How much is enough

My opinions on political and economic resolutions to what is wrong in our societies may surprise some. I am thoroughly convinced that fairly consevative fiscal efforts can be combined with fairly robust social programming and a lot more can be accomplished for all the people all of the time. Most of my interest lies in Canada of course and any 'social' programming one risks suggesting south of the border will probably be met with rampant and rabid hatred. Damn commies! One has to find a way to sneak it in on them; tell them it's a cookie or something.

I started thinking about this and about my headline for this because I just watched Warren Buffett on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Don't get him confused with Jimmy Buffett' they're totally different kinds of pirates. Warren comes across as this kindly old curmudgeon that one could imagine sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with and he'd wear one of those porridge colored cardigans with leather elbow pathches and a plaid shirt. Grandpa Buffet is, some say, the richest man on the planet. Whether that is actually true is really difficult to determine simply because he is so rich it becomes difficult to calculate just how rich he is. He is definitely in the 1% of the1% of the 1%.  No wonder he's so happy, right? But wait kindly old patron, along came America's economic collapse and the creeping socialists of the White House want you to pay more tax! (cue dramatic upswell of music)

Now, still with me? Do you recall a rock band from way back in the 1980's or even maybe the late '70's out of Ireland that became really big hits for awhile there? Apparently, they're still filling concert halls. U2 they call themselves. At one point and possibly still because it's another thing difficult to track, but nevertheless they were considered the biggest rock group on the planet. Yeah, remember those guys? Cool names like Bono and the Edge.Then along came, now I'm really showing my age, Napster! The evil bad guy of the music industry. (cue dramatic upswell of music again!)

Then, of course, because I'm on my successful people roll, there' the indefatigable Mr. William Gates, this guy took the second best product in it's industry and sold it to the entire world, youngest billionair ever until that FaceBook kid came along,and there's some debate about whether he's going to stick or not. Back to Gates, while compiling his multi-trillion dollar empire, Bill found out that most of the children of the world are hungry, don't have medical care, stuff like that and decided he might be in a position to do something about. Him and the Mrs. tired of playing on Windows.

Here's the thing:Buffett, (accursed traitor to his elitist brethren) told the whole world a few weeks ago that of course anyone who makes the kind of money that he does should pay more tax and it would bekind of crazy for the American government to not tax them more.

A few years ago, the entire music industry was up in arms about Napster stealing artists' royalties by scoring all the free downloads. Bono said 'good for them if they want to download U2's we've made plenty" Then, he went off to join Bill....

Yep, Gates, that Bill, who along with his wife has decided that they are going to keep giving to the needy until it's all gone. That's their commitment, at least that's what it said in the TIME magazine I read. Microsoft keeps making things, paying him his share, and he can just pass it around.

Now, here something I know, economic models, free enterprise or socialist are designed around capitalism, that is controling the production of the society. Capitalism is based on greed. Neither system works and Keynes has always been on pretty shaky ground. What will it take to get economic modelers, 'job creators', political leaders and the captains of industry and commerce to follow leads like theirs? How much is enough?

Am I the only one who notices these things?

With all the hoopla over the last year and a half or so that good old Mitt Romney wanted to be the guy in charge of the free world, he was on everybody's tv screee every day. Am I the only one who noticed he looks like Perry White? Clark Kent's boss?

an article from a forum on compliance and ethics

A lot of the postings that I've read here seem to come down to: compliance and ethics would be a lot easier to keep in place if compliance officers got the respect and authority they need from upper management. I agree, however, an awful lot of the North American workforce do not have such a thing as a compliance officer, or an HR manager, or an IT department, The day of the management generalist is very much still with us with companies and organisations that simply don't have the capacity to hire beyond one or two professional directors.
The other point I often hear is that training and/or leading by example is the best way to teach compliance to employees. To a degree I will say yes, but honestly, culture will inform new employees attitudes far more. Behaviour learned over coffee breaks is going to be far more influential than anything one can come up with in a training package. If a small organisation has a couple of 20 year employees who gossip about everyone over coffee, it will spread as would the veteran employee who gets away with sneaking in late and out early on a regular basis.

