Showing posts with label Passion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Passion. Show all posts

September 11, 2012

Radiate Possibilities

Today, I had the opportunity to see one of the best leadership videos I have ever seen, called "Leadership: An Art of Possibility." 


It features Ben Zander, an Orchestra Conductor who is not just a leader of making music, but of driving people to excellence.

Zander's passion and energy bring out the best in people--and you can literally see them transformed as their playing comes alive, their faces shine, and they glow under coaching of this conductor extraordinaire. 

His leadership principles are:

- Speak possibility--create a shift in being (transformation) by seeing the possibility in everyone, and lead people by empowering, not commanding; help people get in touch with their inner passion, so they remember why they love what they do and why it is ultimately important.

- Quiet the inner voices--communicate that everyone can get an A and everyone has value; assume the best of everyone, eliminate the fear of judgement, barriers, and mindset of "I can't do it," so people can genuinely perform. 

- Enroll every voice in the vision--make every person feel and realize that they can contribute and make a difference on our journey together; shift from a mindset of pure individuals to that of living in a connected world; like in a symphony-- we create a "sounding together."

- Look for shining eyes and radiating faces--you know you are positively reaching people and impacting them when their eyes and face light up; and you need to ask yourself what you are missing, when you aren't getting this guttural reaction. 

- Rule #6 ("the only rule")--Don't take yourself so %@&$! seriously; mistakes happen and life goes on; really feel the joy, relief, ease, spontaneity, and community around what we do. 

The art of possibility is a paradigm shift where we move from having an external standard to live up to, and instead move to fulfilling the possibility we can live into. 

In essence, Zander's leadership philosophy is about removing the barriers that inhibit us and releasing our deep inner talents, so we can achieve our marvelous potentials--and self-actualize. 

As Zander states: the conductor actually does not make a sound, yet by empowering people, he leads them to make the most beautiful music together. 

If you get a chance to watch this video, I believe it is extremely valuable because the passion, love, and energy that Zander demonstrates turns every face into a presence radiating their own joy and excellence--it is truly leadership unleashed. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Share/Save/Bookmark

July 17, 2012

Don't Communicate Like A Dump Truck

I don't know a lot about huge dump trucks.

But I wondered what this meant when it says on the back of this multi-ton vehicle--"Do Not Push".

Don't worry, I won't! :-)

In life, we often communicate things that either we aren't really clear about, don't mean, or end up being misunderstood for.

In fact, probably one of the toughest "soft skills" to learn is communication skills.

I don't know why they call it soft, since when you communicate poorly, you can get hit over the head--quite hard.

One of the biggest issues is people who talk too much (i.e. they dump on others), but aren't very good at listening. Hey, they may as well be talking to themselves then, because communication is a two-way street.

Good communications skills include the three C's: clarity, conciseness, and consistency, and I would add--last but not at all least--a T for tact.

Communication skills also overlaps with the ability to effectively influence, negotiate, and create win-win solutions, so actually communication is at the very heart of what we need to do well.

When communicating, don't be pushy and don't be pushed around (i.e. get dumped on)--and don't get hit by that over-sized dump truck--communicate early, often, honestly, and with passion.

(Source photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Share/Save/Bookmark

July 14, 2012

Leadership Now!

There is a very good interview in the Wall Street Journal today (14-15 July 2012) with George Shultz, former Secretary of State, Treasury, and Labor. 

Shultz talks primarily about our countries devastating financial situation today.

On the economy, he states bluntly: "We have some big problems in this country."

But according to the interview "the policies for revival are obvious with the right leadership."

Shultz gives an example of former President Reagan (who I blogged about previously (24 June 2012) in It's The Right Thing To Do] as someone who had what it took to lead us out of difficult times. 

"It took long-term thinking...[Reagan] knew and we advised him you can't have a decent economy with the kind of inflation we've got...The political people would come in and say 'You've fot to be careful Mr. President...You're gonna lose seats in the mid-term election."

And as Shultz reminds us, what was Reagan's response?

