare is questioned just a reading Huckleberry Finn was generations ago. Consciousness extends to the laughable as we read that Hasbro toys will be rebranding Mr. Potato Head as a "gender-neutral" head. What comes next? Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse being conflated to a gender-neutral mouse? 

There is great danger in all this. It can leave us feeling that we are doing something substantive to address genuine racial and gender inequities when we are in fact dealing with superficial tokens of progress. 
Even worse, it delegitimizes the existence of  the very real, genuine racial and gender biases and thus inhibits broad and sustained action to confront them. 

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


 
I want to turn back briefly to an issue raised by James Kilpatrick in his previously cited column and the related issue being debated today on the importance of highlighting awareness of  the contribution of African-Americans  to our Nations history and culture. 

I deeply believe we have to be very intent in gaining a deep understanding of the history and the cultures of other people, importantly African-Americans whose history we have so long ignored.  Knowing this   history is vital if we are to understand what brought us to where we are today. Above all in recognizing the vestiges of slavery.  But there is more than that. Years ago, we didn’t recognize the role of music originating in Africa to current-day music. We did not recognize the role of the spirituals which lifted enslaved men and women.  We didn’t know of, let alone appreciate, the insights and inspiration to be gained from far too-long uncelebrated and unrecognized Black writers and novelists.
 
I say all of that,  believing there is such a thing as “merit.”  Some writing is richer and more meaningful than others. However, this quality of "merit" is not inexorably differentiated by race or nationality.  Some writing is better than other writing in describing human nature and the challenge and rewards of life.  One thing we have discovered over the past 20 years is that “merit” has many origins and smany sources and it carries greater or lesser meaning for different audiences. 
 
To conclude, I am increasing concerned that our urgently needed and deeper appreciation of the reality of racial and social inequities is too often leading to a premature, unexamined, and morally self-satisfying responses to  alleged incidents of  racial bias.  We must remain open to other points of view as we search for "truth" in how to confront the existential issues of racial and social justice. 
 
At the same time, we should never allow the pejorative labeling of exposing the reality of "white privilege"by some as "political correctness" to dissuade us from revealing the "truth”of this reality.
 

How History Will Look Back—The Senate Impeachment Trial

February 18, 2021

 The trial ended about as one would have anticipated in that there was less than a two-thirds majority of the Senators who voted to convict.  The vote was 57-43 in favor of conviction, with seven brave Republicans crossing the line to join all of the Democrats.  A few reflections:

 
  1. The Senate—more precisely 43 Senate Republicans—abandoned their responsibility to play the role that only the Senate could, in upholding the Constitution of the United States and making it clear that no one, not even a President, could violate his Oath of Office by seeking to overthrow the established principles of our Constitutional government, in this case, honoring elections and securing a peaceful transition of power.
 
Yes, the Republican leader, Sen. McConnell, explicitly underscored the availability of criminal procedures against President Trump as a private citizen, but no criminal or civil action can, even if successful, take the place of what only the conviction of impeachment would have, in explicitly upholding the Constitution of the United States.  That is what was at stake here.  
 
2.     The fact that this was the strongest bipartisan support of impeachment of any president in the nation’s history stands as a stark fact that will not be forgotten.
 
The names of the seven Republicans who stood up will be forever recognized and I believe celebrated by almost all.
 
3.     The incontrovertible evidence that Trump was singularly responsible for spreading the lies, the mythical conspiracy theories, and the vitriolic rhetoric without which this crowd would not have attacked the Capitol, was denied by almost none.  The linkage of this to the deaths of five people and the injury of over 100 people, many seriously, will not be forgotten.  The conclusion of the final commentary by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, even if it followed his “not guilty” verdict, based on a controversial and flawed view of the Constitutional right of the Senate to convict Trump now that he is out of office, will serve as a ringing affirmation of the case which the House prosecutors so ably presented.
 
The defense which Trump’s legal team tried to mount was feeble and not taken seriously by just about anyone, Republicans included.
 
4.     Grassroots support for Trump will not go away.  Nor will he.  He will continue to fan his base with his victim mentality, both for him and for them.  It is hard to say how many of the 74 million people who voted for him in 2020 would do so again.  We will get polls on this.  My guess is the number might drop by up to 20-25% in the intermediate future as the criminal and civil charges against him play out. 
 
The Republican Party faces a huge challenge, with no clear outcome in sight.  What will the Republican Party stand for?  It can’t be for what Trump stands for.  In fact, he doesn’t really stand for anything outside of himself and his spread of victim mentality and his appeal to the baser instincts of division and hate.  Pursuing that as a party would in the end be a fool’s errand, not only bad for the party, but for the country--for the country really does need a viable two-party system.
 