I know of one leader who found himself in a situation where compliance to legislation was an absolute must. He oversaw the delivery of social services, on the taxpayers' dime, including addictions counseling, at risk youth counseling, family counseling, anger management workshops. and more. Of course this employees had to guarantee confidentiality, and have appropriate credentials for the work as well as provide timely, confidential and accurate reports to him. When he started, very little of that was in play.He undertook a three pronged approach 1) some people had to go, the ones who were in violation of all 3 of those criteria, they were well ensconced in their positions and would not accept any 'feedback' their damage to the organisation had to be considered as well, 2) he had to be sure and model that ethical behavior, especially confidentiality to all of his employees every day 3) he found that he could show the employees that there was value in following regulatory directives and complying with ethical standards, not just in terms of job security but that their clients would value them. It took several weeks to get this new mindset working but for a couple of years it worked, drastically improving the organisations public image. Unfortunately, a new and greedy board of directors learned about directors liability insurance. Soon nepotism, conflict of interest and board interference ruled. When this manager tried to call them out, they created an excuse to get rid of him. No ethics among the lot. Interesting that his teaching about the value and the modeling only worked as far as his level of influence held sway.

I have a question

I always do. This question is about reading. People's ability to read and, more importantly, the ability to comprehend what one reads and attach the appropriate relevance to that material.

If I've already lost you, I understand. Click off my blog and go watch some porn, I hear it's free. For those of you still with me, let me explain what got me started thinking about this. Some middleaged model, I forget her name, can still 'rock' a bikini (by the way I though she looked emaciated), several other pop stars, models, actresses have also rocked their looks' in similar articles. Supposed news sites are rife with these stories. The other side of that coin is that they 'flop' or 'disappoint' in whatever they're wearing. How can I possibly be disappointed in what some Hollywood starlet is wearing? I can be disappointed tha I'm not the guy in the tux beside her, but in either case, I really don't care what she wears. Also, what exactly is 'rocking' one's appearance? Overworked, that's what it is, a horribly overworked phrase.

Someone must want to read these things, though, otherwise they would evenutally stop posting them. The same is true for all the little entertainment blurbs that are happening on MSN and Yahoo and such outlets, where some gossipy little wench is just gushing for a chance to just 'dish' about whatever some celebrity said or did or whoever they kissed or whatever they wore (the females are just as bad). It's even too much work for them to spell out celebrity, it's just celeb. Oddly enough, celebrity is rooted in the word celebrate, as in someone who is significant enough to us that we celebrate their life. Uh-oh, my list just got a lot shorter.

Of course, back in the days when we had coffee percolators in our kitchens, Wile E. Coyote on TV and pterodactyls coasting over our heads as we ran and dodged our way to school, the equivalent of these 'news' outlets was the checkout stand at the store. They're still there, by the way, but who wants to get ink stains on their fingers or pay $1.99 to find out that Oprah's an alien or that Justin Bieber is actually a clone of the real Justin or whatever, when the information is free online. My bigger question about all of it is who cares? and, why do they continue to put this stuff out?  Why worry about the ink stains on your hands, they'll wash off; better to worry about the stains being left on your mind.

The truth is for many it is mind candy. Oh yes it is, some people are to junk news like a sugar addict is to a candy store. They'll consume until they're ready to puke it back up then come back for more. Further with this example; just like with food, if you fill up on crap you have no appetite for anything substantial. People like to stare into the lives of the famous because it gives them something to either a) criticize, or b) fantasize about. Either way, it takes their minds off their own lives briefly. This is also a fairly clear explanation for the morbid fascination with reality television. This is great news for three disparate but all relatively important groups of people.

The first group is the people who write, produce,edit, host and publish or broadcast this stuff. If people weren't paying attention, advertisers wouldn't advertise with them and they would be unemployed. Trust me, you don't want to know how much money some of these people make. Of the three groups I am referencing, this group is, to me, the least relevant.

The second group of people remain largely silent on the subject because they're the people making real news. I don't mean the people writing or reporting real news stories. They are all painfully aware that whatever they have to tell the public is second to whatver Kim K said to Pink at the Peoples Choice Awards. They've accepted it. I'm referring to the people that newspeople want to report on. In a world where some people don't get to eat as well as their political leaders housepets, the people that could do something about it don't want you to think about it. That's just one example, why bother going on with more? There are thousands. The reality is, people with power want to hold on to that power with the least resistance necessary. The less the general population pays attention, the less they complain. I mean really, who wants to watch a televised plea for 'adopting' a child in a third world country when one can watch reruns of Family Guy instead? It's the same concept, although reading does give one that opportunity to slow down and analyse the information one is receiving.

