Right now, the attitudes (like mine last week) are getting ugly; we have to get back to a (more) egalitarian society where we understand that those who are able to gather more money are not always superior beings- while they may indeed be, they also may be lucky, or scamming, or taking advantage of distorted values.

We have to introduce some shame back into absurd consumption, extreme selfishness, and the exploiting of the commons- its only thru moral strength that capitalism can be strong- without it, the money will all run to one corner and freedom will evaporate.

I will avoid the dreary politics, but we don’t have to do anything that we dont already know about; work hard, save, be charitable and peaceful in our private and public lives, consume with care, and treat our brothers and sisters as the equals that they are without over-regard for social class.

Yes its important to have standards, but its also important to provide for social mobility and to understand that ossified societies are dying societies.

In hiring, that means less emphasis on how people speak, what they wear, and where they went to school (if at all…runaway credentialism is a sure sign of ossification)and lower profits dues to greater training and development costs. In daily living, it means fewer gated communities, luxury offerings across the board, and probably most important of all; a fair educational shot for all- understanding that the less advantaged among us require dramatically greater educational investment to have that fair shot.

That’s some hard stuff that few of us want to deal with, but thats what is needed to save capitialism’s bacon.

On a nuts and bolts level, solving or mitigating the energy and healthcare problems by themselves would create untold wealth with which to a) recast our nation or b) party on. We need to decide, deep down, and for real…..

Let our sadness become righteous indignation to spark our drive and creativity- I am happy to brainstorm/form an ERE Group with anyone on how we may use our transferable skills to get us through these times.

Keith “Won’t Get Fooled Again” Halperin keithsrj@sbcglobal.net 415.586.8265

The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again – with lyrics

Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again

-Pete Townsend, 1971
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabxxEgMTjo&feature=related

I have used the model above for many years in management development sessions. FYI I always teach it within an activity I designed and it may be of use to ERE.net members to think about this as way to introduce it also to their personnel.

Firstly, this makes the theory alive, obvious and thus powerful. An analysis based activity with lots of energetic and fun debates, where the participants can role-play as team members, and other change stakeholders, working in terms of their own thinking-style preferences, assumptions, concerns and motivators. “Pollyannaism”, apathy, anger and intentionally active-destructive behaviours are all explored. Stakeholder responses are also hypothesized, and amusing conversations certainly result.

Then the group’s efforts must turn to what may be done to prevent unnecessary loss of staff, or productivity, or whatever is the goal. Knowing the theory intellectually is one thing, really noticing and interpreting the behaviours that are exhibited and how to gain leverage to do what is most effective, is entirely another level of competence. Especially as the participating manager in a change event is no doubt sitting somewhere in the curve themselves at the time they are trying to hold it all together!

Whilst we are here, my other very favourite change model is the “Change Equation” or Gleicher’s Formula: DVF > R. Meaning? Dissatisfaction, Vision of the future, taking the First Early steps and small wins, will eventually become greater than, and thus overcome, Resistance.

Sometimes it is necessary to raise the awareness, or even the reality of the dissatisfaction to move forward. That’s a challenge! Just for fun, I trialed using these both, increasing the dissatisfaction level in a personal, home-teenager situation and supporting the movement through the curve – and it worked absolutely brilliantly. (NB: Don’t bother explaining it afterwards to the teenager BTW, they get really put-out to think they were a part of their mother’s experiments with management theories. I can’t imagine why…)

Kind Regards from sunny Australia
Karen Dempster – Creating Change

I totally agree with your comments. Here in New Zealand we have it great and we just need to get on with things and not worry about what gloom the media is making out. Check out the link below, and keep up the good work.

http://blog.cvb.co.nz/2009/01/16/i-dont-mean-to-be-a-broken-record-but-check-this-out/

I appreciate positive thinking and I know it’s important that negative spin not get out of control, but I take exception to this line with some vigor:

“Compared to other times and places (for example Iraq, the Great Depression, World War I and II) things are actually pretty good.”

Really? That’s supposed to mean something, even if it were true, which is highly questionable?

Kevin you need to wake up. There is real pain, anger, and fear in the land and it did not just start in 2008. Maybe in your closeted world everything was going along hunky-dory, but you have not had eyes to see what’s really been happening.

This country has probably not been in this bad a shape in our entire history. Sure there was massive pain and dislocation in the Depression, and many brave (and not so brave) Americans have died in war, but even in those times we were the power and envy of the world, with strong institutions, a reasonably egalitarian society, and a clear brand of freedom, unity, can-do accomplishment, and unimaginable wealth, even in the Depression.

Now, in contrast, every institution in our land is suspect; we are divided by class and religion, our brand is in tatters because it turns out we are like every other nation where power is the coin of the realm: our coward in chief thought it would be a good idea to torture people, and our financial leaders were all a bunch of crooks or morons, take your pick.

It’s bad enough that it seems that the whole thing is now riding on the skinny shoulders of one man, and no matter how fine a man he may be, that says things are not “pretty good”.

Things suck, to be frank.

Now, I do have faith that things will turn, the American brand will come back (somewhat), and lots and lots of Americans will have a better understanding of what we need to do…we still have vast wealth and power, and hundreds of millions of fine people who do care about their brothers and sisters…. But the faith is not so much with me this morning.