Tag Archives: Stewardship

Free Air

I had the occasion to be driving in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolis this weekend.  The warmer weather tends to spawn a desire to get out under the sunshine in whatever ways possible, and a road trip to the Twin Cities beckoned with success.  In acknowledgement to the early arrival of Spring (I choose to believe that it is here now until the presence of its sister, Summer), I chose to drive our van, which is dormant for most of the winter months.  I uncovered it, checked the oil and tires, made sure that the fuel tank was full and we embarked on a gorgeous Friday afternoon.  But surprises are always in wait, and this one really caught me off guard.

We stayed the night at the home of one of our daughters.  In the morning, we got up early to walk our dog at the brink of yet another beautiful day.  But when we stepped outdoors, I noticed that one of the van’s tires looked a bit saggy, not enough to be flat, but deflated enough that it needed another infusion of air in its tube.  I made a mental note of it, and we went about our sunrise walk.

After our walk and breakfast, I asked my son-in-law if there was a nearby service station where I could fill the sluggish tire, and his response shocked me.  “Well, there are plenty of stations around,” he said, “but up here, most of them charge you for the air.  I’m not sure where there’s free air around here.”

I was transfixed for the moment, not at all certain that I had heard him correctly.  My wide open jaw must have conveyed my disbelief.  “Yes, it’s true,” he said with a shake of his head.  “They actually charge you for air.  I’ve never experienced it before, but it’s pretty common here.”

Now, paying for something that has previously been free is nothing new.  For example, when it comes to the airlines, it’s now the norm.  I pay for my bags to be loaded onto the plane.  I pay for any food I might wish to eat on board that plane. In fact, I’ve even had to pay a fee to assure myself of a seat on that plane, even though I’ve already purchased a ticket!  I used to watch television for free, while I now have to pay a monthly fee to the cable company to bring the signal into my home.  So the burden is nothing new.  But air is the truest commodity, one which is actually needed by all of us for life itself, and the prospect of having to pay for it, even for my automobile tires, well, just jars me to the very core.  Pay for it?  Really?

By the time I wrapped myself around the incredible truth of it, my son-in-law did remember one station where the air is still free, and I carefully noted his directions to the station, as though successful arrival at its pumps and portals was a feat of momentous achievement.  But as we drove to it, I reflected on this troubling trend of modern life.  If air has to be purchased from a hose, how long before someone tries to control it outright?  What might it mean to have to pay for air?

A song from the 60’s envisioned something like that in the tune, “Big Yellow Taxi,” by Joni Mitchell.  One line of the song talks about taking “all the trees, put them in a tree museum, and they charged the people a dollar and a half just to seem ’em.”  I remember thinking at the time that the likelihood of that seemed pretty far-fetched, but in these days, I’m not so sure.  If the big oil companies, who already command profits from their ventures that are beyond imagination, are still seeking ways to further increase their revenues by selling air, then apparently anything is possible, and maybe even likely.

As I thought about the outrageous idea of paying for air (the oil companies would be far better off simply not offering the service rather than charging for it), it triggered some thoughts about similar outlandish realities faced by others.  In Nicaragua, when a rural peasant farmer buys certain hybrid corn for planting, the corn plant bears ears of corn whose kernels are not plantable for the following season; they have been modified in such a way as to prevent their regeneration.  In this way, the giant seed companies hold the farmers hostage year after year, forcing them to purchase new seed annually.  In other cases, hybrid corn is sometimes planted in such a way that some migrates onto a neighboring farm by accident; the seed companies will sue the unsuspecting neighboring farmers for patent infringement, and even win the judgment.   Imagine having to pay for someone else’s error and greed, when you are barely able to feed your family to begin with.

We live at a time when eighty-five of the world’s wealthiest individuals hold as much wealth as half the world’s entire population. It is apparently the case that those who command such wealth are not content with such disparity, and seek to control virtually all of the world’s substantial bounty.  Including the air.  While humans have always lived amidst great differences in wealth and resources, never have we seen inequalities as these.

There is no moral to this story or analogy to be made.  It is simply a report of our further evolution as a species which appears to be intent upon playing the zero sum game of “last man standing.” For the few who play it, it must be exciting.  But in the end, it will be the loneliest of all victories….

 

 

 

Energy, Environment and an Economy of Words

I’ve been reading about the global economy, energy and the environment.

