Investing in New Businesses?

We need to make America productive again.  The only way to do that is to help new businesses get started.  All the net new jobs created since 1980 have been created by businesses that are only five years old.  Right now, they simply can’t get loans.  The amount of collateral a small business owner has to put up to get a loan hardly makes it worth it.  We spend a lot of money keeping our unemployment system going, but we need to start investing in our employment systems: new businesses.

Playworks - Children At Play

My daughter’s boyfriend, Josh, helps run an organization called Playworks, which teaches children 1st through 3rd graders how to play.  That’s right, we have to teach children how to play at recess otherwise they just stand around.  Our children are so programmed to either watch TV or play video games they no longer know how to play Four Square, tether-ball or even tag. Kids who learn how to play come back into the classroom with greater concentration and are better disciplined.  It’s unbelievable when you have to teach children how to play. Playworks has been around for 13 years and operates in about 10 cities.

Make Every Day Thanksgiving!

Of all the people who have ever lived, we are the most fortunate.  Truly.  Some experts estimate that 50 to 70 billion human beings have lived on Earth.  Most lived in conditions we can only term as “life or death.”  A little more than a hundred yeas ago most mothers expected to bury nearly half the children they brought into the world because fatal diseases and accidents stalked every family.  The average marriage lasted fourteen years because one of the spouses died.  Medicine was a primitive art.  Surgery was filthy and insanely painful.  If a common cold became pneumonia, death was virtually certain.  People commonly died from tooth infections.  Few enjoyed the amazing comforts of indoor plumbing until the 1920’s.  And for thousands of years most of the world’s population were exploited by powerful, merciless tyrants who multiplied human suffering by constant war.  Most human beings have never enjoyed human rights, reading or writing, let alone heat or air conditioning.  There is absolutely no doubt—we are fortunate.

But even if we consider our wonderful comforts and advantages, even if we value our personal freedoms to think, act, work and believe according to our own choices, we still surprisingly feel hog-tied by our own frustrations and unmet desires.  We chronically over-focus on what we don’t have, and the greatest threat to our health is our self-induced stress.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  We can feel lasting contentment and large doses of joy.  It is our choice.

Here’s how.

Recent research confirms that many of us are so over-busy and multi-tasking that we have ceased to feel our feelings.  What that means is that positive emotions are now only concepts in our minds rather than authentic emotions.  We say, “I love you” as a closing sentence on every phone call to our spouse, significant other, or children, but it’s simply a verbal habit.  Of course we love them.  We know we do.  We sacrifice for them, we respect them, we even feel empathy when they suffer or succeed, but we no longer feel the genuine emotion of heart grabbing love.  We’re too busy to.

Perhaps the easiest way to think about this problem is to recall your rip-roaring emotions when you first fell in love or held your baby.  There was a time when just being together created moments of intense and deeply satisfying emotions.  You not only knew you loved them, but you felt it big time.  It was like swimming in a warm bath of love.  That’s because you put all your energy into feeling the presence of your beloved.  You held them in unconditional positive regard.  Their flaws and shortcoming were overlooked because you experienced their essential goodness.  That’s the power of being present.  What it takes to feel that way is putting your full energy on the subject of your gratitude.  Whether it is a sunset, a quiet lunch with your beloved, or a noisy dinner with your extended family, be “all in.”  100%, a 1000%.

One habit I have found quite helpful is to practice this kind of presence with deep gratitude first thing in the morning.  Between awakening and getting out of bed I take 3 minutes and take 4 deep breaths.  I try to get the morning oxygen in all the way to my toes.  Then I ask, “What am I most grateful for today?”  I quickly settle on just one thing and then I point all my mental and emotional energy into feeling my gratitude.  I smile.  I try to linger and bring my busy mind back to this singular focus. What I feel in those gratitude-drenched moments is enoughness.  And that feeling of fullness is a kind of spiritual shield that seeks to protect me from creating irrational stress, angry fears and crippling self-doubt.  Well mostly.  Nothing of course works perfectly or all the time.  Yes, I have bad days and disappointments, I still worry and get grouchy, but I also seem to tap into a resilience that is greater than my own smallness.  For that I am very, very grateful.

So what’s the best thing we can do?  Make every day Thanksgiving.

