Grace After The Election

Posted on November 3, 2012 by mattgorman

In three days, the United States will decide who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the next four years.  In my four and half decades I am not familiar with any presidential election as heated as this one. And I am not talking at all about the candidates. Rather, I am referring to the public at large.  We hold onto our personal values very tightly. When we identify with a candidate closely aligned with them, we dig in our heels defending our choice.
Social Media propagates opinions. And many opinions are quite strong, so much so that I have observed some rather hostile smack-downs on-line. Even among some on of my own Facebook friends, I see banter get out of control in response to comments I’ve made merely expressing a view.  I don’t recall such a degree of verbal hostilities in the past. (thanks Facebook…)
Strong opinions are nothing knew. Many past elections have fueled a highly divisive citizenry.  Today, the divisiveness is both wide and deep.  On Wednesday morning, November 7, a lot of people are going to be disappointed. Many might even seethe for days on end – or for four straight years.  On the other side, a lot will also be relieved while many of those will gloat and carry on with an air of divine validation.
From Polar to Tribal
It has been close to one year since I was preparing for my first trip to the continent of Africa.  I was traveling to Rwanda to help with the creation of a documentary on the 30th anniversary of Marian Apparitions that are widely believed to have foretold of the Rwanda genocide in 1994.  That I was privileged to accompany genocide survivor, author and speaker, Immaculee Ilibagiza is something I will forever cherish.  In preparation for this excursion, I absorbed as much as I could about the history of the genocide.  (At the conclusion of this piece I provide the links to the posts I shared last year about this amazing experience.)
For those unfamiliar with the history, the Rwandan Genocide was, in a nutshell, a tribal war. Well, more of a one-sided slaughter than a war. My summing it up in two sentences is not meant to de-sensationalize the brutality and savagery that defined this terribly sad event in the world’s history.  Rather, I want to point out that at it’s core, it was fueled by the ability of leaders of opposing views to motivate what can be described as mas-insanity.  I realized shortly after this trip that when enough people rally around the flag of perceived injustice, terrible things can happen.  That which separates the U.S. from regions where such volatility seems more prevalent might be thinner than we assume.  What is there really that gives us any immunity to such an uprising?  When breaking points are reached, breaks occur.
I don’t believe the U.S. is at that point yet.  The thing to keep in mind is that in Rwanda, it was spontaneous. One week you were mingling and socializing with those either whom a week later you were slaughtering or by whom you were being slaughtered.  One catalyst triggered it and once triggered, stopping it would be akin to stopping a bomb from exploding one nanosecond after detonation.
The reason I share this is that I want to express my wishes that whatever the outcome, we maintain grace.  There has been enough verbal hostilities over the past several weeks.  Let’s call this done and leave the post-election gloating and complaining to the professional extremists – the media personalities.
I look forward to being “friends” the same network after the election that I have now.
Thanks for reading. Have a Great Day!
For more on my trip to Rwanda, I invite you to check out:

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Take the Media Out Of The Decision Making

