We are all pieces of the puzzle. All of us.
Recently I read a beautiful magazine piece about an Amish community in Maine that harvests ice from a frozen lake.
The story detailed how the community works together to harvest, cut and store ice used for refrigeration.
It was a lovely story that detailed how the community has a tradition of working together.
Working together. What a concept.
From early childhood through our school years we are taught to collaborate.
It takes a village, we are told.
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success,” said Henry Ford.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much,” adds Helen Keller.
The list of sayings go on and on.
And yet, we don’t.
Or at least our so-called leaders don’t. I call them so-called because I don’t think you can lead if you can’t collaborate.
The best businesses assemble teams to achieve goals.
The best nonprofits enlist the community and attract talented staffs and volunteers to tackle challenges.
In my role as a foundation executive, I’m seeing great collaborations taking shape around brain health and neighborhood revitalization among many other efforts.
I’m seeing collaboration on workforce development, providing pathways to college and addressing childhood trauma. I’m also seeing collaborative efforts to build and nurture an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
It’s heartening.
But there’s one aspect of our society that is not collaborating. One important sector that refuses to work together.
In fact, this cohort does the opposite. They fight. They undermine each other. They focus on themselves and fail to do their jobs which is to serve us. We, the people.
If you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about our elected officials. From Washington to our state capitols and our City Halls, we are witnessing dysfunction.
Dysfunction is costly.
Dysfunction is exhausting and dysfunction poses a threat to future progress and threatens past achievements.
We, the people deserve better.
We live in a time of great promise and great peril.
Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, breakthroughs in science, medicine and robotics come with both opportunities and existential challenges.
Because the stakes are so high we need to do better. We need to demand more from those who seek to lead us—at every level of our creaky system.
This needs to be addressed immediately. You can feel important aspects of our system melting away. It’s visceral. It’s real. And it’s relentless.
We best wake up. Because if we don’t we will lose institutions we spent decades and billions of dollars to build. And once we lose our institutions, we’re in deep trouble. Once broken, there’s no guarantee we can get them back.
Going forward, I will only vote for people who want to work with others. People who are open to learning, who may admit that occasionally they are wrong.
That sounds so trite, so basic and yet it must be said.
We have politicians who tell us they’ve never been wrong. It’s unimaginable, hubris. We wouldn’t tolerate this behavior in our children or are work colleagues. And yet, we allow our elected officials to run their mouths and lie openly to us. It’s corrosive, dangerous and disgusting. And we the people, stand for what we tolerate. If they are allowed to do this, if their own “teams” won’t reign them in, we must.
If you are looking to be elected so you can “own” your opponents, I’m not interested.
But if you want to serve, if you want to stand up and deliver I’m all ears.
That means working across the aisle, listening, caring about outcomes not headlines and having an ability to change your mind if you hear new information and an ability to veer from the party line if the facts warrant a change.
I want leaders, not sycophants. I long for thinkers not puppets.
I suspect I am not alone.
Sent from my iPhone
