Author: stimsinstitute

The Men of America

Triangle of Skills

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The article titled Election 2016: The men America has left behind, in the CNN – Election 2016: Your money, your vote section is misleading on many ways.

In the first place, America did not leave behind any one. America as a nation is made up of people, who work in the country and get paid for AND the business men who run the companies and employ these workers. So, the article should be titled: The men that American businesses have left behind.

America is not a socialistic or communist country where everyone gets taken care of by “America” (i.e.) the US government and hence the POTUS and the US Congress. It is a Democracy – of the people, by the people and for the people. Hence the more appropriate title may be: The men of America who let themselves to be left behind. These American men were happy to be paid good wages as long as they had a job where they could use their physical labor in the factory floor. This is very well illustrated in the GE commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xGoBlI_fdg These skills – the muscle power – has always been available everywhere across the globe. Being born or living in the US does not guarantee the use or need for these skills. These men always used their brawn, but never used their innate skills to think and analyze what is happening around them. They let business men like Donald Trump take their jobs across the globe. Now they are being conned by the same business leader to think that it is everybody else’s fault, except theirs. The focus is on men only because there were more men than women using their brawn in our factory floors. But, the issues and being conned are the same for the women as well as the men of America. Also these men were idle or willing to let the state governments weaken the unions and their bargaining power, while the crony capitalism was also growing. Democracy does not succeed if the voters do not exercise their vote or uneducated on policies that affect them or swayed by cable news and radio talk shows and reality TV.

The title could also be The Men of America left behind by “Technology”. It is sad but true that everyone has been conned to accept that the word “Technology” stands for Digital Technology or IT. This technology is useful to take the power of information away from many people into the hands of a few. This has dramatically reduced the number of white collar jobs. This impact has been largest in the US first, but it is sweeping its impact across the globe. With the automation of information the men of muscle power could also be replaced by lower cost labor from Mexico, China, … all padding the pockets of business men like Donald Trump, with more profit. I

The title could also be The Men of America left behind by intellectuals and policy makers across the globe. The word Technology stands for integrated use of Science, Engineering and Managnment in any discipline. While America continues to make progress in a few other technology areas besides IT, the time and investments needed in many more technologies – for alternative fuels, clean air and water, controlling the global warming, space exploration, under water exploration, eradicating hunger, thirst and poverty across the globe, peace through prosperity in Middle East, …. – is far less than the jobs being taken away by the relentless use of IT in the current work place.

The title could also be The Men of America being misled by Donald Trump. No matter how much Mr. Trump promises, he cannot make America great again, by forcing US businesses to “make” things in America. It is only a matter of time that some manufacturing jobs will be returning to US due to natural economic forces (with or without Mr. Trump). But, they will not be for these men of muscle power. They will be for the few who with skills to work in an automated factory floor with robots and AGVs and networked machines and systems.

The title could also be The Men of America lured by cheap products at Walmart. While the US business men were attracted and even addicted to low cost labor, the US population has been equally attracted to lower cost items – made in China – available in places like Walmart. No one gets anything for nothing. Lower cost products at Walmart also mean lower cost labor from China and Mexico and lower cost of white collar labor every where.

May be the title can also be The Men of America who think college education is their savior. This is the myth propagated by the media and fueled by free college for all by Mr. Bernie Sanders. College education, even if it is free may not be the answer for a large majority of American workers. Yes, it is a definite pathway but only for a few.

May be the tile could be Men of America who are not learning some skills – to be a solution provider – for locally accessible jobs. Following quote from the same CNN Money article is relevant here:

Meanwhile, unlike some of his fellow factory workers, Cavins is determined to get a good job. He’s betting that a yearlong course in industrial maintenance will give him the skills needed to work in heating and cooling services, which his online searches found can start at $40,000 a year. He’s willing to leave Scioto County and work anywhere … in a hospital, factory, school or water supply facility, for instance. One day, he’d like to start his own business. …… The program, offered at Scioto County Career Technical Center, costs nearly $10,000 and has placed 95% of its graduates over the past two years in jobs that typically earn between $31,000 and $40,000 annually. To finance it, Cavins received a federal Pell Grant for $5,900 and took out two loans.  ….   “I didn’t think I’d get anywhere without learning a trade,” said Cavins, who graduates in September. “I want to give my family better than what I had. I want to try to break the cycle and not live on disability.”

May be the title could be: Men of America that the country and US policies left behind, due to crony capitalism, Republican obstruction in the Congress for infra-structure investment and false hope on higher education at the expense of free or affordable training for employable skills development. Perhaps for the time left before the November election, the presidential candidates can propose and develop support for such training. Community Colleges in collaboration with local companies and employers can offer such training. The companies who collaborate on such training can be given tax subsidies as their incentive? Free community college education proposed by the POTUS can be for such targeted training and not for open ended education?