There are leaders whose character, instinct and temperament could play a leadership role.  Who will emerge is anybody’s guess at this point.  Romney will certainly be a senior statesman of the best sort.  Whether he has the will or the means to rally the party around him is very much in doubt.  Many if not most will see him as too liberal.
 
On one thing I do feel sure now.  History will look back on the Trump presidency as a dangerous aberration that carried with it great risk for the country.
 
While having carried far more danger because he occupied the presidency and because of his broad appeal, I believe he will fit into the same type of bucket as Joe McCarthy, Fr. Coughlin and Huey Long.
 
How he is viewed, however, will depend in no small measure on how the Republican Party evolves from here; whether it can find a new purpose and set of principles which continue to rally many of the people who support President Trump, but brings together others who in the past would have been part of the Republican Party.  Who will lead this? I believe someone who is probably still relatively young who will come to see this as their mission in life.  Let's  hope this happens sooner rather than later.
 
 

Maintain Focus—Keep the Faith—Act

February 10, 2021


The last few days have dashed any hope I had that having seen what Trump incited on January 6—on top of all of the other insults to character and civility he has exhibited over the past four years—that this would persuade large segments of the Republican Party to finally abandon what he stands for. 
 
Only six Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in indicating that an impeachment trial was justified.  The final vote won’t be much different from that.  
 
It is disheartening to see this, to put it mildly.  But it should not stop us from focusing on what has been clear from the beginning as the only path forward to gain a semblance of unity in the country.  
 
We have taken the first step in electing Joe Biden.  His tone from the start has been the best one possible to lay the foundation for beginning to unify the country.  However, it is clear that tone alone won’t do it, especially because he is and should be taking actions that will be quickly labeled by the Republicans as partisan.  I refer to the number of Executive Orders he has issued, most of them turning back Orders which Trump had taken to turn back what President Obama had done.   
 
What will be needed now beyond tone are actions.  Actions that are seen by the great majority of the country as being right for them.  Actions that will get COVID-19 under control.  Actions that will bring the economy back.  Actions which will create jobs, hopefully through an infrastructure bill that can be passed soon.
 
It will only be actions seen to benefit the majority of the country, including millions who voted for Trump, including in rural areas and small towns where special help is needed.  Only actions like this will change the tide.  This is what had to happen after the Great Depression.  Large segments of the population hated (and that is the only word that applies) President Roosevelt’s plan.  But the tide was turned as the majority of Americans saw a decisive and capable president and an administration that was attacking the problems at hand and making life somewhat better for them.
 
That is what we need to focus on now.  Passing legislation that does those things. And insofar as possible, make it bi-partisan. 
 
Let’s stop the gnashing of teeth about how the Republican Party hasn’t reformed itself, as disappointing as that is.  Let’s dial down the rhetoric.  Let’s stay focused on what needs to happen for the improvement of people’s lives.

A Poem Written by My Eleven Year Old Granddaughter and One of Her Classmates Two Days After the January 6th Attack on Our Capital

February 9, 2021

 Rock Bottom

Storming the capitol
A landmark in D.C
All at the hands
Of an ex-president to be
Rioters holding a flag of red white and blue
But it’s not the one we love
Did you get the clue?
The confederate flag
Being carried throughout
They carry it with love
Fly it with no doubt.
Windows broken
And lives taken
The president then speaks
He’s finally awakened
Senators scared
They run for their lives
If they had got too close
They could’ve died
Did the police do their best?
Was it really enough?
At the end of the day
People were in handcuffs
Tear gas spread
Guns got fired
All because they obeyed
Who they most admired.
Our country has a label now
That no one truly wanted
Our own people turned on us
Is the U.S haunted?
This really wasn’t a great way
To kick off a new year
It’s truly sad to be in a world
Where you sometimes live in fear
Although we’ve hit rock bottom
We know we will rebound
Because before you fly up
You have to touch the ground
This’ll go down in history
We won’t forget this day
We will finally pull through
‘Cause we’re the USA!

The Contingency of History—We Missed a Bullet—So Today, January 20th—We Celebrate with Relief and Hope Joe Biden's Inauguration

January 16, 2021

 


I am more mindful than ever of the contingency of history.  There are so many ways we could be beset with another four years of Trump. 
 
Imagine if the Republican had impeached Trump the first time around, not that it was a close call for them.  But he would have been out and Pence would be in, and I think it is entirely possible that he would have been elected as President.
 
Much more likely, if Trump had had a modicum of common sense about him, he would have taken the lead in attacking COVID-19.  He would have worn a mask, been supportive of science.  And if he had done those things, not only would lives have been saved (most importantly), but I am convinced he would have won the election.