Posted on October 9, 2012 by mattgorman

We are now thick into the campaign with the debates underway.  I challenge everyone who expects to opine on things after the debates to refrain from listening to, watching, or reading anything put out by the media for 24 hours after each debate.  Instead, listen to what you have to say, not the political wonks.  With more external stimuli coming from third party sources, rather than the candidates themselves, I think it’s fair to examine exactly how much of the ownership of our own opinions, we alone, actually hold.
I recently had the privilege to attend the Business Leaders Forum at the Villanova School of Business.  The Keynote Speaker was Michael Smerconish.  He raised a point that I think many us often don’t realize or appreciate the consequences.  Today, candidates take their cues much more from the media than they do the general citizenry at large. Politics are much more divided than before. Paradoxically the majority of the voters want more centrism then extremism.  The media exploits the chasms and take us, the voters along with them down to their lairs of extremist views (left or right). I share his contention that the dreadful divisiveness is, for lack of more gentle description, the media’s doing.
Why does this happen?  Ratings!  We get jazzed up. That’s great, we get jazzed up about The World Series and The Super Bowl too, but the stakes here are more than a little higher.  (I am from the Philadelphia area so I have involuntarily built-up an immunity to getting too jazzed up about The Super Bowl.)  Their enthusiasm is, by itself, not all that terrible except that it systemically influences things that it should not influence.
To the point behind the title of this post, the media also does much to influence us, the voters, as well.  This is in part why politicians pay say much attention to what the media says – the views of media become our views.  The media is supposed to influence our views on what they deliver about as much as paper with which a book is printed is supposed to influence our views of the book.
Let’s stop this nonsense and put the power of opinion back where it belongs – with you the individual. Let’s watch the debates if so inclined (I encourage you to do so) and rely on you and you alone to render an opinion. Don’t just become a repeater of the opinions of the media.
While around the proverbial water cooler they day after each debate, share opinions that you formulate all by yourself: opinions you own and are not the product of influence by the agendas of others.  It’s your vote and only your agenda that counts. Without the din of outside institutional influences, I truly believe there would be much less animosity. we would still hold different views but I believe we would be much more respectful of those differences.
So once again, I challenge all of us to refrain from listening to the media on anything to do with the debates for a minimum of 24 hours after each debate to allow our own thoughts to process and be the lone (or at least primary) driver of our opinions.
As a closing comment, if you are one of those who couldn’t be bothered watching the debates but would rather wait to hear or read about it, may I suggest you learn who your favorite corespondent is voting for and vote for that person.  Better yet, maybe not voting is (while not civic) the more honest approach.  I don’t mean to mandate watching the debates. Our duty as citizens is to vote. And our duty as free thinking human beings is to formulate our own opinions.  Debates are a great way to hear the candidates juxtapositional to one another without any third-party spin.
Thanks for reading. As always, thoughts and comments are welcome.
Have A Great Day!
Matt G.

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Sometimes They Want To Hear How The Sausage Is Made

Posted on October 1, 2012 by mattgorman

I recently had dinner with a friend of mine who opened my eyes so wide to something I never contemplated before that I shall forever be in her debt. We were discussing the current state of my professional existence.  Since leaving a well paying position with a large and prestigious consulting firm with a global presence, I have had many ups and downs in forging my own path sans support of a large employer.  A cursory review of my personal balance sheet would suggest the downs have outnumbered the ups.  I still believe that going solo is ultimately better for me for reasons that transcend dollars and cents.
Ok, that is the background for what follows and is the purpose of sharing this story.
We were discussing job searching (something I have very little experience in since every job I had by the time I was 40 was more a result of me being approached with an opportunity, than of me on the active pursuit).  My friend (who requests anonymity) asked me to explain to her where I add value.  As a person who perhaps too much so, sees a rather clear line between intra-company/intra-team relationships, I tend to accentuate the qualitative more than the quantitative. That means my self-touting does not center on numbers.  I have led and inspired teams to positive and measurable results and I have always held that it is in focusing first on people rather than solely on numbers has driven much of my accomplishments. I vehemently hold onto the idea that being people driven can lead to great numbers that can be sustained longer over time than can being numbers driven alone.
So, in trying to describe my successes, I brush over things that I feel are natural decent human tendencies. I have held conversations with troubled clients; I have lifted morale of disengaged employees and so on. I have done these things by having real human-to-human conversations and being fully open to points of view without judgment. In almost all cases a greater sense of harmony emerges through trust and respect. The result: greater productivity and ultimately, more profit. (None of the above is meant to be self-serving but rather to expose a mistake in the way I viewed and communicated my own value proposition and accomplishments.)
Explaining the ‘how’ of going about utilizing such soft skills has, for me, seemed to be as good of a use of time in talking about my accomplishments as discussing the ‘how’ in my breathing.  I assume (shame on me for assuming) such treatment of other people is natural and therefore ubiquitous,  Perhaps out of fear that I will be boring, I have been less inclined to give details about how I deploy the ‘soft’ skills.
What I learned from my friend by her incessant prying is that these details are indeed very important.  People want to learn what you did to achieve your accomplishments. They want to hear how the sausage is made.
In reflection, I believe for some of us, there may also be a self-confidence component afoot here. I might be self-unaware if I did not acknowledge that this was not a bit of what is going on with me too.  That is likely manifested in the belief that things we take for granted based on our own life’s experience couldn’t possibly be so revelational to others.
In contrast, I now believe that perhaps it is those things we each take for granted, because they are obvious to us as individuals, are the very things that have the greatest potential for piquing the interest of others, precisely because those things are not obvious to them.
In closing, this might sound similar to the adage that when people ask for the time, they are not looking for details about watchmaking.  Well, when you have a new way of telling time more accurately, then yes, it just might be appropriate to talk about how you built your watch.
As always, thoughts and comments are welcome.
Have a Great Day!
Matt G.

