Category: Uncategorized

Lessons for Community Leaders

The errors of great men are often more fruitful than the truths of lesser. ~ Nietzsche

As an omnivorous reader, so much has been going on in the world that it’s hard for me to keep up. War with Iran. Fauci’s flops and failures, and the aftermath of the pandemic. The death of extreme climate projections. A new reforming chair of the Federal Reserve focused on fighting inflation. The rise of the DSA. Tariffs. Corruption galore.

Focused as I am on communities, I see several useful lessons for community leaders coming from these national (indeed, global) current events. In the following, I’m going to touch on several controversial situations, many of which involve errors by public figures. My purpose is to extract useful lessons, rather than playing the Blame Game. As the quote above implies, errors are often more instructive than successes.

Lesson One – necessary action often requires taking risks. President Trump and his team were confronted by the threat of an Iran with the potential to hurl bombs at our bases and our allies in the Mid-East and Europe. We were probably a few months away from facing nuclear blackmail. The President and his team knew (from wargaming by the Pentagon and probably others) that there was a risk that Iran would close the Straits of Hormuz disrupting the global economy. They also knew that military action to reduce Iran’s nuclear threat would arouse significant opposition. They accepted these risks, and took action to mitigate the existential threat.

In a previous post, I wrote about how George McLean in Tupelo risked his credibility with the other leaders in town to risk $25,000 (of their money!) to buy a bull so that Lee County’s (MS) struggling cotton planters could turn to dairying. As I detailed in that post, this eventually resulted in Tupelo and Lee County going from abject poverty to a thriving regional hub.

Lesson Two – anticipate the consequences of action. We live in a highly connected world. Any major policy change or new initiative inevitably brings with it a cascade of consequences; some positive, some negative; some intended, some not. While it is impossible to anticipate all of these, we should try to anticipate any that might lead to failure of some part of the community. Failure to do so can often have devastating consequences.

The decision to close schools made by some communities during the pandemic provides an all-too-familiar example. Intended to protect kids (and elders) from the virus, this policy led to limited learning, and hindered growth of social skills. Because their kids had to stay home, many parents (esp. the poor) were faced with a Catch-22: leave the kids home alone while the parents worked to put food on the table, or one of the parents had to stay home with the kids and it became harder to put enough food on the table.

A good way to look for adverse consequences is to first determine which parts of the community are directly impacted, especially in a harmful manner. Then look for harmful impacts to those parts of the community closely connected to those directly impacted, and so on, chasing down the chains of close connections and adverse impacts.

Lesson Three – always check the data you’re using to inform decisions. In general, almost all important decisions are informed by some type of data input. The data may be expert opinion. They may be the results of modeling. They may be some form of situational awareness – but they should always be assessed, in terms of both uncertainties and of trust in the source of information. This assessment should continue even after action is taken.

The importance of Israeli intelligence is an often-overlooked aspect of our nation’s decisions to take military action against Iran. American intelligence services have few (if any) reliable human intelligence sources. Israel has apparently cultivated several significant human sources. These provided much of the information the US has used in planning and executing our attacks on Iranian military assets. Our more extensive technical intelligence networks are used to verify and validate the information from Israeli intelligence.

Our response to the pandemic provides some of the most telling examples of what can go wrong if the information used for action is not properly assessed. As I’ve described in more detail elsewhere, Fauci and Co originally used the Imperial College infectious disease model to predict covid’s impacts. This model had already been discredited because its predictions of the number of deaths in previous viral outbreaks were orders of magnitude greater than those actually experienced.

Our experience during the pandemic also demonstrates the importance of assessing the bases of decisions even after they are made. While the mRNA vaccines were probably effective against the original variant of the virus, we also know that they became less and less effective as the virus morphed into other variants. The recent revelations from the Fauci “diaries” also tell us that after about six months, evidence of significant side effects from the virus, especially among young men, began to be obseerved. This should have led to questions about the wisdom of mass immunization of the young (but did not).

The lesson for community leaders should be clear. Whatever information you use to inform a decision, you need to understand where it comes from. Do you trust the source? What assumptions are built in? How certain is the information? Does your source have an agenda of their own? Are you getting the right answer or their “safe” answer? Have potential consequences been chased down? And most importantly, you must keep monitoring the effectiveness of your actions and any unintended consequences (Careful readers may remember that Trump was about to open the country back up from the lockdowns when he lost the 2020 election.).

Lesson 4 – during a crisis, communicate consistently and honestly. In a crisis, we members of the public want to believe that someone’s in control; that someone is doing what’s needed to right the ship. Leaders want the public to support their decisions, but the public won’t if they don’t trust the message or the messenger. Thus, successful crisis resolution critically depends on community leaders’ ability to provide a consistent message that accurately reflects what they know – and don’t know. The message needs to clearly lay out objectives, and how they will be reached. If objectives or actions change, then leaders should lay out why and how they’ve changed.

President Trump’s messaging about the Iran conflict is almost a textbook for what not to do. He wobbles from “We have to obliterate Iran as we know it” to “Peace is just around the corner.” He has muddied the waters so badly that it is almost impossible to be sure what he views as our objectives. Contrast this with Secretary Rubio’s consistent message that our ultimate goal is to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

Fauci’s communications during the pandemic were arguably worse, especially in light of the recent revelations in his “diaries.” A gigantic flip-flop – “Masks aren’t really effective” to “Double mask!” Another: Supporting bans on church services and other public gatherings to failing to support similar action against the large-scale protests in the summer of 2021. Lying about the source of the virus, and conspiring to hide his own culpability in its development. Failing to publicly discuss the risks of the vaccines – and endorsing their continued use – while trying to prevent public mention of the mounting evidence of serious side effects. I don’t know about anyone else, but by the Fall of 2021, I had no faith in anything he – and by extension the federal government – said (Of course the fact that I had three doses of the vaccine and still got a bad case of covid may also have had something to do with it!).