Peg Ross and The Grameen Foundation are Saving the World

I’ve been talking to Peg Ross, who is in charge of Human Capital Development for the Grameen Foundation.  Human Capital is truly a “Save the World” idea.  In most developing countries there is a shortage of trained leaders.  They simply don’t have the decades of history that we do in America of training leaders in business schools or on the job.  Peg has developed a leadership/management curriculum ranging from performance planning to decision making.  Things as basic as setting and achieiving goals as a team are likely to accelerate the effectiveness of a whole new generations of leaders in countries where the poorest of the poor live.
What impresses me so much about Peg is she is a wife and a mom who lives in suburban San Diego when she is not traveling to Bangladesh or India to “Save the World.” She is another one of those seemingly ordinary people doing extraordinary things that it simply blows my mind.

Has our children’s American Dream been looted by Wall St. and Washington?

Has our children’s American Dream been looted by the elites of Wall Street and Washington? Of course I hope not. I am a nearly insane optimist constantly encouraged by people’s resilience, creativity, and ability to invent unexpected solutions to blood-curdling problems. Of course it is easy to connect the dots to see a picture that is nothing less than a conspiracy of greed. This is not so much a planned conspiracy as it is an emergent system in which a few players have strip-mined our future while gaining financial assets unimaginable a decade ago.

First we can look to the rotten system of well-financed special interests that have invaded Washington. In 1980 there were 300 registered lobbyists. Today there are over 30,000. Lobbyists have gutted our anti-trust laws, which has retarded competition. They deregulated our financial systems, which has evaporated over a trillion dollars in American’s savings and cost us millions of jobs. Meanwhile the very bankers who caused all this suffering are back making multimillion-dollar bonuses doing virtually the same things as they did before the taxpayer bailout. There have been no indictments, no regulation and no repentance.

While Wall Street was becoming a gambling syndicate, the forces of commerce decided it was good for America to become a mall-based economy using cheap debt to buy stuff made in China while China kept its currency artificially low. This enabled the Chinese to become America’s financier loaning us money to pay for bloated college tuition, Hummers and crazy priced real estate.

Now that China holds nearly a trillion dollars of U.S. debt, our President has to tread lightly on issues of Chinese human rights and free speech (Obama’s Censorship Talk Unheard). What’s perhaps more serious is that our foreign policy is being compromised. China is the largest investor in Iranian oil fields and they want the rest of the world to respect Iran’s ambitions to become a nuclear power. So far they won’t let us impose serious economic sanctions let alone use threats of force. How can China dictate our foreign policy? It’s simple. We sold our independence to finance a consumption bubble that left us with debt the size of the Himalayas. Why did we do this? Because the financial engineers of Wall Street and their lobbyists were able to systematically dismantle regulations and institute trade policy using the jargon of personal independence as propaganda to lull voters into believing that Congress was acting in our best interest.

So in a single generation we’ve gone from the richest economy in the world to the world’s greatest debtor. We have a ferocious deficit and staggering unemployment and mass under-employment. Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable and special interests have real solutions held hostage. Who is benefiting from all this? A very few, very powerful club of friends who shuttle between jobs in Washington and New York depending on which political party is in power.

As the grandfather of 9, it’s hard not to be ashamed. I grew up believing in free markets, low regulation and benign power of competing self-interest to create the greatest opportunities for all. It hasn’t worked out that way. No markets are free because special interests are always granted special favors. Unregulated greed always causes innocent people to suffer and self-interest is insufficient to create innovations we need for a sustainable future.

As for Democrats, they are not exactly leading the change I was hoping for. They’ve produced 1900 pages of a health reform bill. Can anything good come from a 2000 page law? What we all fear is they are creating a new bureaucracy distorted by lobbyists to line the pockets of Democrat supporters just as Republicans do with theirs. Well, politics is called sausage making, but it’s imitation meat and we may be in for major indigestion.

As I write this my health insurance premium increase for 2010 is over 14%, and drug companies are raising prices faster than any time in the past 10 years. Corporate self-interest in health care is plundering our health. Real health care reform would remove the profit motive from insurance. We as a nation can self-insure ourselves just as over 1000 major corporations do. We can create incentives for healthy behavior and tax toxic food. We could reduce our total cost of health care to 12-14% of the GDP and increase access and improve health outcomes. We could. We know how. What we lack is the will to make it happen.