The third group for whom this is great news? The consumers of course. The ninety plus percent of western society who want to go through life feeling strangely secure that whatever is wrong in the world, someone will look after it for them. Pardon me if I am appearing to be on my high horse here as well, I haven't done a heck of a lot to improve anyone's lot in life recently, either. Mea culpa. Nevertheless, let's congratulate ourselves on knowing all about Justin and Selena's breakup while we can't really say how many people died of dysetnery while we were reading this. One day that world will arrive on our doorsteps and we will have been warned. There's a little thing people can click underneath these postings to reply;almost no one ever does. I've thrown what I think are some pretty good quotes up on this blog with some of my articles. Here's one from my childhood:

"Yonder stands your orphan with his gun, crying like a fire in the sun
Strike another match, go start anew
It sure is all over, Baby Blue" --Bob Dylan

What's on your reading table?

Beliefs

Nope, not Santa, not Jesus or Mohammedan. The things that one believes in on a day to day basis. Maybe one or two of those three I just named helped inform some people's belief systems, but do they really carry one through the day?

I have been studying a calendar of possible university courses and ethics pops up as the title or part of the title for many of the courses. I joined a group on one of the social media services to discuss 'ethics'. Personally, I'm finding that too many people are trying too hard to have one exact definition.

How many ask themselves in any given situation, what is the right thing to do? The best thing to do, not only for myself, but possibly my family, my organisation, my community? Ad infinitum. Better still, if there is conflict between outcomes for say organisation or community, which way will I turn?

Someone posed the question "is it possible for a person to develop their own creed of what is right and wrong totally separate from that of the person's society?" My answer is no because if that person is part of a group, any group, that person's decisions are going to be informed by what was learned through group contact. It's inevitable. Nevertheless, that person can form a creed or set of personal ethics by which he or she lives life. Just the reality is, it will be influenced by others. I have no doubt that the biggest influence on my own ethical behaviour to this day is still my parents and I am certain that love me as much as they might, if they were aware of some of the things I have done 'unethically' in my life, they would be sorely disappointed in me. I do not profess nor pretend to be the harbinger or ideal of what ethical, principled or moral behaviour should be. I will say however, in my defense, that I do not gossip, I do not "backstab" friends and I submit to the consequences of my own action. I live as much as I possibly can by my own creed and have withstood the sometimes less than favorable responses for having done so. If my personal beliefs wander away from the law of the land, I will stick with my beliefs and if it causes me legal troubles, I accept that. Does that do me any good? It doesn't keep me awake nights.

When I consider how our legal system has developed and where our laws come from, I'm quite satisfied with myself for taking this stance. Canada's system is supposed to try to do everything it can to address the wants, demands, and desires of as many of it's population as possible. Democracy is based on the idea that the majority is always right. Spare me. The majority are roped in to voting in to power the best campaigner and/or somebody who supposedly stands for the same principles the person marking the x does. As often as not, in our elections, a vote for one candidate or party is simply a vote against another. This is not a group of people I want to have doing my thinking for me about right and wrong.

So, since I clearly have little interest in what legal behaviour has to do with ethical behavioiur, what is ethical behaviour? What should a person or group of people believe? Well, once upon a time, an organisation I worked for hired a man who, on his way into the interview, found ten dollars on the street. He went out of his way, before his interview, to get the money back to the rightful owner. We didn't know about it when we interviewed him, but that would have locked the job for him as far as i was concerned. It was no surprise to me that his integrity never once wavered, to my knowledge at least, the entire time he worked there. By the same token, another man who worked for that same organisation found his personal life being  unfairly --and possibly illegally--scrutinized by his employers. He went to bat for his rights and stood up to the person responsible. I was stuck in a position where I could do nothing to help him and watched as that person and several supporters did everything they could think of to try to get rid of him. He stood by what he believed was right until the day he resigned on his own terms and I have always admired him for that. In truth as much as I tried to help him from 'behind the scenes' my pleadings fell on deaf ears and I always wished I could do more for him. So those are just a couple of examples, I have others some bigger some smaller. I once worked through my lunch break and was quite hungry by midafternoon. I was in the staff kitchen area and noticed a sandwich in the refrigerator. Another employee was there getting herself coffee and I asked her if she knew who the sandwich belonged to. She said "well no, but if you're hungry why don't you just take it. Who'd know?" I responded, "I would" To me that is the essence of following one's ethics. Someone once said, 'the law is what you obey when someone is watching, your ethics are what you obey when no one is watching" I think it was Kant and I'm paraphrasing  but moving along.  I guess my question to anybody who thinks ethics/principles/morals...because I don't want to even bother with the conversation of where one ends and one begins...is this....do you do what you do because it's the right thing? or do you do what you do because you're sure you won't be found out? In honesty, I've done both in my life, I regret the latter, but being a pragmatist at heart  I simply try to mitigate and minimize the damage I might have done.

