Author: Dr. J.J. Walcutt

     It is unlikely that I will change my toon any time soon – simple answers to complex problems don’t result in long term solutions.

I know many are frustrated that their current jobs are fading away. At the same time, how is there so much buzz about an abundance of jobs not being filled? Either we have a shortage of jobs or we have a shortage of workers – but we can’t have both. And the truth is…we have a job mismatch.

As the world evolves, so does the marketplace. Accordingly, job needs change too. This is a completely predictable cycle. So why is it being highlighted more now than it likely was decades ago? The short answer is that due to changes in technology, the world is evolving at a much faster rate than in the past. The next fact is that people are living longer and therefore working longer. Translated, where jobs of the past existed for an entire lifetime of a worker, now, jobs cycle out before they retire.

Continuous learning and change are an unavoidable requirement to maintain employment into the future.

Yet, generations of people have not had to face this change expectation. Frankly, I’m not sure many even realized it was coming unless they were living in metropolitan cities and keeping abreast of all the movement happening within businesses of all types. Yes, there are people in this world that follow every news story and every innovation – but those people do not make up the majority of us. Most of us just want to get through the day, take care of our kids, and maintain our homes. It seems like it should be simple – just bring back jobs that have been lost.

But simply re-adding old jobs will work only for a short period of time…just until the world shifts to an unrecognizably fast-paced, ever changing, blur of constant expectation, data consumption, and information overload.

It’s no wonder at all that people are feeling overwhelmed and wish for their previous or current jobs to be reinstated or maintained. Unfortunately, simple solutions such as bringing back jobs in areas that will become obsolete, is only delaying the inevitable.

We need to educate our people of all ages for jobs of the future. It’s not about simply creating a means for Americans to take care of their families, it’s about national economic success and leadership.

Regardless of political party, education to elevate our people’s opportunities is an investment that makes sense at the human and fiscal levels.

 

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The start of the women’s movement was a necessary joint action by those who came before me. It seems so long ago but truly, even yesterday, an older woman explained to me that people do not listen to women’s words but only judge them by their exteriors. Is she right? Perhaps. Have I seen it in my professional life? No – or at least not to that extent. Am I missing something? Possibly. But at the end of the day, does it matter?

“There is a 50% increase in outcome prediction with gender diverse teams. This is a DECISIVE advantage.” – ADM Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations

There have been many studies that articulate the benefits of women on military teams – the dynamics change and with that change, comes increased thoughtful consideration and debate. Why does this matter in our nation today? Because we have taken on an increasingly contentious political interaction style that is creating significant division among our people.

However, unity is the strongest position we can take as a nation – both economically and defensively. When we work together toward a common goal, outcomes are always better. Yet, our emotions, our fears, our anger, our need to be right can often reduce our ability to work as a national team.

We no longer need to hire women to be leaders in order to prove that they can lead – we need women leaders because their skills and differences in approach are valuable and increase success.

At one point, we needed a women to run for president to be an inspiration for my generation and the one after me. But now we need our female political leaders because our nation needs help healing, connecting, and unifying. It’s no longer about proving worth but rather about recognizing the qualities and experiences women can provide. In business terms, it’s not about proving one is right but rather, it’s about finding the right answer that addresses the problem. That’s the solution that sells.

I think you will find more and more women leaders running in and winning political races not because they need to be right but because they are the right answer for what our nation needs today.

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Women are on the move. We are on a path to declare who we really are. We are pressing forward with not only a personal set of goals but with a sense of joint purpose.

I work at a very high level in my job – and I work mainly with men. I spend much of my personal time at political activities where the female average age is much older than me. I also mentor young people both girls and boys. What do I notice? And why does it matter?

It matters because the United States has significantly shifted from being a patriarchal society where one assumes roles based solely on gender to one where even among those that wish for the old ways recognize that the assumptions no longer hold. There may not be acceptance everywhere but there is generally recognition that the tides have turned.

This matters because it means the situation for women has changed – we are not in the same fight we were in 40 years ago yet our message is the same.

When I work with older men, even ones that are my subordinate, they often want to advise me. Now I could take offense – but generally I don’t. Most are just fulfilling a role they know. They mean only to help and even though some of it is condescending, I recognize it for what it is: they are trying to maintain their sense of worth in a working environment that confuses them – in many cases, they also see what they are doing as displaying respect by trying to help me succeed. What we women often see as controlling insults (e.g., if I’m competent, why are you telling me how to do my job?) could actually be just fumbled attempts to help.

