Unintended Consequences or Lack of Forethought?

Usually, when decisions that we make have a profound impact on other things or people, we say that there were unintended consequences. At times, I will agree. Most of the time, in fact, that is probably true. We may not have intended those consequences, but they happened anyway. In reality, we hoped those bad things weren’t going to happen.

The problem isn’t that the outcomes were completely unforeseen. It’s just that we didn’t think them through enough to understand what the impact would be.

I’ll give an example. Congress decides to offer substantial farm subsidies, greater than normal, for corn grown for ethanol. It is a politically expedient choice to make as it signals to Americans they are finding ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Perhaps on all oil for that matter.

So farmers throughout the Midwest start dedicating their acreage to corn grown for ethanol. They enjoy higher subsidies. We get cheaper blended gas (not available everywhere). Everyone is happy.

Everyone except people who like to eat. With less corn being grown for feed, it gets more expensive to feed cattle, pigs and chickens. It leads to higher prices for meat, milk and anything that contains high fructose corn syrup (check your pantry, and you’ll find that ingredient in most non-organically produced products).

Oh yeah, and the potential costs of using corn-based ethanol as our primary fuel source far outweighs any benefit. Certainly, there are other options, such as sugar or nearly any other starch producing product. Many of the same issues, however, are likely to appear.

Additionally, once we figure out the best option, we will have to wait several years for widespread access while automakers design, build and sell the cars that will run on the fuel. Other countries have a bit of a headstart on us, but they don’t consume nearly the amount of fuel that we do in America, so it’s not a fair comparison.

For the record, let me state that I am an enormous proponent of reducing our dependence on all oil, both foreign and domestic. But with the world having more mouths to feed every day and less land for farming at nearly the same rate, Earth-bound, plant-based fuels is not the way to go.

I don’t have the solution, so, in reality, I should keep my mouth shut on this (one of my mantras is that you have no right to criticize unless you have an alternative to offer).

No. As a matter of fact, I do have some solutions. Many of which would be easy to implement and in some cases are already there.

• Business tax credits for telecommuting—the technology is available for most businesses
• Time shifts to reduce energy usage and traffic buildups
• Investments in light rail
• Greater emphasis on fuel-efficient commuter vehicles (save the SUVs for weekend family excursions)

And we’d still be able to eat.

Check out this Wikipedia entry about ethanol for a pretty good look at the issue from all sides.

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Down to the Studs

I’ve gotten somewhat hooked on a show on Discovery Home called “Holmes on Homes”. The basic premise of the show one of rescuing home improvement projects gone bad. Mike Holmes, the main man, comes to people’s homes and fixes all of the problems contractors have created in botching their projects.

Holmes takes the homeowners and audience through the house pointing out the deficiencies and what needs to be done. Wherever he finds a problem, he pulls everything out, down to the studs, and starts over. The key for him is doing it right.

So why would he be successful in finding people who have these problems? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One is the unfortunate fact that there are people that want to make the most profit by doing the least work. Another is not caring about your finished product, as long as you get paid. Sometimes, customers don’t know enough to protect themselves. And many times, people simply want things done cheaply, going for the cosmetic fix and ignoring the underlying issues.

That last one seems to be a recurring theme throughout the world. Something isn’t right, so we cover it up with something more pleasing to the eye or ear. We spin what was said so it sounds better. We lash out at people who disagree with us trying to make ourselves look better. We put on a fresh coat of paint to cover that nasty stain.

Maybe we need to start taking more things down to the studs, fixing what is really wrong and not just what is on the surface.

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Lack of Enforceability

There’s been some debate in the Louisiana State Legislature lately about a ban on automatic weapons. Gun-rights advocates view the move as an infringement. Those favoring gun control applaud the move. But as several people have mentioned, even if the law passes, enforcing it will be near impossible.

That got me thinking about all of the other laws, rules, regulations and policies we face on a daily basis. The majority of them are only enforceable after someone has committed the crime.

I suppose it should be that way, making us all accountable for our own actions. For many of the laws, that seems to work well enough. There are others, though, that are noble in their purpose—like a ban on automatic weapons—but seem ridiculous once signed into law. It’s a feel-good measure that comes with a hefty price tag, and, because there are no measures that actually prevent ownership in the first place, law enforcement officers and the general public are no better off than before.

Consider this: possession of illicit drugs is illegal. Yet, we have an enormous drug problem in this country. And the costs of fighting it are astronomical, when you consider all of the costs involved in loss of life, drug treatment, prosecutions and incarceration. Anti-drug campaigns have had some good effect, but they are underfunded and only have a beneficial effect on a percentage of the population that can participate.

We need more proactive funding to support these protective laws, not reactive enforcement once the bad deed’s been done.

