Where Does The Buck Stop in California?

I read with great interest the ruling of Judge Frank Roesch regarding Governor Schwarzenegger's decision to furlough state employees to try and get control of the states over running expenses. Judge Roesch's decision overruled the Governor on multiple grounds including that the Governor "overstepped his authority by claiming the furloughs were necessary to deal with the budget emergency". As I read this, the newsprint nearly slipped from my hands, which as we all know is hard to have happen. Here is what I don't understand; there is no place in California for the buck to stop. When I elect a Governor, I do so on the basis of who I believe will be the best chief executive officer. I look at the skill set to establish a vision, determine how to establish, maintain and where necessary to raise revenue, and most importantly how to manage the business of the state so that our expenses don't outstrip our revenue. I vote for the person who I believe is the best at having the buck stop with them. But, in California it seems that the buck doesn't stop anywhere. Each time a decision is made that others don't agree with we get a judge to rule on it, we get proposition on the next ballet, or we get a special election to more quickly overturn the decision. And then we wonder why this state doesn't work. What California is missing is a lack of practical thinking. If there was practical thinking then there wouldn't be a lawsuit filed on the behalf of the service employee unions that they should be treated differently from all other employees. If the Governor has decided that furloughs are the best way to deal with our issues, then everyone needs to participate. It is not right for one group to be treated differently than others. I fear that if California doesn't reshape how it governs so that the buck has someplace to stop, there won't be any bucks to be stopped.

TSA - Please Rethink or Think!

I flew through the new T5 terminal at JFK this morning and as we started a new decade I was quickly reminded at how little distance we have covered in our ability to manage the security lines in our airports. Yes, the government is up in arms this day because of the Nigerian flier who made it to Detroit and nearly set off his explosives on that Northwestern flight, but the TSA that we experienced today was no different, or any better than they were when established in 2001. In fact, I would say because there has not been any systemic learning or standardization across airports and we have not shared and gotten better collectively, it proves that that in fact we have not gotten any better at all. Long airport security lines are a constant reminder that our government fails to figure out how to become more productive and more efficient. Why is it that this so visible symbol of a government administration isn’t given the attention necessary to improve? What holds this back? Our airports are unfriendly and have added hours to inefficiencies to our business community. The wasted productivity alone should be enough to warrant the attention of other arms of the administration. Maybe the Secretary of Commerce should weigh in and get involved! We should be embarrassed that we have minimum wage employees, who act and work like they have been salvaged from the streets, standing around, doing nothing and not adding anything to the security of the airports. Had you been with me this morning, you would have seen x-ray screeners who weren’t looking at the screens, employees standing around chatting and filing their nails while the lines were backed up for nearly an hour wait. Department of Homeland Security, please start improving something so that we can understand the value of you as overhead expense to our country, who doesn't need more expenses!

60-40...The Rope-A-Dope Vote

I stayed up with C-Span last night to watch the closing arguments and the Senate vote on cloture for the Healthcare Reform Bill. I was not surprised, but once again disappointed with the 60-40 vote. I listened to both sides say why the vote had to be 58 Democrats - 2 Independents For and 40 Republicans Against. As best I can tell from my citizen caring and citizen involved vantage point, the Republicans wanted to stall the vote because they believe that most Americans don't want this bill. What is disappointing is that they don't refute or fight on the point that in the entire time the bill has been moving they have offered only four amendments. I am sure there is some good reason for this, but from this vantage point it feels like they are so afraid that if they make contact with the bill that they are going to catch something that makes them sick. I can understand that, I just don't respect it. When in any other part of life you believe in something that strongly, then you are willing to do anything to take care of something you care about. When your child is sick and you can't get a straight answer from the doctor you don't just stop asking, you go get a second opinion and you keep going until you have the answer, even if that means you may get sick yourself. I feel like the Republicans, were afraid of what they were going to catch and gave up on this one and are now wanting to sit in the corner and say, "I told you so.". If that is the case, then what Senator McConnell said last night about this bill changing the course of our nation forever, is correct. If the 40 votes of no last night were being passive aggressive and wanting to sit back and arm-chair quarterback, then this vote may have been the end of the Republican party as we know it. What it seems has failed to dawn on the R's is that the party that I grew up with were Republicans who came with smart, well-thought out, responsible solutions. But even when they didn't have the best solutions, they always brought their ideas to the table, no matter the obstacles, the public ridicule. They were not known for sitting back and letting someone else tell them what to do. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater didn't know the meaning of sitting back. Something has gone terribly wrong with American politics when the men and women who go to Washington choose to sit back versus fight for what they believe is right. Mr. McConnell, a man I have admired since I was growing up across the river from Louisville, Kentucky took a trick from his and my fellow Kentuckian, Muhammad Ali, and fought this fight with the rope-a-dope, hoping that he and his party have enough stomach strength to take all the punches and wear the other guy out. The problem with this tactic on healthcare is that no matter the cost of the bill, no matter the problems with the pork that resides in the 2000+ pages, no matter the issues that will come up down the road, in the short term it is going to feel like to working people, regular people, that they are feeling the effect of change in Washington and getting much needed healthcare coverage reform. And while, I do agree with the Republicans that there is too much spending, too many side-deals, federal spending on abortion, etc. that are hard to live with, let's also not forget that the bill does not have a public option plan in it and many other concessions that if they had been at the table, instead of under it, they could be talking about what they influenced and what they could still influence going forward. I am afraid, Mr. McConnell, that the 40 Rope-A-Dope Vote this time just won't work for the whole fight.