The other group though…sees my gender as a possible weakness and ‘advises’ in a way that is really just poorly hidden attempts at manipulation to help themselves. Now with these men, I could become angry or aggressive and force them to respect my status, back off, be quiet. While that might be satisfying in the moment, the better tactic is to let them tell me themselves everything they are thinking, let them proudly display their own weaknesses. To these types of men, I say, a) never underestimate my poker game, and b) at least try to be more sophisticated in your one-size-fits-all methods.

Many of my female colleagues become at least extremely frustrated and at worst enraged by the treatment. Don’t they know we are competent? Don’t they know we are capable? Don’t they know we got to our levels by working hard, studying hard, and being prepared? In a word, no.

Much like in middle school, people oftentimes don’t pick on you because they truly don’t like you – they do it because they are trying to figure out themselves.

Women, as a collective, have decided to press forward and declare ourselves able to be and do anything we want. We’ve demanded change. This is great! Opportunity should be equal across our people – if for no other reason than that it is the strongest position to take as a nation. But how have we helped men change with us? As we have demanded acceptance of our expectations, have we also considered that it necessarily requires a lot of people to adjust too? Without a clear path or plan for how to do that, confusion is a predictable outcome – even among the most supportive.

As I sit with older women and hear their woes of the past – the way men so often in their working world made it clear that the only way they would rise was to compromise their bodies – I can fully understand where the communal anger and resentment stems. I am overly grateful for the work the women before me have done – because, as I tell these ladies, I have never, ever been asked to compromise my body in order to achieve in the workplace.

But when I talk with young girls…many don’t even understand the issues. I’d like to say it’s because they aren’t yet old enough but I’m not sure that’s true. The gender divide has been highly disrupted for young people by the multiple gender options available. It’s almost as if gender as a construct has begun to fade for the generation after me so much so that the question of, “Are you treated poorly because you are a girl?” is almost confusing. And the idea of getting special opportunities because they are female borders on upsetting for many. They don’t want special treatment. They want to know they earned their spots, their achievements, their ranks the same as everyone else.

So my question is…what’s our exit strategy? When do we ease off the pedal and let the car coast to its final destination? Is there a point at which pressing hard tips the scales to create more divide and resentment than to help our cause?

I’m not sure we’ve reached the summit yet but I do think the generation after me can see it and wants to be part of not so much a push to be equal as defined by ‘same’ but rather to be equal as defined by ‘opportunity.’

In our nation, we not only need to unify across political parties, we also need to embrace our people as individuals who can add uniquely to our collective power. When we do, we will be able to create the strongest teams based on whole person contributions rather than satisfying a list of generalized requirements based on group identification.

….for my daughter…

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  I read a recent ethics editorial that featured a college professor who was expressing frustration over how the college at which he or she worked was, out of financial necessity, admitting students at higher rates. The professor said this has led to a large number of entrants who a) don’t have the skills that make them ready to learn and perform at this higher level, b) are working and having families when studying, leaving them very little time to commit to their studies, and c) are there to acquire a skill/proof of knowledge rather than to learn to think and expand their minds. Given the lack of what we might term, ‘learner readiness’, the professor has witnessed high failure rates for individual classes and eventually from the entire college experience…which leads to high rates of college debt. This is a great example of how a well-intentioned plan (encourage more people to attend college in order to get better jobs) has created a ripple effect that while helped some, also hurt others.

It is vital when creating large-scale changes across a nation as populated and diverse as ours that we think beyond first order effects – if we don’t, we risk shifting a problem rather than solving it.

The error in assumption that has been made about education is that there is a one-size-fits-all pathway and that if everyone followed that path, success would follow. This is not only short-sighted and an over-simplification of the issues at hand, but more importantly, this framework is a predictable failure. What is baffling to me is that I believe most Americans know that college isn’t for everyone – and I don’t mean because there is a difference in innate intellect. I have a brilliant son…who chose a music conservatory over a traditional college. It isn’t that he isn’t smart enough – he’s plenty smart enough. It’s that for what he wants to do with his life, he requires a high level of intense study and practice in a single area.

