No Bank Left Behind?

Like everyone else, I have pretty strong feelings about the bank bailout plan that the President is proposing. 

Remember No Child Left Behind?  The legislation that purported to create accountability in schools and ensure that schools that received federal funding met certain criteria? 

We were talking about it last night, and my charming husband (usually the conservative at our house) said "well, it was a good idea."  I interrupted him with "No, it was a TERRIBLE idea. Even the name is terrible!"  

Our capitalist democracy is based on competition. If children get the idea, from their earliest days, that it is somebody else's job to make sure they don't get "left behind," then they get the idea that it requires no effort on their part to succeed.   

At least when I was a kid, I would get away with whatever I could get away with. While my parents were visiting  a friend's house and I was outside with the kids, my Mom would have to call me two or three times to come in now because she was ready to leave. I knew she wasn't going to leave without me.  

On the other hand, on mornings when I had to catch the bus myself and was responsible for getting myself ready for school, I made darn sure I was up and dressed and caught the bus, because the alternative was walking.  Knowing that there would be consequences for my actions influenced my behavior.  

Intervening in the space between action and consequence rarely helps.  

I don't believe the government did much good with No Child Left Behind.  We hear numerous reports of unfunded and cumbersome requirements taking teacher's time out of the classroom in order to compile and file reports and statistics.   There have been reports of teachers teaching children to take standardized tests rather than teaching them useful skills like math and science. A report from the UN Children's Fund says that the U.S. is one of the worst countries for kids, citing falling ratings in education. 

Given the government's stunning success in the field of education, I have no reason to believe that they will do any better in the banking industry. What little I can understand of the crisis is that the trouble stems from bundles of securities that are complex and may ore may not contain mortgages that may or may not have a high risk of default. Now, if the bankers and finance geeks of the world can't figure out what one of these securities should be worth, I doubt that the government will do much better. 

Another editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune says "Public shares the blame in creating Dr. Frankenstein's Wall Street." While many people suffered from fraud at the hands of hucksters (and I sympathize and hope they take the hucksters to court and win!)  Many members of the public made a lot of money from flipping houses in an overpriced market.  That's fine, but it's risky. Sooner or later the musical chairs would stop and somebody would get hurt. 

There are natural laws at work in business, as well as everything else.   The banking crisis is a great example of how, when natural laws are broken, everything goes awry.  The answer is not more intervention, it's being honest, allowing consequences to occur, and not tinkering with the  natural laws that run the economy as well as everything else. 

Has the War In Iraq Been a Success? It’s a Matter of Point of View.

We’ve heard that there are two sides to every story. To every really complicated story, there are hundreds, or even thousands, of “sides.”   A couple of the more credible but apparently polar opposite points of view:

           New York Post, June 9, 2008 – Arthur Herman

America has won, or is about to win, the Iraq war.

The latest proof came last month, as the Iraqi army - just a few months ago the target of scorn and abuse from Democratic politicians and journalists - forcefully reoccupied three cities that had served as key insurgency bases (Basra, Sadr City and Mosul).

Sunnis and Shias alike applauded as their nation's army compelled insurgent militias to lay down their arms. The country's leading opposition newspaper, Azzaman, led the applause for the move into Mosul - a sign that national reconciliation in Iraq is under way and probably irreversible.

USA Today, June 10, 2008 - Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press

Uncertainty over Iraq security pact could outlast Bush's term

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is conceding for the first time that the United States may not finish a complex security agreement with Iraq before President Bush leaves office.

Faced with stiff Iraqi opposition, it is "very possible" the U.S. may have to extend an existing U.N. mandate, said a senior administration official close to the talks. That would mean major decisions about how U.S. forces operate in Iraq could be left to the next president, including how much authority the U.S. must give Iraqis over military operations and how quickly the handover takes place.

 

So which is true?   Probably both.   So how do you measure success of a complicated project?  We can learn a lot from the Iraq war that we can apply in project status meetings!

•  Define (and communicate) the mission, goals and objectives as simply as possible.  If we all agreed on what the mission, goals and objectives were for the Iraq war, we’d have some common ground.  Unfortunately, there are many different thoughts about what those objectives are and which of them are most important among international entities and even within the U.S. government.  You may never get consensus, but if you don’t lay out what success is supposed to look like before you get started, you’ll never be able to know or communicate when you’ve achieved it. 
• Use the same metrics.  If you measure things a different way each time, you have no basis for comparison.  Different groups use different metrics to prove their own point.  In your projects, you have the advantage of agreeing beforehand with the stakeholders about what metrics will be used and how they will be measured.
• Use relevant metrics.  From listening to many demonstrations, the number of U.S. casualties is the only important metric for how we’re doing in the Iraq war.   But some of the bloodiest conflicts in human history were also seen by history as great victories when measured by other metrics.  (Defending against the Nazis in World War II, for example.)
• If you need help with metrics, see Measuring Results - Are We There Yet?
• Know when you’re done.   Set clear criteria for ending the project – whether it’s a success or failure, it will have to end sometime, and this is best done at logical decision points, rather than by inertia.   This is easier for most of us than it is for the strategists of the Iraq war.  Since “terrorism” has existed since the beginning of human history, it is not likely to end. So the “War on Terror” is, by definition, unwinnable.
• For more help on  killing projects that go south on you, see Making Good Kills  - Stopping Projects, Quitting Jobs, Terminating Employees, and Other Necessary Failures 

It’s easy to second-guess and armchair-quarterback.  John and I have mixed feelings (as most couples probably do) about the Iraq War, and I often have mixed feelings myself, depending on the news, which inevitably comes from different points of view. 

It certainly gives us a good example, though, of how success of a “project” can become a very subjective thing.

One thing we agree on is that we are very grateful for the men and women serving in our armed forces.  If you have served in the military, thank you for your service.  If you’re a family member or loved one of a service member, thank you for  your service as well.