"And he basically said, 'If not us who? If not now when?"

The article goes on that "it took a politician with an ability to take a short-term hit in order to get the long-term results that we needed."

Reagans words and deeds remind me of the Jewish teaching from the Book of Avot ("Ethics of Our Fathers") from more than 2,000 years ago which reads in 1:14--

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And if I am [only] for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?"


Reagan was in tune with this ancient wisdom of our forefathers, that we have an obligation to take the appropriate actions to care for ourselves and others and not to put off these actions unto others or for later. 

This is one of those true leadership qualities that made Reagan one of the most popular and favorite leaders on the 20th century. 

Reagan acted based on principle and not based on votes--the long-term health and outcomes for the country was more important than the minute-by-minute polling. 

Of course a leader needs to represent the will and wishes of the people, but he must do so with the bigger-picture and long-term view in mind for the nation to survive and thrive. 

Similarly Peggy Noonan writes today about how we need a "political genius" to get us out of the mess we are in as a nation. 

She too uses Reagan as an example and explains how he used to state about congress that: "when they feel the heat [from voters], they see the light," and it is the President's job to help the people understand and "galvanize them."

As Ms. Noonan states about a real leader: "he's direct and doesn't hide his meaning in obfuscation, abstraction, cliches and dead words."

A leader who knows and believes as in the wisdom of fathers, and like Ronald Reagan, "If not us who? If not now when?"

(Source photo: here with attribution to Tom Magliery)

Share/Save/Bookmark

June 16, 2011

New Beginnings

Next week I am excited to begin a new journey as a Division Chief at the U.S. Department of State.

I just wanted to take a minute to thank the ATF for the opportunity to serve there as the Chief Technology Officer these last few years.

There are no finer or more dedicated law enforcement agents than those that work for our federal government, and I am so proud that the ATF chose me to support their vital mission of protecting our country.

I also greatly appreciate the opportunity to have worked and learned with such talented and dedicated professionals in the Office of Science and Technology.

Some people have asked me to comment on my tenure from the perspective of what's going on in the news. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to do that, but I do want to recognize and thank people for caring so passionately about our great country.

It's a new chapter in my life and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves, learn, and contribute as well.

I am grateful for the wonderful opportunity--ready, set, go!

Share/Save/Bookmark

May 28, 2011

Perfect Is The Enemy of Good

Perfection is a destructive force.

And the French philosopher, Voltaire recognized this when he said "Perfect is the enemy of good."

I never really fully understood this saying, until recently reading a Harvard Business Review article (June 2011) called "The Paradox of Excellence."

The article states: "High achievers often undermine their leadership by being afraid to show their limitations."

At the heart of it...high achievers can let anxiety impede their progress through stress, alienating others, and failure to seize real opportunities.

Here from the article are some of the "classic high achiever" behaviors that can get in the way of success unless artfully managed and balanced (my views):

1) Results-driven: High-achievers can be so work-oriented that they forget the people the make it all it happen. This is why they need to remember to delegate, empower, share, and CARE about others. The work is a team effort!

2) Highly-motivated: They can be so serious about all aspects of their jobs that they "fail to distinguish between the urgent and the merely important." Instead, they should take a bigger-picture PERSPECTIVE on the tasks and prioritize these accordingly. Not everything is life and death, thank G-d, and we need to keep a sense of humor and take the time to enjoy what we are doing.

3) Competitive: They "obsessively compare themselves with others," which can cause them to feel insufficient or make false calibrations. You have to remember to INTERNALIZE that the competition is not with others but with yourself--be the best you can be!

4) Risk-managed: "They may shy away from the unknown" and avoid risky endeavors. As they say in Wall Street, without risk, there is no reward. To INNOVATE and transform, you need to take calculated risks (without betting the farm!) after doing due diligence on an investment or opportunity.

5) Passion: This can lead to powerful, productive highs, but can also result in "crippling lows." Recognize that there are natural ups and downs in the course of one's work. You can STEADY yourself through these by seeing it as incremental growth and improvement, rather than as either pure success or failure.