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One Single Idea Please

Posted on September 6, 2012 by mattgorman

A lot of very smart people have a lot of ideas – many have great ideas.  Is there no one left with but a single big idea that is so inspiring that we all – in our own ways – work together to make it real?
I mean an idea so big that the person or people to whom the idea is attributed could not possibly love long enough to see the finished product of their idea. The idea was not designed as a finished product but rather as a path, a way of being.
Examples include a Republic and a Democracy courtesy of the Founding Fathers of the U.S.  Later we have Abraham Lincoln reasserting the founding principles of the U.S. Also Martin Luther King Jr. with civil rights.  An end point was not prescribed nor was it the purpose but rather a way in which society operates.  (With our Founding Fathers, they were prescriptive in terms of a road map: The Constitution.).  Further examples are also plentiful in the axioms of most of the world’s religions. (Again, only path prescriptions exist in their respective sacred texts.)
These are the ‘Single Ideas’ of which I speak.  It has been a long time since I have heard One Single Idea.
Thoughts and comments are always welcome.
Thanks for reading. Have a Great Day!
Matt G.

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We Led Ourselves To Where We Are

Posted on September 4, 2012 by mattgorman

As the Back to School season is now in full swing, I find myself  pondering the chasms that exists between generations.  (As an aside, I came across this fascinating site that describes the characteristics of generations over the past 100 years.)
Of course only history (or our collective perception of it) will be revealing but I am somewhat concerned about what is not dubbed the “trophy generation”.  In this August 22, 2012 issue of the Wall Street Journal, there is an article title, Firms Bow to Generation’s Demands. Some things jump out at me – many concerning, a few encouraging. One organization profiled promises promotions in the first year.  Exactly what does this accomplish… beyond maybe self-esteem issues?  Of what significance is it when everyone is promoted?  Moreover, growing oneself into a manager or a leader has little to do with titles and everything to do with relationship intelligence and self-awareness.  What is encouraging is their ability and willingness to question the status quo. This is admirable but only if “for the sake of what?” can be answered with something meaningful. If questioning the status quo is done only for its own sake, what social good does it do?
I guess the dichotomy that seems so glaring to me is that which exists between today’s coming of age generation and those that came of age during the early-mid 20th century.  Those of that generation wanted nothing more than the opportunity to work hard in the pursuit of happiness and a better life. Remember our founding right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness?  Today, that has been dangerously twisted into the right to happiness, sans any pursuit.  Let me ask a question, does doling out rewards as a matter of procedure really lead to happiness? If it does, we have utterly failed in instilling intrinsic self-confidence in our newer generations.  In our never-ending pursuit to give our children better lives than we had, we mistakenly strived to lesson their need to struggle to the point where we tried to remove it.  We wanted them to enjoy the glories of life without the pains necessary to truly appreciate those glories.
With the U.S. Presidential election in full swing, we are hearing again the tried and tired rhetoric about being better or worse off than four years ago. Sadly, I feel that very long ago we, unknowingly began a journey of gradual decline. Over time, we began to assume that progress was our right and with it came the entitlement of ‘more’, and ‘bigger’.  We passed that along onto the children who are now coming of age.  In decades long gone we shared a common vision for the collective. We now seem to focus more on our own individual dreams without concern for the whole.  This will, in my view, be the fertilizer to social decline in this country.
We used to be the nation of hope and promise for over one hundred years.  Now we are becoming the nation of hubris.  Humility seems to be frowned upon and in a review of history, it is attitudes like these that shepherd in the decline of a society vis-a-vis other societies. History is not lacking for evidence to suggest that such hubris often precedes the downfall of a society.
In closing, I am not writing this to be a doomsayer of the West’s prominence in the world. – though I do hope we never completely abandon at least some humility. I am, however, asserting that without an inward look at ourselves, we are eroding that which made this nation so great in the first place.  The word’s of JFK’s inaugural speech are as full of richness and timeliness now as they were when they were first spoken. “Ask not what your country can to for.  Ask what you can do for your country.”
As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.
Thanks for reading. Have a Great Day!
Matt G.

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What Keeps You Up, Or What Gets You Up?

