Thanks Dob!

Hi Nickursis,
I have to agree and recommend Charlotte Thomsom Iserbyt's book
"Deliberate dumbing down of Americans".
She was a fired whistleblower during Reagan after
Exposing and writing Reagan a letter explaining the "sovietization of our education system"She was fired the next day.
She also is very credible in some you tubes videos!

Yea, I am large org trained, Navy and Intel, and they both work the same, and have the same issues. The quality of the leadership and commitment seem to drive a lot of the "level of concern" you see going down to the tech level. 6 Sigma is almost like a religion, you have to have faith it will work, because the results are not instantaneously seen. But they do work. I took a 3 week training cycle and cut it to 2 days by just documenting in the spec how to do the tasks correctly, training to the spec, and letting the guy loose. Did the job perfectly each time. By 21 year investment, remember, in big orgs, you have your retirement, status, position and respect factor built over long haul. So, when you can find the right ears, and make them listen, they respond.

I obviously have no idea, but I'll give you my humble opinion anyway. I hear a lot of hints this could possibly be the wrong thing to be working on:
"21 year investment" - This sounds like of like sunk-cost fallacy or you've just gotten inured to being around people who don't share your vision. The key thing is if this investment is paying off anytime soon.
6-sigma is good, but they're not doing it well - Maybe you could find someone who does it well.
"organizational malaise" - The phrase makes me want to move things around even if I don't know what I'm doing just to end the malaise.
"59 years old" - A perfect age for intellectual tasks (like efficient process management) b/c you've been around to know what works and what sounds new but is re-packing of a bad idea from 30 years ago. It's approaching the age when people run for president and other important brain-intensive jobs. Someone slightly older is joining my team in a week, and I'm excited about it.
"go into government starting at the bottom" - I don't know enough about this to know what it means, but just on the words it sounds god-awful. It almost sounds like a slang phrase meaning the same thing as up $hit's creek without a paddle or something. Seriously, though, you seem to give a damn way too much to work in gov't.

That's all based on knowledge and my gut reaction to phrases without knowing any detail. I also may be biased because I'm not good in large orgs, even though I love serving them as a vendor/consultant.

These kids better get over themselves, I don't think that they'll demand same type of treatment in the workplace once they graduate. Maybe, they'll won't work at all.

LOL

Nice...:)

CG, thanks. I have a 21 year investment in my place, and I really like what I do. I have a broad impact, and make a lot of things better. I see it as an organizational malaise, where you get people way up, who tell someone "fetch water" and by the time it gets to the water boy, it is "lay a frigging 20 mile water pipeline 300 meters wide". Lean 6 Sigma is a nimble set of tools, adaptable to almost any situation, and yields huge gains in productivity and efficiency, if used correctly. It takes training and time. Time is money, and we just had a 20% reduction company wide, so people are not available either. Again, if colleges taught reality, vice fantasy, managers with advanced degrees would know you need to spend money to make money, and that you can reduce headcount with efficient operations, and reduced waste. I am 59 now, and will stay on until 65 or so, and then after retiring (for the 2nd time) I am either going to do consulting using lean, or go into government starting at the bottom, and doing the door to door method. I would never want to try to fight off the vultures and start a business in this morass. I prefer going into the dragon den, and seeing if I can pee on it's tail.

Great minds think ali--no. I'm going to sue!
I feel so damaged! Wah!
That was my Gloria Allred impression.

"if it is random stupidity, that in and of itself means someone," " why would such a system be allowed to endure? "
I think random stupidity is the norm, and it endures. ISO depends on having good SOPs, work orders (good= leads to desired outcome), and people who see it as more than a gimmick. Having those in place is the exception.
I've only been on the periphery of 6-sigma. It's name makes it sound like it's geared toward things that require consistency rather than being nimble, although I've heard there's a whole are of it closer to The Lean Startup that's not all about consistency. In any case, I maintain that these things working right is the exception. Most of the time organizations muddle through.
"But being a few levels too low in the pecking order, no one cares what I think."
If you they're not listening to you, I would take steps to stop taking their money. They probably have their own struggles they're muddling through. They might be scared to make investment, with part of the mind knowing they need to invest but another part wanting to be a conservative portfolio because they're scared they'll fail. They might have deeper dysfunction. This is all normal in life. I would tell them very firmly what you think and take steps to end the relationship. You can't/shouldn't make them share your view. There are people out there who share your view who want to hire you, mentor you, invest their money in you, sell you their business, or somehow engage in a profitable endeavor. I am really telling this to myself 15 years ago, when an employment relationship had outlived its usefulness but we both hung on for two more years. Good things happened to us when we went our separate ways. There's a book called Necessary Endings about this topic. I'm a fan of ending things when it's not working anymore or there are better things to be doing.

