The Pachyderm Post

The Pachyderm Problem has two broad phases: Growing Up and Grown.

When the Pachyderm is young and non-threatening – even cute – it is also still small enough to be led out of the bedroom and out of the house before any damage needs to be done.

But, after it is mature, it is larger than the windows and larger than the doors, and it can only be dealt with by destructive means… destructive to the house, to the Pachyderm, or both.

Belgium’s Pachyderm Problem is – this year – fully mature.

That Pachyderm – Flemish popular demands (and perhaps now, expectations) for both greater powers and fewer responsibilities in the malformed mutuality called Belgium – has now reached the point that great damage will result whether a new Belgian governmental coalition is formed or not.

The damage that results from Yves Leterme’s – and the King’s – failure to establish a government will vary, depending on the nature and outcome of that failure. It can include everything from the establishment of Brussels as a European district, to the expulsion of Flanders from the European Union and many other equally or more disastrous results (see Le Soir’s famous “Five Options” edition).

The deeper tragedy, however, may be the damage that results from a “successful” coalition.

This damage will range from the sense of betrayal – and resentment – on the part of almost half the Flanders electorate because of the abandonment of the effectively separatist objectives of the Flemish parties, to the deepened conviction on the parts of many – if not most – Walloons and French-speakers that their citizenship in the experiment called Belgium is at best a perpetual irritation and at worst an affront to a plurality of Belgium’s Flemish-speakers.

But this sad combination will not be the worst damage.

The worst effect of a deeply unsatisfying coalition will be a massive deepening of cynicism, lethargy and political withdrawal on the parts of the majority of people on all sides of the controversies.

This sapping of political energy is the bleeding of political and civic will from whatever national heart may yet beat in the majority of Belgians not yet consumed by the political, economic and cultural conflicts that have defined modern Belgium.

This situation is like a perpetual boxing match whose outcome hinges more on the mood of the spectators that it does on the blows exchanged by the combatants in the ring.

If the audience leaves the arena – whether the fight is won or lost – the match, made in 1831, will be over and done.

vb

In what may be the most significant and substantial endorsement of the U.S. Presidential election season, former Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski endorsed Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) on Bloomberg TV this past week.This endorsement is significant because it credibly addresses the only serious concern that the Democratic, Independent and moderate republican electorate has about Obama’s candidacy, which is that he may not be sufficiently experienced, particularly in foreign policy.

His major rival for the nomination, Senator Hilary Clinton (R-NY), has been endorsed by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, both of whom were appointed to their positions by Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton.

Brzezinski has no similar political relationship or obligation to Senator Obama, which makes his endorsement more credible than those of Senator Clinton, and he has a reputation for the kind of crusty independence that makes his support of Obama particularly impressive.

Brzezinski’s endorsement also directly addressed the question of the former First Lady’s White House experience as a qualification for the Presidency, saying “Being a former first lady doesn’t prepare you to be president.”

He said of the Illinois Senator, “Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand. He has a sense of what is historically relevant and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world.”

Of course, the question of Obama’s experience is his Pachyderm Problem, which he must confront and overcome this fall, before the early Democratic Party nominating events. He can only do this by reference and endorsement. The Brzezinski commentary, therefore, is highly significant.

Listen, as Brzezinski is interviewed on Bloomberg TV:

Over ten years ago, before I re-entered corporate management for awhile, I spent years developing and delivering management and executive development programs for IBM in La Hulpe, Belgium.

At the time, I was also working with the company at their management development facilities in Armonk, New York and The Palisades , in New Jersey. I even hosted the entire Palisades management team for three days of strategy development and team-building in Nantucket, Mass.

But I have the fondest memories of La Hulpe, which was the headquarters for management and executive development for IBM in Europe, the Middle East and Africa at that time.

I’d actually attended executive development programs myself at this location, when I was an IBM Director of Marketing and Services and Director of Consulting Services.