What is missing appears to be moral leadership. Leadership that is sincerely focused on the common good as well as individual rights. I have faith that a new, younger generation of leaders will revitalize our future.

As I speak to leaders under 40 and college graduate students, I sense a world-changing values shift. This generation is looking for sustainable solutions, they thirst for self-reliance and firmly believe our institutions, from business to government and education, can be revitalized or even re-invented to work. The new and emerging technology of social media make rapid change more possible. While some cranky people shout at each other on radio shows, the rest of us will reconstruct the future.

Every week as I visit some of America’s most enlightened corporations, I am astounded at the roaring progress of sustainability and greater social responsibility. Last week I visited Nike, who is sponsoring The Girl Effect which is lifting 600 million adolescent girls in developing nations to self-reliance. Women are the force that drives civilization and our future depends on educating our most vulnerable human resource. Girls. Nike also sponsors events like the Homeless World Cup, which brings forgotten, impoverished youth from around the world to enrich their lives and ignite hope. This is not an isolated stunt. Nike uses sport to intentionally break down the walls of racism and gender discrimination, teach leadership and promote teamwork. Their new design and sustainability mandates are driving them to create shoes that leave a zero carbon footprint and can be easily reused as ground up track surfaces or biodegrade.

Why is this happening not just at places like Nike and Gap but at industrial manufacturers I have recently visited like Herman Miller and Johnson Controls? It’s because of you and me demanding change. As consumers and employees we are insisting on corporate responsibility, and it’s working.

As I travel the country on my book tour I see inspiring energy in the eyes of people focused on a new future. What we believe, how we act, who we work for, all matters. More than ever. It’s our time. Each day I am actually more encouraged that we will save the world. You and I using our gifts to do the very best thing we can imagine. Special interests, politicians, Neanderthal leaders are no match for the high tide of our collective will. As we demand more responsibility and sustainability we are forcing the change we really want. It’s time to turn up the heat, increase the volume, and reward progress. It’s time.

Yes, of course I am sickened by our problems, but my optimism is based on our individual moral intent, our ingenuity, and our unwillingness to accept a future that makes our children suffer. I see this resolve everywhere I go. Don’t give up. Ever.

What do you think?

A Lesson in Football - Philip Rivers

Well how about those Chargers? Beating the New York Giants in the last two minutes of the football game was pretty exciting for me. There are always lessons in football. Quarterback Philip Rivers threw what looked to be a game winning interception with just over 3 minutes left to play. When he got the ball back he had to march 80 yards, which he efficiently did and won the game with 12 seconds to spare. It just goes to show you that all of us will throw interceptions in our lives. We all make mistakes, some intentional and some unintentional. Yet, life is not about our mistakes its about our recovery every time.

A Global Business Evolution

There is a dramatic global business evolution going on now that is rewarding companies who strategically pursue sustainability, eliminate waste, solve relevant problems, create unique value, treat employees with dignity, and turn on their business culture with genuine meaning. This is a time where there are no more secrets in business and business leaders are generally distrusted. In fact, I just read a report that said that only 2% of consumers worldwide trust CEO’s very much to tell the truth. That is amazingly sad. Organizations must respond to these trends by become a progressive force for a sustainable future or they fail to thrive. It’s just that simple!

Who do you work for?

With the publication of my new book, Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner, I’ve posted a survey at www.SavetheWorldBook.com to help you determine whether you work for an enterprise that is helping forge a sustainable future or one that is trapped in the dying ideas of business-as-usual.  Who we work for is important.  If we want to change our future we must lead.  There is plenty to be hopeful about, and I want to get a pulse on your experience of the employer you work for or the organization you lead.

Recently I was doing leadership training for the Gap at their San Francisco headquarters.  I like the people at Gap a lot.  They understand how their huge global business can be a force for good, and they are serious about using their economic clout, market reach and worldwide workforce to create a better future than the self-consuming dinosaur business model we’ve trapped ourselves into.

