On 31 January, President George W. Bush delivered his 2006 State of the Union Message. In it he made a very powerful declaration:
Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources — and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.
While history will be the final determinant of President Bush’s impact on history and the degree to which it was favorable or not, the statement, “America is addicted to oil,” may standout as a turning point for America. While this reality was not new news for millions who listened to or read his speech, the mere fact that he gave voice to it as the elected leader of the American people was a powerful expression of what it represents. It may very well constitute the most key assertion of his administration.
Addiction is a tough term to reconcile; it is a psychological reality that takes no prisoners, so to speak. Addiction means dependency in the most profound way. Such dependency in this instance drives three potential outcomes:
Defense: what happens if government leaders from countries where we buy oil use the money to our disadvantage costing even more money to protect ourselves and our way of life
Destruction:1 what happens to the environment if we persist in using oil (fossil fuels)?
It isn’t necessary to know exactly when we reach Hubbert’s peak, or to know how much money it takes to defend ourselves against foreign forces that are funded by money we pay to them for their oil, or to know how much burning fossil fuel affects the environment. It is only a matter of believing that any one or a combination of them is in play to trigger intense concern. Such is the powerful hold addiction has on those in its grasp.
The significance of President Bush’s statement is that it legitimizes conversations and commitments to seek viable alternatives. And because there are three motivating forces, each equally compelling, triggered by his statement, there is a much wider audience who buys-in to the notion that the fundamental issue of oil addiction warrants attention. Time and energy do not need to be wasted convincing people to get on board. It is proving to be an efficient way to mobilize people, resources, and investments in finding viable alternatives.
We do not have answers; at least we have questions that are moving us in a healthier and more sustainable direction. Swapping fuels derived from plant materials for fossil-fuels offers a way to ease the problem, but it is not a panacea. It will be a race to see if we can slow consumption, adopt non-fossil-fuel alternatives, and develop more efficient ways to produce and move what we make from one place to the other. This is an area of considerable interest to me as 2006 wanes and 2007 creeps closer. More later…
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Sunday, December 10, 2006
The quoted 2005 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists is not available online, however, a later statement, Car Emissions & Global Warming, addresses the same issue:“Our personal vehicles are a major cause of global warming. Collectively, cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all US emissions, emitting around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases for every gallon of gas. About five pounds comes from the extraction, production, and delivery of the fuel, while the great bulk of heat-trapping emissions—more than 19 pounds per gallon—comes right out of a car’s tailpipe.” ↩
For thousands of people around the world each day the Google News Alerts service deposits the results of key word searches among the thousands of news sources in Google’s global network in email inboxes, mine included. Among the terms I have setup for searches is “community currencies.” This morning the following item appeared:
Candidates for Ward 1
Raise the Hammer – Canada
… His ideas of how credit unions, commercial banks and thrifts with community ownership structures, and local currencies can keep community wealth circulating in …
The content trailer was intriguing, leading me on a two-hour surfing odyssey. The results are logged below in the event that others might be interested in some of the touch points I encountered along the way.
First, click to the article on the Raise the Hammer website; then, click to learn more about the Raise the Hammer community action initiative in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, which, according to Wikipedia is the 8th largest city in Canada with a population of slightly over 700,000.
Municipal elections are coming up and one of the candidates is a person named Brian McHattie. In a response to a request from Raise the Hammer, Mr. McHattie stated the five most important steps he would take if elected; his fifth and final point was as follows:
5) Develop a Community Economic Development Strategy. ‘Recently, Environment Hamilton brought U.S. economist Michael Shuman to Hamilton to talk about a strategy where communities adopt a strategy of self-reliance with local production for local consumption.
His ideas of how credit unions, commercial banks and thrifts with community ownership structures, and local currencies can keep community wealth circulating in and working for the community must be investigated as a basis for Hamilton’s economy, along with import substitution and directing City purchasing power to locally owned businesses, thereby keeping money circulating within the city – plugging the leaky bucket.’
Enter the name, “Michael Shuman.” So who is this Michael Shuman person?
A Google search found several listings one linked to a biographical article in The Nation. The next click goes to the homepage for The Nation and more background on the publication.
Another trail through the woods led to a startup originally named “Chesapeake Friendly Chicken,” funded in part by USDA grants, but now grant-independent and listed as “Bay Friendly Chicken.” There are several write-ups about this company from a wide range of perspectives including CNN Money and Animal Liberation Front. This represents an “educational process” from which many with a similar entrepreneurial spirit in agricultural production and process can learn.
“Exploring Local Living Economies and Community-based Business” with Michael Shuman and Chuck Tetro Sunday, July 17 to Sunday July 24, 2005, A Residential Course at the Whidbey Institute in Clinton, WA: Michael Shuman is the author of GOING LOCAL: CREATING SELF-RELIANT COMMUNITIES IN A GLOBAL AGE and Vice President of Enterprise Development for the Training & Development Corporation. Among his current projects are a poultry company in Eastern Maryland financed through local stock, a small-business venture fund in New Mexico, and a local debit card in Maine. He speaks and consults around the country on strategies for strengthening local and regional economies, and he is one of the founding board members for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a network of, by, and for community-based-businesses.”
Mr. Shuman is a busy person! A search for Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) uncovers an active North American network. The search results also show a connection to the specific term “Living Economies” and a link to livingeconomies.org which proves to be the home page for bealocalist.org, aka, BALLE. At one time, Mr. Shuman was on the BALLE board. His former BALLE bio mentioned a website under development named, “CommunityFood” (no longer functional) that is intended “to support marketing by family farmers.” The website layout is an excellent framework / template to utilize in moving the localization of agriculture across North America. And in looking at all the blank states on the BALLE homepage map of chapters / members it appears there are thousands of opportunities 😉
And this is wonderful place to stop for a while. I’m sure the odyssey will begin anew when another compelling news blurb pops into the inbox — happy reading and exploring!3
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Saturday, October 21, 2006
Information about Michael Shuman’s forum at the University of Wyoming referenced in my original posting is no longer available online. ↩
Links to the flyer and related information about Charles Tetro and Michael Shuman are no longer available online. ↩
Much of the information about Michael Shuman and the terminology, projects, organizations, and source materials referenced in my original posting evolved over the intervening years. I attempted to keep as much of the original text as possible, except in several instances where deviations became inevitable. Mr. Shuman is still “living the dream” helping others develop local economies as this January 27, 2019 post to his website attests: Why Local Economies Matter. I will pick up the topic of localization in a separate post at a later date. ↩
In my previous posting about Mukesh Ambani’s ambitious plans for Reliance Retail, Ltd., he intends to “revolutionize” two sectors: farming and retail in the process of establishing this new business. His plan to “invest more than $5 billion by 2011 to put both the farms and the stores on the road to modernity, connect them through a distribution system guided by the latest logistics technology, and create enough of a surplus to generate $20 billion in agricultural exports annually” is a bold statement of the speed, scope, and degree to which he will attack the prevailing system. No doubt this will have an impact – revolution does that, although there are often unintended consequences!