The U.S.- and much of the world’s- economy is built upon a model of continuing, compounding growth.

Growth is dependent on availability and use of energy.  Currently, availability is declining and use is increasing.

As a result, our efforts to extract ever-more energy from our finite earth is despoiling the environment, diminishing resource availability and even destroying certain forms of life.

Exponential growth is unsustainable.

To illustrate, I quote an interesting analogy from Chris Martenson’s book, Crash Course:

Suppose I had a magic eyedropper and I placed a single drop of water in the middle of your left hand.  The magic part is that this drop of water will double in size every minute.  At first, nothing seems to be happening, but by the end of a minute, that tiny drop is now the size of two tiny drops.  After another minute, you now have a little pool of water sitting in your hand that is slightly smaller in diameter than a dime.  After six minutes, you have a blob of water that would fill a thimble.  

Now imagine that you’re in the largest stadium you’ve ever seen or been in- perhaps Fenway Park, the Astrodome or Wembley Stadium.  Suppose we take our magic eyedropper to that enormous structure, and right at 12:00 PM in the afternoon, we place a magic drop way down in the middle of the field.

To make this even more interesting, suppose that the park is watertight and that you’re handcuffed to one of the very highest bleacher seats.  My question to you is this: How long do you have to escape from the handcuffs?  When would the park be completely filled?  Do you have days?  Weeks?  Months?  Years?  How long before the park is overflowing?

The answer is this: you have until exactly 12:50 PM on that same day- just fifty minutes- to figure out how you’re going to escape from your handcuffs…

Now let me ask you a far more important question: At what time of the day would your stadium still be 97% empty space (and how many of you would realize the severity of your predicament)?  Take a guess.

The answer is that at 12:45 PM- only five minutes earlier- your park is only 3% full of water and 97% remains free of water.  If at 12:45 you were still handcuffed to your bleacher seat patiently waiting for help to arrive, confident that plenty of time remained because the field was only covered with about five feet of water, you would actually have been in a very dire situation…

With exponential growth in a fixed container, events progress much more rapidly toward the end than they do at the beginning.  We sat in our seats for 45 minutes and nothing much seemed to be happening.  But then, over the course of five minutes- whoosh!- the whole place was full of water.  Forty-five minutes to fill 3%; only five more minutes to fill the remaining 97%.  

With this understanding, you will begin to understand the urgency I feel….

I understand the urgency.  Do you?….

 

 

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

I will be leaving a corporate Board of Director’s seat in a few weeks, ending about 28 years of service with that group.  “That group” is Foldcraft Co., the firm for which I worked as an employee for more than 30 years, as well.  To have remained on the board for so long has been a privilege as well as a point of pride; that any organization would tolerate my presence and outlooks for so long defies realistic expectations.  But I have chosen to leave under my own terms and timing, which seems a fitting conclusion for so long a tenure.  The change that it will create is an essential one. And therein lies a lesson for most organizations, I think, including ones in Nicaragua.

The lesson has everything to do with succession, that final piece in a sometimes long term of service wherein the responsibilities and obligations, the voice and the stewardship for the organization is passed along to whoever follows.  It’s likely the most overlooked responsibility leaders deal with.   That’s not to suggest that leaders don’t think about and plan for succession at all, but that they simply don’t prepare for the eventuality nearly well enough.  That reality is why leadership succession represents one of the most vulnerable times in an organization’s entire life, and why organizational failures often occur within a short time after a succession has taken place.

I have often stated that perhaps the most important accomplishment I ever achieved during my employment at Foldcraft was turning over the leadership of the Company to the “right” successor.  I still believe that to be true.  But it also must be recognized that the effectiveness of that transition was years in the making, wherein senior authority and leadership became increasingly discussed, shared and strategized.  In fact, one could argue that preparation for that particular succession evolved over nearly fifteen years.  Successful succession in that instance was not an event, but rather a process of orientation, teaching, seasoning, making and learning from mistakes.  Organizations rarely have fifteen years to prepare for a shift in leadership, but they owe it to themselves to be constantly preparing for the inevitable change.

And when the planning and preparation have been well provided for, the change in boardroom or management or committee setting can be- in fact, should be- a blast of fresh air.  I hope and believe that my participation in recent Board meetings has not been stale or redundant.  (You’d have to ask the others about whether that’s true or not.)  But I also hope and believe that my successor will bring new chemistry to the process, challenging the way that conversations have evolved over the past 28 years, lending insights that I might never have had, and seeing the future of the organization through a new lens.