6) Guilt: "No matter how much they accomplish, they feel like they aren't doing enough." This is an endless trap of it's never enough and never good enough. Hey, we're all mortal. Do what you can and balance the many demands that you have on you in your life, but FOCUS on what's most important, since you can't do it all and you can never get it all done.

7) Feedback: High-achievers "care intensely about how others view their work" and they require a steady stream of positive feedback. Don't get hung up by what other people say or think--it's not personal and they have their own problems. Stay focused on delivering excellence in products and services to the customer, and use whatever feedback you can get--positive or negative--as valuable information to IMPROVE your offering.

If you are a high-achiever and demand much (if not the impossible from yourself), take a step back and a breath in and out--you can accomplish a lot more of what's important to you if stop trying to be perfect, admit your vulnerabilities and limitations, and just try to do your best--that's all that anyone can ask.

Share/Save/Bookmark

March 15, 2011

Getting To Happy

In spite of all the wealth creation and technological progress we have experienced in recent times, the real stickler is that most people seem unhappier than ever.

This is not just an observation: According to the results of the World Values Survey and the General Social Survey of the National Opinion Research Center, "people have grown continuously more depressed over the last half-century." (Psychology Today, April 2011).

And the depression and unhappiness that we are suffering as a society has been linked to overinflated and unrealistic expectations.

I guess the average home size of approximately 2,400 square feet, more than DOUBLE that of fifty years ago, hasn't made that much difference in people's level of happiness.

Why? Because we focus on what we don't have, instead of what do have. Marketers take advantage of this by selling, for example, the iPad 2 three months after everyone just got the iPad for the holiday. (Thanks SNL!)

Reminds me of a timeless Jewish saying: "Who is rich? He who is happy with his portion." (Talmud: Avot 4:1) -- Then again, the Cossacks taking all of our stuff didn't help the situation any :-)

Psychologist Tim Kasser states: "The more people focus on the materialist pathway to happiness, the less happy they tend to be."

And more forebodingly, "The less happy they make others."--Can anyone say "50% divorce rate and rising?"

Writing about America in the early 19th century, the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville already observed: "I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts."

I remember growing up in a modest way, but walking past all the mansions in the community regularly. In my mind I lived "on the other side of town." On the one hand, this was motivating to me in the sense that I felt like I could "make it" too. On the other hand, thinking about it left me feeling empty, because materialism was not what I believed to be REALLY important. I still don't.

Over time, I came to see money practically, for what it was: a way of paying the bills. But my true passion lay elsewhere. Commitment to G-d, family and nation, and productive hard work in its own right--is more meaningful and joyful to me.

Today, I still enjoy looking at the mansions on Bravo's Millionaire Listing or HGTV. But I only let myself do that when I'm working out on the treadmill!

Share/Save/Bookmark

November 27, 2010

Leadership Lessons from 127 Hours


Rarely does a movie get an 8.7 out of 10 in the reviews, so I had to go see the movie 127 Hours about Aron Ralston, the hiker who got trapped under a boulder in 2003 while mountain climbing in Utah, and had to amputate his own arm to free himself.
This was an incredible story of survival.