I’ve discussed crisis communications in some detail in a previous post. I won’t rehash that here, except to point out that in a crisis accurate communication to the public is of paramount importance. Effective leaders should tell the public what their aim is; what they know that drives their decisions; what they don’t know and what they’re doing to gain additional information. And when, inevitably, community leaders must change direction, they should tell the public why.

Unfortunately, our news feeds are filled with examples of mis-governance, “great men’s errors.” Wise – effective – community leaders will learn from them and find their study “fruitful.”

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Five Pillars of Community Resilience

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

Noam Chomsky

The other week, Claire Rubin sent me a link to an article from Beaumont resilience training – Here’s How to Use Resilience to Move out of Your Comfort Zone. The author – Laura Ponting – focuses on the personal growth of the individual, but her “five pillars” seem to fit well with my own conception of community resilience as a springboard for growth – development or strengthening – of a community, i.e., for making a community more Future-fit.

I apologize to Ms Ponting – I’m reorganizing her order to suit my [sometimes – often?] warped logic. I’ve also taken some of her words out of context, to help make my points. I’m also couching this in terms of systems; after all, communities are first and foremost complex adaptive systems (CASs). I’ll also use the Seven Community Capitals as a way to clarify some of my points.

First Pillar: Purpose. Future-fitness – growing in strength and capability – requires not just action, but purposeful action. Action — to strengthen the individual or the community. Since a community is only successful if it provides the quality of life its members want, the purpose of becoming more resilient is to safeguard that quality of life, and to improve it if possible. This is often called a vision; the community’s conception of what that stronger community will be. The community as a whole has to buy into that vision, or else it is likely that it won’t be realized.

In particular, this requires cultural capital. A common language to describe and understand that future state. A common self-confidence that breeds optimism. As Chomsky implies, without that confidence and the optimism it engenders, the community won’t work together to achieve it.

Second Pillar: Self-awareness. “Know Thyself” is not just an inscription on a Greek temple; it is the zero-th step for any community plan. For the community as a system, self-awareness means knowing who its members are. It means knowing how they are connected – or not. It means knowing the “balances” in each of its capital accounts, and the constraints or limits on the use of each capital. Most importantly, it means that the community’s leaders know how to make decisions and take action (human and institutional capital).

Third Pillar: Mindfulness. “Mindfulness” for a community equates to situational awareness. Communities as systems are in dynamic environments, with trajectories conditioned by both internal and external forces. “Mindful” communities recognize not only where they’re headed, but the forces that are driving them. The fine people at ResOrgs in NZ consider situational awareness one of the four enablers of effective crisis strategic planning.

Situational awareness rests on the community’s social capital. It requires “ears to the ground” within the community to gauge the community’s mood and its ability to move. Situational awareness also requires linchpins keenly tuned in to sources of information outside the community. They can warn the community about new sources of stress and alert the community to unexpected opportunities.

Fourth Pillar: Self-care. As individuals, we know we have to take care of ourselves. We exercise (well, some of us do). We have physicals to tell us whether we’re overweight, have high blood pressure, are pre-diabetic or any of the other warning signs the doctor looks for. And if we’re wise, we take action to avoid further damage to our vitality.

The same holds true for our communities. We know that if we fail to maintain our homes or our physical and natural infrastructure, they may be damaged in a severe storm, or even collapse from neglect. But the same holds true for our “softer” infrastructures.
• our community’s culture that, at its best, brings us together and gives us the confidence to act;
• our community’s social networks that enable us to communicate with each other, and – in times of crisis – tell us where resources are needed;
• our community’s economy that provides us with the financial capital to take action.

And just as we as individuals have physicals to point out where action is indicated to strengthen us, so too should we in our communities be aware of those signs that point out that action is needed. More frequent maintenance of physical systems, rising crime, a fraying social fabric, or growing poverty each are indicative of the need for “self-care” for our communities.

Fifth Pillar: Positive relationships. Ms Ponting couches this in terms of finding people to support us, esp. as we strive to better ourselves. The same holds true – in spades – for communities. It is simply a reflection of the economy of scale. The more resources we can bring together, the more we can do. If we work smartly (after all, two heads are better than one) we can make our communities more functional and better places to live for all of us.

But there are also traps for the unwary in this. First, “working smartly.” If we let ideology overrule reality, in other words if we don’t couple Purpose and Mindfulness/Situational Awareness, then we may actually harm our community. The debacles that so many of our big cities have become – crime, filth in the streets, the ugliness of the hopeless homeless – are monuments to failed ideologies not rooted in reality.

The second trap seems to be endemic in our age of “engagement.” Even the best of ideas can die the death of a thousand cuts in a committee. When egos are engaged, everyone wants to see a little of themselves in what’s done. That leads to inefficiencies and sometimes even alters the idea so much that it no longer supports the Purpose.

A third trap is the difficulty in overcoming the distrust and mistrust that seems to be endemic in our not-so-civil civil life. It sometimes seems that no one has the authority to act but everyone has veto power over any action. Relationships ultimately are grounded in trust. In our age, however, Trust has become a rare commodity. Thus, building positive relationships particularly in our polarized polity is not for the faint of heart.

Five Pillars for strengthening us as individuals; Five Pillars to move our communities toward a better and more secure future. That should be our Purpose. Achieving the Purpose has to be grounded in self- and situational-awareness, so we can set a realistic path from today to that better tomorrow. As we advance upon that path we must maintain those strengths we rely on to move forward – self-care. And if we can find willing partners to support us, these positive relationships can help us to advance more rapidly.

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Memorial Day 2023

we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion

Abraham Lincoln

This past weekend we remembered those who died in service to our country. For them, Duty, Honor, Country was more than a phrase, it became the visceral reality they lived and died for. They understood the concepts of Duty to guard the ideal of Freedom, of Honor in doing that duty, and of devotion to Country. 