Usually, “revolutionize” in the context of agriculture means introducing labor-saving, automated, integrated mechanical and biological systems that eliminate the need for human participation. This accomplishes three things: reduces the cost of the operation by taking people out of the equation; displaces people who are no longer needed in support of agriculture so that they are compelled to do something else; and lengthens the distance between the point of agricultural production and the point of consumption of food, feed, fiber, or fuel. This approach was effective during the last century in those areas of the world where human labor was needed to power the growth of the industrial sector. In fact, the mechanization of agriculture and the subsequent displacement of people from farming and rural areas was a perfect complement to the growth of industries in the urban centers. Is the world ready for more of that?
The last thing countries with the most populous cities in the world need is more people migrating from the less populated rural areas to the urban areas. Further overcrowding of already overwhelmed infrastructures helps no one and contributes further to decline in the quality and even sustainability of life. Still, with nowhere else to go and no hope where they are, relocation to the cities is often the only recourse people have in these circumstances.
The question is: how can technology be applied in the farming sector such that the people whose welfare is dependent on agriculture are able to have sufficient quality of life centered around the principles and values they hold dear at their local community level yet be able to scale their output to meet the demand of more distant communities in need of what they produce?
One way to begin to answer this is through the e-Choupal system introduced by ITC, Ltd. to farmers throughout rural India.
…leverages Information Technology to virtually cluster all the value chain participants, delivering the same benefits as vertical integration does in mature agricultural economies like the USA.
‘e-Choupal’ makes use of the physical transmission capabilities of current intermediaries – aggregation, logistics, counter-party risk and bridge financing – while disintermediating them from the chain of information flow and market signals.
With a judicious blend of click & mortar capabilities, village internet kiosks managed by farmers – called sanchalaks – themselves, enable the agricultural community access ready information in their local language on the weather & market prices, disseminate knowledge on scientific farm practices & risk management, facilitate the sale of farm inputs (now with embedded knowledge) and purchase farm produce from the farmers’ doorsteps (decision making is now information-based).
Real-time information and customised knowledge provided by ‘e-Choupal’ enhance the ability of farmers to take decisions and align their farm output with market demand and secure quality & productivity. The aggregation of the demand for farm inputs from individual farmers gives them access to high quality inputs from established and reputed manufacturers at fair prices. As a direct marketing channel, virtually linked to the ‘mandi’ system for price discovery, ‘e-Choupal’ eliminates wasteful intermediation and multiple handling. Thereby it significantly reduces transaction costs.
‘e-Choupal’ ensures world-class quality in delivering all these goods & services through several product / service specific partnerships with the leaders in the respective fields, in addition to ITC’s own expertise.
While the farmers benefit through enhanced farm productivity and higher farm gate prices, ITC benefits from the lower net cost of procurement (despite offering better prices to the farmer) having eliminated costs in the supply chain that do not add value.”
Of course, for ITC to make this work requires a dedication to growing its business by engaging farmers as partners in making their businesses successful. ITC’s sustainability policies are based on a deep and unwavering commitment to the people of rural India: to help them improve the quality of their lives, provide them with the wherewithal to keep their families intact and grounded, and contribute fully to the betterment and sustainability of their local communities.
The effectiveness of this program on multiple fronts has not gone unnoticed. ITC has garnered several awards for the e-Choupal program namely, the Corporate Social Responsibility Award in 2004 from the Tata Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award (WIBTA) in 2004, and most recently the Stockholm Challenge Award in May 2006.
The goal of e-Choupal is to sustain, strengthen, and scale the operations of farmers with small agricultural holdings throughout rural India. The success of this system is earmarked by farmers staying in business, improving their operations, caring for their families, and contributing to the welfare of their local communities. This outcome scores well in following the sequence of localize, link, and globalize mentioned in last week’s posting by the same title.
And there is room for more! In a country of one billion people, three-quarters of which live in rural areas the efforts of ITC and e-Choupal only touch a narrow few. Reliance Retail, Ltd. is branching out with farming and retail and is committed to build an infrastructure that stabilizes small scale farming operations rather than destroy them; in direct competition to Reliance Retail, ITC is introducing Choupal Fresh.
Then, there are companies like Bharti that partnered with the Rothschild Group to form FieldFresh Foods. They are entering the next stage of scaling up agricultural production in rural India to supply global markets. Are Indian farmers sufficiently stabilized in their newfound capabilities to remain sustainable as small businesses in light of this rapid scaling?
Andy Mukherjee writing for Bloomberg.com paints companies Reliance, ITC, and Bharti with a common brush regarding their intentions for the Indian farmers in light of a worse fate – Wal-Mart. The title of his article “Indian Food Trade Lures Reliance, Bars Wal-Mart,”1 suggests that a preferred strategy is keeping Wal-Mart at bay. Unfortunately, there are many paths that lead to premature globalization of food production at the farm level – even a seemingly healthy alliance between Bharti and Rothschild is fraught with difficulties!
Clearly, a Wal-Mart excursion into India would have a significant impact on the economics of farming and retailing in India. It poses a dilemma in whether to keep expanding the agricultural sector globally by building from a firm foundation of localized – linked – globalized farming operations, or prematurely opening the floodgates to global markets, compromising the system at local levels, and either becoming non-competitive due to excessive cost or entering the slippery slope of farm consolidation.
