David Griesing | Work Life Reward Author | Philadelphia

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You Need Money to Make Money

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The promise of a free market is that you can get ahead with hard work and sound investment.

In other words, you need your hard-earned money (or “working capital”) to make more money. But if you’re not earning enough to have money left over in savings at the end of the week, chances are no family member is willing to give it to you and no bank is willing to lend it to you.  Access to capital—or rather the lack of access—is changing the promise that you can get ahead if you work hard.

Productivity isn’t just about, or even primarily about making money, but money is part of it. Money makes a better life possible. Beyond the essentials, it buys time off for enrichment to read a book, connect with your neighbors or just smell the clover. It gives you time to think about the quality of your work, and not just recover from it.

rock up hill 300x250That’s why it’s a problem when those who want to work can’t earn enough to live on. Everyone in a community should be able to earn a living wage if they have the discipline, skill and desire, and everyone in the community has a stake in creating that opportunity. Escape from social dependence rests on the willingness to work and develop new skills.  Work allows “the pursuit of happiness.” A community that fails to support that kind of self-reliance and personal fulfillment is at risk of unraveling.

Productivity is also about seizing the opportunity to build new wealth with talent and elbow grease. It’s the Korean market in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood where the whole family works 8-12 hours a day, saving every penny, while the kids do school work between customers so they can get into Penn. The dream is that hard work, savings, and self-improvement will get you to a better life tomorrow. Our communities also used to support that dream.

Unfortunately, as you know, the news is full of statistics about threats to upward mobility in developed countries today (most recently in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, published for this week’s conference in Davos, Switzerland). For the middle class, it’s become harder to live on what you earn. With reduced savings at the end of the day, increasingly it is only the wealthiest wage earners who have enough money to invest in an even better future.

Aside from the spigot of student loans, it’s been difficult if not impossible for most Americans to gain access to capital by borrowing money. You need capital to grow your business, and the kinds of companies I work with can’t get it from the banks, even when they’re doing well. In other words, unless the business owner has her own source of funds, she cannot finance her company’s future growth.

It’s the same for innovation. While there are more ways to crowdfund your brilliant idea, unless your family and thousand new friends can be your bank, bringing a new product or service to market is a longer shot than ever. Banks no longer come even close to satisfying the need that business owners have for capital.

Not so long ago it was different.

In his article “Less Innovation, More Inequality,” Nobel laureate (in economics) Edmund Phelps notes that American inventiveness and therefore general prosperity has been in decline for more than 50 years. Even with the disruptions of war and depression, from the1820’s to the 1960’s in America there was:

a frenzy of creative activity, economic competition and rapid growth in national income provided widening economic inclusion, rising wages for all and engaging careers for most.

Today, the consequences of the fall-off from a flourishing economy are becoming apparent.  New wealth is increasingly produced by and new innovation is increasingly funded by those who are rich already.

The fear is that this accumulation of wealth is creating the kind of permanent nobility last seen in 17th and 18th century Europe. Today, rich people increasingly go to the best schools with, marry, do business with, and eventually inherit much of society’s wealth from one another. (I’ve talked elsewhere about Charles Murray’s take on this relatively new cultural divide.)

In terms of your work today, these are some of the questions that are worth considering:

What happens to how you view your work when an economic system that rewarded talent, discipline and sacrifice evolves into an aristocracy?

What happens when only a fortunate few have access to the capital that makes future dreams come true?

An article in the Wall Street Journal last week noted:

For some, this would be a dystopian vision, skewing incentives across the economy, and making inherited wealth even more important to signaling social status.  It runs contrary to the idea of a meritocracy and equality of opportunity that many in the U.S., on both sides of the political spectrum, see as forming the bedrock of a just society.

It’s certainly a nightmare vision for those of us who believe in the ennobling qualities of work.

Clearly, it’s time to shake things up.

 

Thanks

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There is always some let down when the holidays are over. With snow and ice and the coldest day Philadelphia has seen in awhile “on tap” for later today, the outlook can seem pretty bleak when you don’t bring some lightheartedness into it.

The rebalance can be as simple as identifying what we have to be grateful for. It doesn’t need to take the gloom away; a lot of that is just January. It just restores some of the hope.

Lillian - July 2, 2013
LILLIAN’S GREAT HAT — July 2, 2013

 

Like you, I’m tired of year-end lists–I guess because I’ve looked at so many of them. Books, songs, movies, people to watch in the coming months. It’s the year’s fulcrum when you look back at what happened around you & in your own life, while trying to look forward with anticipation. For me at least, nothing gives anticipation the glow of hopefulness like gratitude.