After Viet Nam, we as a country decided that we would move from a military based on the draft to an all-volunteer service. This resulted in an Army that was able to transform itself into a much more capable fighting force after the debacle that was Viet Nam. However, it meant that our youth no longer had to serve, but rather only if they chose to do so.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since then we have drifted toward a “me-centric” society. This “multi-culture” requires no Duty, has no concept of Honor and is at best indifferent to its Country. In my youth (as best I can remember it!), the idea of a Trump or a Biden as our President would have been unthinkable. In our media we had men and women who had actually lived on the frontlines, seen soldiers die, who knew what Duty, Honor, Country actually meant. We had leaders who had served, and whose leadership had been literally honed under fire. These honorable men and women stood above party to do the right things for their country.

Those who haven’t served have no conception of service to something greater than themselves. Those who have never seen the great good that our country has striven for here and abroad cannot truly appreciate our country until they contrast it against foreign societies (Brittany Griner’s epiphany is a good case in point). We cannot “get our Country back” until we – all of us – rediscover the importance of that cause that so many have died for.

One might think that these are idealistic concepts, of no practical importance. But they are, even – perhaps especially – at the community level. We see rising crime, a widening partisan divide – a chasm!, leaders who are pushed forward by their “followers,” citizens lacking trust in their governments because they sense that their governments don’t trust them, and decreasing life expectancies especially among those who have lost all hope. 

And yet … And yet, even in the kaleidoscope of our current dysfunction, I see glimmers of hope. I see parents starting to speak up for their kids’ education and taking back responsibility for their upbringing. I see business owners starting to pressure their city councils to take back their downtowns from the thugs and the druggies. I see people voting with their pocketbooks against businesses that seem to have forgotten who their customers are. 

Yes, these growing pains can be messy; yes, they sometimes are downright ugly. But ultimately, my hope is that this reawakening of responsibility will lead to greater civic engagement. That we will all eventually realize the importance of community, of serving something greater than ourselves. And in doing that, we will have rediscovered Duty, Honor Country. And if we can, we will pay the greatest possible tribute to those who “gave the last full measure of devotion.”

Trend lines

Follow the trend lines, not the headlines.

Bill Clinton

Advice as applicable to communities as to Presidents. Following the headlines tells us of disasters that have happened; following a trend – a trajectory – can alert us to disasters – and opportunities – to come.

Almost every community has some sort of plan for its future. Too often, those plans are predicated on a hoped-for future, and formulated without following the trend lines. It is far better to start with “What will our world look like in X or Y years?” Far better to acknowledge the trends, to consider a variety of scenarios reflecting their interplay, and then to aim for a future that mitigates the downside and maximizes the chances to thrive.

Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote a piece about our current decade – the Roaring Twenties. I highlighted trends that I thought would profoundly impact the evolution of communities this decade (and a bit beyond).
• The continuing culture clash;
• The dwindling influence of the Baby Boomers;
• Low interest rates punishing savers (esp. the elderly) and exacerbating the rich-poor divide;
• Business consolidation;
• Youth unemployment; and
• The accelerating pace of change itself.

The pandemic was a disaster most of us lived through. It was a shock wave that reinforced almost all of the trends I cited. The culture clash between individualists and collectivists has gotten worse. Baby Boomers have left the workforce in increasing numbers. While interest rates have risen, they are still less than the rate of inflation – the value of savings continues to fall and it is still more difficult for the poor to accumulate wealth. Youth unemployment has not been solved (and, as I discuss below, there are other trends affecting our kids). And the pace of change continues its dizzying acceleration.

However, the pandemic shock wave – the compound of the pandemic itself and our responses to it – has also brought to the fore other trends that will shape our communities’ futures. An especially concerning trend is the increasing social isolation across society. According to a recent Pew Foundation study, on average the time we spend with friends dropped by about half a day compared with 2012, as did the time we spend with acquaintances. On average we spend the equivalent of a day more a week alone. Who will we turn to in times of crisis?

There have been several articles pointing out how few of us have sufficient savings to meet a crisis. It is just as true for social as financial capital – other people are crucial resources in times of trouble. Fewer resources imply slower [or no] recovery. And less resilient people mean less resilient communities relying on resources they may not have.

And whether alone or even when out with friends and family, too many of us have our noses buried in our phones. We tune into the echo chambers fostered by social media, telling us that the Reds [or the Blues, depending on the hue of our personal echo chambers] are evil degenerates beneath contempt. This reinforces a lack of trust in our institutions and ourselves.

Sadly, too many of our community leaders seem bewildered by parents who want to have a say in what’s being taught their kids. Bewildered by parents who believe that parents must have a say in life-altering “transitions” of their kids. Bewildered by a public who believe that denying opportunities to Asians is really racism. Bewildered by a public who bemoan the growth of a “culture” that seems to have turned its back on accountability. Bewildered by a public that believes crimes should be punished, and that the police are all that stands between them and the barbarism of the mean streets.

Many of our youth are the unfortunate victims of these trends. Over the last ten years, emergency room visits for acts of self-harm by young women have gone up almost a factor of five; the rate for young men has almost doubled. Kids with “Progressive” parents – esp. young women – have fared even worse. Our kids are living in our houses longer and marrying later than in previous decades. There really aren’t any jobs in our inner cities for kids who can’t read or write.

And we know that our poor response to the pandemic only made things worse. Too many kids in public schools not only lost learning time, but some, I fear, will have to learn how to learn again. We know that the masking of young kids slowed the development of their social skills. While we have poured money into our inner city schools, we also find that in Chicago, for example, not one student – not one – in 55 schools (about 10% of the total) can read or do arithmetic at grade level. In Baltimore, Philadelphia and DC less than one in four students can read or do math at grade level. And way too many are functionally illiterate.

And it’s not only the mega-cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia or DC. In Schenectady, NY, only 4% of black students passed the state’s math test this year. Overwhelmingly this hits boys – esp. African-American boys – the hardest. Much more than girls, they fall by the wayside on their way through school. As a result, young men make up only 40% of incoming college classes (with disproportionately fewer blacks), and even fewer make it through to a degree. Too many of our kids are the real losers of the political games being played around our schools. Our often dysfunctional education system’s recovery from this loss of learning will be a true measure of its resilience. I fear that communities will be dealing with the aftershocks of this for decades.

