My Good Earth

There are lessons to be learned from the highly successful Obama campaign.  Lessons not only for presidential candidates, but for those in the business and non-profit sectors too.

I often speak about how my quality improvement framework the Power of C.A.R.E. is applicable to any area of life (business or private) and here is another example of this. For the lessons learned from the Obama campaign fit squarely into the Power of C.A.R.E. framework.

The Power of C.A.R.E. Framework

The Power of C.A.R.E. stands for Choices, Attitude, Relationships and Effort.  I believe that no matter what the topic, no matter what you say you care about, it should show in the Choices you make, the Attitude you project, the Relationships you cultivate and the Effort you exert.  So much of this election fell down to who the American public felt cared about them and the problems of this country the most: Obama or McCain.

The Choices You Make

There were certainly a lot of controversial choices during this election.  From the very beginning, Mr. Obama’s choice to even run for the presidency was a choice that many in the Democratic party, most notably Senator Clinton, wishes he hadn’t made.  Then there was his choice to not participate in public financing, which many saw as a breaking of a promise.  We shall see the ramifications of that choice in future presidential elections.  For his part, Senator McCain had to deal with a great deal of opinion on his choices as well; none more debated than his choice of a running mate.

But as in the Power of C.A.R.E., one of the ultimate choices we must make is to chose to be in Gripe Mode or in Goal Mode.  Senator Obama, chose to be in Goal Mode; and with this came the choice to have and maintain a universal theme and vision.  I think to everyone it is obvious what that theme and vision was….Change.

While he was occasionally subjected to the red herrings and ad hominem attacks that might have distracted a less focused, visionary and goal-oriented candidate, Obama was not distracted from his unifying message, his brand of change.  It is this consistency that resonated with voters who were weary after the far too long campaign.

The Attitude You Project

In his acceptance speech Tuesday night, President-elect Obama said something few people in power ever admit.  He acknowledged that the change he had been campaigning about was going to take time and that there would be some false steps.  In short, he had what I call the Attitude of Why.  He knew he didn’t have all of the answers and was ready to seek them out.

In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins remarks that the exceptional leaders who took their companies from good to great had many things in common, not the least of which was an ability to say “I don’t know.”  This is very powerful; because a great leader is not the one who has all of the answers, but the one who is willing to jump in, try things, seek greater understanding and realize that sometimes you have to make some mistakes to gain that greater understanding and then make improvements.

Throughout his campaign, Obama evoked the attitude of seeking to understand the American public.  To not just know the what and when of our pains, but the why.  For it is through the why that we gain the best understanding and can then create the best solutions.

The Relationships You Cultivate

The way to win an election is to build relationship high and low.  Sen. Obama used technology and his considerable communication skills to build relationships with the public.  Likewise, the string of celebrity endorsements, not the least of them Oprah (no last name required) helped catapult him into the White House.

Only someone with blinders and earplugs could not know the role relationships played in this election.  For Senator McCain, his relationship with President Bush and those perceived to be the cause of our current economic crises, was too much to overcome.  And it bears repeating how some folks felt about Gov. Palin.

By contrast, Senator Obama realized the importance of our relationships and used this to his advantage.  He certainly wanted the country to remember Sen. McCain record of voting with President Bush and used his own words against him.  Who hasn’t seen the film clip of Sen. McCain proudly saying he had voted with President Bush 90% of the time, more so than even some of his fellow Republicans.  

While most of us admire loyalty, we also know that one must recognize liabilities in our relationships.  Aligning yourself with a President who has the lowest approval rating in history is not the way to win an election.  In the last debate, Sen McCain said something that would have served him better had he said it far earlier in the campaign.  He told Sen. Obama, “I’m not President Bush and if you wanted to run against President Bush you should have ran for President four years ago.”  Great sound bite.  And a great message he could have ran with during his campaign.  Too bad he didn’t think of it earlier.

The Effort You Exert

This has been a loooooooong election.  Two years.  And the candidates have had to remain motivated throughout the whole process.  But as anyone who is successful knows, success does not come from just any type of effort.  It requires motivated effort, focused effort and fact driven effort.  The strength of Sen. Obama’s campaign came from efforts that were motivated by change, focused on key populations and states and were multifaceted.

The boom of over nine million newly registered voters clearly favored Obama.  This was no fluke.  This was the result of a concerted and meaningful effort by the Democratic Party and Obama supporters.   And just as important was the efforts to ensure those newly registered voters made it to the polls and were able to vote.  This included a strong voter education campaign to help ensure supporters were not disenfranchised by their lack of knowledge and unscrupulous saboteurs.

In the days leading up to election day, as is often the case, pundits and speculators were debating the effect bad weather would have on the election results.  If it rained or snowed, who would be more likely to stick it out: McCain supports or those voting for Obama?  Many felt that any bad weather or long lines would benefit Sen Obama. 

Perhaps the potentially historical significance of his win inspired more effort.  And that is one of the biggest lessons learned from this election…we all want to be a part of creating a legacy, of effecting the future.  If you can touch someone’s heart, what they care about, you will inspire their action.

As I write this, I again fight back the tears that well up in my eyes; for history was made last night.  The United States of America elected its first African American President…Barack Obama.

As I sat and watched the election returns last night and it became clear he had won, so many things came rushing through my mind.  The history of the event, the lives that were lost to get to this point in history, the impact it would have on our country, on his family and on my own family …and I also thought of the bitter-sweetness of his grandmother missing this day.  I hoped she at least had a chance to submit an absentee ballot for her beloved grandson before she passed.