Attending college has become a badge of honor, a measure of a person’s human worth. Yet, it should be viewed like any other personal experience: an opportunity to grow, learn, and hone one’s skills. There are many ways to do this and none of them make someone more or less worthy as a human being. I have a Ph.D. yet I did not, and could not, play Division I basketball. Am I less valuable because of my lack of talent? Human worth is innate. Achievement is a mix of talent, effort, and luck. And if everyone were the same, we’d fail as a society. Value comes from contributing to the gestalt, the whole system. We need everyone.

Job fulfillment of the future will require our people to be capable in a variety of areas – which necessarily demands that we appropriately, and intentionally, diversify our education and training programs.

Further, to optimize our nation, it would be best if students were engaged in those programs that a) fit their interests and talents and b) balance the debt-to-need ratio. In other words, wouldn’t it be great, and frankly logical, for students to be engaged in learning opportunities (to include personal growth experiences) that will help them develop into their most authentic self while minimizing cost and maximizing employment opportunities.

Our nation needs to stop solving one problem, only to create another and instead start developing holistic country-wide structures that promote individuality while optimizing system level success.

 

Photo credit: Jonas Jacobsson, Janko Ferlic, Baim Hanif

 

I’ve received a lot of feedback about the blog and it often goes something like…I love the topics and how you make me think but how do we solve these problems? Great question!

Let’s start with how you *don’t* solve complex national level problems. Don’t oversimplify and don’t reduce the options to only two opposing choices. Right now, we allow our people to be pro-choice or pro-life. We suggest that all gun violence in schools will be fixed by removing certain types of weapons from our nation or arming our teachers. We look to congress to solve our budget problems by cutting spending. We think a wall or open immigration are our only choices.

When we oversimplify and create only two choices to solve a problem, predictably, we create division and disagreement – but fail to change the situation.

When we oversimplify, we miss important underlying problems that will resurface again and again and again. When we dichotomize solutions, we force people to take sides and focus on “winning” the fight rather than solving the problem. Both scenarios will predictably fail in the long-term because even if one side ‘wins,’ the simplified approach is akin to what I call putting a band-aid on a severed arm.

It only pauses the bleeding in one small area but fails to address the overarching issue.

Instead, we have to consider more holistic solutions. Why couldn’t someone both believe in healthcare privacy and want to promote life and health in our people? Putting guns in the hands of teachers could result in an accidental shooting and removing certain guns from people who want to cause harm may only refocus them on other means to do the same. Budgets in large systems are rarely improved by reducing line-item spending because the real issue is typically born out of system-wide power struggles or bureaucratic constraints. And neither a wall or nor open immigration are long-term solutions to what is more about global over-population at the highest level and desperation at the individual level.

So why do we do this? We do it because we want to see change and we want to see change now. We do it because it can be shared in a soundbite. We do it because politicians string together these ‘solutions’ to create a platform. But….then we wonder why the world seems like we are constantly solving problems.

We are constantly solving problems and arguing basic solutions because we have set up the system to be this way. We are reactive instead of proactive.

Scientific progression was predictably going to make abortion a question of the future. Human nature was predictably going to result in people harming others. Creating policies in Government that strip the ability to reward excellence and punish good spending habits was predictably going to create overspending and inefficiency. And over population mixed with wealth division was predictably going to result in illegal immigration attempts.

Solving complex national problems well requires several ingredients:

1. Diagnose – we must fully understand the problem before we can even attempt to answer it in any useful way.
2. Predict – we must use modeling techniques to determine problems of the future and address them when they are marshmallow fires rather than forest fires. Be proactive, not reactive.
3. Solve holistically – we have to consider all elements of an issue if we have any hope of success.
4. Buy-in – ‘winning’ a single solution fight is severely undermined in its success if only half the population believes in it. It is important to create win-win solutions so that everyone supports the outcome.

By way of example, my solution to gun violence in schools and the workplace includes 7 major areas that need attention and at least 5 departments across the executive branch, the administration, congress, and local systems. This is not an easy problem to solve and it won’t be solved by singular solutions.

The leader brave enough to suggest holistic, complex solutions, is the one that will change the course of history. The politician recommending clear, simple solutions, will ensure job longevity for themselves.

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I have spent years searching for a universal truth across cultures and nations – something that could bind us all together, to help understand one another. The one that surfaced and remained in the forefront is the drive to protect our babies, our offspring. The intense, biologically-based bond to our children is one that transcends time, space, and culture. The deep feeling of utter devastation and fear that one feels when they realize they can’t protect their children from harm is not only intense, but I believe universal.

It is tremendously sad to me that it is through communal suffering that we are most connected but it is necessary to understand why and how this matters.