The restructuring of the global economy is another trend accelerated by the pandemic. Companies are edging away form indiscriminate off-shoring; they’re looking to locate facilities in more stable environments and to shorten supply chains. There is a much greater emphasis on resilience over efficiency. More future-fit communities will find ways take advantage of this and seize the opportunities inherent in this restructuring.

The pandemic also led to a wave of early retirements which revealed another facet of this restructuring. Prior to the pandemic, there were five people unemployed for every job opening. Last year, there were two job openings for every person unemployed. This opens the door to greater automation and to the use of AI techniques to augment the workforce.

For most of my life, the economy could be characterized as goods looking for buyers, i.e., excess supply. We’re now in a position of buyers looking for goods, i.e., excess demand. This drives inflation. We also have excessive spending and a political tug of war that is likely to lead to recession and significant economic volatility. Really hard on those with fixed incomes!

Finally, we are at the leading edge of an energy crisis in many parts of our country, caused by our ill-considered rush to renewables and unreasoneing refusal to use fossil fuels. This crisis has already hit Europe in the form of “energy poverty,” where many can’t afford the electricity we take for granted. Or, some of us take for granted. As is true for so many trends, California is at the “forefront,” with brownouts and rolling blackouts periodically occurring.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against renewables. But our governments’ approach to integrating them into our power systems is something like

  1. Mandate a date when all our electricity comes from renewables (ignoring the coupling of these mandates to economics, power system reliability, …);
  2. Shut down other sources of electric power – nuclear, and fossil fuels;
  3. Further mandate that we won’t build any more cars fueled by petroleum, thus increasing our demand for electricity (ignoring the need to develop a charging infrastructure); and then,
  4. Expect three miracles to occur:
    (1) We will somehow find the materials necessary for all of the electric vehicles and wind turbines and photovoltaic systems;
    (2) We will somehow find the engineers and scientists to make this transition work; and
    (3) Our power engineers will find ways to reliably provide electricity from all of these inherently intermittent energy sources.

Good intentions are not a plan. If we are going to shift to renewables we need to lay out a realistic path toward that aim. One that recognizes that we need stable baseload power. If that means batteries to store power from solar and wind, then we shouldn’t shut down our nuclear plants nor our fossil plants until affordable storage systems are available (as California has done). We must also recognize that we likely will need to install something like 20,000% more battery storage than we currently have. Just in California!

Elon Musk installed a single 100MW/128MWh battery for $100,000,000. The city of San Francisco would require seven of those to provide power for a week. Where would that money come from?

In developing that path, we also need to consider the destination. Renewables require large amounts of metals. The world’s known reserves of copper are only 20% of what’s needed to make renewables work. The known reserves of lithium and nickel (e.g., for batteries) are only 10% of what’s needed. The known reserves of cobalt and vanadium are only about 3.5% of what’s needed. Where are the minerals and the mines for all of these metals? Is it even realistic to think we can completely “go electric?”

Future-fit communities will carefully plan this transition, while keeping a sharp eye on the evolution of technology. Right now, the capital cost of battery storage for New York City is 200X greater than the cost of a comparable diesel system. I fully expect that to change, but no one can predict when. It is foolish to expect that the relative cost will decline enough to satisfy some politically-motivated mandate.

Sadly, many communities will be swamped by these trends, but future-fit communities will take purposeful action to transcend their tyranny. They will carefully set reachable goals, and develop practical plans to reach them. They will maintain keen situational awareness, so that they can alter those plans as the future unfolds. They will follow the trend lines, not the headlines, to a better Future.

+++++++++++

I blundered across this essay over the weekend. It effectively identifies an important destination; but purposeful action is needed to get there.
https://blog.joelonsdale.com/p/to-save-america-restore-our-frontier

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Future Fit – Trends

Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future.

Roy T Bennett

Some of you may have been surprised when I started this series of posts by seemingly turning my back on resilience. Actually, I haven’t, but I’ve come to believe that the word itself – like sustainability – has become so buzzworded that it’s lost its punch. And those of us with an expansive view of community resilience – bouncing forward and bouncing back – haven’t really helped.

But there’s also another reason to re-think resilience, prompted by cancel culture and “wokism:” our society has become fixated on our past. In a post a few years ago, I mentioned a give-and-take I’d had with Minneapolis’ then-Chief Resilience Officer. She was determined to establish blame for past racism before she’d even think about helping those on the bottom raise themselves up – resolutely looking backward while stumbling into the future.

Sadly, we have seen too many of our cities seemingly shamble down a similar path to Nowhere. Portland, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco … all looking backward, while putting their futures at risk. Nowhere do I see leaders of our major cities positioning them to survive and thrive in turbulent times – to become Future Fit.

Becoming Future Fit starts with asking “What are the trends that are likely to impact our community’s future?” Then “What might their impacts be?” and “What opportunities may be there for our community?” And finally, “How do we prepare the community to avoid negative impacts and to take advantage of the opportunities?”

In the rest of this post, I’m going to look at current trends that are likely to color our communities’ futures.

“White out.” I was part of the leading edge of the Baby Boomers. Even through the Great Recession, we continued working – in essence blocking – the following generations. Well, covid has put a stop to that! We have already seen a mass exodus of Baby Boomers from the workplace, to be replaced by … well, we’re not sure if there will be anyone there to replace us. Labor shortages are already exacerbating supply chain woes, and hurting productivity.

“ ‘Why’ out.” A more subtle impact of the Baby Boomers leaving the workforce is the corporate knowledge they’re taking with them. They not only know how current systems work (or are supposed to work) but why they’re set up the way they are. A previous post “Helping the Future Remember Its Past” pointed out that ignorance of why things were done the way they were in the past could have severe repercussions when future changes are made.

“Show me the money.” Perhaps more importantly, as the Baby Boomers die out over the next decade, over $60 trillion(!) in assets will be passed down to the following generations. Millenials will be looking to move out of their parents’ basements and into their own homes. This could mean that the current tight housing market may stay with us for a while, making it even more difficult for the lower middle class to afford decent housing.