If, over the past years, I have brought any positive elements to the organization, I will trust that those characteristics will have impressed themselves on my colleagues and they will blend those singularities with the freshness of the newcomer.  It’s the best of evolution, and our organizations deserve that step up in their continuity.  No one is good forever, and even if they could be, there will come a time when the organization needs something else, something new.

One of the great disservices which befalls an organization is the perpetuation of same leadership.  Leaders are comprised of the sum total of their life experiences and lessons.  It’s the stuff from which they draw conclusions, make judgments and see the world.  But no one possesses perfect vision or all-encompassing experiences, and by definition that means any leader is bound to misinterpret or misread from time to time.  The capture of an alternative outlook sometimes can only be discovered through new insight born of different intelligence.  Hence, the necessity for superb succession.

Some have argued that the risk of succession is primarily because the new leader might not possess the same values and perspectives that allowed the organization to function well in the first place.  And that’s true, if the successor is relatively unknown to those who would make the appointment; any governing body’s primary obligation is to have a pretty intimate knowledge of its incoming leaders.  Where that knowledge exists, the value of new energies will far outweigh the risk of detrimental decisions.  (In any case, no leader should lead without checks and balances and the continuing governance structure should always provide a safety valve against an ill-advised direction.)

I’ll be spending time visiting cooperatives during the coming weeks and one of the essential qualities I hope to see is the provision for what happens when the leadership shift occurs.  First of all, will one occur?  And if so, under what process and preparedness?  It may not feel like a priority to anyone today, but I can guarantee that it will be, and sooner than most are prepared for.

Yesterday, I remember wondering about the future and what it might hold for my organization.  Today,  as I prepare to leave it, I recognize all the promise and challenge once imagined in the past. Tomorrow, I hope neither I nor the rest of the organization will regret any lack of preparedness for what is to come….

 

 

 

 

I Wonder

I really do.

I wonder whether this could be the year wherein the Synergy Center notion crystalizes in the strategic thinking of an educational institution and we find a partner to take on the asset.

I wonder if the Indigenous communities with whom we have worked will discover during 2015 that their patrimony continues to be slowly eroded away by some of their elected leaders, and that true community must be transparent in order to be strong.

I wonder if this is the year in which I finally become facile enough with the Spanish language to converse with more than simply, “buenas dias.”  I wonder if working on development issues in a Spanish-speaking country  without an ability to speak directly with partners conveys a sign of disrespect.

I wonder if there is an effective way to help cooperatives embrace the very essence of cooperativism; that is, collective, collaborative, participative, informed engagement.  Are cultural, social and historical factors too much to allow for such embrace?

I wonder if the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere can really undertake the largest, most expensive engineering and construction project in history, and what the ramifications of that will be, whether it’s ever completed or not.

I wonder if the relations between the United States and Nicaragua will ever be friendly, or whether friendships will only exist among individuals of those two countries.  And if the latter is true, I wonder what that says about the institutions of government.

I wonder how I would survive on $2.00 per day.

I wonder why greater progress hasn’t happened in Nicaragua, given the amount and form of economic aid that has been made available there.  Where does it go?

I wonder if it’s possible any longer to actually know the truth about nearly anything, or whether institutional “spin” determines that.  I wonder if there really is truth about anything.

I wonder whether my curiosities are well-founded or simply the product of narrow, North American hubris.

I wonder….

 

 

 

 

Thanks Giving

As I prepared for the Thanksgiving holiday this week and the arrival of at least some of our children for a short visit, I found myself in an introspective frame of mind and full of gratitude for my life’s blessings.  I suspect it was a reflective moment for many people in the U.S., or at least it’s supposed to be.  It’s good to give thanks for copious amounts of food and leisure time, football games and “Black Fridays.”  Right?

With just a little different perspective, though, we might recall the basis of earlier Thanksgivings and what was celebrated in those times.  The very first one, I have read, was the effort of the earliest immigrants here to celebrate their very survival in those first years, with the Wampanoag Indigenous people, without whose assistance the great migration might have stumbled to a halt.  The first immigrants owed much to the first peoples; but in sharing, they all observed their common thanks to whatever Spirit occupied their hearts.