In hopes of bringing my case to some kind of rational closing, I find myself returning to the legal standpoing again. Someone once said, "The more corrupt a society, the more numerous it's laws" A lot of people don't want to believe that but I do. I believe it because people will either break laws or find new ways to debase themselves, thus creating a need for more laws, because of greed and fear. If it was not so, I suggest that we'd only need one law and all of our ethics could stem from it. You've probably seen or heard it before. "Do unto  others only as you would have them do unto you." All that is required is that everyone obeys it, good luck with that.

your business' front door

When I did small business development, in what seems to me like a lifetime ago sometimes, one of the anecdotes I used with my clients was about a fellow who owned a convenience store and I rented the apartment above him. Late one spring night, I was out on my balcony and I could hear someone scraping snow off the front sidewalks. Sure enough it was the owner. This is a man who I was certain had made quite a financial success of his busines. He wore jewelry that was worth more than the car I drove at the time. My lesson to my clientele was this: when you're the owner, every job is yours, never forget that. Scraping that snow might be the most important thing he does because he wants his front door to be attractive to those passing by tomorrow morning when he opens again.
Today, anyone who is serious about succeeding in business should realize that their front door opens to the entire globe and is possibly 15" or 17 or 21". It's called your homepage and I can promise this, I don't care how much time you spend on your graphics or your theme, (and I can hook you up wiht someone very good at that sort of thing, but I digress)  whether you've gone wild or subtle or whatever-- if your business partners,customers, funders, whomever see difficult navigation, pages not being kept current and primary school spelling errors, they are not going to 'like' you on spacebook or flitter, or whatever. You're a cyberlaughingstock to professionals. The amount of effort required to address those issues is generally a lot less than what it takes for someone to remove the snow from your physical front door, but I would assume you made sure that was done. Or had the grass behind the building cut and weeds pulled in the warm seasons. Yet, as an organisation or company, a decision was made to put yourselves out there to the world and your 'best effort' is sadly lacking if that's what your homepage looks like. I think too, with a lot of comments I read on websites where people have the guts to be as nasty as they want because they can hide behind the anonymity of a user name, that there are a lot of biases out there that want to accuse our people of laziness. Why give them an opportunity when we know it's a lie. We know that, right? Your homepage, your image of yourself that you want to broadcast to the world and you're not taking time to proofread before you publish? You're listing last August or September in upcoming events? I'm supposed to be from the generation that got caught by surprise by this whole wwworld, (although my generation did kind of lay the ground work) so, you've probably got someone on staff a lot younger than me supposedly in charge of that site. maybe it has something to do with some people's work ethic from that generation.I don't know, but I suggest if that's your portal to the world, you might want to take a little Windex to the glass occassionally

Remembrance Day

 

 

 

I am posting this for the man who taught me what he went to war to fight against; the man who warned me that our nation would one day become that very thing he'd fought. Wounded in action in by shrapnel fire in Holland, October 31, 1944< John S. Alcorn  1916--1964. Rest in Peace, Dad.

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--John McCrae

A Brief Treatise on the Effectiveness of Treachery

 

 

"No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution."--Machiavelli

 

Well, if anyone should know it would be Machiavelli, but I will probably refer to a few others for wisdom beyond mine before I'm done with this piece. I suppose for the sake of this piece we could exchange 'enemy' in the quote for 'victim.' I suppose too that the classical references I will be using seem overly dramatic to most, but in this day and age, how often are the lowest ebbs of office politics as damaging to one as more traditional betrayals have been in the past?

 

If you are reading this with the notion that there is going to be a moral at the end of the story or that it is going to be a discourse on ethics or principles, please read the title again. The effectiveness of treachery has nothing to do with the right or wrong of treachery. In point of fact, I believe that most people who engage in betrayal, treachery, and/or treason have convinced themselves that it is the right thing to do in their circumstances. Call to mind Brutus pushing his dagger into Caesar or Judas kissing Jesus on the cheek in the Garden of Gesthemane. Machiavelli is, after all, also the man credited with being first to use the expression "the ends justify the means." Of course, really well thought out and executed betrayal takes teamwork and the players can reassure each other of the righteousness of their actions Traitors generally though have two motivations for their behaviour that none of them are willing to admit to another person, first that they are afraid to confront the person they are betraying and second (and equally important to them) they will not have to face consequences for their actions. One will also find that there are any number of greed related motivations for treachery and betrayal and often people involved in the same act of treachery will have varying circumstances surrounding their own motives. Thus, no philosophical discourse is required because there is no right involved, but if it is a path one wishes to embark upon, is it effective?