For more details on how these men – working middle class – were left behind, please read: The System Approach – A strategy to survive and succeed in the global economy  ;

Thriving in the 21st Century Economy – Transformational skills for technical professionals.

Opportunities that should not be lost in the current Presidential Election Cycle?

The uniqueness of any democracy is the discussion and debate on policy issues in the public square. Every election cycle provides a unique opportunity for such debate. The result is an emerging consensus often treated as the “mandate” for further actions and programs implemented through the congress and the elected officials. America stands as the beacon of hope for such public policy development and actions that serve the larger interests of its people. As the single super power the leadership from US also serves the needs of the citizens of all nations across the globe.

Let us see how these hopes and aspirations of the middle class in the USA and the people across the globe are served or not during this current election cycle?

Turning to the Democrats the promise from Bernie Sanders’ campaign is tuition free education in all public colleges and universities. The Hillary Clinton campaign offers an alternative – debt free college education for all. Assuming either or both policies are implemented what comes next? Where will the high wage jobs come from? Do we really need college education for the many jobs to be created through infrastructure investments? If not then what? Aren’t the middle class starved of good paying jobs and wage stagnation also likely to be left with more number of well-educated un-employed youth to care for?

Affordable higher education is certainly a laudable goal. But the total silence on the nature of higher education and how it must be reformed to create graduates who can create and sustain new job and career opportunities is astonishing indeed.

Are the graduates coming out of colleges today fully employed? If the answer is No, then is it merely a case of lack of adequate number of jobs? Or is it a case that the higher education today is insufficient or incapable of meeting the needs of the jobs available today? What is the required education? Are the educators of today capable of offering such modified education? Writing a blank check to the higher education industry with an open ended expectation may serve no one’s best interests.

Better funding for basic research is claimed as one of the needs to recover more well-paying jobs. Assuming that organizations such as NIST, NSF and NIH and others are funded ten times more than their current budgets, are they capable of creating outcomes which in turn can result in adequate number of well-paying jobs in US to accommodate all the future graduates? Does their track record justify such expectations in the future? Educators and intellectuals need to step in and fill this policy vacuum. There may be no time better than now for such debate and consensus building.

Turning to the Republicans, their leading candidate Donald Trump promises to make “America great again”, by bringing back the manufacturing from China to USA. Let us take a closer look at this proposal.

The role and impact of labor cost is gradually declining in most manufacturing activities. With the rapidly declining cost for information processing and increasing competencies through programmable automation (robots, CNC, AGV, drones, etc.) the need for human labor in manufacturing sector is substantially lower today than any time before. Hence large segments of manufacturing may return to US on their own accord. But it is unlikely that they will bring back the large number of jobs lost in the manufacturing sector.

It will not be the Chinese or Mexicans stealing the future US manufacturing jobs. It will be the shrewd rich investors and the few technology workers who implement their modern operations in the US. They will also be the beneficiaries of any manufacturing renaissance in the USA. This being the case, one wonders what is it that Trump supporters are voting for? When their expectations go unfulfilled, will their anger find further new scape goats? Is that in the best interest of any one?

The reality is that in the 21st century Binary Economy no one is immune from the forces of globalization. One needs to produce outcomes better than anyone else across the globe to command high wage jobs. That is a tall order. Unfortunately it is also the reality. All others – who produce outcomes that can be replicated by someone else – will be forced into low wage jobs with stagnant wages. Being born in any country – including the USA – is not an automatic pathway for better wage jobs.

A nation with a collection of unique skills, capabilities and products and services that cannot be easily replicated by some other nation has a better chance to serve the needs of its citizens. It will require an innovation spirit which becomes the nation’s way of life. This cannot happen through isolation, building walls or pitting one group against another.

Republicans may be lost in their internal political fractures, with little time to spare for larger policy discussions. But they need to consider that governing is not just a matter of smaller government and personal responsibility but how such philosophy is put into practice. The crisis in Flint, MI is a clear case of task oriented actions – being penny wise and pound foolish. It is a matter of not looking at the problems as a whole, as a system. It is a matter of taking responsibility at all levels – being transformational – and not merely for one task (short term cost reduction) at a time.

The Democrats will be no better off if they do not propose and foster a common language that facilitates the innovation spirit as the new way of life. An education at all levels that promotes System Thinking and Transformational Skills will be required for such way of life. This may need challenging the teachers and labor and their unions to think differently and act differently from their well established procedures and practices.