The guy had to drink his own urine to survive after running out of drinking water and finally had to break his own bones and cut off his own forearm with a dull blade and use a pliers to tear through his tendons in order to finally dislodge himself after 5 days of being trapped.
But what is even more amazing to me than what Aron had to do to survive is what he has chosen to do afterwards with his life.
Aside from the media appearances, motivational speaking, writing a book Between A Rock And A Hard Place, and getting married and having a son, Aron continues to be an ardent mountain climber.
While many people would actually choose to “lick their wounds” and basically find another hobby—a safer one, Aron continues to do what he loves—climbing.
He is not deterred.
To the contrary—he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2009 and still plans to climb Mt. Everest.
Aron inspires me, yet I have conflicting emotions about his choices.
Part of me thinks this guy is off the wall, since he took so many life-threatening chances (for example, climbing without even letting anyone know where he was) and nearly got himself killed, and now he continues to do pursue this dangerous sport with only one arm!
And another part of me is awed by him. He is unstoppable. He knows what he loves and he pursues it, no matter what: Terror, trauma, two arms or one, Aron will be climbing as long as he is able.
It is a great thing to be true to yourself, to have a passion, and to pursue it relentlessly. However, I believe it is a blessing to also have the wisdom to balance even the greatest of pursuits with sound judgement, so excuse the pun, you don’t end up having to cut off your nose (or in this case your arm) in despite of your face.
Aron is an inspiration similar to the movie character Rocky in terms of his determination and perseverance, but even Rocky knew when his health was at risk and it was time to hang his gloves up. Knowing when it’s safe to go and when it’s necessary to pause or even stop is an important part of our survival skills and it doesn’t mean that we are any less passionate about who we are or what we are about or believe in.
Passion should mean we responsibly grow into our pursuits and not unnecessarily die trying. In the movie, I got the impression that Aron was more than a little reckless, and he paid a heavy price for it, but I admire his bravery and that he continues to pursue his dreams.
In our organizations, we should encourage everyone to find their passion in the work they do—because that is a motivator for people that supersedes any paycheck or bonus management can provide.

Share/Save/Bookmark

March 12, 2010

The Many Faces of the CIO


The Chief Information Officer is a complex and challenging role even for those highly experienced, well educated, and innately talented. In fact, Public CIO Magazine in 2009 stated that the average tenure for a CIO is barely 24 months. What is it that is so challenging about being a CIO?

Well of course, there is the technology itself, which some may consider challenging in terms of keeping pace with the quick and ever changing products and services and roles that the IT plays in our society.

But one of the reasons not so frequently addressed is that the CIO role itself is so multi-faceted and requires talents that span a broad range of skills sets that not a lot of people have mastered.

In the CIO Support Services Framework (CSSF), I talked about this in terms of the varied strategic functions and skills that the CIO needs in order to plan and execute effectively (instead of just being consumed in the day-to-day firefighting)—from enterprise architecture to IT governance, from program and project management to customer relationship management, and from IT security to performance management—the CIO must pull these together seamlessly to provide IT capabilities to the end-user.

I came across this concept of the multifaceted CIO this week, in a white paper by The Center for CIO Leadership called “Beyond the Crossroads: How Business-Savvy CIOs Enable Top-Performing Enterprises and How Top-Performing Enterprise Leverage Business-Savvy CIOs.” The paper identifies multiple CIO core competencies, including a generic “leadership” category (which seems to cross-over the other competencies), “business strategy and process” reengineering, technology “innovation and growth”, and organization and talent management.

Additionally, the white paper, identifies some interesting research from a 2009 IBM global survey entitled “The New Voice of the CIO” that points to both the numerous dimensions required of the CIO as well as the dichotomy of the CIO role. The research describes both “the strategic initiatives and supporting tactical roles that CIOs need to focus upon,” as follows:

Insightful Visionary Able Pragmatist
Savvy Value Creator Relentless Cost Cutter
Collaborative Business Leader Inspiring IT Manager

Clearly, the CIO has to have many functions that he/she must perform well and furthermore, these roles are at times seemingly polar-opposites—some examples are as follows:
  • Developing the strategy, but also executing on it.
  • Growing the business through ongoing investments in new technologies, but also for decommissioning old technologies, streamlining and cutting costs.
  • Driving innovation, modernization, and transformation, but also ensuring a sound, stable, and reliable technology infrastructure.
  • Maintaining a security and privacy, but also for creating an open environment for information sharing, collaboration, and transparency.
  • Understanding the various lines of business, but also running a well honed IT shop.
  • Managing internal, employee resources, but also typically managing external, contracted resources.
  • Focusing internally on the mission and business, but also for reaching outside the organization for best practices and partnerships.
However, what can seem like contradictions in the CIO role are not really incongruous, but rather they are mutually supportive functions. We develop the strategy so we can faithfully execute. We invest in new technology so we can decommission the legacy systems. We invest in new future capabilities, while maintaining a stable present day capacity, and so on. The role of the CIO is truly multifaceted, but also synergistic and a potent platform for making significant contributions to the organization.