 

"All war is based on deception"--Sun Tzu

 

Most people who can suffer themselves to believe their own (or their fellow traitors') lies that it is the appropriate action will have also convinced themselves well beforehand that it is effective because if it isn't going to work, there will be those frightening consequences to face. These are generally short term thinkers who are most easily spotted by the way they fall back into their familiar patterns and breathe sighs of happy relief if after some period of time, weeks or months, the victim seems to have withered away and failed to respond. Of course, one of the more nagging concerns that these people now have is an awareness that they have surrounded themselves with people they cannot trust. Obviously, if they were part of the team who betrayed one person, what is preventing other members of that group from turning on them?  The other reality of course is in the quote above by Sun Tzu. If someone or some group used treachery to dispatch me, then that person or group has essentially declared war on me. Even the feeblest thinkers among us must know that one should never underestimate one's enemy. The passage of time is meaningless unless that enemy has been well and truly destroyed. Let's go back to our first source, since he's credited with writing the handbook on treacherous behavior and see what we can learn.

 

"If an injury is to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared"--Machiavelli

 

Now, this is where I begin to question the effectiveness of using underhanded means to attack someone. If you are the person undertaking one of these schemes, and we'll look into that a bit more a little further on, ask yourself this question. Can (_____) ever come back on me for what I did? Because be assured, that person (____) will figure out that you were the traitor or at least part of the betrayal.

 

The actual treachery is not generally a difficult thing to figure out.  All it takes is a couple of friends, there are other methods, but the best ways have always involved betrayal by someone the victim really cared about. Again, ask Christ, ask Caesar. Let's call our victim Joe. Joe has some level of authority or power. People envy him for that. Joe may have control over a lot of resources including money. People are greedy and jealous of that. Joe has made some enemies and has a few intimate friends. If Joe makes a mistake of hurting even one of those friends, two is better from the enemies' viewpoint, they now have their mode of attack. The enemies which Joe is aware of dial up their usual assaults, whatever they may be:slanderous attacks, constant public complaining about Joe's work, more and more demands on the resources for which Joe is responsible--this keeps him distracted, and then they have the embittered friend develop the final attack. Something so defaming that Joe is ruined in public and with his friends and family, and removed from control over the resources he had influence over and the job is done.The fix is in. But is it really? Sooner or later, the so-called friends will show their hands and Joe, quite embittered himself now, will recognize them for what they are. As far as good quotes go, remember this one:

 

"there is no knife that cuts so sharply and with such poisoned blade as treachery" --Ouida

 

And of course, the question that it was recommended one ask one's self earlier, is Joe so thoroughly defeated that he is no longer a force to worry about? There is another old expression about people refusing to learn from the mistakes of history. I believe I alluded to short term thinkers earlier in this article. Very few people have the fortitude to deliver the 'final blow' at the risk of sounding melodramatic to our "Joe". That shouldn't be a surprise considering that the treaachery is usually hatched by a cabal of cowards to begin with and if they do not have the presence of mind to take measures to protect themselves from the fallout of the treachery it is to their own undoing. They are probably too busy worrying about one another's treacherous personae than to worry about the damage they've already done. So, is the activity effective or even efficient for the participants?

 

"I am justly killed with mine own treachery"--Laertes in Hamlet by William Shakespear

 

One of the great murders in all of literature, Laertes died from the poison he had applied to a sword with which to kill Hamlet. Perhaps there is a moral to this story after all or lessons to be had from history. Brutus was destroyed by Caesar's nephew's army and 'fell on his own sword'. The Rome he meant to save from an ambitious Caesar became the empire of quite possibly the most ambitious man in history. Judas hung around after the crucifixion. Benedict Arnold hung around after the American Revolution. A final thought, aother quote from out of time:

 

"Treachery, though at first cautious, in the end betrays itself"--Titus Livy



Community Boards---Community Concerns

The proliferation of volunteer driven community organizations across our country is a really telling indication of how things ‘get done around here’. They are the backbone of this country and a driving force in our economy. Ethnic groups, special interest groups, cultural societies, philanthropic associations, educational and political organizations and trade associations are all maintained by volunteer boards as are countless other groups too numerous to mention. These groups range in size and scope from small sports organizations that struggle every year just to keep their children playing to organizations with a specific mandate to provide services to a target group and budgets that can run into millions of dollars. This article is really intended to address only those organizations that are overseen by an elected board of volunteers but managed by a professional staff on a day to day basis.

