Hard Roads Ahead

Like many of you, some of what I read on the Op Ed pages of the NY Times I buy into and some I don't, but rarely do I find the columns uninteresting.

Indeed, whether I agree with what I am reading or not, the columns of people like Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, William Kristol, David Brooks and Bob Herbert all continually drive home to me the value of education.

The ability of these writers, not to mention thousands of others whose have been fortunate enough to gain an excellent education have been blessed with being able to refine the gift of communication in writing, and not just the ability to "communicate", but to do so in ways that are both very powerful and often equally as persuasive.

A recent piece by Herbert which he called Hard Roads Ahead really caught my attention because he was writing about a subject on which I have commented here on a number of occasions, and probably will again as I believe it is the most serious issue we face, and heaven only knows we don't lack for issues competing for the top spot, but my vote still goes to the state of public education.

In the article, Mr. Herbert quotes from a book by Robert Wise. The book is called "Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation." Wise said:

International comparisons rank the United States a stunningly unimpressive eighteenth for high school graduation rate, a lackluster ranking of fifteenth for high school reading assessments among 15-year olds in developed countries, and an embarrassing 25th for high school math.

The column goes on to point out, again using Wise as the source, that in 1995 the U.S. was second in the world (New Zealand was first) in the graduation rate from four year colleges, and even though as a country, we have increased our percentages, we now rank 15th because of how rapidly others in the world have progressed.

The results? One example pointed to was the fact that the CEO of AT&T, Randall Stephenson, has said that the company has had real problems trying to find enough skilled workers to handle 5,000 customer-service jobs that the company had promised to bring back from overseas.

In a prior life I spent five years working for a city as the Director of Labor Relations. At the time I was too young to realize what the heck I had gotten myself into, but it turned out to be a memorable experience and education on several levels to say the least.

When I left the public sector and returned to the corporate world, I took away two key "learnings." One was the importance of leadership, and the second was a belief that when it came to really solving many fundamental issues facing us all, that it would have to be business not government that would have to lead the way.

Given the track record of both of late, it doesn't feel like much of a choice, but to borrow once again from the column, I thought the last quote from Wise said it very powerfully indeed:

"The best economic stimulus package is a diploma."

If You Had To Pick Only One

This past week I had the chance to share some of our Executive Job Market Intelligence data with the members of ESIX (Executive Search Information Exchange) who were meeting in New York. The group, which was organized in 1996 and is chaired by David Lord, who prior to founding his own consulting firm in 1995, many remember as the former Editor at Kennedy Information, publishers of Executive Recruiter News and The Directory of Executive Recruiters among other things. Needless to say, the focus of our discussion was on the challenges of recruiting and retention in today's environment and beyond. It was a very stimulating morning.

Much of what we talked about was still on my mind as I headed back to ExecuNet's offices via Metro North. Rather than the morning's discussion fading into the background as I started to wade through my email, it was immediately brought back into focus as I came across Pete Weddle's newsletter (always of interest) and read the lead piece. It was entitled: What Do Employers Want?

The piece was prompted by Pete's reaction to a joint survey by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills and SHRM. Essentially it was a survey of what U.S. employers felt were the most critical skills needed by employees going forward. Pete took exception to some of the conclusions of the report, and I can't say I blame him. Of the issues Pete raised, one in particular caught my attention when he said:

"The fact that employers in this survey did not cite such skills for college-educated workers is incomprehensible, especially in light of the problems we've seen at Enron, Worldcom and other organizations. Whatever this poll may suggest, therefore, you can be sure that honesty and ethical behavior are prerequisites for employment regardless of your educational background."

It wasn't just the comment on ethics that got my heart rate up, but the whole issue of education college or otherwise, especially as it relates to our ability to compete in a global market.

Pete's point reminded me again of something that I had shared with the ESIX group earlier in the day. It was a list complied in a book called Workforce Crisis by Ken Dychtwald, PhD, Tamara Erickson and Robert Morison. If you are concerned about recruiting and retention and our ability to stay in the game, I commend it to your attention. Here's the list:

Tightening labor markets: As the rate of labor force growth plummets to 2-3% per decade, labor markets will tighten and competition for talented people will intensify.

Shortages of skills and experience: As the Baby Boom generation reaches retirement age, organizations face a potentially debilitating "brain drain" of skills and experience.

Shortages of workers: Overall demand for workers is already beginning to exceed supply. The gap is projected to grow to millions, perhaps tens of millions, of workers, with potentially profound effects on economic output and standard of living.

Shortages of educated candidates: Despite continuing progress in average educational achievement, colleges will graduate too few candidates to fill the technical, information-intensive, judgment-intensive jobs five years from now.