While certainly, the CIO does not accomplish all these things by him/herself, the CIO does have to be able to lead the many facets of the job that is required. The CIO must be able to talk everything from applications development to service oriented architecture, from data center modernization to cloud computing, from server and storage virtualization to mobility solutions, from green computing to security and privacy, and so much more.

The CIO is not a job for everybody, but it is a job for some people—who can master the many facets and even the seeming contractions of the job—and who can do it with a joy and passion for business and IT that is contagious to others and to the organization.

Share/Save/Bookmark

February 20, 2010

Bringing Back The Passion

Typically, success is attributed to nature, nurture, hard work, persistence; plain old luck, and of course, Divine intervention—always. But another, often overlooked, critical determinant of organizational and personal success is passion.

Passion is the deep desire, compelling feeling, and driving force that motivates us. It is our call to action that we are compelled to heed.

An undertaking done without passion is often mere mental or physical drudgery and considered time killed until we can extricate ourselves and do what we really want to be doing. In contrast, when we have passion for what we are doing it is a “labor of love” and is considered “time well spent”—an investment that we make with joy in our hearts and the feeling that we are engaged in what we are meant to be doing.

I remember growing up as a kid and being advised to chose a career that “you feel passionate about.” “Remember,” they used to say, “this is what you are going to be doing for the next 30 or 40 years!”

Too bad, that in the beginning of my career, I didn’t exactly listen. Fortunately, I found my true passion in leadership, innovation, and technology and was able to course correct.

Over time, I have learned that those who are passionate for their work have a huge “leg up” over those who don’t, and that it is a tangible differentiator in performance. Organizations and people that are truly passionate for what they do are simply more engaged, committed, and willing to do what it takes—because they love it!

In light of how important passion is, I read with great interest an editorial in ComputerWorld, 8 February 2010 by Thornton A. May, titled “Where Has IT’s Passion Gone?”

The article provides alarming statistics from the Corporate Executive Board that in 2009 only 4% of IT employees were considered “highly engaged” in their work.

The author questions: Can “IT [workers] crawl out from under the ambition-crushing, innovation sucking, soul-destroying minutiae of just keeping the digital lights on?”

“Trance-walking zombies” just go to work to keep the proverbial “lights on,” but passionate employees come to work to enhance the mission, delight their customers, and innovatively solve problems.

While IT leaders cannot waive a magic wand and make their employees feel passionate about their work, from my experience, when IT leaders themselves are passionate, the passion is often contagious! When we are truly “feeling it,” others start to feel it too.

Now, it’s unrealistic to take it upon ourselves to make everyone happy, but we can certainly do our part by putting leaders in charge that are passionate, letting them lead by example, and allowing them to create a culture of productivity and engagement that everyone can get excited about and be proud of.

One of the big challenges that leaders face when they try to motivate employees is that often there are many good people who were once passionate, but who have lost their inner-drive because of various set-backs, prior poor leadership, or even burn-out. One way to help bring the spark back is to empower these people to lead their own initiatives and to help them succeed where once they were thwarted.

Without passion, what are we all really doing except taking up space?


Share/Save/Bookmark

February 13, 2010

Fire In The Belly

Recently I read a classic article in Harvard Business Review (March-April 1992) called “Managers and Leaders,” by Abraham Zaleznik, in which he differentiates between these two frequently confused types of people.

Some highlights:

Leaders

Managers

Personality

Shape the goals

Solve the problems

Decision-making

Open up new options

“Limit choices” to execute

Relationships

Emotion-driven

Process-oriented

Risks

Prudent risk-takers

Conservative risk-avoidance

Sense of self

Strong and separate

Based on the organization

In my experience, Zaleznik was correct in observing that leaders and managers are very different. In particular, I have seen the following.

