President Obama should concentrate on the home front.

President Obama should concentrate on the home front.

We have unemployment, trillions in deficit, inflation, foreclosures, and businesses closing down, loss of revenues due to over 20% unemployment - counting every one who is unemployed.

The pension costs are increasing dramatically eating revenues needed for other basic core services.

We must change the mindset of Americans - to buy Made in America.

We can produce better quality products at a very competitive price.

It is time to invigorate American manufacturing industry.

It is time to tighten the belt, reduce government, and increase American production and services.

Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.

YJ Draiman

Israel is not an occupying force - Israel has regained its own land

Contrary to world popular opinion, Israel is not an occupying force, extending its domain by annexing the land of her neighbors and maintaining an occupation force on somebody else's land by using brute military force to ensure her expansionist policies. Rather, Israel has acquired the land that is the subject of dispute by repulsing the invading armies of her neighbors. The framework of the Madrid Peace Conference/Process has been a work-in-progress revealing the Israeli attempt to comply with United Nations Resolutions to withdraw from the disputed territory, granted that she can be guaranteed future national Security. In the past 63 years, Israel has been assaulted three times (1948, 1956, and 1967) by her Arab neighbors when she never occupied a single inch of the land in question. Furthermore, by winning a war against aggressor nations, Israel has also won the legitimate right to annex the territory in dispute. I have never heard anybody discuss what would have happened if Israel lost any of those wars. Would the UN have held a conference to discuss the extermination of Israel, and erected a monument over their grave or something? Nevertheless, Israel has been a willing participant in the “land-for-peace” formula that is the basis of the Middle East Peace Process. This demonstrates the legitimate Israeli desire for peace and that Israel is willing to concede to give the disputed territory away, if it goes to a peaceful neighbor.

You cannot make peace with an entity that is not even willing to recognize you.

End of story.

The Qur'an 17:104 - states the land belongs to the Jewish people

YJ Draiman

Time to demand government and corporate transparency and accountability

 

Time to demand government and corporate transparency and accountability

Will accountability renew trust?

In the wake of the recent revelations of US politicians financial expenses abuses, provoked the last straw for the American populace. The continuous erosion of public trust met the usual swathe of promises; assurances which only demurred into a flagrant ignoring of public opinion finally diminished the last vestige of respect. The people now demand full accountability, even for what could be, in perspective, minor conflagrations. The widespread ire is compounded in further transparently obvious favoritism of who is encouraged to fall on their sword and who is conferred leniency.

This episode has brought into sharp clarity the need for full transparency and accountant ability from politicians, who are, in fact, public servants, and drawing very adequate salaries, backed up with substantial pensions. It is the opinion of the Relationship Capital Institute that politicians need to bring a new level of responsible governance that forges a renewed trust, for without it, both they and the public suffer crises that stymie positive recovery in a time of considerable recession and all suffer.

I suggest that they set up a department that educates politicians on what it is to create relationship capital and how the bedrock of values that resources the building of such a necessary quality will renew and restore the peoples trust.

How to build a culture of accountability

Firstly, let’s clarify what culture is?

Culture is embodied in the phrase “this is the way we do things around here”. More precisely, “what people perceive they have to do to fit in, be accepted and rewarded around here”? Culture is the sum of the behavioral norms of the workgroup, team, division or organization. It is relatively common to have different cultures between teams or divisions within the one organization. These are referred to as sub-cultures and they can range from being marginally different from the culture of the overall organization to being quite radically different. This has implications for not only understanding an organization’s culture but also for managing it effectively.

Why is culture important?

Have you ever tried to stay within the speed limit when everyone around you is driving at speeds well over the speed limit? The behavioral norms of a group can strongly influence the behavior of the individual. Culture defines the behavioral norms (accepted behavior) in a group, team, division or organization. In turn, behavior underpins the performance (what gets done, when it gets done and how it gets done) of the organization and perceptions (reputation) of that organization.

A Framework for Managing Culture

While managing culture requires a range of approaches and cannot simply be managed by dictating the culture you want, it is essentially about managing messages. The objective is to ensure messages are consistently conveyed through aligned behaviors (especially of key people), systems and symbols.

What is accountability?

The key concept is the notion of having a sense of ‘responsibility’ and a willingness to be ‘answerable’ to others and is the difference between a group and a team. In our experience, the most important factor in developing accountability is the quality of leadership and management (and this is the only aspect leaders or managers are really in ‘control’ of). Good leaders and managers generate high levels of accountability in their people.

Whilst organizations should plan to recruit the right people in terms of their willingness to be team players and be accountable; recruitment is only the starting point. The real key is what leaders and organizations do from that point onwards. Good recruits can be ‘lost’ in poorly lead organizations with unsupportive cultures. Many managers see accountability as being attributed to an individual’s values; therefore they blame the individual and underestimate their own role in creating an accountability culture. In doing this, a great opportunity to build a high performance organization is missed.

Responsibility is not blame

It is important not to mistake responsibility for blame as they are diametrically opposed concepts. Where one exists the other will not remain. Responsibility is the ability to make a response; it is future and action focused. Blame is past focused and is more about the ego – isolating people, teaching them a lesson, point scoring or making them feel guilty/bad than it is about accountability. Guilt and fear is not a good basis for developing accountability.

A Framework for Building an Accountability Culture

We see the steps in building an accountability culture as being:

1. Building trust as the foundation:

The four key elements of trust are

·        Openness/transparency (giving and accepting feedback, transparency in decision making)

·        Reliability (doing what you say you are going to do)

·        Congruence (saying what you mean)

·        Acceptance (acceptance of others and acceptance of differences).

2. Engage your people: meaningful involvement with alignment. Remember you can’t truly and sustainably motivate another person but you can engage them. It is through engagement that motivation will grow.

3. Ownership: once the first two elements are in place people start to ‘take’ ownership they start to think and act like owners. (As this happens the future possibility for selling down equity, as part of the firm’s succession plan, becomes a reality).

The level of accountability is directly related to the level of trust, engagement and ownership that exists within an organization. Certainly work at improving all levels simultaneously; however remember higher levels in the pyramid cannot progress any faster than the base they are built on, there are no short cuts. Without trust and engagement no performance measures and rewards will be particularly effective over the medium to long term you cannot buy accountability. The key to building a culture of accountability is to find a way to lead people without ruling them.