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|In: Industry Commentary|Last Updated:

Thanksgiving is the most American of holidays. It’s a day we reserve for remembering how good things are. That we do so underscores what the rest of the year is for: Acting on our desire for improvements.

Since the atrocities of September 11th, many Americans have wondered and worried why “they” hate us. But there’s no answer: Hatred doesn’t need reasons. Some leaders cultivate the emotion for its own sake so they can then direct it at targets of their choosing. The leaders don’t feel any hatred, only the desire for power, and recognition of who their enemies are. For Osama bin Laden and the other Taliban leaders, America is the enemy.

What makes us their enemy? Is it our prosperity? Our embrace of religious pluralism? The concept of freedom itself?

I don’t think so. More than anything else, I think we’re engaged in a battle between our plan to live in the future and their desire to live in the past.

If we have a national religion, it’s a belief in progress — that through our own efforts we can make the future better than the past. We’ve been to the moon and yearn for warp drive; the Taliban preach that everything worth knowing was written long ago. They fear us because they understand what will happen if their people start to believe in progress.

Progress is the point. Affluence is its reward, not the goal. Businesses that remember this, treating financial prudence as a means rather than an end, generally thrive. Those for which profit is the sole reason for being eventually implode from obsolescence and irrelevance.

As information technology professionals we are, or at least should be, evangelists, helping define and promote progress within our organizations. Faith in progress, even though we vary in how we envision it, is our bedrock value.

The term “vision” has been cliched by a clique of leadership consultants who disparage the hard work and discipline needed for its achievement. Nonetheless, vision — definition of what we consider to be progress — is the difference between aimless activity and purposeful action. It’s important.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Gorge yourself on turkey and watch football until you’re stupid.

Then, after the holiday, remember the difference between us and them: We’re agents of progress.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

Somebody or other described the USA as a cultural wasteland.

I don’t buy it. You can get any kind of culture you want here. There’s no problem, unless you want to restrict the culture available to total strangers who don’t share your tastes. If those who complain about this kind of thing would spend more time enjoying their own lives instead of trying to control someone else’s, they and we would be far happier.

Besides, you and I are too busy to worry about whether other folks are enjoying themselves without our approval. Instead of worrying about the state of American culture, we’re shaping our corporate cultures — something that is our responsibility, and one that’s too-often left to chance.

Culture, according to my college anthropology professor, is the behavior people exhibit in response to their environment. In any corporation, most of an employee’s environment is the behavior of other employees. Culture is the behavior people exhibit in response to the behavior people exhibit in response to …

Get the idea? Depending on your programming style, culture is either circular or recursive. It’s also beyond your control. It isn’t, however, beyond your influence.

There are those who figure that changing corporate culture starts with changing how employees respond. Good luck. They respond as they do for a reason. To persuade them to change you must get them to believe that your authority outweighs their lifetime of experience. If you’re that charismatic, you’re wasting your talents. Change careers and become a televangelist. You’ll make far more money with far less effort than leading an IT organization.

If you don’t want to rely on your charisma you have a different choice: Change the environment. While you can’t change how anyone else responds, you can change your own behavior. Doing so changes the environment everyone around you experiences, and with a new environment to respond to, they’ll exhibit different behavior as well.

When you’re in a leadership role, you’re a significant component of the environment of those who look to you for leadership. And “in a leadership role” includes anyone who chooses to assert leadership among his or her peers. You don’t need a title to lead, merely the desire and technique to successfully influence those around you.

Is your company a cultural wasteland? If you think so, the solution is sitting in your chair.

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