In International activities, it matters because it is a foundation upon which we can build connections – a way to understand others very different than us. It allows us to see those who think and act in ways we don’t as humans, similar at our core. Ultimately, it is why in war, opposing sides will at times help another because human suffering at the personal level is typically impossible to ignore. The suffering of a child is almost always difficult to accept.

I say ‘almost’ because there are people in this world who are not affected by these generally universal feelings of child and human protection. And this is why we have laws.

Laws are not meant to tell you how to live your life or to control you – they are used to ensure the protection of people who might be hurt by those without a personal compass for inflicting pain on others.

In psychology, it was important to teach students to clarify between a difference of opinion and harm. It is the same in politics. Differences in opinion, background, belief, understanding, preference, etc. involve living one’s life in a manner fit for them. Harm is when those differences are used to justify hurting another person.

Interpreting a law to the most extreme extent which ultimately results in separating innocent children from their parents is harm. It is not merely an interpretation of a law which binds the administration because that law is written to have options. Separating children, many of whom had no choice or knowledge of what was happening, disrupts the natural development of attachment bonds. For those who are not psychologists, this may seem like a minor issue. It is not. Disrupting attachment, especially under 3 years old, can have major life-long implications. This situation is not the children’s fault and imputing this level of emotional trauma on them cannot be tolerated.

But now the bigger issue….to my earlier point….if we are a nation willing to close our eyes and allow harm, the bad news is that it means there is more to come. This was a test to see how the country and how the world would react. It was a test of congress. It was a test of power. It was a test of time. It was a test of the courts. And on every measure, we failed because our system provides far more power and a far more rapid response ability to our authorities than most realized. When someone doesn’t believe in a system, it can be a refreshing reframe. It can also be a devastating use of power to control and harm others.

 

Be clear…this child separation activity was a very big deal.

 

Photo by Annie Spratt, Aaron Burden

I always like having students on my teams – why? Simply put: They have great ideas.

Kids aren’t hindered by the same fears as adults. They frankly don’t know what they aren’t supposed to know. They don’t know they should wait to speak. They don’t know that they should stifle their imaginations. They don’t know that they need to check the realistic possibility of success of their idea before sharing it. They don’t run down the rabbit hole of asking every possible question before declaring success.

Sure, they are also lacking experience, which oftentimes hinders them from being able to carry out all of their ideas – but that’s why we have adults. It’s a good thing the world still needs us or I’m pretty sure the next generation would put us out to pasture!

So what is the formula for ultimate success – across generations – and for our nation? We should embrace and encourage the energy and idea generation of our youth. We should do so because a) they need support and mentorship, b) they are the ones who will run the world when we are getting older, but most importantly, because c) they are tremendous thinkers!

Adults in their mid-range of working (typically 35-55) are in the prime space of energy, hunger for rising and achieving, and ready to take on many tasks at once. These individuals should be the great connectors from our youth to our most experienced workers. Our older workers and retirees need to help carry the flag. Help us see the vision of the future, coach and mentor us on those aspects of their generation that worked and why but also what didn’t and help us see how we can improve these aspects.

Every generation has a purpose – the nation that recognizes, respects, and promotes these differences of thoughts, views, and experiences will be the one that maximizes innovation and does so with efficiency!

 

  We don’t have a job shortage, we have a job-mismatch problem.

In America, we have a habit of being a reactive, rather than a proactive nation and this tendency is especially problematic in education. If we are preparing our students for jobs that existed yesterday, we are developing obsolete workers. If we teach our students to be ready for today, we will predictably have many adults without the skills needed to get jobs in the future. This is a predictable, and therefore addressable, problem. In this arena, there are many points to consider but this article focuses on one competency: the ability to see how information connects across time and space and consequently, new ways to look at old data.

“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses — especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” – Leonardo daVinci

If we develop the mind to think of information as unconnected pieces of data, it is no wonder that we will create adults who interpret situations and solve problems using only one area of knowledge. The result will be what we call stove-piped solutions, or products that deal with one issue at a time. This is not only inefficient but also ineffective.

Jobs of the future will require cognitive agility and creative problem solving skills…everything else will be automated.

We may not like it. We may not wish it to be true. We can regulate it. But it will still happen. Automation of basic tasks is happening because businesses want to drive toward the most efficient processes and maximize innovation.

In the next generation job market, employers will be looking for humans who can do what computers can’t.