“The Great Game.” This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone – we’re living in a highly competitive environment. And the competition isn’t just local. Whether we like it or not, our cities are competing with their peers around the world. Unfortunately, they’re not doing very well. At a time when technology is king, too many are dumbing down their schools. Teachers’ unions seem more interested in turning out social justice warriors than STEM workers. “Merit” seems to be a dirty word (I somehow doubt the Chinese are gutting their gifted and talented programs.). Ships are piling up around many of our ports because of union contracts that hinder automation (Oh, and it’s because of those same cushy union contracts that many ports can only afford to be open 16 hours per day.). And the moving trucks continue taking loads from San Francisco, New York, Portland and Seattle, moving people and businesses to cities in Texas and Florida and elsewhere.

“Where’s the beef?” And the pork, and the produce and the toilet paper and … We already know it’s going to be a little bleak this Christmas. The empty supermarket shelves and the glut of goods sitting in ships waiting to be offloaded are merely indicators of a much greater problem: our supply chains only work if we have the workers to make them work – and we don’t. In my area, the cost of construction of a new house has doubled and only if the builder can get the lumber and steel he needs. At a time when our communities’ infrastructure badly needs rebuilding, material shortages and exploding costs are going to slow the pace.

“Balloons.” The US is currently experiencing the highest inflation since the ‘70s. Housing prices have exploded in many areas. The price of a company’s stock too often has too little to do with the inherent value of the company and too much to do with social media memes. While I don’t pretend to be able to accurately predict whether inflation will ease or not (and especially not the stock market!) I think it’s clear that we are in a phase of unprecedented economic volatility. Bubbles will abound, and pop, and new ones will float into view. The Federal Reserve’s below zero real interest rates have decoupled much of the economy from market reality, hence we have zombie companies that would have long since disappeared in a more rational financial regime (Take Elon Musk, please.). The upshot is the “Little Guys” – retirees, small businesses, the two-thirds of the country who don’t have significant wealth – will fall further and further behind their more well-heeled friends, exacerbating existing inequality.

“Rising tides.” Most of our coastal cities are seeing rising sea levels. While I have little patience with the Climate Catastrophists who want to waste our money on decarbonization, rising sea levels are a growing problem for many communities. However, the highest rates of sea level rise are primarily due to subsidence not CO2. Trying to control CO2 won’t do anything for places like New Orleans or Norfolk.

“Separated by a common language.” Perhaps the greatest impediment to progress our communities face is the yawning abyss between left and right. In the old days (back when dirt and I were both young) Dems and GOPers pretty much agreed on what the country’s problems were. Neither demonized the other; both sides were willing and able to “reason together” to find solutions. Now we are all so enmeshed in our own echo chambers that we question each other’s basic humanity. We can’t even agree on simple questions like “What is racism?”

Each of our communities is being impacted by several of these trends – and the biggest by all of them. We each should ask ourselves “How are these trends impacting my community?” and “Is my community preparing for the Future?” In my next post, I’ll look at things we can do to help our communities become more Future Fit.

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I’ve been a poor correspondent the last six or so weeks. The Boss and I took a long trip (~3 weeks) from Little Rock up to the Dakotas, and then back to the Southeast and home October 1. We both then promptly got Covid. I’ve still got the cough. No fun, but “I’m feeling much better now.”

Why Is There Air?

When you don’t understand something, you often laugh.

Bill Cosby

In my youth (and, yes, dear Cassius, I can still remember parts of my youth), I spent some of my allowance and gas-cutting money on comedy albums. I enjoyed the classic comedic riffs of Bob Newhart, Johnny Carson, Redd Foxx and Moms Mabley (I saw her in one of the raunchiest “concerts” ever – just what a hormonal teenager didn’t need to see!).

The central theme of one of my favorites was Why Is There Air? The answer – to blow up the volleyballs, of course?! And that brings us to communities (What?! How?).

Think of a community as a volleyball (or at least try to). Instead of air, it’s filled with all of those things that make up a community – people and their skills and connections; businesses and financial capital; buildings and the natural environment; a culture derived from its history, its people and their beliefs, and its mechanisms for making decisions and acting – what are called the community capitals.

Now think of the ball resting on a table, sitting in front of a big fan. When the fan is turned on, it blows the ball down – and it bounces. Depending on how well it’s inflated, the ball may bounce almost as high as the table. Just like the ball, a community’s bounce – its resilience – is determined by how full it is; how much of each capital the community has.

Let me torture this analogy just a little further. No matter how well-sealed the volleyball is, there will still be small leaks, i.e., the community will tend to lose capital over time. Infrastructure may age; bureaucratic regulations may take the place of governance. The ball may also be used hard, opening more serious leaks: social tensions may tear the community’s social fabric; key people may move away. If I don’t keep the ball pumped up, it inevitably deflates: community’s require infusions of capital to stay resilient – or to become more resilient.

When the deflated ball is blown off the table, it won’t bounce: communities without capital aren’t resilient.

How do I make the ball “bouncier?” The obvious way is to pump more air into it. When we pump external resources into a community, we’re effectively doing the same thing: making it more resilient. Another way to increase the ball’s bounce is to raise its temperature – in physics terms, increase its ability to do work. For a community this means reinvigorating it – raising its internal temperature so that it is more vibrant and more is happening. Then it can come back farther and faster after it’s been blown down.

A few years ago, I was drinking coffee with Liesel Ritchie and she challenged me to think about chronic conditions vs crisis-inducing events. One of the things I like about this hokey analogy is that it provides a context that incorporates both to provide an understanding of what happens over time in real communities. Communities that don’t spend the capital to deal with chronic conditions (e.g., aging infrastructure, a stagnant economy) lose their bounce – become less resilient. When faced with a crisis, they must heavily rely on external resources to recover.

So a question to you: how much air is in your community?

Featured

Leadership

Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and sternness.

Sun Tzu

This year has tested leaders at all levels in ways they never could have imagined.  A pandemic spawning an economic crisis, coupled with widespread social unrest.  One has to wonder if a plague of frogs is next!