Posted on July 26, 2012 by mattgorman

As my bio explains, I am a career consultant, and most of my career has been spent in areas related to regulatory compliance and risk management. There is a well-worn question that has probably been inducted into the ‘Consultant Cliche Hall of Fame’ that asks, “What keeps you up at night?” This was once a great question to help understand the most troubling problems our clients face so that we, the consultants, could remain mindful of their needs in the business relationship.
For me, a more exciting question is, “What gets you up in the morning?”  I am much more energized by what energizes others – not what worries them.  I want to operate in the conversation of dreams and desires rather than fear.  One mindset touts, “Be careful”, and the other shouts, “Be bold!”.  Both offer value in a society steeped in tradition of commerce.  However, the former seems to be much more an easier sell than the latter.  Organizations seem psychology driven to be less sparing on expenditures for protection almost to the point of prevention.  In my view, the “Be careful” message emerges in a large part from litigation concerns and the “Be bold” message is suppressed by regulatory heavy handedness and a contraction of entrepreneurial support.
In this TED Talk video, Sir Ken Robinson closes off with a very moving plea that we tread softly – for the dreams of children our placed beneath our feet.  While I cannot (dare I even try to) match his inspirational panache, I will assert this much: our nation was founded on the dreams of men and women, not their fears.  I seek to support that which gets you up in the morning and I am proud when dreams are placed beneath my feet – for I shall tread softly.
Have a great day and thanks for reading.  Comments are, as always, welcome.
Matt G.

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Who Blinked First?

Posted on July 18, 2012 by mattgorman

It is well woven in the fabric of our thinking in this country that loyalty between employer and employee has completely eroded.  The question this post seeks to explore is, “Who blinked first?”
In The World’s Newest Profession, Christopher McKenna provides a comprehensive look at management consulting over the past 100+ years.  It is in this account that I became deeply acquainted with Frederick Taylor (1856 – 1915) and the notion of Scientific Management – also referred to as Taylorism[1].
In short, Mr. Taylor postulates that managing human beings is not so remarkably different from managing the parts of a machine. Even more incredulous, Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner (1904-1990) promoted Radical Behaviorism and his Stimulus-Response theories of Operant Conditioning – the idea that human behavior can indefinitely be manipulated through deliberately deployed reward and punishment mechanisms. (Think about experiments where laboratory rodents and primates are subjected to external stimuli to coerce their behavior.)
Examining these two approaches to people management[2], we can quickly identify flaws. First, Mr. Taylor might have come close to something in the Industrial Age (which began about one hundred years before his birth).  During this time, the contribution from each individual was quantitative, easily assessed and therefore highly objective. There was little room for argument – you either produced that which was asked of you or you didn’t.  In the age of information and the knowledge worker, evaluations of output are qualitative and making such assessments has become extremely subjective.[3]
Where other aspects of evaluation are routine – such as predefined feedback scores – the selection of a score is at its root a matter of individual opinion.  For example, have we not all either heard of, or experienced for ourselves, situations where an employee receives negative feedback from one manager only to earn high accolades from another manager after having changed nothing about themselves or they way they work.  The criteria by which we evaluate one another are perilously subjective. For more on this idea, see The Myth of Performance Metrics by Dick Grote.
I will further assert that even in the days of “you either produced the prerequisite number of widgets or you didn’t” that subjectivity in evaluations occurred.  There were certainly times when individual targets were missed yet a human-to-human connection – even (or especially) at a subconscious level – evoked a more lenient or harsh assessment for some over others.
Looking at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we see an interesting parallel between what Abraham Maslow put forth and what we can easily imagine as the evolution of needs in society as we transition from mechanical and analytical production (left-brained work) to creative and cognitive production (right-brained work).
In years long gone by, the needs of the proletariat were akin to the lower parts of Maslow’s Hierarchy.  We were myopic on our primal survival needs and behavior manipulation, while morally arguable, was effective as the desired ends were immediate for all parties involved.  As we evolved socially, so have our needs.  We, as humans are in no way comparable to lab rodents and primates. We are now much more attentive to the dynamic nature of our existence.  As a result, addressing our needs has become much more of an ontological exercise.
Ok, time to ask, “What does this have to do with loyalty between employee and employer?  Good question! Let’s explore an answer.  Both Sir Ken Robinson and Dan Pink have become rather prolific with the idea that we are holding onto a mentality for optimizing productivity suitable for the industrial age and applying it to an age that long ago has come to rely on our cognitive abilities for progress.  The consequences of this are disastrous.
When our cognitive and creative abilities are recruited, we become somewhat more emotionally attached to that which we create.  And, the assessments of others are much more subjective leaving ample likelihood for incongruence between our evaluation of our work and the evaluations of others.  This leads to an erosion of relationships as doubt in motives takes root.  Employees, for their part, are generally not prepared to deal with this mismatch in assessment and employers still operate with a mindset that operant conditioning will yield output that will meet their criteria. What is even more remarkable is such criteria is too often in flux making it even more difficult hit the target.  At the time of evaluation it comes down to trust and the relationship between the evaluator and the person being evaluated.  You can’t get more subjective than that.
Furthermore, since such assessments of output are so qualitative, a reliable and agreed upon compensation model for right-brain work does not, and maybe cannot, exist opening yet further the door for exploring alternate employment opportunities.
The needs of today’s knowledge worker no longer reside at the level of simply income and security.  Instead, we want a healthy relationship where that which we create, and thereby have attachment to, shows up for others as having commensurate value. It is my opinion that businesses – having indirectly helped usher in the environment that necessitated the knowledge worker – was ill equipped, both culturally and procedurally, to adjust to this needs-evolution.  The result was an abrupt misstep in tending to the new emergent relationship with employees.
This post is meant to explore thoughts on who blinked first, not necessarily provide my own definitive answer – one does not exist. I will say that I believe that a confluence of poorly sequenced circumstances gave rise to evocations of questioning the long-standing loyalty among both sides. Who blinked first? It is still hard for me assess but I know this – both sides did. And both sides are still in the dark about how to recapture what was unintentionally lost.
Closing note: As I began to draft this post, I received in the mail the periodic magazine from my alma-mater.  Inside is an article about a recent business leaders forum where there is a quote from one of the panelists assessing “Employees are returning to a 1950’s mentality where there is a desire to stay with the same organization for many years instead of jumping from firm to firm throughout a career.”  I wonder if the person who made this quote has missed a key point. I don’t think there was ever a time when jumping from firm to firm was desired for its own sake. There did emerge a desire to be acknowledged, validated and appreciated, as well as become exposed to a variety of experiences, as we moved up the proverbial hierarchy of needs.  The only way to achieve that – even if only perceptually – was to change employers until we found the relationships and values that felt right to us.
Comments as always, are welcome.
Thank you for reading and have a great day!
Matt G.

