I just read an article by Donald Prader at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0509/prager050609.php3
It is a political article. The title is “If you love America, Why Transform it.” Prader’s point is that if you love America you should not want to transform it, and those people that have been saying Tranform it (i.e. Obama and Democrats) really do not love America.
Sarcasm alert à What a wonderful statement!!! Obviously, if you really HATE America you would want to change it. Same thing must apply to a company: if you love a company, then no matter how bad things get, you should just keep doing the same thing. Maybe when bankruptcy happens, people will still pay you because you loved the company so much?
Prader also talks about the LEFT loving a “vision” of America more than the “reality” of America. He then asks how can someone love his country and want to remake or transform it. He goes on to equate the thinking with such people as Karl Marx and equating loving the future as anti-religion. Quite frankly, I find such narrow thinking very disappointing.
Obviously, Prader must be living in a different country. In the country I live in, we have an energy issue, health care issue, social security issue, terrorist issue, an unemployment/economy issue, and a number of other issues. Can these issues be resolved? I hope so. Can we just sit around and do nothing? No. That was tried and the issues are getting worse. Action is needed. That action will be change, transforming, remaking…whatever you want to call it.
Our country has a long history of transforming itself, remaking itself, and improving. What about the time after the Civil War, the Depression, post WWII, and throughout the last 30 years. I recall the Republicans under Reagan talking about changing Amerca. Prader and people that think like him do not admit there are problems that need fixing. Why? It could be that in his position he has none of these problems and cannot understand or imagine that someone else could. He probably thinks that all these issues of the last year have been faked and are not that big. Obviously, if we just let things go as they are, everything will be okay. Things will get back to normal, but they really are not that bad. Sorry, should have another “Sarcasm alert”.
These cultures of denial and then attack the changer persist in any company that needs change. Change for the sake of change is not good, but change for the sake of overcoming new obstacles is good. Whether or not people like Prader have an agenda depends on each case. Usually, in a company, it’s a power struggle, or a perceived power struggle. The way a change agent gets people to change is she shows them how the change can benefit them and how it can be done to their advantage.
Are you part of the solution or part of the problem? Don’t be like Mr. Prader. Be a change agent.