The title of a Knowledge@Wharton article, “Will Wal-Mart Succeed in India? Perhaps…But It Won’t Be Easy,”2 suggests imminent conflict with Indian retail chains and the Indian government in their unwillingness to allow direct foreign investment into the retail industry. In response, Wal-Mart has formed a joint venture with Bharti. Will that be enough to overcome native resistance? And in “Wal-Mart Pushing India to Lift Ban on Global Chain Stores” published in The Hometown Advantage by The New Rules Project, the argument is raised that large non-Indian retailers like Wal-Mart are not good for the local Indian economy because their realm of interest is with absentee shareholders, not the people of India at the local level. Proceeding further while carrying this lack of concern for the impact one’s business model has on people whose livelihoods are placed squarely at risk is catamount to unethical business practice. In this case, it reverses the preferred approach of localize – link – globalize to drive globalization first and align linkages to suck profits and resources away without stabilizing the local economies first.
The world has endured this “global first” extraction / domination model for centuries. It doesn’t work. It’s time to give it up!
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Sunday, September 3, 2006
…Ambani, 49, has finalized plans to invest more than $11 billion over the next decade to build two new satellite cities outside creaking, overcrowded Mumbai and Delhi. He foresees these metropolises emerging within just four years, each with a population of 5 million people making $5,000 a year, on average (or seven times India’s norm), and hosting top multinational companies. And that is all pretty simple – a development on steroids – compared with the idea that really gets Ambani going.
Ambani’s favorite scheme aims to revolutionize in one swoop two of India’s largest but most backward sectors: farming and retail. Despite boom times, India is still a nation where 100 million mostly small farmers work with ox and plow, where 96 percent of retail stores are mom-and-pop shops and most of the roads between farm and store are mud tracks. Ambani plans to invest $5 billion by 2011 to put both the farms and the stores on the road to modernity, connect them through a distribution system guided by the latest logistics technology, and create enough of a surplus to generate $20 billion in agricultural exports annually.
I don’t have a clue whether Mr. Ambani will be successful in achieving what he envisions. Actually, that is not the point. What is significant, though, is that he apparently understands the connections between the circumstances surrounding those who produce food, and food production, logistics, and retail sales to consumers; he is willing to challenge the inadequacies and deficiencies in the current system; and even more, he is taking no small risks in making a significant play to install an alternative system that is more respectful, efficient, and sustainable for those who participate at the “ground level,” so to speak.
Basically, Mr. Ambani is addressing the problem by taking an approach that runs backwards from the conventional wisdom of a globalized model. He is, first, raising the capability and capacity of the farmer / producer, establishing an infrastructure to move productive output swiftly and safely to downstream stages in the value-chain, and providing fair compensation for the farmer / producer to assure sustainability:
To transform Indian farmers into quality suppliers for his new retail chain, Ambani plans to create 1,600 farm-supply hubs across India, providing technical know-how and credit, selling seeds, fertilizer and fuel, and buying produce.
Then, he is scaling the output of the farmer / producer to exceed local demands for food stuff and move the overage into the global market:
He also plans to build some 85 logistics centers to move food to retail outlets and to ports and airports for export. Reliance is gearing up to train tens of thousands of new employees in the next six to eight months to do everything from erecting prefab warehouses to transporting fresh produce. Even Reliance’s admirers note that with little experience in farming or retail, Ambani is taking his biggest risks yet. “There will be mistakes,” Ambani admits. “But we are not scared. We will correct our mistakes fast and move on.”
This is opposite to the typical globalizing business model that strips output from agricultural producers for a pittance and pumps it into the global market at the outset without regard or interest in the sustainability of the producer’s business or preserving the sanctity of the local community. The consequence of the more typical approach is farm consolidation, loss of livelihood and location, and dependence on globalized agriculture for local food supplies – not a good position to be in if supply chains are disrupted.
The critical path is to stabilize the producer / provider at the individual / family / community level; link producers / providers with others through flexible and dynamic networks capable of moving information, goods, and services in response to demand AT A LOCAL LEVEL; and lastly, scale the operations to match output with fluctuations in demand on a global level. This simple three-step formula – localize, link, and globalize – is a useful scorecard to measure the validity of any strategy aimed at utilizing natural resources or leveraging human resources in particular areas. If it strives to globalize first or prematurely, the approach is exploitative at best and unconscionable at worst!
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Sunday, August 27, 2006
An important milestone was breached for a dear friend of mine on 30 June 2006. This was her last day in the office as Associate Dean and it marked the end of an accomplishment-filled 30-year career in academe. Yes, she retire — and with all the honor and distinction she so rightfully deserved.
But she didn’t get any from me, at least not in some openly communicated form. In fact, this is the first time I have acknowledged it publicly. And this behavior on my part is not the only instance. So far this year three close colleagues have either retired or significantly changed their lifestyle through post-retirement decisions. I really haven’t handled any of them very graciously.
Over the years I have coached countless numbers of people representing a wide range of principles, achievements, and ambitions to get from where they are into career spaces they wanted to explore. This included helping several with their transitions into retirement. In looking back, though, I realize that with only rare exception, contact with them is lost after they retire. They went on and I went on and we went in different directions. It seemed natural enough – things DO change and life DOES play out differently for each of us. They were busy with grandchildren and family, avocations and second careers, volunteer projects and philanthropies, entertainment and travel: the typical, “things to do, places to go, and people to see.” We were not in the same spaces; and that was OK.
But that was then and this is now. These three retirement-related changes have me feeling antsy and unsettled. As is typical for retirements, the long-time working relationships I enjoyed beforehand were disrupted and the career and profession-related agenda “platforms” that framed conversations prior to retirement disappeared. This is nothing new. In the past I would attend the retirement parties of those I coached, acknowledge their achievements, and we would go our separate ways. But not in these instances – we are simply going our separate ways without even a whimper. Why?
Let’s see now, one is 53, another is 58, the third is 57, and – well – I am 56! Wait a minute, these are my peers! This could be MY retirement! This cannot be! I am not ready to retire. Maybe the coach needs a coach!