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Acceptance

Acceptance of how things beyond my control are. That’s probably one of the best lessons I’ve learned. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. It’s odd that last week, Paul Williams would write this post titled “It is what it is”, discussing the same concept.

And much like The Serenity Prayer encourages, I have focused more attention on improving the things I can control.

But I was reading an article from the March issue of The Atlantic called “Marry Him! The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough”, and something in there made me realize that the hard part is deciding what to do about the gray area. That space between what you can directly control and what you can’t. That space where things that you do affect how the people around you act and react, especially in relationships.

Many of us focus so much energy trying to change what we possibly cannot, while blaming others for the things we fail to do for ourselves. When we get to that in-between space, though, we sort of short circuit. We expect people to act in a certain way, reading our minds to figure out what we want. Then we punish them when they don’t get it right, even though they thought they were doing something good.

They might try one or two more times, but as long as we keep punishing them for being wrong, they’ll take the path of least effort. Making things progressively worse. Most likely, they are doing the same thing to you. We are all to blame. We create the vicious circle with someone creating another one.

If we do the work that’s necessary, if we take control in developing the relationship and allow the others to do the same, we can create something of shared control, resulting in a beautiful relationship.

Of course, that means that we are wholly accountable for what we do. If the relationship fails, it’s on us. That is a scary thought. It’s probably why we don’t do it.

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AT&T Wants All That and a Box of Chocolate

Last week, AT&T’s CEO lamented his company’s inability to find enough skilled workers to fill the 5,000 jobs he promised to repatriate from India. The chief executive, Randall Stephenson, reportedly said he “is especially distressed that in some U.S. communities and among certain groups, the high school dropout rate is as high as 50 percent.”

He then attempts to validate his concern saying, “If I had a business that half the product we turned out was defective or you couldn’t put into the marketplace, I would shut that business down.”

Hmmmm. High school dropouts are defective products? That’s a bold, bordering on ridiculous, statement, given the number of millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs that dropped out of school.

What’s worse is that he is blurring the contexts. His comments about the issues of dropout rates in the U.S. are real concerns. The underlying causes are cultural and political in nature. Often these rates contribute to or stem from our high rates of illiteracy, immaturity, teenage drug abuse and general lack of self-accountability necessary for developing a successful career.

That is not the problem AT&T is facing.

Stephenson wants to pay high-school graduate wages to college-educated engineers (not technicians, but engineers). Like he can do with workers in India.

Yes, our education system is a problem for many in our country. I’ve written about that problem before a couple of times recently. But don’t even try to equate that problem with the fact that someone wants highly-educated employees to work for wages far below what’s fair.

Sure, outsourcing to India has been a huge cost-saving measure for many companies. For the long-term, though, that’s not going to be good for business. Someone at AT&T apparently recognized that fact, since they promised to repatriate 5,000 jobs. Whining about the fact that comparably educated people here earn more isn’t going to help the cause.

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The Purpose of Education

Last week, I served as a Junior Achievement volunteer for my six-year-old’s first grade class. A rewarding experience, even with the hyperactivity at the start of the day.

Anyway, as I stood there one morning while they worked on an activity, it suddenly hit me that every bit of education we do is so that children grow up to be productive members of society. Not necessarily to enjoy that society, just be productive in it.

It’s just the way it is. And there isn’t a whole lot we can do about that. Except, we can seek greater fulfillment in our life’s work, even if that means we hold 50 different jobs in our lifetime. Sure, the pay may not be as good, but that might not be a bad thing in our over-consumptive culture.

Besides, what is the point of working for pure accumulation of wealth? It can’t buy love or happiness. It’ll pay for comfort, certainly. But actual joy? Nope. In fact, it often leads to dysfunction and high alimony payments.

From the time we are born until we finally hang it up some 70 years later (more or less), our purpose is contributing to the greater good. Our education, in theory at least, is based on that premise. We complete our schooling and enter the workforce, both paid and unpaid. We produce and consume. We save for retirement or depend on the contributions of others. Or work until the day we die.

It’s inescapable. We might as well make the most of it.

Are you doing what you love? Do you find joy in your work? If you could do anything in the world, without regard to money, what would it be? Are you doing that now?

What’s holding you back?

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Can We Save Our Economy?

I’m starting to think that I need to spend a lot more time on my iPod. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on this blog called “Arrogance Kills”. In there, I reference Parag Khanna’s essay “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony”, in which he argues that America is losing its superpower dominance to the European Union and China. In particular, referring to China, he writes:

“In America’s own hemisphere, from Canada to Cuba to Chavez’s Venezuela, China is cutting massive resource and investment deals. Across the globe, it is deploying tens of thousands of its own engineers, aid workers, dam-builders and covert military personnel. In Africa, China is not only securing energy supplies; it is also making major strategic investments in the financial sector. The whole world is abetting China’s spectacular rise as evidenced by the ballooning share of trade in its gross domestic product.”