Or imagine if Covid has not happened in the first place. I believe Trump would have been reelected. 
 
Or imagine, if Jim Clyburne hadn’t advanced Biden in the South Carolina primary, Biden probably wouldn’t have won and probably wouldn’t have become the Democratic nominee.  And I don’t believe there was any other Democratic nominee who would have beaten Trump, even with all of the things he did wrong, and COVID.
 
All of which is to say we are not only damn lucky but thank heavens for those people who got out the vote and worked so hard. And thank heavens that Biden stepped forward in the way he did and that we now have him about to enter the White House.
 
We have always known how contingent  history is; how contingent it was, for example, that Lincoln was our President.  But I don’t think there has ever been a time where being on the right side of history mattered more than it does at this moment in history. 

January 20th; the day we can celebrate the inauguration of a President, Joe Biden, who despite the monumental challenges, can with all our help begin to heal the distrust and confront the inequities which assault our Nation. 
 
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2021—A Year of Hope and Opportunity. A Test of Our Resolve

January 7, 2021


 
The year 2020 revealed stark realities like no other year in my 80+ year lifetime.  It has taught us a lot.  It has left us aware of the need for change and it has left us, to larger and lesser degrees, committed to make change.  The proverbial $64,000 question is, will we have the wisdom, the resolve, the courage and the perseverance to make and sustain these changes.
 
Personally, I enter 2021 with hope but no sense of complacency.  There is above all hope in that we will be led by a president, Joe Biden, experienced and genuinely committed to healing the partisanship of our country and the prevailing distrust among the nations of the world.  Like the majority of the population, I believe he is committed to take action to confront issues that are staring us in the face:  a still raging epidemic, the challenge of distributing a vaccine and contending with perhaps another variant of the virus; an economy still at a delicate stage of recovery, with as much as a third of our population in dire economic straits and, overarching all of this, a deeply divided electorate and undeniable evidence of social and racial injustice.
 
We have been put in touch in with these realities during the past year as never before in over 100 years.
 
Positively, I am convinced we have the right leader in Biden.  I believe he has the mind, the experience and the spirit to confront these realities and challenges. But this president—no president—can come close to doing this singlehandedly.
 
Here is the question that we face in 2021.
 
Are we up to the task of acting decisively and collaboratively on what we have learned, even knowing that the work will occupy many years.
 
I am talking about acting at every level.
 
Federal, state and local governments, working in tandem.
 
Every corporation.

Every one of us as individuals.
 
At the government level, will Congress get together to design and pass legislation, including:

--dramatically improving the nation’s infrastructure in a way that adds jobs
--providing sensible immigration reforms
--expanding lower cost healthcare that everyone can benefit from
--reforming criminal police practices, without throwing out the baby with the bath water?
 
Will companies take action to:

--increase representation in executive leadership of minorities.  
--contribute  to the welfare of the community at the same time they reward their shareholders and provide an environment where all employees can grow to achieve their full potential?
 
Will non-profit and other organizations pool their resources and capabilities against common goals to better enable everyone to fulfill their full potential?  Through better education, development of minority businesses, improved housing and much more.
 
Will we as individuals be more open to know and listen to one another, to walk in each other’s shoes, to set aside implicit biases and to simply be kinder to one another?
 
If you look forward 10 years, I dream that we will look back on the years 2020 and 2021 as two sides of the same coin.
 
2020 provided a nerve-wracking, life-changing, often life-taking demonstration of how vulnerable we are, particularly how vulnerable certain portions of our population are.
 
A year when we confronted realities that we have been aware of, some more than others.  In 2020 they stared us in the face as systemic problems like never before. 
 
These realities have led to a growing stronger and unified commitment to address the challenges revealed by these realities than I have ever seen before. 
 
What 2021 can be and must be is a demonstration that we will continue to address these issue with wisdom and persistence.  This will not be a one-year undertaking; it won’t even be a decade-long undertaking.  But if we don’t get started now, I don’t know when we will.  It would be impossible for me to imagine, let alone want, a more vivid demonstration of where we need to improve.
 
The year 2020 has revealed human characteristics that we will depend on in 2021 and in fact have always depended on to make progress.  I am talking about people like the frontline healthcare workers who risk their lives to help others.  It has happened again and again.  That human spirit is present.   The question is, can we marshal it broadly. Can we cooperate and not compete, can we see each other as fellow travelers on this journey of life, trying to help one another along that path, pursuing justice for all? 

I refuse to believe we cannot do better.  We can make important progress.  We have done so before. The time to do so is now.