No, I am not ready to retire. But the retirement transitions of my good friends and former colleagues raise a very important question for me that, apparently, I have not given due consideration: what’s next, Mr. Bosserman? So, THAT’S what this is all about.
Life is fleeting regardless of genetics, health, and life circumstances. The only reality is that we will not get out of this world alive. My dad died of a heart attack when he was my age. My brother has survived heart attacks and surgeries and is soon to be 75. Our mother lived to be 86 and her mother made it to 90. The truth for me is somewhere between here and there with the only certainty being what’s here, now.
Life is about flow across time horizons we impose for our own sense of control. For us to gain perspective, we describe the current periods in which we live based on what we left behind in earlier phases and where we are going in subsequent stages. While we may convince ourselves that we have control over these transitions, we don’t really have all that much. However, we can choose responses to how we feel about where we are, what we are doing, and what we are considering. And this is the basis for as much management over change as one can muster.
My friends’ retirements cause me to re-examine how I’m feeling about what’s going on for me. This year marks my 20th year of self-employment. These two decades afforded me the opportunity to experience everything that makes strategic framing and organization design such a challenging and rewarding professional area of focus. Most of all it put me in touch with all manner of people, their purposes, principles, and intentions, and the organization relationships they established to carry out their hopes and dreams. It is and it was a GREAT career choice!
While I can argue that there is certainly more to be done in this field and more that I can contribute, my creative spirit is drawn elsewhere. During much of my professional life I have been intrigued by the combination of graphics and the written word to communicate complex ideas and concepts through a universal language of symbols and verbiage. Developing my skills at tapping the power these media hold and applying it more fully for the benefit of others is the next phase of my professional interest and endeavor.
Over the years, I have learned much about people and organized behavior, leadership, and the impact of information and communication technologies on how people do what they do more effectively and efficiently. Using these media to convey that learning to others so they can better do what they do is a legacy worth leaving. And maybe that’s what this is REALLY about – leaving something behind that helps others fulfill their lives. There is a strong tie between legacy-leaving and successful transitions. After all it is difficult to give up one for another unless this is an alternative worth choosing.
So, Marilyn, Bob, and Ross you are ALWAYS a part of my life and you are STILL shaping what I’m doing by doing what you are doing. Communicating through writing and graphics – how IS this going to play out? There is this blog; there is a book with Ed Hiler; there is a book with my brother; there are countless emails and web postings. The list goes on and on. Watch out; I may even write about you 😉 I can think of no one more deserving than you to have the best that can be said about you said the best way it can be said. Hopefully, I am a match for the occasion!
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Sunday, July 9, 2006
Last week when I was visiting friends in a small, rural German village, my host’s eighteen year-old daughter, Lara, asked if I knew the “Declaration of Independence.” “Of course,” I quickly stated while punctuating that harrumph with the added self-assuring thought to myself, “What American doesn’t know the Declaration of Independence.” “We’re studying it in school,” she added. “Our teacher is making us memorize the introduction. Why do we have to do that? It’s two-hundred thirty years old. This is stupid!” Silence. Hmmm. She asked me if I REALLY know it, not if I knew about it! “Do you know it from heart – can you say it right now?” I inquired incredulously. Without a moment’s hesitation she blurted out the nearly 300 words in perfectly elocuted, well-delivered English. As she is reciting I am wondering, how many American kids her age can do this? My two at home are fourteen and fifteen and they don’t have a clue! I want to think they are typical middle school / high school kids, so – hypothesizing from and “n” of two – American kids get a big “F” for failure on this one. But what about the larger question she asked, “Why do we have to do that?” that is the real bugaboo. Why, indeed.
The trite answer is, “use it or lose it.” Urban legend has it that many of the signers of the “Declaration of Independence” came to a bad end due to their association with that act. While Snopes argues that many of these legends are exactly that, fabrications, checking world history, liberty does come at a price and freedom when taken for granted is lost. The common thread through the rise and fall of liberty and freedom is the ascent or descent of political and economic systems within a governmental jurisdiction. Clearly, the trajectory is an arc and what goes up must come down. Nothing stays the same; the only constant is change; and as an old “bull of the woods” boss of mine used to say, “The only thing that runs itself, runs downhill.”
In The New York Times, June 27, 2006 edition, Op-Ed Columnist, Nicholas D. Kristof wrote an editorial entitled, Chinese Medicine for American Schools. Dateline: Shanghai, Kristof writes:
But the investments in China’s modernization that are most impressive of all are in human capital. The blunt fact is that many young Chinese in cities like Shanghai or Beijing get a better elementary and high school education than Americans do. That’s a reality that should embarrass us and stir us to seek lessons from China.
And he concludes with the following:
During the Qing Dynasty that ended in 1912, China was slow to learn lessons from abroad and adjust its curriculum, and it paid the price in its inability to compete with Western powers. These days, the tables are turned, and now we Americans need to learn from China.
When the Declaration of Independence was enacted in 1776 Great Britain was drawing closer to the apogee of its strength as the greatest political and economic power on earth. While the hard-fought independence of the American colonies did not compromise Great Britain’s destiny as a world super power, it did send a signal that despite such greatness nothing lasts forever. Others will challenge what is taken for granted. And as was the case with the former American colonies, the United States eventually supplanted Britain as a stronger powerhouse on the world stage.
Below are the “charges” brought against King George II – deemed by the colonists who revolted, “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.”
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
So, who’s going up and who’s coming down make all the difference. Based on who is affronted by such conditions and the context in which they live their lives, people choose to either accept those conditions or challenge them. It is in making this choice that the principles defining the space where liberty and freedom prevail are brought to the forefront, given true meaning, and set the stage for a just civilization to progress. The very conditions imposed by an unjust government from which the colonists declared their independence now perpetrates those same conditions on its citizens and others. What some 230 years ago was unacceptable is now relegated to the ranks of the routine. We are quickly forgetting why our forefathers took the stand they did. But it won’t take others elsewhere to pick up the banner from us. Liberty, freedom, and justice that underpin them, live on forever! And that, my friends, is why we read and memorize the Declaration of Independence!