The times that I spent developing and delivering personal and professional development programs in that environment were among the most rewarding of my professional life.

This was certainly so because those were times of great turmoil and ferment at IBM.

But it was more so because of the incredible opportunity to work with people of such different cultures and backgounds.

Developing and delivering programs for such an international audience tapped my knowledge of international relations, politics and cultures in ways that simply weren’t required in the U.S. alone.

Since so much of what I did was grounded in the professional and social realities of the participants, it was incredibly exciting to connect with Germans or French or Saudis on terms with which they were already familiar, and with references which already meant something to them.

So, it was sad for me to learn, in 1993, that IBM was dissolving their training and development operation in La Hulpe.

But I was thrilled to discover, over a year ago, that an American company – Dolce International – had acquired La Hulpe (as well as the other properties that I have mentioned) and planned to reopen it as a hotel, resort and conference center.

They are in fact reopening just this month.

It is an incredibly beautiful place now, particularly in comparison to the austere IBM esthetic of yore.

Apparently, they will offer first class hotel and resort services as well as conference and executive development programs, for which there is a keen need these days…more than ever.

I can’t wait to see how they do.

I wish them luck.

For the sake of the future of personal and professional development in Europe.

And for the sake of my memories…

VMB

I hardly remember my first day as a new manager at IBM in the fall of 1981.

In fact, the only event that I do clearly remember about that day started with being told by my secretary (remember secretaries?) that there was “a crazy man” on the phone who absolutely needed to talk to me “right now!”

I was in the middle of a tornado of new people, new responsibilities, a completely new environment, and a flurry of requests for my time…all of which needed to be attended to “right now!”

But something told me to take that crazy man’s call.

It was Sam Albert, IBM’s Director of Consulting Relations (if I remember the title correctly).

He might better have been titled “Tornado in Chief.”

In a torrent of words, made bearable only because I only picked up only half of them, he blasted me with the absolute urgent, “right now” need to invite a key customer of mine to a meeting that Sam was hosting that very week in White Plains, NY.

The fact that I had not yet even called to introduce myself to the new customer was only an incidental impediment for Sam, who had known the man for years.

Sam thoughtfully suggested introducing me to the new customer himself.

I demurred, thinking that this was a privilege best reserved for my new boss, the Branch Manager of Boston Public Sector and Commercial, Gale Fitzgerald. She and I were arranging schedules just that day.

She was new too, having just replaced John Thompson (now of Symantec fame…see earlier post), who had actually hired me into the branch.

In the midst of Sam’s word-torrent, it oddly occurred to me that, despite his actually incredible demands and expectations of me, I wasn’t irritated or upset in any way.

The man’s sincerity and passion for his objective was in no way disrespectful or anything but…sincere and passionate.

And I was deeply impressed that he – who’d known my customer for years, and could have called him directly – respected my role in building the customer relationship.

Before I knew it, I was juking and jabbing, trying to get a word in edgewise.

Not to put him off…his mission had now become mine, though I was only then beginning to understand its importance.

No, I was trying my rookie best to impress this “crazy guy” with my appreciation of the urgency of “our” effort to get this customer to Sam’s meeting.

All of this taking place in the span of about 60 seconds.

As Bogart said to Claude Rains in Casablanca: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

It was…and still is…

Sam was a friend, a mentor, and an all-round bon vivant, in the best possible sense of that over-used and so often wrongly used French phrase.

Sam truly did love life and living, and I do more because of knowing him.

Years later, when we’d both left IBM, and were independent consultants, Sam gave me a Yo-Yo (he was Yo-Yo champion at American University).

That Yo-Yo has always reminded me that life is up and down, but it can always be fun…always.

Sam died four years ago today.

Thanks, Sam, for showing us how to live.

vb

Could we all just slow down a minute in our rabid tooth-gnashings about the Iraq War?

And – as we decelerate – could we just briefly answer one question:

How will we know when the Iraq War is won – or lost?