Grounded By Perception

I was talking to a friend the other day who knows a venture capitalist who did well for himself and is now investing in the clean-technology/renewable energy/green space. He has a problem though in that with where he now focuses and the companies and people he works with, he has to be very careful with how he manages his own carbon footprint. That means that the private jet that he and his family used has been grounded. I always felt weird about flying on a corporate or private jet from the money side, but I can certainly see now how the use of a private jet just doesn't fit with being environmentally friendly. I suspect that Al Gore had to rethink his flying choices a long time ago. Most of us don't have to worry about this problem, but the idea that we will have to change our lifestyles due to the perception and the reality of our carbon footprints, I believe will become a real issue in the future. Already we read about the neighbors who look down their noses and nearly shun those in the 'hood who over do it with the holiday lights. When I was investigating going solar for our house one of the selling features was that if we went into negative power usage for the year that we could share our "extras" with the neighbors for community holiday lighting. I actually thought that defeated the purpose, but none the less, I guess it could be a way to be a good neighbor. Sometime in the near future someone is going to challenge each one of us about the car we drive, the light bulbs we use, the windows that need to be replaced, the amount of times we have the grass cut, etc. Of course if you already have kids, you have likely already heard the lecture. Don't fret on that one though, as you now have a much better reason to make sure they turn off the lights when they leave the room and if they don't then you can just ground them. See, we all might get grounded by how we use our energy sometime soon.

Two "Practical" Healthcare Fixes

Here are two "Practical" ways to fix healthcare.

There is nothing wrong with a public option as long we as taxpayers are not burdened with the cost running the public healthcare. We have a good analogy on how to set up a government agency that is run by the government; everyone uses it, and no taxpayer dollars are used to fund it. It has competition from the private sector and it has been around longer than any of us have been alive. It is called the United States Postal Service. No taxpayer dollars go to fund or run the Postal Service. They make it work on a $0.41 minimum unit price. It is a large infrastructure, that while it may not be the most sophisticated, runs, works, is dependable and is a good alternative choice to FedEx, UPS, etc. It employs lots of people and we all have come to depend on them. So, create a public healthcare program where it pays for itself, is provided and used by government employees, and give me the choice to participate. Create the United Stated Healthcare Insurance Service.

Secondly, make healthcare mandatory for all people. In every state in the U.S. if you are going to drive a car you have to carry car insurance. Of course, there are some people who drive without car insurance, but these are the same people who drive without licenses. When they have an accident, they are penalized, fined and sometimes jailed. It is a law to have car insurance and the same can happen with healthcare insurance. The reason that there is affordable car insurance options is because the insurers have a market where everyone has to have it so it invites competition of service, coverage and price. The same would happen with healthcare insurance. If everyone had to have it then good business people would stratify the market and come up with the minimum coverage required at a price point where those who could afford more would get more and those who can only afford the minimum would be able to buy the minimum coverage affordably. Up and down the supply and service chain, costs would come in line and we would get past all of this arguing.

These are two "practical" ways to think about the problems. We need more "practical" thinking and more "practical" solutions. This plea is directed to all us, including President Obama, Mr. Reid, Mrs. Pelosi, and Mr.McConnell.

Where does The TARP Money Go?