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Tuesday, July 4, 2006
A colleague of mine is working on a white paper about various trends affecting agriculture over the next 10 years. These futuristic endeavors are fraught with peril because who really knows what the future will hold – no one. But clients and colleagues are constantly looking for ways to talk about the future with sufficient clarity and confidence that their audiences go away having more insight than otherwise.
What can one say about the future that holds true beyond the simple inevitability that the world will end and life on this planet will cease? Not much, it seems, if one is searching for specificity. But in general, there are several points that can be made which offer a framework for consideration when looking at the future.
My previous posting discussed “push” and “pull” business models. The embedded diagram illustrated a progression from individual products / services to integrated product / service combinations.
In the diagram below, this same progression forms a backdrop to highlight an increasing integration over time characterized by solutionizing and convergence.
The objective is human equivalence as introduced in an earlier posting. The balance of this diagram sets up two critical relationships that supplement increasing integration. First, developments in nanotechnology, genetics, and robotics continue to displace people from making things. And second, as artificial intelligence becomes more robust and capable of emulating human problem-solving, human intelligence is pressed into service to address an expanding awareness of the enormous complexity within the whole of creation. In other words, human intelligence leads artificial intelligence into areas of greater sophistication, ambiguity, and choice. This accelerates the advances in artificial intelligence hastening the day when it effectively achieves human equivalence.
Between now and then, the trends to watch are directly influenced by technology operating at the molecular, atomic, and sub-atomic levels, recombining DNA, and merging the biological with the mechanical. Whether related to care and consideration for the environment, applying agricultural practices to the production of food, feed, fiber, or fuel, or raising the quality of life, all are overshadowed by developments in these three areas. In general terms, to watch the evolution of technology as it shrinks to the barely detectable, rearranges genetic structure at will, and creates androids that eventually replace us will be exhilarating, unnerving, and perhaps traumatic, but inevitable. These then, are the primary trends. All others are of secondary importance. More later…
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Monday, April 24, 2006
Through the three hundred-year reign of the Industrial Age, businesses “pushed” their products and services onto consumers. Limited choice accompanied by considerable marketing hype was enough to make the consumer buy. It was a sellers’ market. Now, thanks largely to the Information Age, consumers are evolving into customers who can select what they want from a variety of providers. It is becoming a buyers’ market. But further changes are afoot. As customers get more they expect more, especially in terms of their business performance, their quality of life, and the welfare of the planet. Customers are beginning to “pull” solutions toward them rather than take what is “pushed” at them. Just like the challenges confronting the two-headed llama in Dr. Doolittle’s menagerie of strange animals, the implications of “push” or “pull” on business strategies are enormous. The differences between a business model intended to push products and services to consumers vis-à-vis a model built in support of customers pulling solutions into a shared reality are significant. While many companies will be impacted by this switch from “push” to “pull,” few will be prepared for the transition.
As indicated in the diagram below, there are numerous dynamics at play in the understanding and application of the push and pull business models. Can any business traditionally steeped in a push model operate concurrently with a pull model? It’s a question well worth consideration. There are no quick and easy answers. Read on…
See “Business Flow and Business Models-v14Apr2006” in “John Deere” folder
Distance to the Customer Revisited
A previous post explored the relationship between the dissipating Industrial Age and the emerging Relationship Age in terms of “distance.” During the height of the Industrial Age, many products and services were built, packaged, and delivered according to rigid, standardized specifications. While individual customers may have had some leeway in personalizing their purchases, all too often the range of possibilities were narrowly prescribed by the provider. Basically, consumers were pressed into a mold that kept them at a “distance” from providers and in a position to have to accept whatever product configurations providers offered. This enabled businesses to take advantage of certain “economies of scale” and improve operating efficiencies which reduced their costs, improved margins, and led to lower prices and greater competitiveness. Successful marketing campaigns generated more sales and revenue. The resulting profits were distributed to shareholders and used to grow the business through investments in people and their research and development. It was a simple formula for sustainability!
The advent of the Information Age began to challenge this formula. Advances in communication and information technologies opened doors to opportunities previously unknown or unavailable. Consumers became more aware of and had greater access to a wider range of product and service possibilities. In effect, as consumer expectations became more specific and refined, they became customers no longer content to take only what was offered by a limited number of providers. Gone were the days when if they wanted a unique, customized package they had to be willing to pay an exorbitant price – an option out of the question for most during the Industrial Age. Now, it was becoming routine to get exactly what one wanted at a reasonable price by comparative shopping in a larger universe of providers.
Businesses were also taking advantage of the Information Age. Formerly, the buying characteristics and specific business and lifestyle needs / wants of individual customers were not discernible. What market analysis was done came at great cost and with little granularity in the results leaving businesses to make gross generalizations about consumer interests within broadly defined markets. However, just as communication and information technologies gave customers more choices in providers, businesses used these same technological advances to learn more about their current and prospective customers. Lack of distinction among market groups has given way to proliferation of well-defined market niches and segments. While developing accurate and complete profiles on individual customers in mass markets remains a goal still in the future, the gulf is closing and the distance between the customer and the provider is shrinking.
Application of Intelligence, Innovation, and Knowledge
Regardless of the industry or circumstance, businesses imbue intelligence, innovation, and knowledge into their deliverables. Whether for professional or personal use, when customers make purchases they are buying know-how. The narrowing customer-business gap is shifting the point at which customers expect intelligence, innovation, and knowledge to be applied and where businesses must be forthcoming and effective at imparting it.
During the Industrial Age intelligence, innovation, and knowledge were instilled in products and services at the moment of their invention then distributed widely into large market areas. In the Information Age, developments in technologies enabled products and services to be combined in different configurations that yielded much better performance, reduced prices, and a wider selection of possibilities for the customer to choose. In effect, the application of intelligence, innovation, and knowledge shifted from solely in the products and services to their combinations.
Companies successful at making this shift purposefully designed the interfaces between various product and service lines so that the highest level of efficiency, effectiveness, and value occurred with those products and services from the same company. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Microsoft. Starting with a simple operating system that became the standard for the vast majority of PCs, Microsoft continued to develop an array of supplementary software packages that interfaced easily with its own evolving operating system. This powerful combination of products and services proved to be a huge barrier to entry for competitors and Microsoft became the dominant player in the industry within a very short period.