Put another way:

What would constitute victory, exactly?

I say “exactly” because a very great deal rides on this determination.

Obviously the deployment of U.S. and “Coalition” troops depends on whether and when the war is won or lost, and by whom.

So too does the apportionment of credit for victory or blame for defeat.

If the U.S. “wins” for instance, clearly George Bush’s “dogged, Truman-esque determination” in the face of popular and Congressional opposition will be front and center when the medals are distributed.

If the U.S. “loses”, Iraqi President al-Maliki will share center stage blame with Gold Star Anti-War Mother Cindy Sheehan and just plain old Anti-War Mother Jane Fonda (“There [she] goes again!”).

To my fairly attentive knowledge, no one – NO ONE – has clearly articulated the fairly important definition of victory in this, the central and largest theater in the “Global War on Terror.”

To paraphrase President Bush, this victory will not be marked by a ceremony on a battleship. Or an aircraft carrier…

For some time now, violent fatalities in Iraq have averaged about one hundred a day. Would victory be none? Or ten? Or twenty?

For how long? A day? A week? A month? Three months?

And for how long after U.S. and Coalition forces departed would this reduction in death and destruction need to hold for victory to be confirmed?

A year? Six months? Six weeks?

There must be a task force working on this thorny problem, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon or of Karl Rove’s bunker.

But it is clearly a top secret mission, something even Valerie Plame would not have been allowed to know.

Nor Tim Russert, nor Bob Woodward, nor even Katie Couric.

So, what indications should we seek…that victory has been won?

For many, the famous kiss, captured by Alfred Eisenstadt, marked the true end to World War II.

First there was the ceremony on the U.S.S Missouri…

Then, that visual evocation of love, not war, sealed the conclusion: the war was over.

What will do it this time?

What will be the marker for the cessation of hostilities; for ticker tape and bunting on mid-western tree trunks; for post-war public displays of affection?

The answer is that there will be no marker.

There is no fleet to destroy…no Emperor to surrender…no territory to claim.

We now find ourselves in mankind’s first truly Perpetual War, with a clearly defined beginning – the invasion of Afghanistan – and no end at all.

Which is both a dilemma and a benediction for the Bush Administration.

It is a dilemma since even the most positive – and necessarily temporary – outcome of the Iraq War is purest ambivalence, which only the most cynical observer could call “victory.”

And therein lies the benediction.

Because the most cynical observer will do just that.

George Bush will never admit defeat, and he will declare victory with the same conviction with which he declared democracy in Iraq, and he will do it with less evidence.

Declaring “democracy” required only the purple fingers of Iraqi voters.

Declaring “victory” will require only the upraised thumb of “The Decider” himself, raised in welcome to our returning, crippled military at some future land-bound ceremony.

This ceremony will not record or reference the saddest and most tragic truth of this war: that we lost it the minute we invaded Iraq without a plan for making and keeping peace.

Not “democracy”…just peace.

In doing so, we broke an elemental – perhaps the elemental – tenet of counter-insurgent warfare: do not kill or injure, or cause to be killed or injured, more “good people” than “bad people.”

If you make this one, huge mistake, you will drive “good people” away (physically, spiritually and emotionally) and you will make more – a lot more – “bad people.”

The former consequence is why the middle class of Iraq has left or is leaving the country and why a majority of Iraqis apparently feel it is justified to kill American troops.

The latter consequence is why the name “civil war” only partly describes the incredible chaos and violence that has paralyzed the country.

The final finger, the one that the Bush Administration is trying to jam into the violent breach in the Iraqi dam, has a name: General David Petraeus.

Is he not wise enough to realize that this war was lost by the U.S. long ago, regardless of any success that he may have in temporarily suppressing the present violence?

Sadly, the only “victory” he can enable is the ceremonial, digital one.

vmb

I listened to a caller on CSPAN this evening, who has been in general supportive of Barack Obama and his possible Presidential candidacy. He’s had doubts, however, about Obama’s realistic chances to be elected.

