U.S. Stumbles on Relationships

Posted on August 21, 2007
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I like to deal with organizational relationships, relationships with a smallish “R” so to speak, but I can’t avoid being concerned about the relationship of the U.S. to the world – that colors everything else, I fear.

The problem with the U.S. approaching the world’s problems in “missionary” terms, if that’s the right word, goes back to the beginning. And it’s impact is as current as today’s headlines. The fall issue of Phi Beta Kappa’s newsletter, The Key Reporter, has two book reviews, side-by-side, that indicate the problem.

The first review, of Robert Kagan’s Dangerous Nation , includes this quote from John Adams, one of our founding fathers: “Our pure, virtuous, public-spirited, federative republic will last forever, govern the globe, and introduce the perfection of man.”

The second review, of Ali A. Allawi’s The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, includes this Allawi quote: “The catalogue of errors – in planning, judgment, understanding and execution – was so wide-ranging as to border on the inexplicably negligent.”

When you view the world from the perspective of a “pure, virtuous, public-spirited, federative republic” that will last forever, you can miss things; things can go terribly wrong. That’s a relational reality rooted in the Declaration of Independence that the U.S. hasn’t begun to come to terms with in a multicultural world.

Tensions and suspicions raised by the FBI’s apparent use of paid informants in Muslim communities are an example of how, even in the case of understandable concerns, putting U.S. interests over all others can sour, rather than improve, cultural relationships.

Crisis Planning Can Avoid Leaders Being ‘in Denial’

Posted on August 15, 2007
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Ragan Communications provides a salutary reminder on its new video site that leadership lapses can defeat carefully developed crisis communication planning.

If a leader declines to use a plan, to “wing it” istead, the plan is worthless. Leaders have to be included in drills and training that are intended to instill a quick, professional response in an organization confronted by a sudden crisis.

Crises can provoke profound negative psychological responses, such as sending leaders into denial, something leaders themselves need to be continually mindful of.

In a time of rapid response, with cell phones, web sites and text readers, the news media expect to be promptly informed, within an hour, of what’s occurring at a crisis scene. Messages and access to key personnel and facilities have to be planned in advance. “Duty people” need to be scheduled to trigger an effective response.

Basically, it’s the same ethic as sliding down a pole at a fire station when the alarm rings. Yet, because crises seldom, if ever, occur, organizations too often are willing to avoid the commitments that are necessary to produce an instinctive response. Then they rue the result.

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