As technology advances even further, the point of application for intelligence, innovation, and knowledge moves along with it. This shift goes past individual products and services or combinations of them to include multiple combinations from a diverse selection of providers. It is fueled in large degree by the breakdown in barriers that separate the product and service lines of one company with those of another, especially among competitors. The elimination of boundaries directly challenges the Industrial Age paradigm wherein companies attempted to keep their parts, components, and assemblies proprietary, non-standard, and separate from those of other companies in order to leverage internal investments and resources. The Information Age paradigm is leading to widespread adoption of comprehensive, industry-wide standards such as ISOBUS in the agricultural equipment arena, and the integration of two previously incompatible and competitive products into one as with Apple’s beta version of Boot Camp, which enable Macs to run Windows operating systems and software natively. This is the advantage that comes from being able to fluidly mix and match product and service offering from a multitude of companies.
Who Is the Integrator?
While seamless combinations of products and services are certainly a major step forward for customers striving to improve their businesses and quality of life, they still require the customer to analyze requirements, consider alternatives, make selections, and deal with the consequences one way or the other. Basically, the customer is still the “integrator” – the one who puts a solution or system altogether at the end as businesses compete among themselves for the right to provide the various pieces. In an environment that went from offering few choices to one harboring an infinite variety, life went from the seemingly simple to the extremely complex.
This growth in complexity comes at considerable cost in terms of time, energy, creativity, and money for the customer managing a business or personal interests. As a result, responsibility for integrating complete and comprehensive solutions for customers is quickly moving from the customer to the business. The nexus for delivering intelligence, innovation, and knowledge is still on the move. It is beginning to cover the full range of customers’ businesses or personal endeavors, the processes and tools they utilize, and the groups, entities, and individuals with whom they interface and interact. Companies that once “pushed” individual and combinations of products and services are now being asked to “partner” with a single customer, focus together on that customer’s business / lifestyle model, and “pull” a solution to it from the myriad possibilities within a supportive network / web. The Relationship Age is dawning!
While this evolution is predictable and straightforward, it is difficult to carry out. Usually, companies do one and not the other. Even when they start with the more traditional push model and dedicate a portion of their business to the pull model, they will eventually isolate one from the other or jettison one and leave the other. One of the most recent companies to make such a transition is IBM. In 1991, IBM was known for its computer hardware and consulting business. Mainframes and PCs constituted core businesses within IBM’s portfolio. Then, in 1991 IBM started another division, IBM Global Services, focused on developing and delivering total solutions in response to the needs of customers’ businesses. Today, IBM Global Services generates nearly $50 billion in revenue – over half of the total revenue for the entire corporation. To accentuate how challenging it is to maintain both business models, in 2005, IBM completed the sale of its PC division to Lenevo, a subsidiary of Legend Holdings in China. After being in PC design and production from the inception of the industry, IBM was now out of this business. And its Global Services arm continues to grow.
Companies think because they are offering integrated product and service packages of varying degrees of comprehensiveness and coverage they are using a pull model. This is not the case. Most companies continue to use variations of the push model wherein individual products and services are blended into certain combinations which are integrated with other combinations to increase appeal to the customer. When the number of additional features and functions included in the package reaches the point where the customer feels the deal is better than competitive offerings, the customer buys. No matter how sophisticated the bargaining process is between sales agents for the company and the customer, it remains a ‘here’s-what-I-have-to-sell-what-is-it-going-to-take-for-you-to-buy’ transaction – the customer is still the integrator.
Businesses that use the pull model begin with the customer’s business or personal interest “portfolio” – the critical mix of conditions and expectations within which the customer develops plans, takes action, and pulls a solution to it. The businesses are intimately aware of the customer’s business model. As such, they know how an opportunity fits into the customer’s portfolio; and they have the customer’s confidence that they can pull a powerful solution into place and put it into play. The customer trusts that the provider’s intelligence, innovation, and knowledge in large systems thinking and behavior is sufficient to bring about an appropriate solution in response – one that is so much BETTER than the customer’s approach that there is no need for the customer to second-guess the provider. The company becomes the integrator. The customer is relieved from managing a substantial level of complexity and can apply new-found time and energy into other areas of opportunity or interest.
An Opportunity Looking for a Place to Happen
At the outset of this posting I asked, can any business traditionally steeped in a push model operate concurrently with a pull model? Yes, but only to the degree that the business is willing to invest in a one-on-one working relationship with a customer — one of the hallmarks of the budding Relationship Age — to the point that the customer trusts that the business is the better integrator. It is a negotiated “partnership,” not a bargaining agreement.
How would one know the difference? An example might help. In May 2000, the German Bundestag passed the Renewable Energy Sources Act. Amendments to the act went into effect in August, 2004 that opened the door for numerous business opportunities for those in agricultural production. As the name of the act suggests and its content describes in detail, development of renewable energy sources for electric power generation is a major focus of the measure. One of the renewable sources encouraged is bioenergy, which includes biogas and biomass. Given the growing interest in biogas, there is a high likelihood that for some in organic agriculture in Germany a significant percentage of their business portfolios would be enriched by a biogas production component. Studies show how German producers can extract a distinct advantage by integrating biogas production in their overall operations.
This is an opportunity for businesses to emerge that provide customers with comprehensive organic agriculture portfolio solutions “pulled” from a broad-based network of product and service providers. A list of companies involved in biogas / bio-energy listed by Renewables Made in Germany is telling: not many companies are shown; those who are offer products and services related to the technology associated with bio-energy; those with established reputations as integrators using pull-based models are not listed. This is a heretofore unrealized business opportunity. The company that shows up with a viable, trusted process of engaging customers who are in agriculture production to improve their business portfolios by drawing upon deep support networks to pull a solution into play will win. So far businesses in this market are pushing their products and services. The customer is relegated to an age-old role of an integrator. How much longer? Time is drawing short. Let’s watch and see what transpires over the next few months!
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Sunday, April 16, 2006
This past month, I had the opportunity to work with people across several units within a client organization and develop a strategic framework to inform their planning for future initiatives and projects. Some of the concepts and ideas we explored were related to topics I have introduced in previous posts here and here. This posting draws upon a couple of the diagrams we developed as a way to open the door to the future a bit further and peek into what’s inside.