Effective leadership is essential for community resilience.  While we all recognize what a leader should do, we often overlook what a leader should be – those attributes necessary for effective leadership.  The Art of War – the two millenium old classic Chinese treatise on war by Sun Tzu – has much to offer us as we try to understand what is needed for effective community leadership. 

According to Sun Tzu, a successful leader must have the five traits listed above.  In the context of a community and its resilience, these traits might be better described as follows.

Intelligence.  Intelligence in leadership means that the leader knows how to clearly identify an objective, communicate it, plan to achieve it and then mobilize the resources needed to actually achieve the objective.  This implies that an intelligent community leader recognizes when the community must adapt to changing circumstances.  The intelligent leader is able to articulate that need and initiate the planning effort needed to affect change.  The efforts of city leaders in southeast Florida to adapt to rising seas are good examples.

Trustworthiness.  A trustworthy leader is recognized by the community as a person of integrity.  Thus, the community believes that the leader will carry out promised actions, and will provide support to the rest of the community to implement action plans.  Such a leader is thus able to communicate more effectively to the larger community, because even unpopular messages are more likely to be heard.  The public’s trust in Mayor Latoya Cantrell has played an important role in both limiting the coronavirus death toll in New Orleans, and in dampening the potential for violence.

Humaneness.   A humane leader cares about the community, and that caring is manifested in actions.  The community believes that the leader “feels their pain,” and therefore is more likely to follow where the leader is going.  This recognized innate humaneness of the leader is especially important when trying to reconcile different factions within the community.  Since mobilizing human and social capital is so important for action, humaneness

Courage.  A leader must have the courage to persevere even when obstacles are encountered.  In essence, the courage needed by an effective leader is born of a certain innate confidence in one’s own integrity and intelligence – the leader believes the community is on the right course.

Sternness.  By “sternness,” Sun Tzu means a sort of rigorous fairness.  Rewards and punishments are strictly based on actions, not the person acting.  Ultimately, this sternness is the result of a sort of self-discipline in which the leader may have favorites but does not favor them. It inherently results in leadership that holds itself responsible, and does not fear to hold others accountable for their actions.

Many of the commenters on The Art of War have stressed the danger of valuing one of these above the others. For example, excessive humaneness (think empathy) can lead to either weakness or paralysis; courage to foolhardiness. Excessive sternness can lead to cruelty; intelligence to arrogance. Leaders thus should strive for an Aristotelian balance of these attributes.

The transformation of Charlotte, NC, from a textiles to a financial center illustrates the importance of several of these leadership traits.  Up until the 1970’s, Charlotte had been one of the leading centers for the textile industry in the country.  The heads of two of the largest banks in North Carolina and the head of Duke Power recognized that the demise of that industry threatened Charlotte’s vitality.  All three were embedded in the community, and had earned its trust. All three passionately cared about Charlotte’s future, and their their caring about the city’s future was widely recognized by the public.  Acting largely independently of city and county governments, these three formed an organization aimed at helping Charlotte adapt to these changing conditions.  As plans were developed, these three spearheaded the transformational effort.  They helped rebuild some of the poorest sections of the city (encountering opposition because many of these were predominately black), courageously turning what had been almost slums into desirable neighborhoods.  In spite of criticism and carping, these three eventually transformed Charlotte into what has become the second largest financial center in the country.

Many of our communities and our country are embroiled in painful and often rancorous debates about racism, inequality and our future.  Effective leadership is essential if we are to emerge from the acrimony and build the better future we all want.  Sun Tzu’s wisdom can point us toward those leaders likely to be effective. Leaders who have the intelligence to see the problems and to recognize real solutions. Leaders with the recognized trustworthiness and passion to move the community forward. Leaders who care enough and are courageous enough to enlist the entire community; yet disciplined enough to hold themselves and everyone else accountable.

The Roaring Twenties (and beyond)

It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.— Yogi Berra

This is the time of the year when all of the crackpots with crystal balls (most of them cloudy or cracked as well) try to predict the future. I’m going to join that crowded club (some might say I’m a charter member!) but I’m going to focus on communities.

Right away, you know that any predictions are going to be fuzzy – our communities are too diverse in size, in culture and in structure for any prediction to be universally true. Thus, I will highlight relevant trends for the coming decade (and beyond) and in a later post I’ll try to project how these trends will impact communities and their resilience.

Let me set the stage by taking a quick look back at the decade just past (the Twittering Teens?). Globally, it likely was the best decade ever. For the first time less than 10% of the world’s population was mired in extreme poverty. Global income and wealth inequality – especially in Africa – was reduced. Infant and child mortality fell to record lows. Famine became all but extinct. Malaria, polio and heart disease are all in decline globally. Globally, life expectancy continues to rise (except for middle and lower class white men in the US). The world also is on a more sustainable path – in much of the first world the use of resources to make “stuff” declined; not only on a per capita basis but on an absolute basis. Look at how little raw bauxite goes into aluminum cans now compared to 50 years ago, for example. We need much less land for food production – one-third to produce the same amount of food than was needed 50 years ago. Not to mention dolphins back in the Potomac for the first time since the 1880’s!

However, in the developed world there has been a growing sense of unease. The cultural clash between populism and statism – between Big Everything and the Little Guy – has become downright vicious. Brexit and Boris; Bernie and the Donald; the Elite and the Deplorables are manifestations of societies in which Big Everything (government, business, unions…) is all about the numbers and seemingly has lost the ability to care about – or even listen to – individual people. As a result, we see more and more anti-social behavior: little things like people making U-turns in the middle of a four lane road; bigger things like preventing speakers we don’t like from speaking. This has led to near-gridlock on the national level, which is trickling down to many communities.

This cultural clash has been compounded by social media that have devolved into echo chambers. From where we live to where our kids go to school to who we interact with on Facebook and Twitter to what we watch on TV, too many of us are only hearing what we already believe from those like ourselves. Too few of us are willing to listen to thoughtful people who see things from a different perspective. As a result, we seem to be stumbling around the problems that surround us because our ideological red- or blue-tinted glasses keep us from seeing those problems and their possible solutions in proper perspective.