· Discipline: Leadership is more of an art, and management is more of a science.

· Orientation: Leaders focus on “the what,” (i.e. effectiveness) and managers on “the how” (i.e. efficiency).

· Aptitude: Leaders are visionaries and motivators, and managers are skilled at execution and organization.

· Ambitions: Leaders seek to be transformational catalysts for change, and managers (as Zaleznik points out) seek perpetuation of the institution.

Given that leaders and managers are inherently dissimilar, advancement from management to leadership is not an absolute, nor is it necessarily a good thing. However, many managers aspire to be leaders, and with training, coaching, and mentoring, some can make this leap. Those who can make their mark as leaders are incredibly valuable to organizations because they know how to transform, shape, and illuminate the way forward. Of course, the role that managers play is incredibly valuable as well (probably undervalued), but nevertheless, they support and execute on the vision of the leader and as such a leader commands a premium.

What I think we can take away from Zaleznik’s work, then, is that a leader should never be thought of as just a manager “on steroids.” Instead, leaders and managers are distinct, and the synergy between them is healthy, as they each fulfill a different set of needs. In this vein, when organizations seek to recruit from within the ranks for leadership positions, it would be wise for them to look at candidates more discriminatingly than just looking at their managerial experience. (In fact, counter to the conventional wisdom, the best leader may never have been a manager at all, or may have been a mediocre or even a horrible one!) We cannot just expect that good managers will necessarily make good leaders (although to some extent success may breed success), but must look for what fundamentally makes a leader and ensure that we are getting what is needed and unique.

So what can a person do if they want to be a leader? In my view, it starts with believing in yourself, then genuinely wanting to achieve a leadership position, and after that being willing to do what it takes to get there. Baseline efforts include advancing your education, hard work, building relationships and credibility, and so forth, but this is only part of the equation.

The truth of the matter is, you can go to an Ivy League school and leadership boot camp for twenty years, but if you don’t have passion, determination, and a sense of mission or cause that comes from deep inside, then you are not yet a leader. These things cannot be taught or handed over to a person like a baton in a relay race. Rather, they are fundamental to who you are as a person, what drives you, and what you have to give to others and to the organization.

Regardless of what role we play, each of us has a unique gift to share with the world. We need only to find the courage to look inside, discover what it is, value its inherent worth (no matter what the dollar value placed on it), and pursue it.


Share/Save/Bookmark

July 23, 2009

Cutting the Budget the Easy Way


Arnold Schwarzenegger , "the Terminator", definitely knows how to cut the budget--with a 2 foot long knife. Yikes!

But all kidding aside, while many critical services were cut to resolve a $42 billion budget deficit in the state of California, Governor Schwartzenegger manages to keep his cool. He posted this video of himself--combining some unique star humor with crowdsourcing--engaging people on new ideas to solve the crisis.

For The Total CIO, this is a great lesson in humility, working on difficult problems (no, not with a knife!), and reaching out to people with humor and passion to get the job done.

Good job Terminator!

Share/Save/Bookmark

March 20, 2008

Apple and Enterprise Architecture

In Fortune Magazine, 17 March 2008, Apple was rated in Fortune the #1 most admired companies in America and in the world and it won the highest mark for innovation too.

“In an industry that changes every nanosecond, the 32-yer old company has time and again innovated its way out of the doldrums. Rivals always seem to be playing catch-up.”

And Apple certainly knows innovation and mass appeal. “Invention is the creation of something new. [But] innovation is the creation of something new that makes money; it finds a pathway to the consumer.” Apple is great at creating consumer hits--just think iPod, iPhone, and MacBook.

“The iPod is to music what Kleenex is to tissue or Xerox is to copiers.”

“Almost everything Apple makes transcends gender, geography, and race.”

In the last five years, “sales tripled to $24 billion and profits surged to $3.5 billion.”

What is Apple’s enterprise architecture (business and IT strategy)?