Then, on February 7, NPR runs this story, saying, “As major U.S. financial firms stagger under problems caused by the mortgage crisis, foreign governments, from the Middle East to China, are stepping in to invest billions in the faltering banking giants.”

Yes, that is billions with a b, not a typo.

And China is playing a larger role in this than most of us realize. To the tune of (again, not a typo) $1 billion per day.

James Fallows wrote an excellent piece for the January/February 2008 The Atlantic titled “The $1.4 Trillion Question”. Here are some key points from his piece:

• China’s foreign reserves are now the largest in the world, estimated at $1.4 trillion
• 70% of those reserves are in U.S. dollar assets
• Most of China’s U.S. investments are in Treasury notes and federal-agency bonds
• The annual interest payments on those investments have equaled or lagged the decline in value of the U.S. dollar to the RMB (in other words, their U.S. investments are breaking even or losing money)

The reason for this is three-fold. First, we have become overly reliant on overseas production, particularly from China. Outsourcing is not a bad thing, in and of itself, when done in moderation.

Second, we have not put the proper monetary policies in place to keep the dollar from its continued decline in value.

Third, as the federal government accumulates more and more debt, we end up borrowing from foreign nations, namely China, who is awash in cash from their production of our goods.

We cannot stay on this path. We need to boost the value of the dollar for the long-term. We need policies allowing smaller companies to compete with stateside production against multi-nationals relying on cheap labor in developing nations. And we need to realize that our ability to survive as the United States of America means that we will have to learn to consume less or pay significantly more.

Or, we can all start learning to speak Mardarin.

By the way, after a quick review of their campaign websites, only Barack Obama and John McCain (of the major candidates) begin to address these issues, though neither mentions China by name.

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Arrogance Kills

Alright. That might be overstating a bit, but at the very least, arrogance can destroy – relationships, careers, organizations, nations, political campaigns, just about anything.

A post from Creative Generalist titled “Frenemies and Swing States”, which is based on Parag Khanna’s essay “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony”, got me to thinking about the root of many of the issues we face. It comes down to arrogance. Take a look:

Politics:

• The Bush Administration’s go-it-alone policies at home and abroad have sunk us ever deeper in record debt, a war with no end in site and a loss of respect and power worldwide (see Khanna’s essay). At the same time, he enjoys the lowest approval ratings of any president.
• States wanting to inflate their own self-importance jockey for position in the timing of their respective primaries and caucases. In response, the Democratic National Committee decides it is going to punish some of those states (namely, Michigan and Florida) by not allowing them convention delegates. And all of this helps whom how?

Organizations:

• I don’t think I need to rehash the goings on at Enron, Worldcom or Tyco, but you get the picture.
• The fight between the striking writers and production companies is about the companies not wanting to pay anything to writers from online content. The excuse that they don’t know how much potential there is in monetizing the entertainment medium is a red herring. The truth is they want all the income they can get on the front end before having to share. I suppose it never occurred to them to cut the writers in now, then work together on how to make it even more profitable.
• The sex-abuse scandals within the Catholic Church a due entirely to the air of superiority in the upper ranks.

I guess my point here is that confidence, mixed with a healthy dose of humility, compromise and compassion will go much farther in achieving greatness than bullying people around with your arrogance. That’s my thinking, anyway.

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Why are they here?

If you’ve ever worked for an organization with more than one person, you’ve had someone there complaining about how terrible working for the company is, what things are wrong and that nothing ever changes. You then find yourself, naively, giving that person an audience, probing more and finding some specific change to implement.

You feel good. You are about to do what no one has done before, and everyone is going to praise you for it.

You boldly stride into the office and announce the big change, waiting for the applause. But it never comes. Instead, your primary squawker promptly informs you it will never work. You meekly ask for people to simply try it. For a little while. Maybe.

They don’t. And your squawker now has yet another thing to complain about not changing. Of course, that person was the ringleader in sabotaging it. But that is beside the point.

Here is the sadly amusing part in all of it. That person is still working there.

Yes, for all the documentation, all the complaining, all the problems, in general managers tend to keep negative people employed. There can be any number of excuses, which I won’t offer here.

Only one thing matters. If you are not achieving your mission, whatever it may be, and those people continue to exist in your organization, then you only have yourself to blame for wallowing in mediocrity.

Take comfort in knowing that you are not the only one dealing with this. Wharton and McKinsey each wrote articles along a similar vein last Spring.

What needs to happen is clear. As the manager/president/owner of the organization, you must rid yourself of the negativity and place the organization in the best possible position to succeed. Whatever talent those individuals might have, their cruddy attitude destroys it.

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