Perhaps one of the most important trends for communities center around population. Toward the end of this decade, and especially in the next, the Baby Boomers will start to exit the stage. They’ll take with them their pension liabilities and their health issues. If communities can survive the pension woes coming this decade, they’ll likely have more to spend in the 2030’s.

However, many communities will have a hard time doing that. The exodus from the high tax states (e.g., CA, NY, IL and NJ – the ones with likely the most unkept promises to retirees) will continue. Florida, Texas and the other southern states, and some of those in the western US, will experience growing pains as they try to accommodate the newcomers (Austin’s problem with homelessness – and the city’s non-solutions – sounds like something from California.). Immigration will add to these stresses.

College towns are likely to feel an even bigger pinch. The much smaller generations born after 1965 will lead to closures of many institutions of higher education (one study predicts one in six), or mergers (one study predicts one in five). If the push for free public education reaches fruition, private IHEs – relying as they do on tuition – will put in a vise. In turn, this will reduce the financial, human and social capital of their home towns.

Economically, the US will – at best – muddle through; the economies of much of the rest of the developed world are essentially stalled. Even China’s amazing growth seems to be slowing. There likely will be another recession within the next five years in the US (maybe sooner; Europe is probably already there), with the potential to rival the Great Recession in impact. However, the Federal Reserve and other central banks (with their near-zero to negative interest rates) and national governments (with their mountains of debt) will have even more difficulty responding to this one; recovery will be even slower. And it appears that the policies of the Federal Reserve and other central banks will continue to punish savers and inadvertently promote wealth inequality. The coming recession will reduce the apparent wealth at the top end, tbough. I intend to examine the “wealth gap” in a later post – closing it in a wise manner could have a huge impact on our communities.

A recession will likely accelerate two other trends: business consolidation and the growth of e-commerce. The growth of government regulations and the pressure of global competition has led to a situation in which every major industry is dominated by only a few companies. Credit Suisse estimates that by 2025 over one-fourth of all the malls in the US will be closed. E-commerce will make up to at least half of the retail economy by the end of the decade. Recession, business consolidation and e-commerce together spell big trouble for small businesses. After the Great Recession, job growth was dominated by intermediate and large companies for the first time; generally smaller businesses have been the driver of recovery. And small businesses are the lifeblood of the downtowns of many small and intermediate size communities. They’re the ones who sponsor youth sports teams; notices about community events are posted in their windows; they are often the anchors for the community’s sense of place.

Small businesses are also the entry point for most young people into the workforce. Spain, Greece and our own experience in the Great Recession point to disproportionate youth unemployment (This is also an unintended consequence of raising the minimum wage). Some of these youth will become isolated from their communities; with the potential for increased crime and drug use.

In fact, youth unemployment, in fact all employment will continue its inexorable change. As my friend Andy Felts is fond of tweaking me about, AI (and, more broadly, automation) will continue to erode the need for low-skilled workers. Past revolutions/evolutions in the nature of work have generally led to the need for roughly the same workforce in terms of numbers, but very different skill sets. Less farmland needed for food production and consolidation have led to fewer farms and farmers. We frankly don’t know what the advent of self-driving trucks and cars may mean for employment of cab and truck drivers, for example.

And perhaps the least recognized trend – the compression of time: the accelerating pace of change. Our communities are being assailed by demographic and social change, changes to their economic and environmental landscapes, and most of all changing expectations by their members. These are coming at communities faster and faster. As pattern seekers, our community leaders generally expect to have as much time to respond to these changes as they had “the last time,” but that expectation is no longer valid. To adapt to these changes requires both time and a willingness to take action. This places a premium on a community’s ability to foresee change and think strategically. I’ve written about this before, but I’ll explore this further in a later post.

Future-Focused Education

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow,
Don’t stop it’ll soon be here…
Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.

Christine McVie

Over the summer I wrote about the importance of having an ecosystem that would enable the poor and disadvantaged to succeed – to rise out of poverty. I used a quote from Bobby Unser to identify the key attributes of that ecosystem – preparation and opportunity – and went into some detail about what opportunity is, and isn’t. But opportunity by itself isn’t enough – our enabling ecosystem must help the poor and disadvantaged recognize opportunities and provide them with the tools to seize them.

And that’s where education comes in. A strong educational system is a hallmark of a resilient community. In these communities everyone has a good chance to succeed. Even the poor and disadvantaged are prepared to seize the opportunities that are there for them. While there are already too many voices screaming out what an education should be, let me softly come at it from a slightly different direction.

Obviously, I’m not an educational expert (I’m sure some of you sometimes wonder if I’m even educated, or an expert in anything). But what I think we all need to focus on is education for what. That’s why the song lyrics from Fleetwood Mac – the what is to be ready for whatever tomorrow brings. I want our kids – all of them – to be ready to be able to survive and thrive in the world to come. And I want them – all of them – focused on their futures, and not dwelling on their parents’ past. After all, yesterday’s gone…

A farmer in 1800 would be doing things much the same as his forefathers in the 16 and 1700’s. By 1900, he would be very uncomfortable with the mechanization of farming, but would still recognize many of the basics he knew. That same farmer really would be lost in the world of precision farming based on information technology we have today. Further, he would not be able to cope with the accelerating pace of change in our world; that didn’t happen in his.

So, to me, a future-focused education has to provide the following:

An accurate understanding of the path to the present and possible futures. As I’ve often said before, trajectory doesn’t have to be destiny, but it takes action to set a different course. To be future-focused means knowing how we got where we are, where the world is heading and what its drivers are. This means our education system has to provide an accurate picture of what we know about our past and our present and where the world may be going. That picture can’t be black and white; whether we like it or not, we’re awash in a world of grey. And the picture shouldn’t be just shades of red or blue.