[1] Taylorism and Scientific Management are commonly presented as theories.  To uphold the integrity of the word “theory” as I have come to know its meaning, I emphatically refrain from referring to either of these terms as theories.
[2] Personally, I abhor the notion of managing people.  It is my deep belief that things and situations are what we manage and people are those we either lead or support.
[3] Some numbers based metrics such as sales number targets are either achieved or missed.  Yet, there are some aspects of a sales cycle that remain highly subjective such as earning credibility with a prospect. As I am not a salesperson, I concede my limits in full understanding of the benefit of sales metrics.  The July-August 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review offers some interesting articles in this area.
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Stop looking for what was never missing

Posted on June 14, 2012 by mattgorman

I cannot recall when this occurred, but at some point in my life I became drawn to books that profess to help with self-image and self-promotion.  Within the business section of the bookstores, these books are regarded as Management or Leadership, elsewhere, they are regarded as Self-help or Inspirational.  Regardless of where you find them, the underlying thesis is always the same – you are on a journey to find yourself.
I admit I have had more than my share of rendezvous with the notion that I haven’t yet found myself.   I think now this is nonsensical. I am “right here”.  I have always been “right here”.  I will always be “right here”.  So is, and will be, everybody.  Let’s parse out the phrase “right here”.  In its most common use, the use of the word ‘right’ is used adjectively to give preciseness to the word ‘here’ one supposes to distinguish from ‘somewhere around here’ or ‘in the general vicinity’.  ‘Right here’ gives exactness to the location to which we refer.
In my use of the phrase ‘right here’ is meant to accentuate that where I am in life is right. And where I am is here.  You too are where you are and for you that is here, and it is right.  Hence, any journey with the aim of finding oneself seems to loose its purpose if at all times we are all ‘right here’.  In contrast to what most self-help and business management / leadership books emphasize, let’s stop looking for ourselves and instead look at ourselves – and accept what we see.
It is said – and I truly believe – that life only begins at the outer edges of our comfort zones.  And for us to venture outward to life’s beginning we must stop looking for what was never missing. We must instead accept who are right here.  In short, we must stop looking for ourselves and begin accepting ourselves!
A closing thought: As I read through what I share above I was at first concerned that this was more on the self-help more then the business or work side of our lives.  Through both personal experience and observation of others, I have become aware of how poignant these thoughts can affect our sense of fulfillment in our work lives as much as, if not more than, our personal lives.  I might dare to postulate further that real self-acceptance can help tear down conflict that exists between any two dichotomous identities we have between who we are at work and who we are at play.
Thanks for reading.  Thoughts and comments are always welcome.
Have a Great Day!
~Matt G.