I am amazed and pleased to see that the financial institutions who took the TARP money are paying it back, with interest. The moment I saw the executive pay restrictions added to the loans, I knew that they would somehow magically find a way to pay back the money real soon. Lo and behold, here comes Bank of America ready to wire the money back. But, my question is, where does that money go when it gets repaid? I was listening carefully to the President yesterday as he spoke in Allentown, PA and was answering questions from the town hall audience. When talking about the TARP money he said that we might be surprised that it didn't take all of the money approved to have the program work and that the money being repaid would, after an ahem, "go back to pay off deficits". He said this at 12:25PM EST on 12/4. So, I expect that is what happens, or does it? When Bank of America wires over their $45B next week, we should expect that all of that money will go back and be sent out to some creditor to buy down the debt? Well, not really, he said that it would go back to pay off the deficit, not debt. The deficit is the amount that we keep racking up every year beyond our budget, so the TARP monies will go back into some general account fund to be spent on something else that is over spent. I find it depressing to think that the monies that come from each of us with our hard-earned tax dollars, just continue to fall back into a bucket filled with holes. Just once it would be nice to see someone take the accountability for the use of our money and when something does go right, that it can turn into something better, versus just funding more of the same...

Be The Hero...

Original Post on my Tuesday column on www.glassdoor.com


All stories that we hear are basically the same three act structure, so there is no reason that the interview stories that we are used to hearing or telling should not come in the same three acts:

* Act 1 is the story of the protagonist.
* Act 2 is the story of the barriers/challenges.
* Act 3 is the story of the achievement of the goal.

For the past two weeks we have been exploring how you can get the best attention by being able to tell the “story of you” in the most compelling and unique way so that an interviewer/recruiter walks away with her/his own story to tell about you. As a long time talent recruiter the ones who got the job were the ones where I could sit with a hiring manager and say, “you gotta hear the story of this person.” If I was excited about telling their story to someone else the chances of their getting hired went up exponentially.

Last week we discussed six mini-plots about you that you should have prepared and are ready to go. Have you gotten those down on a piece of paper yet? If not, take the time to do so. Once that is done, then you can wrap those together to create you as the protagonist in the story of your career and you. What makes a protagonist interesting is that we gain just enough detail that offers insights into that person’s history or motivation.

When you think about how you describe yourself when asked, what are those elements of you that are unique and interesting that have propelled your career and the decisions you have made to this point? I typically cringe when I hear, “I was born….”, but many times there is something right there that is the catalyst that creates the story arc of someone very interesting. Without doubt, my interests, goals and overall career have been significantly shaped by the fact that my Father was a radio disc jockey when I was born and did radio, TV and theater while I was growing up. And because, at least at one time, radio and TV people were interesting and intriguing to most people, I have always been able to catch the interest of an interviewer by starting the story of me with “I was born with a Father who was a radio and television personality”. Everyone has their own unique traits that can set a story in motion. Think about yours. Find those unique details that when you string them together give someone else a good picture of who you are and what makes up you. If you need help here, go back through your six mini-plots from last week and make a list of the five to 10 unique attributes of you and start working with that list to create the character that is you.

Some other traits you might want to consider in the ‘Story of You’ include:

* Overachiever
* Ambitious
* Athletic
* Well-educated
* Unique family
* Dreamer
* Entrepreneurial
* Gifted
* Listener
* Reader
* Outgoing
* Driven

Whatever the traits are that make up you, figure out what makes you the protagonist in the ‘Story of You’ and find a way to express them in a unique and interesting way that gives the listener just enough detail to catch their attention and set the story of you into motion.

Next week, we’ll discuss Act II – the Barriers in telling the ‘Story of You’.

The Reality of Theater

One night last month, Thursday, October 17th, San Francisco was marking just another night of theater being performed on stages throughout the city and the Bay Area.

On this night the A.C.T. was in an extend run of full houses for the Knee High Theater’s production of Noel Cowards’ “A Brief Encounter”. This fusion piece set in England during World War II told us of unfulfilled love and escape in a tumultuous time. Next door at the Curran Theater the touring company of “RENT” with Anthony Rapp (original Mark) and Adam Pascal (original Roger) was sold out with a raucous crowd to see the La Boehme story told through Jonathon Larson’s characters of the poor, HIV/AIDs infected, starving artists of New York City. They sung of the hope of dying in dignity with others caring about their plight. Across town another war-themed show was turning away people who wanted to see the Lincoln Center Production of “South Pacific”. Another love story set in the islands of the south pacific with war raging all around them. On the other side of the Bay, Berkeley Rep was extended with standing-room-only audiences to see the rock opera; “American Idiot”. Green Day’s musical rant of anti-war, government oppression, big-government mismanagement and societal pressures caught fire and enraptured an audience for 90 minutes of non-stop push. Back in San Francisco, the A.C.T. MFA students, under the direction of Jon Moscone, Artistic Director of Cal Shakes, were presenting the play, “Naked Skin”, about women’s rights and the struggle of suffrage in the United Kingdom. This play was the first by a woman playwright to be presented on London’s National Theater’s Olivier Stage. This moving work reminded us that human rights advancement is a contemporary issue and we still have a long way to go until all are treated equally. Another of the National Theater’s productions was in town this night as well. There was a simulcast screening of their “All’s Well That Ends Well” at the AMC Kabuki film theater. On top of all of the live theater in town on this night, a few hundred people were taking in Shakespeare through the cinema screen, in an effort for the NT to build better relations with the American audience.