It is a given that the focus of the board of directors should really be governance and policy. Realistically, why would a board pay for an executive director or CEO if they want to do that person’s work themselves? Of course, that individual cannot be left with carte blanche and should still report to the board on a regular basis. Unfortunately, although this is great theoretically, there are often some encumbrances to applying the notion in reality.

Firstly, if the organization has a well written, solid constitution and an engaged management team, policy and governance issues will be few and far between. Board members who are giving up their evenings to meet will become, pardon the pun, bored members and simply stop coming. This creates a situation where the paid director and other board members may have to actively recruit people who want to sit on that board and then, of course, providing some training relative to the mandate of the organization and existing policy.

Secondly, new board members often have a difficult time recognizing boundaries and knowing that interference with day to day work is not only detrimental to the organization, but often a violation of the by-laws. These scenarios can be even more difficult for the paid director because the onus will be on him/her to draw the attention of the entire board to the situation, thereby risking the ire of one or more of the ‘bosses’.

Thirdly, a less than scrupulous paid manager can get a lot of mileage out of reassuring board members that everything in the day to day realm is fine and that they don’t need to concern themselves with issues that are not policy or governance. Again, the organization is risking the potential tyranny of that individual equating too much freedom to act with power.

So, what steps can the organization take to avoid these pitfalls? The first suggestion that comes to mind is active recruiting of board members. Recruiting, however, can have its’ own downfalls and the savvy manager and board should remain aware of them.

I want to preface the remainder of my commentary with these two notes. I believe that anyone willing to sacrifice his or her time to sit on a community board deserves the gratitude and respect of the community. There are occasional exceptions wherein the individual has a personal agenda-- whether it be an axe to grind with management, some delusion of power, or some misguided sense that they stand to profit financially by serving, but they are the minority and for the most part board members are there because they care about what the organization is doing. Also, I was taught by one of my mentors a number of years ago that a volunteer board can be an organization’s greatest strength and greatest weakness at the same time. I have had to work for a board for a number of years to realize the truth of that statement. A grassroots board is the organization’s greatest strength because it truly is democracy in action. No one can deny that the board members speak for the membership of the organization. That same board can be the greatest weakness of the organization by simply not learning the policy, not working towards professional standards or possibly having ulterior motives for being in place. The landscape can be rife with possibilities for failure. This, in fact, leads me back to my original suggestion: active recruiting.

If one wants to be successful with recruiting then certain concerns should be addressed up front:

1. What exactly does the organization need
2. What skills and or experiences can the individuals being approached bring to the table
3. What relationships currently exist between individuals being recruited and current board or management members

Clearly, if the organization has found that capacity is lacking in certain areas, those would be skill sets to recruit. If financial reports and documentation are a foreign language to most of the board, then they might want to look for someone with a background in accountancy or financial services. If the constitution is full of loopholes, there may be someone with a legal background or constitutional experience available and willing to serve.

Previous experience with other boards will most likely provide the recruit with some knowledge of what issues the board is there to address. Professional experience in areas like those listed in the previous paragraph should most surely be welcomed by existing members. A couple of things that are essential and really dependent on the new person are: a sincere desire to be part of the team and help and a personal stake in the goals of the organization. Simply, all of the professional designations in the world aren’t going to matter a whit if the individual is viewed as being not part of the community that board is mandated to serve.

Existing relationships between current board members and management with any new recruit will turn out to be a huge issue. If the perception in the community is that management is stacking the board with supporters, that manager and the board won’t last beyond the next election. Most likely, nepotism and conflict of interest guidelines already exist within the constitution and should be adhered to zealously. This can be a very difficult issue to address, particularly in small communities where the talent pool might be quite limited. One must bear in mind that an interest and willingness to serve are the first criteria.

Thus, those people who are compelled by personal interest to serve that specific board, have no possible conflict of interest issues with current directors or employees and have professional backgrounds that best serve the board’s needs are just sitting at home waiting for the phone call. Perhaps not. In any case, boards should have a practice in place of being willing to review letters of interest from organization members who may want to serve and should review those letters as a group. That way if there are board resignations between general elections of the organization, the seat can be filled by the best possible candidate.