I thought of my own loved ones who had left us before they had had a chance to see this momentous day.  Like my maternal grandmother, Annie who died last year well into her eighties and blessed with great-great grandchildren.  I have a picture of her when she was a little girl, with her mother and brothers and her own grandmother.  The looks of the faces of my ancestors speaks of the hard life they lived.

What always touched me about this picture is that it reminded me of how far we had come as a people and as a country, but also of how near the atrocities of slavery still were.  The old woman in the picture, my grandmother’s grandmother had been born a slave. 

As a Black woman who had been raised to always put forth her best effort and taught that her opportunties were endless if she focused on her education and made the right choices in life, it was both humbling and surreal to remember that I knew someone, who knew someone who was born a slave.  Just four generations ago, so much of my life would not have been an option.

And speaking of options…I thought of my son who is seven and was sleeping in his bed.  I almost woke him up so I could tell him about what had just happened; but I decided to let him get his sleep and I’d tell him in the morning.  With this election result, that dream of growing up to be President is now more within the realm of possibility for my little Black son.

I called up my father in Boston.  We talked about how in his generation and older, it was very rare that a Black child would say, “I want to grow up to be President.”  For many, even if they were to say, I want to be a doctor or a lawyer, they were often told, “You better just hope to get a good job.”  Aspirations and dreams that required higher education or placed them in roles as leaders were just not seen as realistic for the average Black child.

And yet, with my generation, so much more is possible.  And just as important, we believed it to be possible as we made our way through adolescence and adulthood.  With every new milestone and accomplishment of others, the possibilities for the future grew and grow larger and are expended.

With this election, we are one step closer to Dr. King’s dream.  We have fulfilled the prediction and timetable of Robert Kennedy who believed in the 1960’s that we could elect an African American President within 40 years.  We haven’t made it to the mountaintop of a colorblind society, and the journey is still more important than the destination itself…but now more than ever … we know, as a country, we know …deep in our hearts … we shall overcome … someday.

I went to my local recycling bins a few weeks ago.  I must admit, I hadn’t been in quite a long time.  It just was too much work to be environmentally correct.  But something had changed at the local recycling bins.  Someone must have had a lesson in customer service.

It used to be that there were about 8 or 9 different large garbage barge like containers — different bins for green glass, brown glass, clear glass, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, magazines and junk mail, cereal/tissue boxes — you get the idea.  Now I’m sure there were a lot of diligent environmentalists in my town who took the time to carefully separate all of these different household items and faithfully take them to the strip mall parking lot and deposit them in their appropriate bin.  I however was rarely one of those people.

Let’s face it, it takes a lot of effort to do all that sorting.  Whether at home or once you get to the recycling bins, taking days or weeks worth of household trash and divvying it up into almost a dozen categories takes time.  You really have to make a commitment.

But all of a sudden, that commitment took a little less effort.  Except for corrugated cardboard and batteries, now all the bins were “take all” bins.  No more sorting required.

After seeing this, as often happens in life, I then saw an article discussing this same change.  It was about another town that changed its curbside pick-up recycling trucks to accommodate taking all recyclables at once and not requiring homeowners to sort.  The municipality, who had a financial gain from residents participating in the recycling program since they sold the “donations”, realized that homeowners were more likely to recycle if it was made more convenient for them.  Hmmm, what a concept. 

When advising people about customer service, one of the questions I have them ask themselves is, “How easy do you make it to do business with you?”  Some might think it a strange question, but it’s also a very telling one.  When we look at our business or service practices with a critical eye, we may often see choices we’ve made that actually create barriers to customers doing business with us.  We either don’t give enough information, fail to eliminate unnecessary and complicated steps or forget to see how making things easier for the customer ultimately leads to the primary benefit for us — increased revenue.

In the story, an added bonus for the municipality was the change actually saved them money in operating costs because they didn’t have to have different trucks that made multiple trips to retrieve different types of recyclables.  This was a very basic, but often overlooked business practice –>  decreasing costs + making it easier for customers to do business with you = higher profits.  The municipality increased its revenues by saving money on gas and other transportation overhead costs while increasing the number of households participating, thus increasing the amount of recyclables it was able to sell.

I am an anecdotal example of how this strategy, these “take all” bins, have increased the targeted behavior.  I am recycling a lot more because it is so much easier.  And it’s amazing how easy it really is.  We have no special recycling bins, just a few grocery store plastic bags.  You know, those ones that have been piling up for years… the ones you just never can bring yourself to throw away… the ones that now can go into any bin too.  We hang one or two up in the pantry until it fills up as we discard our containers and bottles.  Newspapers, magazines and junk-mail end up in a nice pile in the kitchen or a cardboard box that has made its way into the house.

Every few days, the filled up box and the filled grocery bags make their way to the back of my mini-van and eventually into one of the bins in the strip mall parking lot.  And guess what?  Not only is the town benefiting, but I’m finding we are benefiting too.  I’m amazed at how few trash bags we now use because less items are making their way into them.  We sometimes don’t even have enough garbage for the two days a week pick up.  Many a Friday there isn’t enough garbage since Tuesday’s pick up to warrant pulling the can to the curb. 

It really gives me a wake up call to how much the average household can impact reducing the landfill problem.  My house probably only recycles 70-80% of the things we could.  Hey, sometimes that spaghetti sauce jar doesn’t get rinsed out and put into the recycling bag instead of the trash can.   I’m not perfect.  But I’m trying.

Now if I can just remember to bring those newly purchased blue reusuable grocery bags with me the next time I go to the grocery store and not forget them…again.