You are not afraid of change – but for what pupose?

One thing that can be said for certain about the American public is that they are not afraid of change; if that suits their short term economic self-interest so much the better, even at the expense of the long term impact. This sub-text would appear to be often missed in the analysis when looking at the current appeal of the Donald Trump campaign.

The traditional belief was that the Americans loved big U.S. made cars even if they were gas guzzlers. This resulted in U.S. automakers expecting their customers to buy a new car every three to five years. “Planned obsolescence” was part of their strategy, without regard to its long term consequences.

The US customers were eager and ready to switch to smaller Japanese cars when such cars offered better fuel economy, higher reliability and lower cost. The loss of jobs for US auto workers was never a concern that stopped them from flocking to the Japanese auto dealers and later to other lower priced imports.

The traditional belief was that America was the manufacturing capital of the world. The products made in China and elsewhere were considered cheap but of poor quality. Yet, when companies like Walmart could import Chinese made products at lower price, the impact of which can be readily seen in any one’s pocket book, the switch was imminent and seamless. Never mind the loss of millions of jobs and the economic and wage stagnation for many.

Any one working in import/export business knows full well the difficulties in selling into Japan, and China than it is to import from these countries. Such trade may not be open and free as assailed by Mr. Trump. But the unfair trade has been embraced and not rejected by the US business community for their short term gains. It is disingenuous now for this business leader to blame the foreign governments without himself looking at the mirror and asking his fellow business leaders to do the same.

The lure of cheap labor and tax incentives and tax free infrastructure investments from China and other countries were sufficient for thousands of investors and their CEOs to switch their US production to these countries. The favorable impact on their short term profits and balance sheet was adequate for such switch. Never mind the hollowing out of the middle of every kind in the US economy.

Converting all fixed costs into variable cost was seen as a business strategy, promoted by business consultants, never mind the impact on loss of skills and capabilities required for long term sustainability of their client companies.

US consumers were not averse to sub-prime home mortgage loans, never mind their long term inability to pay for such loans.

We see the same emphasis on the short term economic self-interest at work in many other facets. US Congress is stagnating because the representatives in the Congress place greater emphasis on their re-election and primary fights than advancing national policies and programs. Wall Street may be greedy, but behind the Wall Street are men and women with greater emphasis on short term needs never mind their long term impact.

Apple claims to be fighting for the protection of first amendment rights, but one can wonder how much of this resistance has to do with protecting their current overseas sales?

Income from their overseas operations is parked by many companies outside the country because they don’t want to pay the current US taxes.

It may be the short term self-interest that drives Mr. Trump in his quest for Presidency as well as his supporters to the polls. The same short term self-interest may keep the Republican candidates against coalescing around a consensus anti-Trump candidate for the long term benefit of the Republican Party.

Let us be clear about one thing: It may be only a minority of the US population that is so focused on short term self-interest. But Democracy is a system of Government where the majority protects the interests of the minority.

Perhaps the current discussion in the presidential primaries should be expanded to include the role of the minority and their economic self-interest and how it can co-exist with the needs of the majority or the nation as a whole. Such a holistic view – system thinking –  will be a welcome change that every American can embrace?

It is the reality now that being born in the US or any other developed nation by itself is not a guarantee for economic success. One would hope that many of the Trump’s supporters would see this writing on the wall. Also one who has been playing by the rules of crony capitalism can not change over night to become a populist and fighter for economic equality for all, as Donald Trump promises to be.

Yes, the US population seeks a change and ready to embrace it. But the change has to come from within each individual and their passion for success. But emphasis on the economic self-interest of every individual also requires them to focus their short term efforts on System Thinking and Transformational skills. This change which in turn will lead to their long term competitiveness and success in the global economy.

Urgent need for education that addresses the real need: Knowledge and its use to deliver solutions that commands better wages.

“Today, college degree is what the high school education was fifty years ago, to get a decent job. Things have changed a lot and we need to address this through a tuition free education in all public colleges and universities” says Senator Bernie Sanders, our current presidential candidate in the Democratic Party.

Some time ago I was speaking with a librarian in a local public library. She said that “in my times going to college was for the nerds”. She was referring to a time about fifty years ago. So, are we suggesting that everyone born today has to be a “nerd”? If not, what is the change in college education that is suitable for the modern economy? Without addressing this fundamental change in what we teach and what the students learn in a college, simply making the same old education from fifty years ago only tuition free – how will that change anything?

