While the U.S. Virgin Islands and mainland U.S. often seem to be moving in different directions, their political classes appear to be converging. The organizational machinations over power in the V.I. Senate seem quite similar to those taking place in the U.S. Congress.
Anyone believing that these activities are focused on how best to serve the people would be sadly mistaken.
As Congress, the V.I. Senate, and other legislative bodies sort themselves out, we can see that they are increasingly disconnected from the citizens they ostensibly serve, and that less and less of any value is accomplished.
What is increasingly lost is any interest in policy or laws that will be executed and that will make a difference in people’s lives. There are exceptions, the much maligned, but landmark, Health Care Reform Act being one of them.
At the halftime of a football game, the television announcer asked the coach of a team that was being slaughtered what he thought of his team’s execution. The coach responded, “I’m in favor of it.”
It was very funny, but not the kind of execution the questioner had in mind. The other kind of execution is the art and practice of getting things done, and it is being increasingly lost.
And with its loss goes a loss in the faith of the government’s ability to get anything done. This is another area in which the territory and mainland are converging.
One difference is that, in the Virgin Islands, elected officials continue to make wild promises that everyone knows will not be fulfilled, while on the mainland, there is now such disdain for government that no one promises anything because we have been convinced that it is all futile, or that any action will make things even worse.
Many of the public goods that do get distributed today don’t require execution. In one way or another, they involve giving people money.
The political scientist Charles Hamilton once made a very important distinction between two kinds of benefits. He said that there are “divisible” and “indivisible” benefits.
Divisible ones target a defined group, rather than society as a whole; while indivisible benefits are enjoyed by everyone. Both the territory and the country are increasingly the land of the divisible benefit, the beneficiaries usually being the rich and well-connected. However, to make this obvious statement is to open oneself to charges of engaging in “class warfare.”
But just giving away money or tax breaks doesn’t really cut it. Execution, in the positive non-gas-chamber sense of the term, is critical to securing a better future. There has to be the ability to get things done and to get them done in ways that people see as progress. The alternative is stagnation and decline.
And execution (as described in the book of the same name by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan), the ability to get them done, has its own equation: execution = a solid strategy (how we will get from here to there) + the right people in the right jobs + solid work processes and basic systems + a culture of performance and accountability + implementation tools.
Using this equation as a self-evaluation test is a scary business. Almost every organization, everywhere and at any time, will fall short in at least one or two areas. Many others, public and private, will simply say “ouch.” But it is a useful way of telling us what we have to do if we are to build a platform for future success.
The starting point is to openly address cultures of pessimism. If we believe that nothing is possible, it will be self-fulfilling. If we believe that anything is possible, the sky is the limit, etc., then we will soon believe that nothing is possible.
The “anything is possible” mantra leads directly to the world of “we tried that, it didn’t work.” The Virgin Islands often seems to swing back and forth between these two poles without even slowing down around the middle.
That is why the equation is so important, and why, rather than wild promises or 50 goals, it is essential to pick a handful of meaningful, measurable, visible and achievable goals. And set them on a one year timetable.
This exercise is also very useful for telling us who the doers are and who is simply full of it, the big talkers, the people that former President Lyndon Johnson once described as “big hat, no cattle.”
There have been a series of planning meetings held in the territory recently. Taking some of the broad goals outlined in these sessions and converting them into one-year goals with solid “action plans” and real accountability would have an enormous positive impact on the community.
Think about it. Wouldn’t it be great at the end of 2011 to look back and say, “We said we were going to do these things, and we did them. And look at the positive impact that they had on the community.”
It would also be great to be able to say, “Look, the pessimists were wrong.”
Execution is hard work. As we know from experience, having a brilliant idea and executing it is not the same thing. But, in the end, execution = success, and it is the kind of success that provides a platform for future successes.
My brilliant idea for the territory’s slogan for the New Year: “2011, The Year of Execution.”
Well, maybe someone can buff up the wording a little.
Happy New Year.