The first immigrants to this country stood upon the shoulders of Indigenous people who had been here for generations.  The Europeans were sustained by the Indigenous, learned from them, shared their food and means to survive the new environment.  The Native American culture must have seemed other-worldly to the newcomers, but then, the immigrants had deliberately chosen to seek out a new world. 

Those early celebrations contained two distinct components, the thanks and the giving.  They are pieces of our historical fabric that I’m trying hard to remember in these modern times, when the recognition of our needs for interdependence and stewardship often dims in the shadow of consumerism and self-gratification.  For some, shopping has become the new face of gratitude. Thanksgiving Day has become a day of thanks marked by over-consumption of food followed by conspicuous consumption of other “things.”  In response, I’ve tried to eat less and think more about my own giving.

Since the dawn of existence, we have lived on a finite planet.  That simply means that for every gift, every resource, every blessing that I have received, someone else did not receive it.  Wherever I may fall on the human continuum of prosperity, there will be those above me and those below.  I need to be thankful for where I am on that continuum, but I never wish to lose sight of those below.  I need to remember them because I can, in just the same fashion as I have needed and hoped for the support of those above of me.  It’s the way a real Thanksgiving is supposed to work, I think.  In giving, there is an implicit need for my thankfulness: thanks for being in a circumstance where I have the ability to give, for recognizing my capacity to do so, and for the self-reformation that comes in the giving.  It’s a perspective that is strangely comforting to me, and a view for which I am truly thankful.

There is comfort and confidence in the recognition that I am on this journey of life with many others, rather than facing its uncertainties by myself.  And I think that I am not alone in this….

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for An Answer

I read the October issue of Envio, “the monthly magazine of analysis in Central America.”  The lead story in it takes the Nicaraguan government to task for a litany of wrongs ranging from lack of transparency to outright fabrication of untruths, including the official release of a report which sought to convince the public that no less than a meteorite had been the cause of an enormous explosion in the capitol city of Managua.  (This, despite lack of any corroboration by any scientific entity in the world.)  In the view of the writers at Envio, what the government lacks in the way of transparency and public interest is more than made up by audacity and creativity.  In the end, their plea is for the government to simply be honest and open about its actions and motives.  Sound familiar?

Our own U.S. elections are now history (thankfully my phone will stop ringing quite so often) and in the latest edition the Republican party has attained a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  The cheers among the party faithful are loud and long, as their expectations for a country headed in the “right direction” have been fueled once again.    Now, they say, if we can just elect a Republican to the White House in two years, true peace and prosperity will finally be permitted to take hold in our country and we can all get on with the business of the pursuit of happiness.

I presume that we are to forget the anger and outright hostility directed toward the most recent Republican president as he left office a mere six years ago.  Time apparently heals all wounds, even the ones that bring us to our economic knees.

Of course, the outgoing Democrats have proven little during their time in majority, even with a party member in the White House.  They were able to pass a universal health insurance law which has become despised or mistrusted by over half the entire population, but they did pass the legislation.

Together, the Republican and Democrat legislators have forged a dysfunctional government in the U.S. that frustrates and sickens most of the electorate.  What passes for governance today is little more than ideological warfare between the parties, and the good of the nation falls way down the list of priorities for both parties.  Their number one objective is solely to be in authority, just as the Ortega family has practiced its own form of “power lust.”

In reality, perhaps it was ever thus.  Maybe what the people of Nicaragua and the U.S. experience today is pretty close to what their respective governments have provided over the years (or in the case of Nica, at least since the demise of the Somoza regime).  Our reliance upon our governments to significantly address the important issues of our day is misdirected, with little evidence to support the notion that any political party can effectively represent an ever-widening range of divergent interests and demands.

Well, if such is the case, where do we turn for hope in making our countries and our world better places?  At the risk of over- simplification, I suggest that the answer may lie within us.   We have the capacity to give in ways that governments cannot or will not.  A starving person may respect the power and reach of The World Food Program, but he treasures even more the loaf of bread that he has just received.  We all possess the power to strongly influence the niches of our lives, and in ways that we might never even recognize.  Waiting for and relying upon the vagaries of institutional wisdom is often an exercise in disappointment and injustice.   It is far more likely that the endowments that lie within each of us- compassion, generosity, healing and equity- are better suited for the task of remaking our world.  Taking the government and its bureaucracies out of the equation leaves… just people.  And I’d take my chances with each of them one-to-one any day.