The caller’s doubts were dissolved today as he saw the sea of people of all sorts who filled a gigantic space in Springfield, Illinois to hear Obama enter the race.

The 17,000 or so faces and voices were stunning to see and hear. The scene was more like a party nominee’s late October election year rally than an announcement almost two years before. And the wind chill factor was five degrees fahrenheit.

In the midst of this massiveness, it was details that told the tale:

The bodyguards, who seemed particularly vigilant, perhaps sensitive to the grim reality that there has not been a presidential campaign with such potential for political violence since that of Bobby Kennedy.

The family…impossibly right for the White House…all waving like practiced professionals, including the little girls…as if they know.

Goodness, they’ll give John Edwards a run for the money in the photogenic family race.

And, speaking of family, think about Mrs. Obama. Michelle’s poise and beauty (and the hairstyle on their website) remind me of Jackie. Her intelligence and professional accomplishment remind me of Hillary.

Those who hesitate to deny the country its first woman President by voting for Obama may come to believe that Michelle could do what Jackie and Hillary might have done, if they could have been genetically fused: captivate the country and then lead it too.

There were many more such details, but the one that transfixed me (and perhaps the CSPAN caller as well) were the Two Women.

Two apparently completely average, “Middle American” white women stood with each other and proudly held portraits of Obama.

I have not seen a display of affection and pride for a politician since I last saw pictures of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King on the mantels of similar women of a generation before.

When have you last seen such a display?

And they were far from the only ones. Others included men and families with images of the candidate held aloft.

I do not believe that these were political functionaries, and though the campaign may have provided the pictures (I simply don’t know), nothing could make attendees at such a political rally hold such images aloft other than unabashed affection for and belief in the candidate.

These women aren’t Emma Goldman and Rosa Luxemburg, revolutionaries of another era.

They are Laverne and Shirley.

They are factory workers in one context; soccer moms in another; revolutionaries of today, empowered as such by the mere ability to support and vote for Barack Obama.

Or at least they seem to be, which is most of what matters to observers of this incredible scene.

Look at that picture again.

Look at their faces.

Obama can win.

vmb

For those who care about sport, and American football in particular, this coming Sunday is a big day.

A black coach will win the Super Bowl.

So what?

This article, by Phil Taylor in Sports Illustrated, will explain the importance of the resolution of this decades old Pachyderm Problem:

——————————————————————-

Maybe you’re one of those people who are already sick and tired of hearing that Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith are the first two African-Americans to coach in the Super Bowl. You think it’s just a non-issue created by a media desperate for pre-Super Bowl story lines. You don’t care about race; in fact, if not for the constant stories reminding you of it, you might not even have thought about the fact that Dungy and Smith are black men.

If that’s how you feel, you’re not alone. For every story on the racial significance of this Super Bowl, there has been another one suggesting that we’re making too much of it. But in this case, race matters. It is not the only story of this Super Bowl, but it is one of the most important. This is a milestone for the NFL, a league with a horrible history of discriminatory hiring that it has only recently begun to rectify. It is a milestone for America, a country that still has a few issues left when it comes to placing minority members in positions of power.

On Sunday night, Dungy or Smith will hold the Super Bowl trophy over his head in triumph, an image that will be replayed again and again as part of NFL history. Every time it is shown, it’s unspoken message will be repeated — that yes, a black coach can achieve the ultimate, that he can lead a team to the top of the NFL. Until now, there has been no proof of that. Most of us surely knew it, but we couldn’t point to an example.

And let’s not be naïve, there are still some people — not as many as there were 10, 20, 30 years ago, thankfully, but some — who doubted that fact, who couldn’t quite envision a black coach being that kind of leader. To those folks, the ones who might have thought people like Smith or Dungy got hired out of political correctness and not because of their ability, Sunday night will be the ultimate proof that they were wrong.