Many community boards will struggle along as best they can because those perfect candidates simply do not exist. The next suggestion to enhance board productivity is training. The organization can certainly direct management to seek out cost effective training in areas such as governance, constitutional law, human rights legislation, financial planning, or proposal development. The last one can be especially helpful if the paid staff is already working to capacity. Board members can help find the dollars necessary for their own training or other projects as well. Networking with other non-profit agencies is another good way to find the types of training that one may require. Generally, similar organizations are going to face similar issues and there’s a lot of hard work and a distinctive lack of glory in being the second guy to invent the wheel.

Of course, there is something to be said about the organization that doesn’t know anything is wrong to begin with. This is often the case with organizations where the board has not had any new faces at the table in some time. I would suggest that any board of directors regularly schedule a review of their own processes and achievements. It doesn’t hurt to ask if the organization is meeting its’ mandated goals and if not, what can the board do to improve the process? It may be replacing employees, but more likely will involve re-focusing board energies. It would behoove anyone following this path to engage a neutral outsider to help.

Most probably, a combination of recruiting for skills and training current members will resolve a lot of concerns. Certainly the growing pains as the organization moves forward through some of these issues are an object lesson on their own. The other possibility is that experienced managers and board leaders have found this entire article redundant or irrelevant, in which case feel free to line your parakeet’s cage, but hopefully some readers out there will find a bit of what their organizations are seeking. They are, after all, the backbone of this country.

Stuart Alcorn

2011-09-02

Portage la Prairie, MB

Wordcount: 1,513

copyright

I have a problem with this

 

 

 

Again, this entire article is going to be based on my personal opinions. A lot of the things I am going to say can be corroborated by evidence elsewhere but I'm not going to go dig it up.I suppose the preface to this piece goes back to the election next week in the US again, because of the possibility of deep and fundamental change taking place in American society. When the US sneezes, Canada catches a cold. If you, dear reader, want to look up anything, I'd recommend checking out a snapshot view, depicted with graphs that Fortune Magazine put out showing changes in the US economy since Obama took over in 2009. He's not quite the bogeyman that his opponents have been portraying him to be. Having said that, no political leader has ever been singularly successful at rescuing their country's economy, but they all want the credit for it when it improves and to shift the blame when it worsens. Economies tend to cyclical independant of political thought but that seldom gets remembered during an election campaign.

 

That's not even what this article is about, this article is about a US president of all people talking about the 're-distribution of wealth'. The bloodcurdling screams of 'rampant socialims' Hitler! better dead than red! (an oldie but still a goodie), class warfare, and the list goes on ad nauseum, reverbated around the globe. I even read a post on a news-site that Obama is a Marxist-Hitlerian. Seriously, who could even think that up? What's frightening is the lack of basic information that so many people posting on the Internet seem to have regarding political and economic thought or history. People given to hitching their star to extremist dogma are fated to become easy pickings for others who put forward an almost cult figure type of charisma. It's formulaic; play on your follower/audiences' fears, exploit them to the nth degree worst case scenarios, find a common enemy and lay the blame at their feet. Everything will get better when we get rid of X, X is the embodiment of everything you've been taught is wrong in the world, X is a tool from the devil's workshop, and, my favorite, X is a handpuppet of the real masters of the New World Order. Thus, we have the advent of tea-baggers, thus we have Occupy Wall Street. Voltaire, credited as being one of the people who ushered in the Age of Reason in Western thought, once said "Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices." Worthy of consideration' I think; know who'd agree with him? Himmler, Lenin, Manson, Jones, Hitler, Koresh, Robespierre (llik them up, you can't expect me to do all the heavy lifting around here)

 

Let's break one thing down right now. If the New World Order exists in any of the guises or manifestations that I've had described to me over the last couple of years, then they are far too powerful for anyone to do anything about and we're all screwed.So forget about it and go on with your life.

 

And what a life it is! If you can afford a computer to sit at and read this, or the time to sit at someone else's computer or a public computer, you're doing ok. Now, please recall that a whole three paragraphs back I titled this "I have a problem with this"  I didn't say I had a solution and I don't. Also, dear reader, I can't possibly know or guage your opinion or opinions if I'm lucky enough to get more than one. Did you cheer for the Occupy movement? Do you think that Teabaggers are spot on with their  well publicized revulsion at government interference in their lives?  Redistribution of wealth is, after all, a scary concept. If I come out of my bank late at night with a stack of twenties still in my hand, reading my transaction record and there's a guy standing there pointing a gun at me, you can bet I'm going to be more than willing to redistribute my wealth. On the level of an entire nation though, who decides how much wealth gets distributed where and what does that do to the extremely wealthy elite who don't want to share any more and believe that because they earned their money, they don't have to share? I don't know the answer. What about the fact that whatever percentage of the overall wealth is controlled by the one percenters, there's still far more distributed wealth in 21st century North America among the other ninety-nine percent than at any other time in the known history of the universe?  There is no doubt in my mind that life can become very harsh for an unemployed person in Canada or the US. Mortgages get foreclosed, debt piles up and the stress of debt collector harassment can be overwhelming. Families can literally go hungry in the streets. A condition I never thought I would see in my day. But, that is not the case in most situations, because even our unemployed are better off than an awfully large chunk of the global population.