In Figure 1 below, technology is plotted against society and economy. The vertical axis represents a trend that continues to influence humanity in all aspects: technology becoming faster, smaller, stronger, more integrated, and more intelligent by the day, hour, second. As technology advances, it displaces people from production – from making things. This was the impetus for the Industrial Age wherein mechanization displaced craftsmanship. It started the Information Age with its emphasis on integration and the globalization of production to those areas where human competency and capacity can be found for the lowest cost. And it will precipitate the Relationship Age wherein a wide range of relationships among people utilizing things is supported rather than being a means through which people are occupied making things and are kept apart from one another. This emphasis on relationships leads to increased localization at a community level.
As indicated in the horizontal axis, society and economy changes as these different ages unfold. The Industrial Age created jobs requiring specific skills. People learned skills / trades at school and entered the workplace where their skills were honed by experience on the job. Job opportunities represented income opportunities. Jobs, like the businesses that defined them, were mobile, starting, ending, expanding or moving from location to location depending on the economic circumstances in one area versus another. Where the jobs went, so did the people as it was relatively simple to relocate. People chased the chance to make things!
The Information Age began to shift the emphasis from physical production to the virtualization of production: distributed resources and capabilities, processes and tools, and real-time communication and networks. While work was still packaged as jobs, the nature of the work was rapidly changing – and still is. Having a defined set of tasks outlined on a job description pasted in a box within the hierarchy of an organization chart is no longer the guideline for the work required. Instead, people are expected to communicate across organizational boundaries, participate in open networks to stay abreast of changes in their work context, and form ad-hoc, multi-disciplinary teams focused on taking timely advantage of various opportunities as they emerge. Rather than being rewarded for doing the job, they are rewarded for adding value through collective effort. Competencies in convening and leading teams, being an effective team member, making meaning out of seemingly disparate pieces, identifying opportunities and advancing them in actionable ways, and fostering alignment across diverse groups to gain greater leverage are critical aspects in a person’s portfolio. This portfolio is marketable and portable; and like job mobility of the Industrial Age, the portfolio of the Information Age is mobile. Just ask the person sitting next to you on the airplane!
The Relationship Age has yet to get underway, although we can see vestiges of it on the periphery. As the virtualization of production continues and technology displaces even more people from the act of making things, the relationships among people becomes virtualized. By taking advantage of the same technologies that are virtualizing production, a person’s portfolio becomes virtualized and the competencies and capabilities contained within it can be delivered to anywhere from anywhere at any time. This changes the whole concept of where a person lives and works. Work becomes localized and community-based even though the delivery of that work may be anywhere in the world. A person begins to consider community affiliations for reasons other than job or work assignment. Commitment to a community can be longer term when the job or work does not cause one to be uprooted. Civic responsibility and being of service to the community takes root. Community infrastructures are strengthened and service endeavors are expanded. The dependence on larger regional and federal support structures dissipates. This is an entirely different model for living and one that has yet to be developed much less institutionalized. What will such changes mean to society, governance, economics, etc.? A “brave new world” unfolding, but what kind of brave new world will it be?
These questions are more rhetorical than answerable, but they do set the stage for a more accessible and pertinent topic – the relationship to the marketplace. The diagram below is a variation on the previous chart. The ever ubiquitous technology remains entrenched on the vertical axis driving the shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age to the Relationship Age. However, the horizontal axis, society and economy, focuses on the transition from producing things to generating information to delivering service as the three “ages” are experienced.
There is now a point to all this activity: the marketplace. How our relationship to the marketplace changes during the transitions through these “ages” is of particular significance. During the Industrial Age the concept was to produce things and people would buy simply because the goods were available and they had the means to buy them. There was a deliberate distance from the purchaser and the producer. “Make it and they will buy,” was the attitude.
In the Information Age people have more information about products and services and they have more choices. Furthermore, they have the opportunity to switch from a set of individual products performing single functions to one product capable of doing multiple functions. The term used is “convergence.” Also, they can opt for products and services that are tied together into systems more powerful and capable as a whole than the sum of the contributions from each. The term “integration” is used to describe this phenomenon. The combination of convergence and integration changes the relationship to the person buying it. Rather than being viewed as a distant and generalized “consumer” who will buy anything made, the purchaser becomes a customer with highly individualized expectations and means requiring specific “solutions” in order for the sale to be made. The need to “know the customer” becomes paramount in this situation and brings the business closer to the customer.
It also brings people closer together either virtually or physically. Value is determined by how well one can understand the needs of a customer and package a solution that responds to those needs. As the position of the “we are here” circle and “x” on the chart indicates, we are just starting to move into that overlap between industrial age thinking and information age thinking about the customer rather than the consumer. Over the next span of time, the value quotient will increase in size based on a closer relationship with the customer as exemplified by the “we are heading here” point.
Underlying the relationships of people to people and people to solutions is the concept of delivering service. The more we leave making things and shift to utilizing things our value to one another will be in how well we facilitate the integration of things to people in really useful solution packages. To know what people truly need will require knowing how people live and how they aspire to live – that means living in their communities, understanding their circumstances, and being part of their solutions rather than seen as part of their problems. Once again, this is an entirely different model. What does it mean? How would it work? Questions without answers for now, but since human nature abhors a vacuum, we’re working on the answers to fill the void!
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Sunday, March 5, 2006
Diversity is closely linked to organization effectiveness and feeds the dynamics associated with garnering social power, distributing authority, and exercising leadership. Ross MacDonald, introduced in previous blog postings here and here, and Monica Bernardo co-authored a recent paper published in the Journal of Developmental Education, Fall 2005, Vol 29, No 1 highlighting their research on “diversity” and “ground truth.” Ross is warmly welcomed back to this blog to draw from his and Monica’s paper about this key topic. Ross, the floor is yours…
In previous articles about ground truth, I highlighted the importance of attending to multiple perspectives. In this entry I consider the issue of how well we listen to and to what degree we value multiple perspectives by focusing on the catch phrase, diversity. Nearly every organization must consider issues of diversity. Weighing in on diversity are federal mandate, state law, judicial threat, moral authority, public pressure, and pressure from employees. Clearly, leadership in any organization must consider “diversity issues.” Whatever that means. And that’s the problem as I see it.