Smith has said that he would not have been hired by the Bears if not for the Rooney Rule, which requires teams with head coaching vacancies to interview at least one minority member for the position. Let’s not forget that that’s how discriminatory the league had been for decades — so much so that owners had to be forced, under threat of fines, to even interview minority candidates.

Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers, one of the greatest players in Bears’ history, told the Bloomberg News Service this week that in 1983, 11 years after his playing career ended, he wrote to every one of the 28 teams in the NFL at the time inquiring about a coaching job. According to Sayers, 27 of the teams didn’t bother to reply. The 28th, the Raiders, wrote him a rejection letter.

Might Sayers have led the Bears to a Super Bowl long before Lovie Smith if given a chance? How about the dozens of other African-American men who never got the chance to do what Smith and Dungy have done? Those who never advanced past assistant coaching positions, who had the misfortune of living in a time when NFL owners just couldn’t envision someone with their skin color as a leader of men?

Sunday night is for them, too. Dungy and Smith have seemed a bit uncomfortable when asked about the racial significance of the game, and that’s a shame. It would be much more satisfying to hear them dedicate their Super Bowl appearances to all those coaches who never were given the opportunity to do what they’ve done. It’s true that they are football coaches first, but they are black football coaches, and in the NFL, that is still a small category.

Maybe it feels tiresome to hear repeatedly about Smith and Dungy breaking through a racial barrier, but it’s also right and necessary. It’s a time to reflect on how unfair the NFL once was and a time to celebrate how far it has come. Let the stories continue, and let the broadcasters on Sunday night repeat the news as often as they like. A blow will be struck for fairness, for equality on Super Bowl Sunday. How could anyone get tired of hearing about that?

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.

This is John Thompson. He may be one of the most important people you don’t know.

He’s not a professional athlete, though I know from personal experience that he’s got a good jump shot.

He’s not an actor, though he’s completely at home on stage.

He’s not a politician, though many think he should be, and many of those in political power would do well to emulate his candor and style.

He is a businessman, a CEO, actually. He’s the head of Symantec, of which – odds are – you are already, directly or indirectly, a customer and beneficiary.

Symantec is a computer software security company, whose best known products are the Norton line of products.

They, and a small list of other companies, are in the business of protecting computers like the ones you and I are on right now, from viruses, worms, trojan horses, spam and other scourges of the on-line world, the on-line world without which we would be plunged into a kind of technological Pre-History.

You know…before “the Google”, and “laptops”, and “mice”…but also possibly before “the police”, and “transportation”, and “food.”
When former U.S. cyber-terror czar Richard Clarke turned his hand to fiction recently, his book, Breakpoint, chronicles the disaster that a cyber-meltdown would certainly be, and not only to readers of blogs.

We in general have not the foggiest idea how profoundly disruptive a broad-scale attack on our cyber-infrastructure would be, and we do not grasp that the expertise to mount such an attack is improving and proliferating daily.

Here’s Thompson on this point:

“Once upon a time, the typical attacker was a young man or woman between 13 and 22 years old whose sole goal in life was to get some notoriety.

From 2002 to 2004, there were almost 100 high-profile virus attacks. In 2005, we had six.

But the rise in identity theft, the rise in online fraud, the rise in the criminal element’s involvement in attacks on consumers has gone exponentially up, from almost nothing to probably 25 percent to 30 percent of all the activity that occurs online.”

It is this rise in the serious criminal element’s role in cyber-crime which is ominous, because it provides the fertile ground for the proliferation and sophistication of cyber-terror technique.

Remember the movie “Swordfish, with John Travolta (the criminal bankroller) and Hugh Jackman (the cyber-genius).

The more “Travoltas” there are, the more “Jackmans” there will be, and the more “Jackmans” there are, the more opportunities for the bankrollers of terror to recruit experts in the disruption of commerce and society.

By the way, for “bankrollers of terror”, don’t even think Osama bin Laden. Think Hezbollah; think Iran; think North Korea.