I know I have missed at least another half dozen to a dozen other plays that were running on this night as well. There is always much theater in our town on any given night.

But on this night the theater became reality as at the same time that curtains were rising across the Bay Area, just over in Union Square, at the St. Francis Hotel, the first sitting U.S. President to visit San Francisco in nearly a decade was speaking live. President Obama had turned out thousands of supporters to hear him update them on the issues of our time. Issues that were all around him that night in the theaters of the Bay Area; war, healthcare, human rights, the social-class divide, international relations, the economy in context of the financial crisis, and government’s role in all of this. President Obama didn’t need to look much further than the scripts and librettos of the theaters around him that night to find relevant substance for his speeches.

We go to the theater to suspend our disbelief and to experience the stories of others so we can connect and feel. We use the theater to wrestle with the issues that are our own. We sometimes find what is true reality being no further away than just on the stage before us.

On this one night in San Francisco in October of 2009, the theater was as real as it gets.

How to get real productivity? Do it right the first time!

This past week, I just took notice of the amount of time that my wife and I spend following up, chasing down mistakes and trying to have them corrected, listening on the phone to on-hold music as we waited for a customer service representative, or their supervisor when we couldn't get the issue resolved. My wife talks about how she loses hours and hours a week just correcting what other people haven't done right in their jobs, and when watching her, she is right. This past week, I took on some of these items and I found a pool guy who didn't come this week, but unless we report it, we will get charged for the visit, which means a preemptive phone call from me and us watching the bill next month. A waiting for a repairman who never showed and then called three days later to schedule something this week instead of last. Dealing with UPS who decided to not deliver a package on time that I needed and having to chase that down, and now wait for the refund and if I don't get it then have to follow up in ten days to ensure that it goes through. Chase down, figure out what is wrong, find out that someone didn't do their job right or thoroughly and take our time to get it all right. I imagine a world where everyone did their work right the first time, there was a belief that customer service was not perfect unless they never had to be called. How different things would be! I suspect that if we could attack this level of productivity loss that we would not only see a big pick up in our ability to manufacture more efficiently, but we would also return to a place where consumers trusted and believed in products. That in itself could impact consumer confidence. It is time to look at this problem. It starts with CEO's and Boards honoring their consumers and customers with a commitment to get it right the first time!

What Has Happened to U.S.?

In the past two weeks we have seen two instances that has made we wonder, "what has happened to us?" First, the President of the United States takes time out of his schedule to speak directly to he kids in our schools about the importance of education, hard work, and focus. And what do we get? We get school districts and parents who politicize the issue and deny their children the opportunity to hear the President deliver a message that could be the one that shapes and motivates their education and eventual career decisions. Don't we want every child in America to sit at their first grade desk knowing with all of their heart that they could someday be the President of they put their hearts and mind to it? So, what is the message we are sending when we keep our children from being exposed to the President? I don't care if you agree with the politics of the President or not, he is the President of the United States and he is owed and has earned, if only through obtaining the office, the respect that when he speaks, we should stop what we are doing and listen. I am far from being a person who has agreed with any President on all things but regardless of their foibles and positions, if my President speaks and/or calls on me, then I listen and respond. A week later we have an elected Congressman, Joe Wilson, from South Carolina, yelling out "You Lie!" in the middle of the President's joint session of Congress. When I heard it live, I thought I had misheard. I rolled back the TIVO and there it was. In that moment, I felt sorry for our country and was just as embarrassed and ashamed for Mr. Wilson. To hear people later support his outburst only hurt more. We are not a government where we call for lack of confidence votes. We have a President, like him/her or not, for four years and it is our responsibility to not always agree, but to support and do what we can to make things better. Calling our President a liar, or denying him access to children, is not constructive in any shape or form. So, tonight I wonder what has happened to us, what has happened to our U.S.?