Thinking about all of the discussions about change "from the bottom up"
when all of these models being proposed to the working man and woman below
the management level are top down. Even the idea of change must come from
the top or the top won't allow it. Meanwhile the "bottom" simply wonders
if they're going to be able to retire or if that's too far away, whether
they will be able to survive the latest "flexibility" myth being sold to
the top, without having a heart attack or their children deciding to be
drug entrepreneurs and going to jail because they weren't home enough to
grow up with them, since both husband and wife work. And if they should
reach retirement and their children marry or go to college, will their
benefits be there or will it have been raided by the management or some
other raider. Like the Sequoias. Thousands of years of genetic history
manifest in the present only to be chopped and sold for some Japanese' or
European's villa.
If I were on the bottom, I wonder if change would mean anything. If I
were on the top I wonder if all of that new found profit would not stir
doubts about the wrestling team I have on my property. Is it fair that I
have to bear the burden for all of those charities for people who, as
Pierre (Pete) S. du Pont IV former governor of Delaware and member of the
Republican tax reform commission speaking of the second lowest tax rate in
the industrialized world, on the op-ed page of the Boston Globe said:
"The tax code as it exists today..." he said, "is a politicized method of
unequally extracting income from people who have earned it (everyone knows
that inheritances are earned REH) and transferring it to people who
haven't but who the politicians in Congress think have a superior claim to
it." As examples of the latter he mentions "drug addicts who need Federal
dollars to support their habits and pornographic arts programs."
Now I won't make any bones about what I feel about that last statement.
Let me just say that if you go down to his stable you probably won't find
much of it in his well swept horse stalls.
But let's assume that former Governor Pierre (Pete) S. du Pont IV really
believes that he is being ripped off by the Government and the lower
classes and that all of those "Charities" like the Olympics, Hospitals,
Orchestras, Church, etc. hound him to death and make him believe that the
only reason anyone would ever have a relationship with him, other than
people of his own class, would be to cheat him out of his "hard earned
inheritance." If the only reason the world wants to know you is to take
something from you, then you had better have it to take or you will be
alone. Makes you understand old HLHunt walking across his lawn after a
party picking up plastic forks and bagging his lunch.
Let's say that you put some facsimile of these two scripts into a work
place and see where real change might come from. On the bottom, the 18 to
20 year olds "don't know," the 20 to 30 year olds still see a "Father who
might recognize them as the child that no one ever told him about." The
30 to 40 year olds have a slick script with the dream of floating above it
all with the 40 to 50 year olds beginning to realize that this is the
"whole ball of wax" and only power and expertise and the ability to stomp
will grant them the privilege of holding on, but they get "tired at the
end of the day" though refusing to show the others that they aren't still
30 to 40. The 50 to 65 year olds progress from fear to a kind of hopeless
relief.
For the middle management you make some version of the above including
outside investments and more personal wealth but the formula essentially
remains the same. A change of job works for a while until it becomes too
hard to move a household. Children grow up, the wife who may have stayed
home, finds a job and is not around. Secretaries and younger female
management become material for "mentoring", but essentially the alienation
is the same. If you don't like the male version you can just reverse it.
If this sounds like a sitcom, it is. But all of the material has been in
the NYTimes and WSJournal in the last week, Oh and don't forget the Boston
Globe. As has been pointed out in other posts in the last couple of days,
the issues of culture, age, community and family have begun to intrude
into the inner sanctum of businessdum. Let's not take the standard WSJ
tack and say that change should happen for money or stock's sake.
Although it does sometimes help. Let's consider, like the Olympic
Wrestling team, that everything is successful, but these personal issues
could blow the place apart. Change then, must mean something other than
more efficiency.
How about this? Ideals have to come from the top down in order for change
to happen from the ground up. In addition, the company is only as
successful as the least employee and shareholder is successful. That does
not mean after layoffs! If you want a company to act cooperatively, like
a family or community, then you have to remember sibling rivalry and all
that other psychological stuff. The model that I use is closest to Doug
Seeley's chaos connection model. That model says that "success can only
be judged from the bottom up and happens at different times, like the
blossom of a broccoli, hence my Harvard physicist friend from Austin
dubbed it the "Broccoli model." We Indians always get it naturally. Ha!
Oh yes, the last and most crucial part. Remember George Armstrong Custer.
(The part to take care of the Icahns and T. Boone's) You have to be
willing to learn about other cultures existing in the U.S. financial
community. I mean the Hunter Gatherers and the Gaulic Raiders, etc. Your
team must remember that the citizen armies of Rome never succeeded against
the Gauls until they learned to be professional at defending and "stand
together no matter what." (Former OU Coach Barry Switzer, taught that to
Dallas also. Oklahoma seems to have forgotten it.) In short, your team
has to be sophisticated from the bottom up, about the market and who lives
there.
Dr. Deming would say the Japanese did it first, but who cares as long as
it works.
Best,
-- Ray Evans Harrell Artistic Director The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc. 200 West 70th Street, Suite 6-c New York City, New York 10023-4324 212-724-2398 mcore@soho.ios.com