To be more concrete, let me use climate change as an example. The global climate is changing; it is getting warmer on average, and has been (by fits and starts) since the 1700s. Sea levels are rising on average. But the sea level at some locations is actually falling; some locations are actually seeing a long-term cooling trend. Students need to understand what is happening to their local climate. Coastal development coupled with poor land use decisions has resulted in greater devastation due to storms, i.e., the number and intensity of the storms we’re having has stayed about the same but the damage is greater. Students need to be taught the facts not just about climate but about the drivers that have put so many people and so much property in harm’s way.

The ability to learn. The amount of new knowledge is growing exponentially; there is no sign that this is abating. No one can expect to grasp all of it. But being future-focused requires that we are able to restock our mental shelves with new information and cast aside what’s no longer useful. Many have talked about the skills and sources that are necessary for continued learning; often overlooked is the personal element that has to underlie their use. Our education has to help us to find our place in the global kaleidoscope. If we know that and understand the world around us and how it might change we can begin to apply the general lessons of how to learn to gain the knowledge we will need for future success.

Opportunities to form networks. We humans are social animals. For most of us, the networks we form are important components of our success. Throughout my life I’ve been fortunate to have lots of chances to network. As a kid I played football and baseball and soccer in school; I acted in plays; I worked on the high school yearbook. Throughout my life, the networks I’ve formed have provided social and emotional support when I needed it, and helped me to what’s been a great career (or three). Very importantly, my networks have been great indicators of future trends for me.

Our educational system needs to help students form their own networks. These are formed naturally through participation in sports teams, special interest clubs (e.g., chess, 4H, computers, gardening), music or drama groups, or junior ROTC. Not all kids will form lifelong networks (you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink) but we need to make sure they have the chance.

Confidence. Confidence is probably the most overlooked component of success (this applies to communities as well). If you have the confidence of accomplishment you’re more likely to take steps to better yourself. No matter how benevolent our governments, the poor ultimately have to take the steps to lift themselves out of poverty. That means they need to have accomplished something or have developed some special skills (forming networks is one of those skills) to give them the confidence to act to better themselves. Participation in network-forming activities can provide this confidence, but there are other ways – sports, academics, home ec (for women and men), shop (ditto) – where accomplishment can lead to confidence.

In a previous post I noted that kids need “the experience of working with their hands. We have too many who took on too much debt going for a college education that hasn’t prepared them for a career. We need people in the crafts and trades – especially when disaster strikes. Roofers, plumbers, electricians even at the bottom of their professional ladders make much more than the poverty level, giving them the chance to accumulate some wealth.” Becoming confident is arguably more important than simply acquiring academic skills; we’ve all seen examples of kids with high grades who had virtually no life skills or street smarts.

Communication skills. Whether you’re a plumber or a CEO, you have to acquire information if you’re to succeed, especially as the world changes around you. That means you have to be able to read. In a networked world, you have to rely on others sometimes; that means learning to write and to speak coherently. Public speaking is probably the most basic of these skills; it needs to have greater emphasis in education. And our globalized world increases the value of being able to speak a foreign language.

Financial literacy. In an earlier post, I mentioned the importance of being able to handle money. All children need to become financially literate. Ignorance leads to bad decisions in handling money which leads to a lack of reserves when times get bad. This is especially important for the poor; they have less to manage and the greatest need to manage their money wisely.

Technological literacy. Information technology has been the greatest accelerant of change the world has ever seen. However, we are on the cusp of even greater change brought on by the intersection of information technology, psychology and the health sciences. The nature of work will change; life spans will potentially become much longer; how we learn will change. In other words, technology will continue to be a major change agent shaping our futures. Technological literacy thus has to be a key component of a future-focused education.

Ultimately, community resilience is predicated on people and institutions ready to take on the future. That’s why education is more important now than at any time in the past. But education cannot simply be a presentation of a panoply of facts; it has to be focused on preparing everyone – especially the poor and disadvantaged – for the future. Unless the young acquire the knowledge and skills I’ve listed, they will be ill-equipped to deal with future change. And thus our communities will be less resilient. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

The challenged and community resilience

Several years ago, CARRI embarked on a massive undertaking focused on developing – and then testing – a community resilience system.  During a meeting of its Community Leaders Working Group, I was asked why we had included “The community works to maximize the value of those with special challenges” as one of our important community functions.  In fact, two of the most in-my-face questioners (both former mayors of sizable cities) actually accused me of being politically correct (If this were true, it would come as a huge shock to anyone who has ever worked with me, not to mention my wife!).

I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about who are the challenged, and why it makes practical sense for communities to treat them as potential assets, not liabilities.

If we look at our communities today, 5-10 % of the population have some debilitating mental or physical condition.  One in eight Americans receive at least part of their food through food stamps; one in five of our children lives in poverty or extreme poverty.  Those with disabilities are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to live in poverty than those with no disabilities. Fully one-third of those who could be employed have exited the labor force.

After a community is hit by a disaster, recovery makes huge demands on the permanent personnel who actually keep the community running.  More people are needed to remove debris.  More people are needed to handle the flood of permits for rebuilding.  People are needed to reconnect families and to help get services to those who need them.  Many communities meet these needs by hiring “outsiders” to provide these services, but if they do so, they lose in at least two ways. 

  • These communities send the resources to pay for these services outside the community.  Since the federal government will pay for many kinds of temporary workers after a disaster, it makes good sense to hire these workers from within the community – to keep as many precious dollars within the community as possible.  The challenged – particularly the employable unemployed – should be the first resource tapped by a community (To their credit, BP agreed to do just that in southern Louisiana communities affected by the oil spill.).
  • These communities have to spend more of their resources helping the challenged recover from the disaster than they otherwise would. That means much less accomplished with limited resources and possibly a longer recovery period.

In other words, communities who don’t use the challenged to aid in the extraordinary challenges of recovery are turning potential assets into real liabilities.

Thus, by making use of its members who face significant challenges to meet the extraordinary demands of recovery from a disaster, a community can keep dollars in the community while maintaining a more productive and motivated permanent staff.  This isn’t political correctness but enlightened self-interest.