Monday, November 12, 2007
Patriotism and the successful IT executive...
A friend of mines recently commented on the lack of military service amongst today's IT executives. I challenged him to name a single IT executive with a military background that also lead an IT offshoring effort and he understood my point...
Today, may be the only day (if you are lucky) where your boss will even pause for a moment to think about our country. The savage focus on the numbers is dehumanizing corporate environments to the point where it destroys morale and causes folks to care less which results in less innovation which results in less revenue. The vicious cycle can only be stopped by getting IT executives to publicly speak on their fiduciary duties towards leadership of which patriotism is one component.
Maybe we could noodle how many reservists are IT employees who are serving in our Armed Forces putting themselves in harms way so that IT executives can exercise their right to ensure that they won't have a job when they return. Maybe we could noodle the potential of young bright individuals and the possibilities that could be afforded to us if we gave them the same chance to become IT employees as folks in other countries nowadays have.
Don't worry though, we are Americans with a short attention span, so today will pass and nothing will change. We will continue eliminating opportunities for our citizens and celebrating the bottom line. We will continue to get it twisted by thinking it is a best practice to think about globalism while ignoring that the real best practice is community orientation and that all communities are local.
On the way home, we will drive through many inner-city neighborhoods and ignore the poor. After all, our priority is to create a middle class in other countries and not our own. Maybe, we should work even harder in changing the accepted meaning of diversity and inclusion so that it doesn't reflect past sins but allows us to rationalize our decisions in hiring? Maybe the notion of supporting our troops is a buzzword that we should also repeat at opportune times but never believe and most certainly shouldn't take action on and instead focus on our next bonus which may be tied to us being even more unpatriotic...
| | View blog reactionsToday, may be the only day (if you are lucky) where your boss will even pause for a moment to think about our country. The savage focus on the numbers is dehumanizing corporate environments to the point where it destroys morale and causes folks to care less which results in less innovation which results in less revenue. The vicious cycle can only be stopped by getting IT executives to publicly speak on their fiduciary duties towards leadership of which patriotism is one component.
Maybe we could noodle how many reservists are IT employees who are serving in our Armed Forces putting themselves in harms way so that IT executives can exercise their right to ensure that they won't have a job when they return. Maybe we could noodle the potential of young bright individuals and the possibilities that could be afforded to us if we gave them the same chance to become IT employees as folks in other countries nowadays have.
Don't worry though, we are Americans with a short attention span, so today will pass and nothing will change. We will continue eliminating opportunities for our citizens and celebrating the bottom line. We will continue to get it twisted by thinking it is a best practice to think about globalism while ignoring that the real best practice is community orientation and that all communities are local.
On the way home, we will drive through many inner-city neighborhoods and ignore the poor. After all, our priority is to create a middle class in other countries and not our own. Maybe, we should work even harder in changing the accepted meaning of diversity and inclusion so that it doesn't reflect past sins but allows us to rationalize our decisions in hiring? Maybe the notion of supporting our troops is a buzzword that we should also repeat at opportune times but never believe and most certainly shouldn't take action on and instead focus on our next bonus which may be tied to us being even more unpatriotic...
