Leadership's Future: If You Plan To Live Then Plan To Help
by Miki Saxon
I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that as important as hard work, good planning, etc., are, there was something else at work in my life. Something outside of my control and I wanted to know what it was.
I finally decided it was luck—definitely outside my control.
I wrote recently abut how the luck of right time/right place luck played a role in the early success of a startup and also touched on Malcolm Gladwell’s research as described in Outliers: The Story of Success.
A few days ago I read a brief article about University of Chicago researchers Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe, who have been studying the effects of gesturing on toddler language development.
“Higher-income parents did gesture more and, more importantly, their children on average produced 25 meanings in gesture during that 90-minute session, compared with an average of 13 among poorer children, they reported in the journal Science. … Gesturing also seems to be an important precursor to forming sentences, as children start combining one word plus a gesture for a second word. … In fact, kindergarten vocabulary is a predicter of how well youngsters ultimately fare in school.”
Such a little thing, but with such potentially enormous impact.
I don’t remember my mother gesturing, but I do know that she talked to my sister and I using the exact same vocabulary that she used with her peers and that became our vocabulary. Fortunately for us, she had a large vocabulary between having gone to college and being an avid reader, but I wonder where I would be if that had been different.
Plus, researchers are finding that children start learning long before it was originally thought.
The problem is that from zero to six kids dependent on what they get from home; from 6 or so to18 or so they look to their peers, which is the blind leading the blind, and then it’s on to adulthood where changes are far more difficult and, if the research is at all accurate, limited.
No one can control when they’re are born, who their parents are or the economic strata into which they’re born, but you can reach out and help change the people’s luck.
And for all those who look at me and say that they’re busy or that they have donated all they can or it’s just not their problem and there are schools/social services/etc., to deal with it I have a news flash for you.
Unless you plan to die tomorrow, it’s your problem.
It’s your problem because of a little thing called demographics.
This recession will eventually turn around, even if it takes longer than our instant gratification culture likes, and when it does the US is going to need every warm body if it plans to retain/regain its success and influence.
No one is expecting you to solve the problems, but you can reach out and touch just one life. If everyone over 21 did that we would be well on the way to change.
Your choice is whether to be part of the good luck or the bad.
Your comments—priceless
Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL
Image credit: flickr
February 27th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Hi Miki. Great post. I think this level of social responsibility is something American culture doesn’t really foster. And, unfortunately, I think it’s especially hard to ask people to help others when they’re treading water themselves – sort of the tragic irony of tough times. You’re on point though. People need to remember that the help the give to others now will come full circle down the road – and then some. Thanks for sharing, this was a very interesting post!
February 27th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Hi Andrew, thanks for stopping by and thanks for the kind words.
I agree in part with you, but what I wrote wasn’t a statement focused on the current economic situation. Boom or bust, the cross generational attitude has been heavily focused on ‘me’.
But since you’re here, I would like to ask you a question. Your generation (I checked out your blog:) claims that most of the fault for all this lies with previous generations (as they said about those that came before them), but I’m wondering what a group that feels such a sense of entitlement, has no patience, demands instant gratification and claims to be cynical will do about it.
I don’t mean that as a put down (except for the entitlement, which seems to be spreading across the entire population), just a description of publicly stated attitudes; I also realize that generalizations are dangerous and there are many who don’t fit one or more of those adjectives.
Thanks again for taking time to add to the conversation and I sincerely hope that you continue to do so.
February 27th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I think the question you raise about what my generation plans to do is a good one. You’re right – my generation definitely has entitlement issues. I read a really interesting NYT piece the other day about student expectations (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html) and I think it’s really dead on.
Short answer: I don’t know what we’ll do about it. Long answer: I don’t know what we’ll do about it, but I hope that realizations sink in soon that big changes require time, compromise is a vital skill, sometimes it doesn’t matter that you put in effort if the output isn’t there… these kinds of lessons.
Heh, but according to your post, this may be pretty hard, considering changing behaviors and outlooks once in adulthood can be challenging.
I also want to add that many of these lessons I started learning as an undergrad through participation in a variety of student organizations I was either a part of or headed. I sort of got through my classes, but put most of my time and energy into things outside my studies. Which brings up a whole separate question: what are students really getting from their college education and is what they’re receiving now best? By pushing college students through so they can get a job (currently not guaranteed whatsoever), are we really preparing them with the lessons and experience they need to take on the current problems of their country and the WORLD? The problems that are bigger than just getting through their work day?
I have a question for you, if I may ask: in your opinion, what factors contributed to my generation being impatient, cynical, entitled, etc.?
February 27th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Terrific article, I’m going to use it and our conversation next Thursday. Thanks, Andrew!
Well, the younger generation always claims that the previous generation screwed everything up and the older generations claim that the younger ones are going to hell because they are different and have terrible music. Such is history probably back to the caveman.
It’s interesting that you say you started learning those lessons in college, I was told something similar about studying and learning by Jim Gordon, who draws mY generation at my other blog.
What the optimist in me hopes people learn in college is that they don’t know it all, the value of learning, how to learn, that different is more often good than bad and that, occasionally, they discover a true passion that will last a lifetime. Unfortunately, my optimist is having a hard time staying optimistic. The reality is that you get out of school exactly what you put into it. If you see it only as a path to an MBA that’s all it is; if you see it as a boring necessity, parental expectation or keeping your meal ticket an extra four years that’s exactly what it will be.
In answer to your question I’ve been doing relatively mellow rants on that subject on both blogs for the last few years. The short answer is parents instilling the “I am special” mentality in their little darlings by fighting their fights for them and an education system that tied funding to passing tests and graduating as opposed to learning.
If you want more of my thoughts on entitlement (not just in your generation) check here and here; you might also want to take a look at CandidProf for a view from the other side.
February 27th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
RE: Students get out what they put into college: I definitely agree. It always drove me crazy when as an undergrad, I’d watch other students just sort of letting college float by them. Many of these students were also the ones who would complaine that things weren’t different/better. The most frustrating part of this was when you’d try to put on a fun event or create something to solve the problem they were describing, and it was like nothing was enough, they didn’t care. By the time I graduated, I felt like I understood these kinds of cup is half-empty people a little bit better, but there was still the question of how do you get people like that TO care. TO participate, or even further outside of the box, TO work on solving the problem themselves.
So, circling all the way back to where this conversation started… I don’t know. I feel like the rule of 80-20 rule is outdated. At the time I attended my university, it felt more like 95% of the work/progress/effort was put in by 5% of the student body. Perhaps that’s how it’ll be as my generation grows up. Part of me wants to be optimistic and say, “maybe that’s enough,” but a much larger part of me says, “It can’t be. And even if it is, think of all the great things we could be doing if more people really took an interest in working on fixing our problems.”
New Q: How do we motivate or teach college students to see their college experience differently? How do we expand the possibilities they see during that time and beyond?
February 27th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
[…] post was called,”Leadership’s Future: If you Plan to Live then Plan to Help.” What followed was a very interesting discussion, learning about an OD-like company, and […]
March 1st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Hi Andrew, Not meaning to sound cynical, but give it time. An enormous number of Boomers dropped out, didn’t care, ranted, rebelled, did drugs; then they got older, got married, got a mortgage, had kids and turned into their parents according to your generation, but not according to their parents. Now they are doing more volunteering, starting socially responsible companies and non-profits and again are out to change the world.
Youth is inherently selfish; I find it of much greater concern that the attitudes you’ve noticed are traveling UP the generational chain. That scares the heck out of me.