So with apologies in advance for yet another list, here are some categories for gratitude that might help you to dispel some of the gloom today (with some personal “thank yous” attached).

1.       A better response than you ever thought you’d get. You get less than you hope for but still keep on asking. It’s hard to create the space for a suitable response from someone when you’ve been disappointed so many times before. A customer service representative, someone you’ve hired to do something for you, a neighbor or family member. But your disappointment can also disable those who want to give you what you’re looking for. For those times when you didn’t let your disappointment over past experiences get in the way—or even when you do, but the person on the other end wouldn’t take “no” for an answer—what are some of the responses you got in the past 12 months that were a cause for gratitude?  Thank you: AOL’s Romanian service desk, Patti, Colleen, Kim, the doormen at 250, Bill and Jason!

2.       For people you have not seen in awhile but who show up as delightful as always.  Some folks are always in your life, while others only stop in occasionally. For the occasional visitors, you always wonder beforehand how time has treated them, and sometimes are delighted by the effervescence they manage to keep giving off.  Over the past 12 months, visitors like this provide moments of real grace: Irene, Jim, John, Richard.

3.       Surprises. You can organize yourself so tightly that surprise has a hard time breaking in. It’s what makes us smile when babies and dogs disrupt the best laid plans in our movies and storytelling. You can’t manufacture surprise, but you can make room for it. When you do, it can be a blessing: Lillian with stories about her 75 grandchildren and new business on a busy trail in the Tetons, Peter (from Scotland) & Jon-Albert (from Norway) hitch-hiking to adventure on Wyoming I-80, Wally the dog.

4.   New Ideas.  There may be no such thing as a “new idea,” but it can seem like new to you. More often it’s a different “way of thinking” about something familiar: a slant or perspective that you never considered. In The Golden Notebook, Philip Pullman talks about spaces in the fabric of time that provide passageways from one reality to another. When you return, of course, nothing is quite the same. What ideas changed your mind this year? Some of mine came from Jaron Lanier (on the commerce in our personal information), Brene Brown (on Wholeheartedness), and Russell Baker (on how to talk about your life so others want to know more about it).

5.       Collaboration. When the sum becomes greater than the parts while working on something together, that’s the best of partnership. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, those partners are worth celebrating: Ryan, Marc. 

6.       Feedback. This is something you need to hear about yourself that manages to come back to you. The speakers can be friends and loved ones, but some of the most appreciated remarks can come from strangers with nothing to gain or lose. People don’t always tell you the truth, so you have to be listening when they do. That also goes for kind words when you least expect them and for tributes when they come. A waiter for the Princeton Breakfast Group, Gina, Dorothy, Jon, Dina.

7.       Perspective. It’s easy to get lost in the demands of the day or in worrying about yourself. Whatever reliably takes you out of your busyness and insecurity and gives you some perspective on the day is also deserving of some gratitude. It’s an escape you return from refreshed. Hearing a special person’s voice can do it. Laughter can too.  Whatever it is deserves to be celebrated, like:  Good neighbors.

Identify the people and things you’re grateful for and give them a party in your head.

Here’s to a wholehearted year!

Tallying Up

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It’s the time of year to tally up what we’ve accomplished and what we haven’t, what we might have done differently, or not at all.

Perhaps because of that, Todd May contributed an op-ed to the New York Times a few days ago in which he pondered the notion of good years, best or “peak” years, and years when you’re simply rolling downhill toward your final whimper.

For me, I’d like to think that I’m on an upward trajectory, that I’ll continue to engage and grow, and that tomorrow will be better than today. But it’s more than my optimism and sense of purpose. A lot of it also has to do with how the world engages back.

photo by Susan Melkisethian
(photo/Susan Melkisethian)

 

Everyone will agree that Edward Snowden had something of a peak year in 2013.

Yesterday, when Professor May was interviewed on NPR about his op-ed, John Hockenberry mentioned Snowden in his introduction, noting that he may never have “another change the world moment” like he had in 2013.  But when he got into his Q&A, Hockenberry thought it was at least “conceivable” that Snowden could “acquire an influence that could give him as big a year, say in 10 years, as he had this year.”  May disagreed, noting that the American government will never let it happen, a point he elaborated upon in his op-ed.