Too many discussions about diversity fail to consider what it is we are talking about. In so doing we make diversity issues an onus and not an opportunity. We have typically answered the call for diversity by attending to the most superficial features of skin tone and gender and by trying to up the numbers of the under-represented. In so doing, we delude ourselves and others that a “head counting” approach is both powerful and meaningful. After all, it is easier to vary the color of faces than to listen closely to their experiences and alter our thinking about the complex dynamics of difference that play out among us. An exclusive focus on placing people into a set of categories based on gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so forth blinds us to the less visible and more complex dynamics of diversity of which we all are a part.
The problem is that this is a convenient kind of blinding; it allows us to assume that because we have satisfied a numbers requirement, we have achieved diversity. While adding people to the mix certainly has intrinsic value and moral force, we must consider what happens in that mixing. How are people interacting? How are those satisfying diversity numbers being positioned and perceived? Pursuing these questions in good faith and with open minds increases organizational capacity. Wouldn’t that kind of understanding be immensely useful to any organization looking to enhance employee relations, heighten team productivity, and serve a broadening customer base?
Therefore I propose that we pursue diversity as a continually expanding knowledge about the dynamics of difference. Considering diversity as a dynamic of difference requires questioning how we perceive, value, and act on differences among us in our organizations and communities.
Recent advances in astrophysics provide an apt analogy for understanding the dynamic of diversity. In studying the universe to search for the origins of energy and life, astrophysicists traditionally have relied almost exclusively on what they could see — visible light and its properties — to explain the universe and its workings. Similarly, in our work and social environments, traditional thinking about diversity also has attended to what we could most conveniently see, variations in skin tone and gender, to understand the complex workings of our social and organizational universes.
Now, however, astrophysicists have inferred the presence of invisible matter and invisible energy. Invisible matter is believed to be a key underlying dynamic of the phenomena of gravity. Invisible energy exercises forces so powerful as to compel the continuing expansion of the universe. Once scientists attended to their own false assumption that there was nothing there, they saw that there was in fact a great deal operating outside their view of the world. Once they attended to those things and their operations, their understanding of the dynamics of the universe changed dramatically. For an example, click here.
Similarly, the seeming invisibility of complex energies surrounding the dynamics of difference should not lead us to falsely assume that there is simply nothing there. Like invisible light and invisible matter, these dynamics of difference are very much a part of our world, representing little-understood forms of energy which, if understood more thoroughly, could propel organizations to greater understanding, acceptance, and profit.
What are the implications of the dynamics of difference for communities and organizations? We must first recognize that those who stand out when we count heads are very likely minorities and thus subject to daily uncertainty as to when ill-founded judgments are being made about them. In my thirty years as an educator who focused on programs for nontraditional students, I heard story after story about the uncertainty of daily life. Did the store owner ignore me because of an automatic belief that I have no money to spend? Conversely, am I being followed in the music store because the employee thinks I am going to steal something? Are my children being tracked into lower expectation classes because of their skin color? In my work with organizations I have repeatedly heard questions such as the following: Am I being positioned on this work group because of my skills and knowledge like everyone else or is my skin tone being positioned to create the look of diversity? Does hiring an affirmative action officer deeply invest all employees with acting affirmatively or does it allow them to shift responsibility solely to the office of affirmative action?
Yes, these actions happen daily. Yes, there are situations which may look like these where there is no malice but still the harm. And yes, some situations lack both malice and harm. But it grinds on people to deal daily with the uncertainty and to have those who don’t deal with these uncertainties discredit reports of that experience. This daily uncertainty is a fundamental part of being different but is less detectable and thus believed less credible by those in the mainstream. Therefore an important part of the dynamic of diversity is that those who are perceived as different must daily try to navigate these situations and deal with the uncertainty presented to them. Click here for a wide range of resources.
Many of those not perceived as different just don’t understand this. Their detectors are not calibrated for this subtle dynamic. They can justifiably condemn the dramatically evil and violent acts stemming from prejudice in cases such as Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr.. In contrast, however, the day-to-day grind of being different is not as easily detected by those who haven’t lived it. Like previous astrophysicists, they have falsely assumed that because something wasn’t visible to them, there was simply nothing there. Yet the presence of those moment-to-moment reminders of difference and the on-going uncertainty about whether those judgments are at play in any given circumstance are key components of the dynamics of diversity. We must therefore attend to them.
Moreover, attending to this dynamic creates opportunities to position people’s heretofore invisible energies in ways advantageous to the central purposes of an organization. Why is it that, when a major bank hires Spanish-speaking tellers in its branches in Spanish-speaking communities, its customer base expands? The obvious, easily seen reason is that the teller and the customer are of the same culture, speak the same language, and can therefore relate. Following that logic, a bank should identify languages spoken in various communities and hire tellers accordingly. Is this really possible? Consider that in Southern California’s 181 school districts and 2,000 public elementary schools, more than 90 languages are spoken.
But is there more to it than language? Is it a kind of resonance which is communicated from the teller and believed by the customer – an understanding of what it is for an outsider to access the bank and of how to make a smoother connection between the bank’s resources and its customers’ needs? Is it a kind of “seeing” of that customer that others don’t? Suppose these and other factors other than language are at play and can be trained in tellers, loan agents and branch managers? If so, then it would certainly benefit the bank to invest all employees in connecting with the customer base just coming into view. We will only know if we ask the question and peer into the less visible light.
In both the universe and the workplace, there is much to be learned from what we haven’t seen. A critical step is to recognize the limitations of one’s vision – in the case of astrophysics, the limitations of telescopes and mathematical models — and in the case of organizational leadership, the limitations of identifying diversity based only on that to which we have historically attended and is most easily seen. In the same way that scientists gained tremendous insight by gazing into those formerly invisible areas of space, so might we see the ‘invisible’ dynamics by gazing into the less seen areas of marginalized people’s experiences — if we simply direct our attention there. Understanding these ground truths and shaping them into positive assets increases social cohesion and business productivity.
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Sunday, February 19, 2006
Frameworks for Understanding the World 