It’s true; we live in a time when confidence in business leadership is at an all time low.  Just look at these statistics:

• 94% of the public does not trust business to regulate itself (AccountAbility).
• 86% view business as negatively impacting the public good (Harris Poll/Business Week).
• 76% of employees have observed illegal or unethical conduct by their employer in the past 12 months! (Harris Poll/Business Week)
• 98% of the public don’t believe CEOs are very trustworthy (NY Times).

This is sad. What’s really sad is that most of us would nod our head in agreement with these polls.  Business is the most powerful institutional force in the world, and the world doesn’t trust it.  That’s because human history has proven it’s not smart to trust that someone else’s self-interest will benefit you in the long run.  The Great Recession has just made that crystal clear.  But there is good news.  It’s that the world has changed.  Citizen consumers and citizen employers have awakened to the fact that we must create a new sustainable future.  One that works for our children.  All our children.  Perhaps nowhere is this more clear than in the market place which is changing at a breathtaking pace.

As more and more consumers and employees have demanded greener, healthier products responsibly made, the number, choices, and quality of these products has skyrocketed.  For instance, every major auto manufacturer is now engineering hybrid models that will be sold in every country in the next few years.  China has adapted tougher auto emissions and mileage standards than we have.  But for some companies like Gap, it’s more than just making t-shirts out of recycled plastic or organic fibers.  Increasingly it’s about human sustainability.

For instance, in Gap factories in developing nations they’ve instituted a personal and professional development program called P.A.C.E.  It’s designed to help under educated young seamstresses strengthen their literacy, their health, their life skills and business acumen.  Gap’s corporate social responsibility is investing in poor women because they are society builders.  And Gap is not alone.  In company after company I visit I see a roaring torrent of programs to enable employees to volunteer for their favorite cause, to raise their business standards on environmental impacts, and to promote health and human rights.

But wait, you say.  Isn’t all this just a little “greenwashing” and image polishing?  After all, it’s corporations that tare down the old-growth rain forests, over-fish our oceans, pollute our air, water and earth, and strip-mine our world from its natural resources.  Exactly.  All of that is true.  But it’s also true that global corporations and fast acting enterprises are the institutions most able to drive fast positive change.  They operate across boarders without political inhibitions.  They must respond in real time to consumer and employee attitudes.  Corporations are self-interested, but consumers determine where that self-interest leads them.  As long as we escalate our insistence on sustainable, responsible products and processes we will get more of them.

And now there is something turbo-charging demand for business responsibility.  It’s a new generation of employees.  The flood of 20 to 30-year old practical idealists who believe we can reshape our businesses into a force of progress and sustainability is raising the tide of positive change.  The energy of sustainability and social good is contagious, and I am seeing an epidemic of virtue take over business-as-usual.

This is not my imagination.  As Gen X independent thinking pragmatists take over more leadership roles, they are more connected to sustainable innovation, cutting bureaucracy and re-inventing our future.  And the new workforce of Gen Y and Millennials (those 16-30) are focused on re-making business into institutions of global sustainability.  What makes this new generation of leaders so potent is their number (126 million—far larger than the 75 million boomers) and their newly developed social technology which is driving change, informing attitudes and creating new business models faster than at any time in history.

I am hopeful this is happening in the nick of time.  We have ignored our problems for too long.  We’ve let what were little brushfires turn into a raging wildfire threatening our heath, our environments, our peace and every other important asset to our quality of life.

What’s the best thing we can do?

Participate in the business revolution!  I am seeing global companies life Gap, Nike, FedEx, and Johnson & Johnson transform themselves at a breathtaking rate.  No, it’s not perfect.  It will take years.  But the speed of change is accelerating.  Just 5 years ago sustainability and corporate social responsibility was something tree huggers and hippies whined about.  Today it is driving corporate strategy.  It’s time to turn up the volume of our demands for business to use their power and innovation to create sustainable value.  It’s time for us, no matter where we work, to transform our daily jobs into a global force for change.  We are the leaders of the sustainability revolution.  You and me.

So who do you work for?  Please take this short 5-minute survey and find out.  It’s a way to amplify your voice by helping us build a database to influence leaders.

And one more thing.  What do you think?  Do you have positive stories of companies, non-profits or individuals transforming the future?  Do you have personal aspirations to do so?  Tell us about them!