Students will not need to memorize information because they can access it anywhere, anytime. They will not need to calculate by hand because the computer will do it for them. They will not even need to aggregate or visualize data because the computer will do that too. Instead, future workers will need to interpret sums of data across structures. They will need to develop news ways to look at old problems. They will need to operate in multi-disciplinary teams and they will need to know how to provide the meta-vision to others in a succinct, clear, single visual message.

All roads lead to the need to include arts education as a significant part of learning for the future.

Art, whether it be visual or auditory (music), helps develop the brain in ways other subjects do not. It affects how much information load the brain can take in, it affects the arousal level of the brain to improve processing speed, and it adds a layer of interpretation and communication to learning experiences not otherwise attainable. In short, arts education will be one of the primary differentiators not only at the individual level for job readiness but also at the national level as it will change the way our country addresses our societal and world-level problems.

To evolve as a nation, we must recognize the necessity of arts education and ensure that we support our youngest citizens in becoming the next generation creative, agile workforce.

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I spent my last semester of college at the University of Wales and lived in a loft with British students who, incidentally, offered me a cup of tea at every turn. At first, I refused. But over time, they won me over. In fact, to this day, I take a cup of green tea with mint every morning. Why?

I drink tea because it focuses my mind, wakes me up, and starts my day calmly.

But what does this have to do with our country? At this point in history, it has everything to do with our nation. Emotionally charged minds can’t think straight, clearly, or rationally. And consequently, make poor decisions. At the singular level, this is a personal issue. At the national level, it’s an epidemic. If we want to not only maintain but grow our nation’s human power, economic stability, and defense strength, we must bring our people together. Whether we “drink tea” – in reality or metaphorically – I frankly don’t care.

We must find a way for our people to calmly discuss issues and more importantly, create solutions.

There’s a reason why we tell people to ‘sleep on it’, ‘take a deep breath’, ‘walk away until you calm down.’ All these phrases do the same thing, they help the stress chemicals reduce and consequently, we calm down, think more clearly, and make better decisions. Now how do we do this at scale?

Couple of considerations:

1. Start our days with tea, or breathing, or praying, or meditating, or watching the rain. Do whatever centers your mind for five minutes daily and that one commitment alone would change our society. I know it seems like hooey – but science doesn’t lie. When people start their day thinking clearly, they do everything better.
2. Follow the basic rules we learned in Kindergarten: Use your inside voice (avoid yelling), If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all (quiet!), walk away (end arguments, don’t start them).
3. Compliment others – No kidding, when you are focused on finding a positive in others, you find them in yourself and let go of the negatives, or at least reduce them.

This isn’t about being nicer to one another – though it would be a more pleasant society if we did get along better. But in reality, I’m talking at the national strategic level – this is about helping our nation with productivity, education, health, and creating improved security for our nation through increased revenue and displaying a united front to the world.

Happiness at scale is the foundation of an optimized nation!  U S A All the Way!

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I was shopping for a card for my mom when I saw one that showed a picture of a girl standing at the edge of a cliff. The caption read, “All my friends jumped off a cliff today.” And on the inside, it read, “But I didn’t. Thanks for the advice, Mom!” I bought the card….but then changed it to read the opposite: “None of my friends jumped off a cliff today. BUT I DID! Thanks, Mom!”

Where others hold their parachutes, I stow my wings…

When we allow fear to control us, we question everything. We hold ourselves back, we hide from challenging moments, we step back when we should step forward. In short, we stop living. And if we aren’t living, then why are we here? Why are we on this great Earth? What is our purpose? I have been thinking a lot about the people who have been killed by senseless violence and asking myself – if they could speak to us, those angel warriors, what would they say?

I believe they would tell us to dream, and dream big.

And our military personnel, who risk life and limb for our citizens, why do they do it? What would our fallen tell us if they could? I don’t believe the Americans we’ve lost would tell any of us to merely stay alive so we can count our days.

I believe they defend our nation so that we can have the opportunity to have the courage to live out our dreams.

This nation was imagined in the dreams of our founding fathers and carried through history by the most daring of our people – like a relay team passing the baton. We cannot allow acts of terrorism and senseless violence to strip us of our willingness to live, and to do so boldly. For if we do, we have already given them everything; we’ve already lost. Our angels deserve better. They expect better from us. We owe them this honor and our respect.

“The nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.” – Elmer Davis, Former Director of the U.S. Office of War Information

 

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