I’m reminded of a cartoon which was given to me years ago, to help me put into perspective both the power and obligation I have as a steward of this world.  In it, two creatures of the forest are having a conversation about the global state of affairs.  One poses the idea that plagues us all from time to time.  “Sometimes I would like to ask God why He allows poverty, suffering and injustice when He could do something about it.”

The companion responds with a challenge.  “Well, why don’t you ask Him?”

“Because,” sighs the first, “I’m afraid that He would ask me the same question.”

I think it’s a bit the same when it comes to asking the question of our elected bodies.

We are perpetually torn in our earthly journey, it seems, between recognizing the wisdom and goodness of the human heart versus the easier pathway of allowing others to speak and act for us in ways that defy our better natures.  My own search for answers has circled me back to myself, and a growing inclination to self-sufficiency in responding to the cries of the night….

 

 

 

 

The Chicken or the Egg?

The story received the briefest of mentions during last night’s evening news; if the viewer was not tightly focused on the broadcast, he/she would likely have missed it altogether.  Even trying to follow-up on the piece via the TV network’s website proved to be futile, as no mention of the story was to be found.  Yet for all its anonymity, the small report represents major questions about our economics, our priorities and our very lives in this country.  The tagline for the story? “Wealthy Americans Are Giving Less of Their Incomes to Charity, While Poor Are Donating More.”

The Chronicle of Philanthropy found that Americans who earned at least $200,000 gave nearly 5% less to charity in 2012 than in 2006.  Unlike their wealthier counterparts, low- and middle-income Americans — those who made less than $100,000 — gave 5% more in 2012 than in 2006, the Chronicle found. The poorest Americans — those who took home $25,000 or less — increased their giving by nearly 17%.  (The Chronicle analyzed Internal Revenue Service data from Americans who itemized deductions, including charitable gifts, in 2006 and 2012. It measured giving relative to adjusted gross income. The data included about 80 percent of individual donations to charity in those years.)

The statistics raise a good many questions, to be sure, but one that has recurred to me time and again is this: which came first?  Was it the achievement of significant wealth that was followed by a growing lack of empathy for those who are less-well-off , or has it somehow been a case of less caring individuals able to rise to the top of the economic continuum and demonstrating their relative lack of empathy from there?  In either case, it makes a statement about wealth disparity that is not very attractive.  Just what are the wealthy thinking about when they decrease their largesse at the very time when it has been needed the most?

One might surmise that a decrease in giving is simply a reflection of an economic downturn that pinched everyone.  Less income generates less giving.  But there are a couple of flaws in that rationale.  First, the wealthiest citizens were relatively unaffected by the gyrations of the 2008 collapse; their wealth is placed in instruments that are comparatively insulated from disaster.  Second, that rationale is blunted by the fact that middle and lower-income citizens were giving more during the same period.  In any case, it seems to be true that the hungrier among us were the most willing to share, while the best-fed among us tended to keep their leftovers for themselves.

Another explanation might be that the wealthiest in the economy are the ones who can best access resources for a longer-term outlook as to where the economy seems to be headed.  If their outlooks suggested that the collapse was likely to be a longish interlude, they were in the positions to pull back on their charitable giving with foresights born of strategy and planning.  That protocol is much more likely to result in a detached calculation for self-preservation, rather than any emotional response to fellow journeymen who are suddenly in need.  In any case, it seems to be true that the most emotional or responsive among us were the most willing to recognize the stewardship we owe to one another, while the coolest among us tended to look away.

I suppose a third analysis might suggest that, well, this is oftentimes how the wealthy became wealthy, by keeping a focus on their resources to maintain and grow them, to avoid distractions and place their assets in investments with tangible returns.  Maybe so.  In that line of thinking, I suppose that the middle and low-income givers would simply be considered not very smart.  After all, the return on many charitable gifts is hardly discernible.  No wonder these folks occupy the lower rungs of the economic ladder.  By all prudent measures, it really makes no sense to increase one’s sharing at a time of economic depths.  And yet, the last affluent among us have done just that.  Why?

There are at least two types of charitable giving.  There is giving which is intended to strengthen the social support for those who find themselves in desperate circumstances, like when we send gifts to the Red Cross for disaster relief.  There’s also giving which is institutional in its objectives, like when we send gifts to universities, hospitals or to cultural institutions.    The less affluent donor base tends to support the former group; the wealthier donors tend to patronize  the latter.  When economic stresses come to bear on the charitable habits of donors, there is far less hesitation and pain in withdrawing support for an institution than for cutting off human aid; funding a new wing of a building can wait, while hungry children cannot.