Snowden’s actions, regardless of whether one supports them or not, have had a prodigious impact on the debate about privacy in the United States and will likely continue to do so. They have had roughly the impact that Snowden wanted them to have. That is, they have altered how many of us think about our relation to the government and to our own technology, and because of this, they infuse this period of his life with a luminescence that will always be with him. He will not forget it, nor will others.

 

There is an assumption I would like to make here, one that I can’t verify but I think is uncontroversial. It is very unlikely that Edward Snowden will ever do anything nearly as significant again. Nothing he does for the remainder of his life will have the resonance that his recent actions have had. The powers that be will ensure it. And undoubtedly he knows this. His life will go on, and it may not be as tortured as some people think. But in an important sense his life will have peaked at age 29 or 30.

I don’t know about that.

Like many of you I am “at 6s and 7s” about Edward Snowden, and like most of you l viewed his “Alternative Christmas Message” this week in the hope that it would help me sort through my impressions. I realized that while I had seen his picture a thousand times, I had never heard his voice. Indeed, almost no one had.

Was his message “Hyperbole? Self-marketing?” Hockenberry wondered in his interview. Well, maybe. But then again, maybe not.

The part of me that believed Snowden had spoken a kind of truth to power that no one else had dared to speak could find both sincerity and conviction in him and in his words. That part of me believed him when he said that he repeatedly raised his concerns about the extent of surveillance with his superiors.  Only when they did nothing, did he turn to the press to find out whether the rest of us would see the stakes involved in the same way that he did.

So as we hear Edward Snowden’s voice and tally the costs (if any) of 5 months of asylum on his face, it’s equally hard to believe that he’s already begun his slow descent into irrelevance. We will keep talking about how much privacy we are wiling to sacrifice to be safe because it is one of the great conversations of our age. More than anything, it is Snowden’s continuing willingness to contribute to that conversation and our continuing engagement with his thoughts and actions that will determine the pitch of his trajectory.

Was it a good year, a peak year, or a way-station to irrelevance? It comes down to the same two factors for all us:  our willingness to keep raising our voices and the connections we forge with others by doing so.

As I watched Edward Snowden’s counterpoint to the Queen’s Annual Christmas Greeting, I was pretty sure of one thing:

He, for one, doesn’t think that his peak year is behind him.

 

 

“Dreaming Different Dreams”

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Along with all the other reasons that were given, Jang Song Thaek was purged from North Korea’s leadership this week for “dreaming different dreams.”

According to a government statement, he “used drugs;” left home to “squander foreign currency at casinos;” had “improper relations with several women;” was “wined and dined at back parlors of deluxe restaurants;” and “was engrossed in such factional acts as dreaming different dreams.”

The official indictment capped his specific transgressions with an existential one. It wasn’t just what he did.  What he believed in and hoped for also damned him.  In the tick off of charges, Jang went from being the second most powerful person in North Korea to becoming non existent.

JANG DELETED FROM OFFICIAL VIDEO OF FEARLESS LEADER KIM JONG UN
JANG DELETED FROM OFFICIAL VIDEO OF FEARLESS LEADER KIM JONG UN

 

The literal translation of Chinese, Japanese or Korean phrases sometimes provides an oddly distilled perspective, along with a glimpse of a worldview quite different from our own. Of course, it should be expected when we eavesdrop on places that are called the Hermit Kingdom (North Korea) or where the seat of power used to be the Chrysanthemum Throne (Japan). Yes the world is flatter, but certain expressions reveal a startlingly divergent view of reality.

Chrysanthemum 600x486

The gap in our understanding often has to do with whether individuals belong (that is, contribute to the “harmony” of the physical and spiritual world) or, in this instance, have stopped belonging. If I am “dreaming different dreams,” it is not only my actions but also my thoughts and aspirations that are dangerously out of sync with the order of things. If Jang’s excommunication seems ludicrous to us, it has as much to do with our personal views about individuality and privacy as it does with North Korea’s leaders.

Of course my dreams are my own….

But not so long ago, we shared our dreams with others, and our “inner life” was something we regularly brought into the broader conversation. Engaging with our communities through our politics or religion, we debated and envisioned a more perfect world together.  We had more collective ways of organizing our reality then, our habits of living. We had something approximating a common worldview–all the stuff packed into that wonderful German word Weltanshauung–and were busy building into that world a proper place for minorities, women, and honoring the environment.

Not so long ago, common dreams for a better world were part of the fabric of our daily lives.