  • Thinking big—with Apple, the sky’s the limit or there really isn’t any limit at all; “every endeavor is a moon shot. Sometimes the company misses, but the successes are huge.”
  • Excellence—Apple has become “a symbol of innovation” and there is a huge “degree of perfectionism. Apple hires people that are never satisfied.”
  • Passion—“Emotive is a big word here. The passion is what provides the push to overcome design and engineering obstacles, to bring projects in on time.”
  • Focus—Apple is anti-diversification. They believe that when companies make too many products, they get “mired in the mediocre. Apple’s approach is to put every resource it has behind just a few products and make them exceedingly well.”
  • Consumer orientation—“We figure out what people want…we do no market research. We just want to make great products” for the masses. At Apple, they look at everyday consumer products and ask themselves what’s awful about them and how can they make them better.
  • Democratize technology—“Apple’s approach has always been to democratize technology in the belief that if you make something ‘really great’ then everybody will want to use it.”
  • Technology synthesis—“Apple’s the only company that has everything under one roof…not only do we control the hardware, but we control the operating system.” Apple does hardware and software and operating systems and “can tweed it all together and make it work seamlessly.”
  • Design genius—As a company, Apple is the master of consumer electronics design. “This is not just engineering and science. This is art too.” At Apple, they understand that function is enhanced by form, and that the consumer wants a good-looking gadget.

One of the biggest lessons for me from Apple is to never give up. For years, Apple trailed the computer market with the Mac holding only a 4% to 5% market share. But they kept innovating, developing and designing the best working and looking products. Now they’ve captured 70% market share with the iPod and are targeting sales this year of 10 million iPhones. Apple is a super company with business and technology planning that others can only look at in sheer awe with their mouths hanging open.


Share/Save/Bookmark

March 6, 2008

Architecting Smart Kids and Enterprise Architecture

We’ve been hearing for years about our poor elementary and high school educational system in this country. For years, test scores have trailed our competitors in other countries across the globe. This has been especially true in science and math and has affected the number of qualified engineers we are producing as a nation. These are often the people who would take us into the future from an innovation standpoint.

The Wall Street Journal, 29 February 2008, asks “What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?”

“By one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year old students who were tested in 57 countries.”

By contrast, “American teens finished among the world’s C students even as educators piled on more homework, standards, and rules.”

So is it something in the Finnish drinking water or some magic vitamin that makes them outdo us academically?

“High school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don’t start school until age 7.”

“Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm, and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they’re way ahead in math, science, and reading—on track to keeping Finns among the world’s most productive workers.”

On the most recent test sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “Finland’s students placed first in science, and near the top in reading and math…[and] in first place overall….the U.S. placed in the middle of the pack.

So here’s the magic elixir—2 things:

  1. Reading—Remember the commercial here in the states that said “reading is fun-damental”? Well in Finland reading really is. Finns love reading. “Parents of newborns receive a government-paid gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods like a Good Humor truck.”
  2. Self-reliance—While in the U.S., teens and even people well into their 20’s and even 30’s are hopelessly dependent on mommy and daddy and have been moving back home and throwing their dirty socks in the corner of their rooms, Finns are self-reliant from an early age.

“The Finns enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, but they too worry about falling behind in the shifting global marketplace.” Based on their relative educational success, it is us Americans that should be doing more worrying.

If we are to architect success in our students’ educational scores and futures, it will not be by driving them into early adulthood through the paranoid assignment of an avalanche of nightly homework. Our children are ridden with test scores and admission anxiety, even as they continue to flunk by international standards.

Using enterprise architecture as our guide, we need to teach not to grow up faster, but to enjoy being a creative, questioning child. We need to inspire children not with fear for their future, but rather with a sincere love of learning (and of reading, and exploring, and of trying new things). We must not hold our children’s hands forever in paranoid fear, but rather teach them to be confident, self-reliant, innovative, and adventurous. We must not push our children to be “doctors, lawyers, or accountants”—to make lots of money—but rather must encourage them to go after their dreams and passions. These are strengths that education alone will not provide for our children’s future.


Share/Save/Bookmark