When Good People Do Nothing

The Price of Loyalty?

Have you been in a situation where the boss asks you to shade the facts, look for stats to support their case or conduct research that is meant to support a predetermined assumption? Yeah, I've been there in public broadcasting. Nothing I did for my bosses rose anywhere near the level we've experienced in the last four years.

The text below is from an op-ed piece in the NYTimes. Erica Newland worked in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department from 2016-18. Her job was to make Trump's attacks on the justice system and democracy more palatable to the courts. Her posting is a Mea culpa for not doing more to push back. She regrets enabling Trump. Her efforts the last two years in the justice department to mollify Trump have led to guilt. They weren't worth it.

Before the 2020 election, I was haunted by what I didn’t do. By all the ways I failed to push back enough. Now, after the 2020 election, I’m haunted by what I did. The trade-off wasn’t worth it.

In giving voice to those trying to destroy the rule of law and dignifying their efforts with our talents and even our basic competence, we enabled that destruction. Were we doing enough good elsewhere to counterbalance the harm we facilitated, the way a public health official might accommodate the president on the margins to push forward on vaccine development? No.

No matter our intentions, we were complicit. We collectively perpetuated an anti-democratic leader by conforming to his assault on reality. We may have been victims of the system, but we were also its instruments. No matter how much any one of us pushed back from within, we did so as members of a professional class of government lawyers who enabled an assault on our democracy — an assault that nearly ended it.

We owe the country our honesty about that and about what we saw. We owe apologies. I offer mine here.

Perhaps hope for the future lies in part with people like Erica Newman's willing to step forward and take responsibility for their actions. A lot of damage has been done. There are many who will never believe the facts. They've fallen down the rabbit hole of an alternate reality.

Where do we go from here?

If you do nothing in a difficult time,

your strength is limited.

Rescue those being taken off to death,

and save those stumbling toward slaughter.

If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,”

won’t He who weighs hearts consider it?

Won’t He who protects your life know?

Won’t He repay a person according to his work?

-Proverbs 24

 John Stuart Mill said in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” 

The consequence of doing nothing is all around us. So many have died unnecessarily from our 21st century plague. Discrimination, racism and hatred is rampant. Children are separated from their families. People legally seeking asylum from violence are made to wait in squalid camps outside our borders.  The fouling of our air and water. Voter suppression. Attempts at subverting the election. There's so much more. The list of wrong doing seems daunting. 

It is not time to shrug our shoulders and say, "Oh well." Our system has worked because of checks and balances, That system has been under attack for quite some time now. The fruits of that strategy have come to a head under Trump. Pushing back, ensuring the checks and balances, needs to be applied against the abuses of the past and into the future.

Scorched Earth?

 Evil had a scent, bitter and pungent, like the scorched earth after a forest fire. I'd been living with the stench long enough to recognize it anywhere. - Author: Lisa Kessler

Peaceful Transition?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the largest cybersecurity breach Washington has ever seen.

The comment, made almost as an aside to a conservative radio show host, was the first time the Trump administration went on the record to blame the Kremlin for the recent hacking that infiltrated dozens of government and private systems.

But because President Trump has 30 days left in office, national security officials say the U.S. response will likely fall to President-elect Joe Biden. That became even more clear when Mr. Trump insisted on Twitter that “everything is well under control” and suggested that it might have been China rather than Russia that carried out the hack.

And given the intensity of the attack, it may be months before Mr. Biden can trust the systems that run much of Washington. -NY Times People who know what they are talking about say it is most likely the Russians, but not Trump. Is it to provide cover for Putin? Is it vindictiveness by Trump?  Both?  The craziness doesn't end. It just one more episode in a never ending stream of crazy. Friday night at the White House, there was talk of sedition. Flynn and others are urging Trump to declare martial law to overturn the election. Is Trump capable of sinking so low as to destroy our Republic? Consider this... Hillary Clinton recalled the 2017 Inauguration in a 2019 interview,  "I had hoped to hear Trump make an attempt to reach out to non-supporters." “I hoped I would hear a little of that, I didn’t hear any of that. And that carnage in the street and the dark dystopian vision. I was sitting there like just, wow. I couldn’t believe it. And George W. Bush says to me, ‘Well, that was some weird shit,’” she recalled. We've gone way beyond weird to dangerous.

Bad Leadership

Adept Leadership

We've seen several major events since 2001 put new challenges in the path of Public Media. It's become clear leadership needs to be ready to adapt and change. 

Public Media is going through leadership churn. Retirements, demands for diversity, social media disruption, changing audience demands and usage are all putting pressure on leadership.  There's plenty of advice on good leadership skills.