The Terror of the Moment is rogue state nuclear proliferation, because it is, after all, serious, but also because it sells politically. People still remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But the potential impact of broad-gauge cyber terror dwarfs that of the odd nuclear device detonation, as awful as that would be, in fact and to our collective psyche.

Think H5N1 (the best known bird flu virus) meets an “enter” key on a terrorist’s keyboard in a secure bunker in northern Iran.

This is terror meeting horror.

And the nuclear dimension of this crisis is not terrorist possession of nukes, but rather U.S. tactical nuclear retaliation on that Iranian bunker.

And I haven’t even read Clarke’s book. Mine are the musings of a relative amateur.

Back to the professionals…

The key intersection of Thompson’s and Clarke’s roles and messages is that cyber-security must become a way of life, in a way that security in general has not yet done.

Security must be baked into the fabric of our lives – computer and otherwise.

This, by the way, is both the deep wisdom and the Achilles Heel of the Symantec/Veritas merger, brokered by Thompson.

Veritas specialized in data availability and validity, the fundamental point of cyber-systems.

This connection of security and fundamental operational infrastructure is a metaphor for what we must do in the larger society.

This is the wisdom.

Most folks have no idea or understanding of what I just wrote.

This is the Achilles Heel.

And Symantec’s Pachyderm Problem.

vb

As we sit now, we are less than eighteen months away from an election which could install a woman as President of the United States.

The year is 2007. Not 1927…or 1907.

And we are seriously wondering: “Is the U.S. ready for a woman President?”

“Ready?”

As in: “Might we explode?”

“Might the Union dissolve in a puff of reactionary smoke?”

“Might she do something really stupid and awful?”

Might she, for instance, entangle us in a bloody, irrelevant war, which results in over 3,000 needlessly dead Americans; more than 200,000 (conservative estimate) other needless dead; hundreds of thousands of wounded; wrecked relations with countries around the globe, including many who were – and still should be – closer bound to the U.S. because of our terrorist tragedy; and oh yes, a foreign civil war bloodbath that could make the Partition of India and Pakistan look like March Madness?

“Are we ready for a woman President?”

We might more rationally ask: “Are we ready for another man?”

But we won’t.

Meanwhile, the French seem on the verge of empowering a woman, Segolene Royal (pictured), as its Head of State.

The alternative to her is another man whose resume and attitudes all too fully qualify him for a domestic record comparable to the foreign one outlined above.

“Are we ready for a woman?”

Whether she – Hillary or Segolene – wins or not…

We better be.

vb

I am delighted to announce the pending publication of a new series of books on generating change.

Change Generation – the first in the series – is the distillation of over thirty years of working with individuals and organizations to help them make change happen.

The book is a workshop manual for those who want to lead others in a change effort, whether it be in your company, church, synagogue or mosque, non-profit organization or government agency, or even your family.

It will be available in a normally-bound Executive Edition, and a spiral-bound Facilitator’s Edition.

We are less and less willing and able to make our lives happen for our true selves, and more and more willing to abdicate our right and power to make for ourselves the lives we deserve.

It is regularly said that one of the core competencies of living effectively in the twenty first century is the ability to cope with change.

This is true and good to a point, but it is self-destructive when coping becomes an end in itself.

The chaos of our personal and professional lives is so great that we generally cope by withdrawing, in one way or another.

Though this withdrawal may keep us from “coming unglued”, it is, beyond a certain point, no way to live.

The “glue” that keeps us together through crisis after crisis can accumulate with day after day of “coping.”

It can eventually gum up our emotional mechanism, making it difficult for us to respond to and engage with the world around us.

The same thing happens in organizations, making them progressively less responsive to the world around them, and less flexible in the face of new challenges and opportunities.

This is why I wrote Change Generation, to empower those of us who realize the perils of only “coping with change.”

I’ll let you know when it is available…

vb