 

 

Certainly in the age of the information superhighway and entire communities' livelihoods being outsourced to the Far East and middle class Canadian teenagers having at least a nodding acquaintance with what 'Bollywood' is, one dares not refute McLuhan. The global village exists and it is right outside our doorway and inside our homes. We brought the concept home like a wee schoolgirl bringing home a vicious, flea-bitten feral cat and announcing to her parents that it's her new pet. Awareness, some would say, equals responsibility.

 

We are all aware of what living conditions are like in the best and worst places on the globe. How much do we do about it? How much of our own personal wealth should we be willing to redistribute and what assurances do we get that our help will go where it is supposed to? I don't know. I do know that my dog gets better nutrition and better health care than an awfully large percentage of the human population and that some of those humans live very close to home. I know that government controlled agencies--in more than one country--have allowed crops and produce to rot in storage in order to influence market prices, driving supply down drives demand up. I know that tying aid to trade has proven to be a failed policy over and over again, but Canada, among other 'have' nations, still adheres to it. I suspect that on Sunday mornings when people tend to relax over an extra cup of coffee and start flipping channels on their 50 inch flat screen, that the pleas of all those celebrity charity endorsers fall on deaf ears for a good reason. I can't afford it? No. I can't trust them to make sure the money goes to the needy? No. All of these international charities are just scams? No, and please Alex Trebek participating in a scam? I think not. These poor people on the tv screen are too far away to be a threat to me? Bingo, move to the front of the class.Or, ask yourself, what about the people who are that needy who aren't so far away? What happens when they start listening to some charismatic leaders dogma, it's a simple formula remember.  So, do I want to give up my little piece of the dream that I've scrabbled hard all my life to get? Not a chance, I'm not that altruistic. Could I? Probably if someone gave me a well defined plan to adhere to, but for now, all of my revenues are tied up in grocery futures. Are there solutions? I hope so, and I hope that someone starts using these global communication tools for something besides checking out the Kardashians latest fashion faux pas, maybe we can get some dialogue going out there among people who do have the answers.

I thought, after sharing thoughts and arguments on a number of 'news' based websites and watching how quickly people diminish the conversation by lowering themselves to base name calling and insults that perhaps, if I started a conversation and said, let's  talk like this...let's be civil, it might work. My hope is that there are others who think somewhat the same way. That in the day and age of tweeting and texting and im'ing and forums and chat rooms, perhaps we could corrrespond. That is, in it's most basic defnition, to respond to one another and to the world around us. I thought that perhaps we could use prose, real sentences in real English. The language as my generation new it may be in  it's death throes, but it's not dead yet.

I will post here as opportunity permits and I will point out things that I believe are right and wrong in our society as I am aware of them. I may offend some with my points of view, but I am not looking for fans, followers, or Facebookers, I am looking for structured, well thought out conversation. I will welcome opposing points of view provided the authors meet certain criteria. The first being, please check for typographical, spelling and grammatical errors prior to posting, we are adults. Second, please provide your point of view in a rational and civil manner. I believe that in conversation the person who throws out the first insult is rather like the person who throws the first strike in one another's physical presence. That is the person who ran out of ideas first. Let's not do that, lets' bring ideas here. Corroborating your point of view with actual data would be ideal, I will try to do the same, but a lot of my opinions-- at this age especially-- have been baptised only in the fires of personal experience, and in such cases, I will admit as much. Also, I will delete any responses that I deem laced with 'isms'; it's my blog, it is my editorial right. I will not tolerate racism, sexism, elitism, et cetera. Etceterism is particularly distasteful. I am the world's greatest fan of humor and the humor I admire and enjoy the most is wit. I hope that people out there will  respond to this overture in a positive way and I will enjoy reading your postings. Stay tuned, I am not terribly technically literate, but I am definitely opinionated!