Today all trade policies including NAFTA are being derided. But they were thought of as the solution to the problems and opportunities of Globalization, twenty years ago.  Without truly understanding the forces and causes of globalization that solution implemented twenty years ago appears to be detrimental to the US workers today. We have a situation where the economy continues to grow with more low paying jobs and few good paying jobs. There is a risk in the future of a similar negative impact for the freshly minted graduates with free college education proposed today.

First and foremost, free college education has to be coupled with more well-paying jobs where these educated work force can be employed. “New Bachelor-Level Chemists Face Grim Job Market” is a quote from an article published by the American Chemical Society (ACS). The article is titled: A glut of chemists with bachelor’s degrees as well?

Over the past four decades there has been a relentless emphasis on Information Technology specifically and Digital Technology as a broad category. This reliance on IT as the major source of success has certainly paid rich dividends. It has helped this country to be at the forefront of economic success, while many other developed nations such as Japan continue to struggle. Despite the faster growth of China and other developing nations, US is still by far the largest nation in terms of its GDP. IT has an undeniable role in this success. But, the number of IT jobs to be created can never meet the full employment needs of this nation. We see this in the recent success of auto industry. Despite the claims of resurgence in auto industry, we see this success with only fewer good paying jobs.

Full employment does not automatically mean good wage jobs.

Today every one earns wages and their salaries through one of three pathways: Knowledge and its use, Information work and physical labor. Of these three physical labor work has been available in plenty until the evolution of machinery and mechanization. Now even the few labor jobs any one can do can be replaced by robots and automation. To make up for this people moved on to information work. Reading and writing skills and any ability to process data. Education acquired through high school and college education was useful here. Now for the past four decades anything a human do – read, write, speak, process data, analyze and decide – can be increasingly done using computers, IT systems and internet. This leaves a narrow pathway for employment – through “knowledge and its use”. This constant decline in good paying lower level jobs is recognized by many, but they are unwilling to face up to the reality openly and forthrightly.

Nerd may be someone with knowledge, but every nerd does not automatically become a knowledge worker with usable output of value to someone. This dichotomy needs to be recognized. Simply making higher college education tuition free is like throwing good money after bad money.

So, where will these new jobs come from?   These jobs will definitely need better academic skills in terms or reading, writing and mathematics. Beyond that the STEM education of today has to become much more practice or applications oriented. But such applications or targets can not be obvious unless the nation sets out a clear industrial policy for the future.  This does not imply that the government picks winners and losers. Instead a nation without a long term policy is like a rudderless ship.

How can we have a practice oriented education, when the teachers have no real life experience in the practice or application of what they teach? May be no one should be taken into the teaching profession unless they have had hands on know-how in their area of expertise? Perhaps  the future president – who are candidates today – can promote two plus years of support for on the job learning, for any one who is to be accepted in the teaching profession at any level – high school, community college or university?

Finally, not all those who are rich or better off are the scrooges from Wall Street, as Mr. Sanders would like us to believe. Yes, there are many in that camp and the system is rigged in their favor. All the power to Bernie and his supporters to address that issue. But, there are many who are rich or at least better off in this global economy, who have the passion and skills to discover, develop and exploit new solutions. If you are not aware of them, simply watch a few episodes of Shark Tank. These are the few with what we call as Transformational Skills.

We see education today has to be a combination of knowledge, its use and a passssion to make it relevant or useful to some one with a need. We believe this aggregate education starts with a formal education on System Thinking and Transformational Skills.

 

 

 

 

Role of System Thinking and Transformational Skills in HR Development

Recently we came across a post under the title, “Think again, where does the responsibility lie?” https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3044917/3044917-6113564172006551552

Abstracted below are a few relevant passages. Included in Italics are our comments.  Are these among the issues faced by you or your people?

  • You have expectations around your career progress that are not materializing.
  • You are an executive in waiting who thinks that you are not being groomed for the big job.
  • Your boss is searching for the right successor so that he/she can move upwards and cannot move unless there is someone competent to take that place.
  • You were judged as ‘not ready’!
  • You are hiding away from the real issues, since the “problem”, “solution” or the “system” is not clear.

SOLUTION:

Proactive learning and use of System Thinking and TRANFORMATIONAL SKILLS:

There is something that I am doing that is not working – let me find out what it is so that I can get past it”

 

IF YOUR BOSS IS NOT A SYSTEM THINKER WITH TRANSFORMATIONAL SKILLs, then your boss is unlikely to give you the feedback that you need to hear to get it right. If he/she doesn’t openly lie to you (and you can feel it when she does even though you might deny it) she is still unlikely to tell you the real reason.

So don’t wait for your boss or the company. You can start your journey on your own and bring others into the fold.

Contact Us.