Aging: The average age of employees will continue to rise, and the workforce will become more multigenerational. Proportionately, mature workers are the fastest-growing age work segment, and large employers can expect to double their percentage of workers over 55 during the next 5-10 years.

More ethnic diversity: By demographic standards, the racial and ethnic mix is changing very rapidly, with minorities now accounting for one-third of younger workers.

More women: The proportion of female workers, already high, will continue to rise slowly.

Tension around HR policies and practices: The whole range of management practices — compensation, benefits and especially work arrangements — must appeal to the new workforce and accommodate the expanding variety of workers' needs and preferences

Pressure on training and development: Employers must not only encourage employees' continuing education but also provide that education directly to maintain needed skills levels.

Strain on organizational coherence: As the workforce diversifies and disperses — adopting flexible schedules, telework and other technology-enabled arrangements — leaders must find new ways to cultivate and nourish organizational culture and identity.

As you look over the list, one could pick any one of the ten issues and be challenged for a long, long time, but if I only had to pick one, my vote is the shortage of educated candidates.

Education, of course, is not a panacea, but having said that, I absolutely believe it is the most potent weapon we have as well as our best hope to continue to be a world leader socially, politically, and economically.

What would be at the top of your list?

Miss Teen USA, Miss South Carolina, & The Power of the Web

If you have not yet already heard about the (to say the least) unfortunate response that young Miss South Carolina gave to the question “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?” on the Miss Teen USA telecast it is (to borrow the NBC tagline) "must see TV."

Unhappily for this drop dead beautiful kid, this is a clip that will likely be around for a long, long time. It was up on YouTube faster than you can say high speed connection, and according to a posting by very glib guy named Scott Goldberg on DigitalMediaWire the clip had already been viewed by more than 5 million people and as this is written it could well be double that number by now.

For the remaining .2% of the population who have no idea what she said and aren't into pointing and clicking, her response was:

“I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and that I believe our education, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should our education over here in the US should help the US, or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.”

If you still can't believe that someone of any age could say something like this, and didn't see the film at 11:00, this will get you there.

Scott goes on to say in his post that while he could, he was not going to comment on what all this has to say about education in general or maybe even in South Carolina in particular since the site is really about digital media and not social commentary.

I would like to think that this blog is not about social commentary either, and for sure it is not about digital media. I can barely find the onoff switch on anything. It is, however, sometimes about leadership and as such about education from time to time as well.

You would have to listen to this young lady's response to the question plus her efforts to explain her way out of it on Today and decide for yourself if you are buying any or all of her explanation that she was just kind of overwhelmed by it all and sort of went blank and the words just seemed to tumble out without regard for anything logically connecting to anything else.

Although my bias is to think that the women who compete in things like Miss Teen USA are not exactly newbies when it comes to the various segments of these beauty pagents, including the "interview" stuff, but I am still willing to cut most 18 year olds some slack - not much, but some.

That said, what really scares me is that somewhere there is a survey whose data states “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map."

God help us all.

The Zig Zag Theory of Organization

I have mentioned on any number of occasions Kent Blumberg's blog on Leadership. In a recent post, however, Kent wrote about his reaction to a U.S. News & World Report article on education in this country as well as a CNN piece on illiteracy along with some conclusions reached by the Education Testing Service in a paper they published entitled: "America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation's Future"

I too share Kent's concern, and I am sure the concern of millions of other Americans. I have written about this on my own blog on a number of occasions, but as Steve Levy, 50% of the voice behind The Edge noted in a comment here a few days ago, since there are only 13 others beside myself who read this blog, clearly we have a ways to go in order to get to anything close to a tipping point.

I am all too painfully aware that of the issues facing our country there are many that could easily contend for the top spot on our "we just have to fix this" hit parade. I also have been running around life and the business world long enough to know that nothing really gets fixed unless the "pain" gets to the point where "leadership" acts.

For those who may not be familiar with it, here's what is meant by what has been called the Zig Zag Theory of Organizations: The pressure from the organization below the "head" becomes so great in its momentum in a given direction that the "head" has no choice but to follow.

That is what I think faces us in terms of the education gap in our country. Tom Friedman has talked about it at length on many occasions as have many, many others. Indeed, Kent could easily have filled up his entire post with links to blogs, articles, etc. on the subject.

Kent also asks in his post what is to be done. Don't I wish I had the answer! At this point I guess my suggestion is that we have to do all we can to make more and more of us aware of just how important this gap is and the consequences of what many think will occur it we don't fix it. Don't believe me? Ask any hiring manager and/or recruiter (inside or 3rd party) if it isn't getting tougher and tougher to find candidates who can read and write.

If awareness can be raised, then "leadership" no matter what party, will have no choice but to "follow."