It is not just that, it is the whole social issue of race manipulation. I think a vast majority of people agree race exterior is not equated to interior and subscribe to the "content of character" qualifier. It is just that the quality of character across the board seems to have been dragged down, and the race thing is just one tool the emotion button pressers find useful, to trigger idiots into action. There was a report and book done by a woman who was on ORielly, and they have data suggesting that in most cases, whites get the short end of the police stick more often than black. I have no doubt that there is profiling, I have friends I know who have been subject to such, but that all boils down to individual issues with individuals, not systemic. It is much easier to wrap everyone in a single blanket of blame...

Uh oh, I see your reference to Jim Crow after I wrote my post regarding same.

Welcome to the "New Jim Crow". If you recall, the old Jim Crow was a system of legal and social constructs favoring a particular race. In those days it was the white race. The New Jim Crow is the same as the old Jim Crow except the color of the faces are changed.

This illustrates the chief failure of the civil rights movement of the '60s, which had the primary goal of eradicating fictional racial barriers embodied in the implementation of the old Jim Crow. Millions of white people agreed with the purpose of that civil rights movement and voted and marched accordingly. Any victory of that civil rights movement was certainly short lived because it was immediately betrayed by implementation of the New Jim Crow. We can see today that movement eradicated nothing.

Perhaps if a white "Rosa Parks" had arrived at that bridge in Berkeley and refused to go around in protest of racial discrimination, the exposure of the hypocrisy of the New Jim Crow could begin a new civil rights movement on that campus.

Edit: I wonder if millions of black people would march in solidarity with white people to eradicate the New Jim Crow.

Very nice:). I do not relish the hire and fire dept, and have avoided it, preferring to work on tools. However, I do recognize your point which is valid..

I am a Vietnam vet. Harsh? No. Very toned down. Actually tell our current young Afghan/Iraq vets about these "Berkeley safe space overprotective wimps." These young men and women are the backbone of this country. "These are the times" I wish I was back in the executive office and having one of these "Berkeley gimme safe space graduates" seeking a job. Come to think of it... I just may hire the punk just to have the enjoyment of kicking his butt out to the curb the first time he wants his "safe space."

Well, a bit harsh here. I understand the angst, I cannot deal with self appointed idiots, who also hold the sway over the kiddies. And kiddies they are, to think you just wish for a safe space and it pops up. Tell that to all the Vietnam vets....

So, all the high and mighty PhD intellectual eggheads at Berkeley want/demand "spaces of color," and then harass white students trying to pass. The PERFECT example of an oxymoron. What these idiot eggheads have created is a space for people of NO-COLOR being able to harass people of COLOR, which is exactly the opposite of what they intended. BLACK is not a color. WHITE is a color. Black is not a color; a black object absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them to the eyes. The grey area about black: A black object may look black, but, technically, it may still be reflecting some light. So, "QED" all you PhD Liberal Berkeley intellectuals. You screwed up.

They exist, and usually end up there, though who funds such people is beyond me. I have a Ferengi like attitude towards cost vs profit. Oops need to careful or CBS will sue me for using the "IP".

Come to think of it, it applies also to the poor sots who still think Hillary Beast is a presidential candidate they can vote for...

For the masochist in everyone? Embrace your inner submissive? Ouch...

Well, I appreciate your view, but if it is random stupidity, that in and of itself means someone, somewhere is not allowing it to be flushed out and replaced with rational process. Everything can be rendered down into a clear process (although the rendering may not be so clear). I do Lean 6 sigma, and my company is pursuing Automotive certification, which is light years ahead of the std ISO9000 system. To achieve that requires a huge investment in people time and money that our management thinks can "come out of hide". I do not see it being a very fruitful proposition, under those circumstances. But being a few levels too low in the pecking order, no one cares what I think. I see the same thing with education, but the overall guidance of it should be based on observed results, which currently are pretty poor. That should be enough of a flag to generate clear, testable improvements, yet does not. so, absent a hidden agenda, why would such a system be allowed to endure? That is my logic on it.

I've seen some of those problems. The only time I've ever been a party to a lawsuit was with my kids' school.

It's not just the schools. My son's soccer team does not keep score because "everyone wins". He keeps score and clearly knows when his team wins and loses. My daughter went to a b-day party where all the kids pulled strings to release the piñata so that it would be non-violent and no one kid would be singled out as the one who broke it. We told them that was a crock and they can have a real piñata with a real bat.

I see the problems but not the orchestrated effort. The cause is more random stupidity than an evil plan.

Indeed, truth.

Exactly! One of my big bones of contention, you do not need a phd to run a school, you need successful work experience. The phd may come into play for specific subject matter, but even then, a bachelor or masters should suffice.

Nice idea, but it fails when they do not execute even step one, for fear of offending the little kiddies.