Five Qualities of Effective Leaders

• They are self-aware and prioritize personal development. ...
• They focus on developing others. ...
• They encourage strategic thinking, innovation, and action. ...
• They are ethical and civic-minded. ...
• They practice effective cross-cultural communication. -northeastern.edu

The qualities above depend on inclusion and partnering with co-workers to have any chance at success. Listening skills and engagement are of paramount importance. Looks easy enough, right? Not so fast. I've found that I often trip over myself. There are certain traits that might stand in the way. I've observed them in myself and in others.

I read over a synopsis of  "Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters by Barbara Kellerman and thought, "Oh my God!" We've been living this for four years, but then I applied the brakes. The reason these seven traits register is we're all capable of displaying any or all of these characteristics. These traits are applicable to public leadership, but there are direct applications for public media leadership.

The good news is these are learned behaviors, we can teach ourselves to set them aside for better behaviors and become better leaders.

INCOMPETENT

The leader and at least some followers lack the will or skill (or both) to sustain effective action. With regard to at least one important leadership challenge, they do not create positive change. (40)” “Incompetent leaders are not necessarily incompetent in every aspect. Moreover, there are many ways of being incompetent. Some leaders lack practical, academic, or emotional intelligence. Others are careless, dense, distracted, slothful, or sloppy, or they are easily undone by uncertainty and stress, unable effectively to communicate, educate, or delegate, and so on.

RIGID

The leader and at least some of his followers are stiff and unyielding.
Although they may be competent, they are unable or unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information or changing times

INTEMPERATE

The leader lacks self-control and is aided and abetted by followers who are
unwilling or unable effectively to intervene.

CALLOUS

The leader and at least some followers are uncaring or unkind. Ignored or
discounted are the needs, wants, and wishes of most members of the group
or organization, especially subordinates.

CORRUPT

The leader and at least some followers lie, cheat, or steal. To a degree
that exceeds the norm, they put self-interest ahead of the public
interest.

INSULAR

The leader and at last some followers minimize or disregard the health and
welfare of ‘the other’ – that is, those outside the group or organization
for which they are directly responsible.

EVIL

The leader and at least some followers commit atrocities. They use pain as
an instrument of power. The harm done to men, women, and children is
severe rather than slight. The harm can be physical, psychological, or
both.

from: http://www.theocentric.com/ecclesiology/leadership/bad_leadership.htm

Barbara Kellerman is an American professor of public leadership, currently at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. -wikipedia

Count The Votes All The Votes

The Election Is Over

The results are in. Trump is still whining. He says he had an early lead. Because of that, he won. 

Sorry! It doesn't work that way. To quote Yogi Berra ,“It ain’t over till it’s over” --  In baseball you've gotta play the whole game. In racing you've gotta finish first. The early lead doesn't matter. In elections you've gotta count all the votes.

When my son was three, if he was losing at a game, he would end it and declare himself the winner. It was funny. He was three. He's an adult now. He doesn't do that anymore. It leads me to believe Trump never grew up. 

I remember waiting for election results growing up in Wisconsin. Early results came from rural counties, and Republicans would always have a big lead. I asked my father if this meant the Republican candidate was going to win? He said no. We had to wait for the vote to be counted in the cities. We had to wait for all the votes to be counted. 

Because of that, none of the candidates would look at the early results and declare victory. They knew better. 

Win or lose, the candidates accepted the results. Winners were gracious and talked about uniting the people. Losers conceded and talked about how they were grateful they got a chance to express their views. And just like in sports, they declared they would be back next time stronger than before.

So, what are we getting now? Conspiracy theories and threats of violence. He's saying the results had to be rigged. After all, the candidate from the other side couldn't possibly win based on the merits of their policies. They're flawed because of their age or gender or religion or race.

"What Berra meant was that we need to stay aware, to stay focused, and most important, not to give up. Stand for your values, stand up for yourself." -DAVID L. ULIN LA TIMES

I can only work for, and hope for, a return to the sanity of that earlier time.

COVID in College

 Higher Ed Super Spreader

The virus is not confined to campus. According to statistics provided by the NYTimes, the rate of deadly cases has doubled in college towns. The numbers are increasing the most among the adults who live and work in the community. The students are spreading the disease beyond campus at an alarming rate.

"Some hoped a spike in coronavirus infections on college campuses this fall would be limited to students, for whom the risks are minimal. The death rate in college towns like East Lansing, Mich., above, paints a different picture.

Since the end of August, deaths from the coronavirus have doubled in counties with large college student populations, compared with a 58 percent increase in the rest of the nation, a Times analysis found. Few of the victims were college students, but rather older people and others living and working in the community.