“Why don’t we have a shared project like putting a man on the moon anymore?” is how our nostalgia for America’s aspirations is often expressed. A quest like that was a way to declare our confidence and keep fear at bay instead of allowing that insecurity and fear to dominate our behavior and civic discourse.

One thing that a culture does is to give people ways of thinking about what they are doing. They can see the connections among their work, their talents, and the needs of the world.  They perceive their work as belonging to a whole, some of whose possibilities are good which they help to sustain.

(Purdy, For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today, at 40, emphasis added)  It wasn’t so long ago that we dared to wage a War on Poverty and believed we could eliminate racial inequality because of values that we shared. But even 9/11 couldn’t jolt us back into a sense of common purpose.

What we need are dreams that are big enough for who we are today.

Of course, you have to belong to, believe in, dream about something that’s bigger than you are before you can feel the pain of being excluded from it. You need some of that experience, I think, to begin to imagine the oblivion of being “taken out of the picture,” like Jang was. Sharing a vision of the future with others in a community of dreamers brings purpose into your life and your work, while being off on your own (often as not) leaves you colder and more afraid. (On Being Part of Something Bigger Than Yourself)

“Dreaming different dreams” describes a transgression that we no longer have words for. The only cultural sins we have left are infringements on individual freedom, rights or privacy.

It is left to a strange, oppressive place like North Korea to remind us, with compact eloquence, how small the dreams we have for ourselves have become.

 

(Note to readers:  After this post was published today, I learned that Jang Song Thaek had been executed by the North Korean government as a traitor.)

 

Between a Practical and an Enriching Education

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The cultivation of your mind & spirit and your preparation for a job are always in tension in higher education.

With a crippling recession and the rising cost of a college degree, there seems to be a higher emphasis than ever on vocational training.  But even with more internships and technical apptitude, the last half-decade of graduates are still struggling to break into the job market. Indeed, liberal arts champions are noting that narrow training for specialized jobs is leaving those students who don’t manage to land one largely unqualified to do anything else.

Broad. Specific. Enriching. Practical. Critical thinking. Hands-on learning. The best education is equal parts creativity and application, learning how to identify a problem and then trying to solve it, discovering unexpected abilities at school while refining developing ones on the job.

It is unusual for one educator to draw so much of his energy from these tensions, but that’s what Sebastian Thrun seems to be doing.

Thrun is the co-founder of Udacity, one of the young companies that is beginning to turn the bricks & mortar approach to higher education on its head. Massive open on-line courses (or MOOCs) are the vehicle. In a post a few weeks back, I discussed one of the recent directions they have taken: a collaboration between national employers like UPS and companies like Thrun’s to jointly develop “niche certification programs” that will give students an affordable shot at an available job and employers a qualified applicant pool for unfilled positions.

This could be just another way for enterprising employers to cultivate a roster of applicants for cherry picking. But from another perspective, it could be more of a win-win. As observers like Andrew Kelly have noted, most of those taking MOOCs today are either in traditional degree programs or have gotten their degrees already. Because these certificate programs are building on the broad base of a more traditional education, the too-narrowly-focused student becomes less of a concern.

For his part, Thrun seems to be motivated instead of discouraged by the vocational detour MOOC providers like his are taking.

His vision, and that of other innovators in on-line education, was to bring practical as well as enriching learning opportunities to everyone who was too poor or too busy working to pursue a traditional degree—a potentially transformative global vision. Unfortunately, very few of those sigining up for a MOOC actually complete the course today, even with “really good” teachers, regular mentoring and the promise of low-cost college credit.  But the apparent fact that the market for the first wave of MOOCs is smaller than Thrun (and others) expected is only causing him to double down on his efforts to meet the broader need that’s out there.

Why is that?  I think it’s because the animating principle is Thrun’s own curiosity, his own appetite for learning.

We pursue most vigorously what we embody, or as Thrun prefers to describe it, what he wants for his son.

I hope he can hit the workforce relatively early and engage in lifelong education.

Instead of four years in college, what Thrun envisions is an on-going shuttle between theory and practice, discovery and pursuit, critical detachment and engagement—exactly what he is doing to unlock the full potential of MOOCs.

It is an education that is supple enough to nurture your basic qualities of mind while also helping you to develop skills that will help you keep up with the accelerating pace of workforce change (what fellow entrepreneur and Linked-in founder Reed Hoffman calls “the continuous start-up of you”).

Watching Sebastian Thrun as a teacher, an innovator and a father is to catch a glimpse of what this vision of lifelong learning could look like for you and me.

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