There are also at least two reasons for charitable giving.   Some may give to further a cause, an ideal or the work of an institution in whom they believe strongly.  Such philanthropy has driven untold developments in individual health and well-being through the centuries.  Others might give from a posture which suggests that, at some level, we are responsible for one another to whatever extent politics, law and geography permit,  and that a voluntary “redistribution of wealth” is not only a good thing, but an essential component of a society’s health and well-being.  As well as its character.

I don’t pretend to know why philanthropy among the wealthiest people has declined in recent years, especially since we are supposedly  well into a recovery mode.  I can only make a guess as to why less affluent members of our society have increased their giving during that same timeframe.  But there is something important and meaningful in the statistics, whatever that lesson may be.  For such a tiny story on the evening news, it surely contains enormous questions about priorities, conscience and motives, enough to make me stop and examine my own sense of stewardship….

 

 

 

 

 

The Emperor’s New Clothes

You recall the story.  A vain emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying the finest clothes unknowingly hires two swindlers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or “hopelessly stupid.”  The emperor’s ministers cannot see the clothing themselves, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions and the emperor does the same.  Finally the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the emperor marches in procession before his subjects.  The townsfolk play along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but continues the procession, unwilling to acknowledge the truth that everyone can see.

We’ve all experienced similar circumstances in our lives, where the plain truth is clouded by distorted words and intentions meant to distract us from reality.  For instance, political advertisements which have little regard for accuracy bash the truth every day during this current political season.  Corporations are famous for speaking in euphemisms which are meant to justify the unjustifiable.   Some attorneys make their careers on the basis of clever turns of phrase which are designed to deflect light and reality.

I don’t know why I expect anything different in the non-profit world, but I do.  I somehow became possessed of the notion that amidst all of the self-serving and self-interest in society at-large, the philanthropic community and its service providers might have carved out a niche wherein the desire to do some good would outweigh any other motivations, that here is where conscience would finally catch up with career.  But not really.

I received a marketing piece in the mail this week that caught my attention, not due to its intended message, but because the content so blatantly refuted reality.  The glossy, multi-page brochure was sent by a large, well-known firm which invests funds for foundations. The materials include a 10-page essay by the CEO of the company, whose fundamental message is that the growing income disparity in this country is not really conclusive and that, even if its is really that bad, hopefully the voices in pain won’t be loud enough to bring about any meaningful policy reform.   He goes on to hope that the voices “agitating for much of the change” will go away or prove to be “immaterial.”

The second item in this truth and enlightenment package is a slick, four-page analysis by the firm’s director of investment strategy.  His message is shorter, but no less obfuscating of the truth than that of his boss.  He cites five telltale signs that a bull investment market might be coming to an end and then, one by one, explains why no such evidence exists today.  Among those telltale signs, he cites the risk of monetary tightening, and explains away our current monetary reality with these words: “It may not feel like it, but the economy has been normalizing.”  I found this characterization of our economic status boldly self-contradictory.  If the economy is normalizing, I would expect that the one true litmus test would be that people are, in fact,  beginning to feel less discomfort, fewer threats to their economic well-being, less inequality.  That is not how the majority feels about their current, personal, economic standing.  A normalizing economy ought to bring relief.  But this executive brushes over the reality of what most people are experiencing and says it isn’t true, that things really are getting back to normal.

Both pieces are replete with the obligatory graphs, charts and statistics to back up their claims.  They describe the finery of the garments, the elegance of the fit and an implication that anyone who cannot see the wisdom in their words must be “unusually stupid,” in the words of the fable.  I find the materials even more evocative of the emperor story as I look at the photographs of these two leaders in their crossed-arms, regal poses of trustworthiness.

It is true that this firm (and its master tailors) is only a peripheral provider to the philanthropic community.  Perhaps it is overreaching for this reflection to condemn an entire industry on the basis of a representation of one firm, regardless of how large and influential it may be.  But if the philanthropic community truly cares about its works, its impacts and its reputations, then perhaps integrity warrants a closer examination of its bedfellows.  After all, we are known by the company(ies) we keep.

Saying something does not make it so.  Like the emperor, we may not want to recognize the truth of having been fooled.  But it’s better than fooling ourselves….

“It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”                                                                                                                     –Macbeth