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The guy/gal In the corner office…… is a human being.

Posted on May 20, 2012 by mattgorman

During one of my recent consulting assignments, I was in a meeting with the COO of a $3 billion company and a few folks on his executive team.  This was a multi-hour session with lunch, etc.  During the afternoon – after the coma inducing affects of lunch might have otherwise passed or worn off – I excused myself for a trip to the restroom.  The company’s COO must have had the same idea.  A conversation ensued as we walked back to the conference room.  What follows is a rendition of his words that lie somewhere between verbatim and paraphrased.  The point is, his thoughts are clear even if I don’t have it right word for word.

‘Boy, sometimes you just need a break from these things.  The mind wanders and it’s hard to stay focused’

 These words just rolled over the tongue of a very esteemed Ivy League educated, C-Level  executive of a huge –  and handsomely profitable (though privately held) company.

It struck me at that moment that perhaps many people with aspirations of the proverbial corner office might be disillusioned into thinking that career success requires constant demonstrations of superhuman abilities.  On the contrary, as I learn more and more about what makes people sustainedly successful (the adverb is key) it is a clear and present sense of sell-awareness.  They know themselves very well and they are comfortable with that knowledge.

Maybe they do possess a trait here or there that is sometimes considered super-human.  That is not the point.  The point is that they know exactly who they are and they maximize their impact and contribution within those boundaries.

The take-away here is that should you aspire to excel, don’t try to be super-human or the person whose place in which you wish to occupy. Rather, know and accept the person you are and be the best at being that person.   You will excel as the world receives you much more openly for this reason – no one, and I mean no one, dislikes authenticity.

The COO who is the protagonist earlier in this article is, by his pure humanness, the quintessential executive in my view.  He is not super-human, but his humanness is super.

As always, comments are welcome.

Thanks for reading – have a Great Day!

Matt G.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phZ4W_EzBaI?rel=0&w=425&h=239]

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Can the nation bear what the market can?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by mattgorman

Increases in college tuition continue to outpace inflation.  The argument, of course, is that so long as the market can bear the increase, it is economically sensible to continue to raise tuition.  There is a theoretical inflection point where a high enough portion of the market is priced out of being a customer.  It is here that the market size is at a point where college and university revenues and/or margins are at their peak.
That’s the market centric approach to tuition setting decision making. What about nation centric?  Only a decade ago, The United States led the world in the percentage of it’s population with at least an associates degree.  Today, we are 12th.  In only 10 years we have fallen from 1st to 12th in a category that has huge implications for the future of our country as a world leader.  In my opinion, this category might only be second to the efficient and effective administration of healthcare.  (I won’t even go there right now.)
Pricing many otherwise academically and intellectually strong candidates for post secondary education out of the market is not the only factor affecting a decrease in the percentage of the US population obtaining such desirable education levels.  Policies that tie teachers hands and in affect lowering the bar sets many students as ill-prepapred and they become quickly discouraged and disenfranchised once they enter post-secondry eduction institutions.
Where finances are that which drive the “go to college / don’t go to college” decision, a more holistic longer term view with national interest in mind must be taken by U.S. colleges and universities if we are to have any hope at advancing the collective education levels of our citizens.
I believe in the importance of maximizing revenue and profits and the decision-making processes that lead to such outcomes.  And I also deeply believe that focusing solely on such metrics – and nothing else – is simply terminal and does not ultimately lead to a better future for the very environment relied upon for sustenance and longevity.
As always, I welcome all thoughts and feedback.
Thanks for reading – have a Great Day!
Matt G.

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