Since the pandemic began, a Times survey has identified more than 397,000 infections at more than 1,800 colleges and universities. At least 6,629 of those reported cases are people in college sports. But the true number is most likely higher."

COVID Testing and Politics

 

Partisan Politics May Be Killing Us

There are three main reasons why we don't have easily accessible rapid testing.  

The first is out of abundant caution. The second and third have nothing to do with caution. They are about ideology. That ideology is putting all of us at risk.  Of course, the Trump administration is focused on overturning a free and fair election, instead of the health and well-being of Americans.

Why isn’t the U.S. doing more testing? There are three reasons.

1. The F.D.A. has been slow to grant approval for new tests. 
2. The Trump administration has been slow to spend the money that Congress has allocated for testing. 
3. And Congress may need to allocate more money; mass testing could cost a few billion dollars a month — still a small fraction of the cost of recent proposed virus bills.

-NYTimes

Three Observations

1. The Trump administration is focused on subverting a free and fair election, instead of the health and well-being of Americans.
2. Conservatives are more concerned about the bottom line than people's lives. 
3. A Little leadership would be nice. Set the ideology aside and do what is best.

Follow the Science

Testing will remain important going forward, Yes, we are on the verge of several vaccines, but we are months away from getting anything close to full coverage.

Dr. Fauci has spoken several times about the importance of testing. 

Importance of testing: 

Testing is the first step for contact tracing -- a tried and true public health approach that involves identifying cases quickly, isolating and treating those people, identifying their contacts and testing them to see if they need to be isolated or quarantined.

“But deep down perhaps I should have been much more vocal about saying we have really, absolutely, got to do that,’” Fauci said. “I saw that it went nowhere and maybe I should have kept pushing the envelope on that.”

Testing is important because otherwise cases spread silently, Fauci noted. “What is going on now that you don’t recognize becomes a case a few weeks later,” he said.

“That becomes a hospitalization a few weeks later. That becomes intensive care a few days later. That becomes death a few weeks later.”

Fauci said he was hesitant to talk about his regrets for fear his statements would be taken out of context as sound-bites. - Associated Press

There were over 218,000 new cases in the US on December 9th, and over 3,000 deaths according to Johns Hopkins University, 

Good Leadership

Leadership and Management

There's a difference. (I had to look this one up.)

This is what I found at the Harvard Business Review:

Management consists of controlling a group or a set of entities to accomplish a goal. Leadership refers to an individual's ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward organizational success. Influence and inspiration separate leaders from managers, not power and control.

I've worked for bad managers. They were all about power and control. They offered  monetary gain (greed), and followed with fear (retribution). In other words, do what I ask or face the consequences. The article by Vineet Nayar   in the Harvard Business Review points out the difference. Here's what he came up with.

Counting value vs Creating value. You’re probably counting value, not adding it, if you’re managing people. Only managers count value; some even reduce value by disabling those who add value. If a diamond cutter is asked to report every 15 minutes how many stones he has cut, by distracting him, his boss is subtracting value.

By contrast, leaders focuses on creating value, saying: “I’d like you to handle A while I deal with B.” He or she generates value over and above that which the team creates, and is as much a value-creator as his or her followers are. Leading by example and leading by enabling people are the hallmarks of action-based leadership.

Circles of influence vs Circles of power. Just as managers have subordinates and leaders have followers, managers create circles of power while leaders create circles of influence.

Leading people vs Managing work. Management consists of controlling a group or a set of entities to accomplish a goal. Leadership refers to an individual’s ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward organizational success. Influence and inspiration separate leaders from managers, not power and control.

Poor management is top down control. Good leadership enables. As a leader I strived for a democratic and hands-off approach: generally preferring to share the overall goal and let my reports determine exactly how to complete their work. I valued competence and decisiveness.

Did it always work? No. Perhaps, it was my weakness. At times I neglected to listen to differing opinions once my mind was made up. It's a humbling experience to take ownership of one's own mistakes. Mistakes are an opportunity for growth.


Good leadership qualities are all about:

• Integrity.
• Ability to delegate.
• Communication/Listening.
• Self-awareness.
• Gratitude.
• Learning agility.
• Influence.
• Empathy.
• Courage.
• Respect.

Try it. The transition to leadership won't happen overnight, and like most things in life, it will take a continuing effort to reapply the these ideals.

The past twenty years have seen a constant transitioning of challenges. Good leaders don't try to go it alone. They value the talents of those around them to help make the transition. In Public Media the challenge will be how to maintain listenership and engagement after the time of Trump.  

You can read more about this issue by clicking on this link.

Three Differences Between Managers and Leaders