A Veteran’s Speech

Being A Veteran

11/11/2019

This is taken in part from my confirmation testimony to the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Transportation & Veterans Affairs, and from writings of mine and others that I've edited, buried and borrowed over the years.   Thank you to all of the influencers who’ve given to this. Semper Fidelis.  

My name is Bill Schrum, and I live in Middleton, Wisconsin.  I am a life member of, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the American Legion, the Marine Corps Combat Correspondent Association AND the Disabled American Veterans.    I am also a member of the Marine Corps League.   I am also disabled and get my health care at the Veterans Hospital in Madison.  

At the end of 2016, I retired as a Vice President at the University of Wisconsin Health System, after 40+ years in health care administration. 

In August of 2019, Governor Tony Evers appointed me to the Board of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; where we represent well over 340,000 veterans in the State of Wisconsin.  340,000-plus.    Think about that… if all those veterans gathered in one place, we would be the second largest city in Wisconsin.  And probably have great bars, great music, and lousy food.  

I was born in Tacoma, Washington, on the cusp of the Korean War.  Tacoma was an industrial town, big in shipping and transportation.  I grew up in an "ethnically diverse" neighborhood before anyone even knew what that term meant.   My Father was a native of Tacoma, and never went past the 8th grade.  My Mother was British by birth and emigrated to the US when she was 12.   My parents were railroad people; my Dad a switch tender and Mom, a Caller.  They were both gone before I was 23.  

One week after I graduated from Lincoln High School in Tacoma, I enlisted in the Marine Corps for three years.  I’ve been asked numerous times, “why the Marine Corps?” and I am not sure I have ever had an answer for that.  I’ve had a few occurrences in my life that I truly feel were guided by some “higher power” and this was one of them.  The time was right after the Tet Offensive… and the extensive negative television of coverage of Vietnam, but I found that enticing.  Most relatives thought I was making a mistake, but my parents supported my decision in spite of their trepidation.   

After boot camp and infantry training, I was assigned to Force Troops, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as a journalist.  How did I get to be a journalist?   I took journalism in high school and a test in boot camp apparently showed that I could put who, what, when, where, why and how together into a storyline.  

At Camp Lejeune, I had the opportunity to embed myself and write stories about the Force Reconnaissance Marines, and the trainees at the Naval Corpsman School.   Those experiences gave me not only the chance to hone my journalism skills, but to learn firsthand what goes into developing these two unique groups of people who go where others don’t go.  

My next duty station was the Marine Barracks, Great Lakes NTC, where I was assigned to the Fleet Home Town News Center.  The FHTNC is the source for those little blurbs you may see in your local newspapers about local service members.  One of my assignments while there was the “casualty desk” where my job was to screen all outgoing stories against the daily lists of killed, wounded or missing-in-action Marines to make sure no stories went out about anyone on those lists.  That job also meant that I read the details of each Marine’s death and the actions they were in at the time.  You can Google how many Marines were killed or wounded in Vietnam to get an idea of the number I read.  

It's also how I learned that one of my good friends was killed...and how.  

Then, I received orders to FMFPac, WestPac, Ground Forces, which if you’re familiar with the jargon meant “Vietnam”.   However, I was pulled off the flight when it landed in Okinawa and assigned to the Marine Corps Public Affairs Office there.   A lot of people would have thought that was a great deal, but after I was in Okinawa for about a month, and bored out of my mind, I volunteered for a TAD assignment to the Force Logistics Command at Camp Books in Danang, Vietnam.  I did not tell my parent or any family.   

At this point, I was 20-years old, and had made sergeant in the Marine Corps in 20 months.  I’ll admit that I was full of myself and had enough rank as a combat correspondent to do things and get into things.  I humped with, and interviewed a lot of grunts and wrote a lot of stories.  I flew in Huey’s and wrote about the human side of that experience.  I wrote about the stenches, the filth, the blood, and the things that differentiate “war” from “combat”.  Ask any vet in the room and they will agree that there’s a difference that most civilians don’t get.  

As a reporter, I didn’t want to report the same stuff others had said a thousand times before me.  I got out and I talked with wounded and dying, and I talked with the stone crazy still living.  Sometimes, to this day, they still talk with me and I still listen to them.  

My only regret is that I had not volunteered much, much sooner.  

I’ve seen the demons.  I walked the valley of the shadow of death and truly feared no man because I knew we were the baddest ____ in the valley….   I think I’ve carried a little of that feeling with me to this day – but it is well-tempered now with maturity and knowing that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone.  I carry with me the lesson I learned from the Recon Marines – success is never having to fire your weapon.  (If you want a current depiction of what that means, google quotes by General James Mattis and look for the one that begins, “I come in peace….”

Shortly after I got home, my Dad died.  Later that year, I took the trip to England with my Mother that she had planned for them.  I was a terrible companion for her, and not even close to being the support she needed at that time.  

After that, it went from bad to worse.  I tried college and dropped out because I realized that college kids were clueless.  I smoked.  I drank.  I was not the kid I was when I left home.   I was 21 years old and had seen and done things others never will.  No one in my family knew what I had done, and no one ever asked.  That was fine by me, "it don't mean nothing" was the only way to play it.

One day, I’m not sure why, I got in my ’66 Chevy, and travelled the country while living out of my car.   I can’t remember the highways that led me back to Great Lakes, IL., but I found my Marine Corps brother Bill Marcotte and others there.

The second slap of homecoming came when Marcotte and I went to a VFW bar in North Chicago and we were called down by old vets and derided for not being real veterans, only Vietnam veterans.   We were severely numbed, so we had a couple of cheap beers and left.  This one hurt, because the Master Sergeant we served with at FHTNC was a member there and never spoke up.  Thanks Top.  

In ’72, after returning home, trying jobs and busting them, getting kicked out of the house, and other therapeutic events, somehow fate again decided I needed to get out of town and so I headed east again to visit Marcotte; only this time in Marshall, MN.   Along the way, I picked up two hitchhikers outside of Seattle and took them to Minot, ND., I had the car, they had the smoke and pharmaceuticals.   Along the way we camped and scraped for food and beer.  Not sure I ever got their names or any other info.   Just figured they needed a ride and I needed the diversion, so what the heck.   When I landed in Marshall, and somehow found Marcotte’s house, I was welcomed by him and his wife, Pat, and toddler daughter, Shana.  

The third strike of homecoming came when Marcotte and I went to an American Legion bar in Marshall (his hometown) and were greeted just as warmly there as we had been in North Chicago.   As I recall, these guys wanted to get physical, and we almost got there.  But after we mentioned that we were Marines and would be happy to accommodate them, they reverted back to name-calling and creative put-downs.  And, again, Marcotte knew some of these NCMFs and none of them said a word.  

Only Bill and I ever knew the truth of those days.  My days of ever talking about my experiences were sealed then.  

As fate would have it, I ended up in Denver, and it was there that I realized that I could continue to live like a bum, wallowing in anger and self-pity, or I could use my Marine Corps discipline and move on.   I moved on.  

Within two years, I had gotten married and went on to fulfill my dream of starting my own newspaper in Lafayette, Colorado.  A few years later, with help from the GI Bill, some student loans, and even a scholarship, I graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Economics.  Yes, I worked a full-time job and went to school full-time.  

For over 40 years, I never spoke much of my Marine Corps service, and never, ever, about my time in Vietnam.  I threw away the journals, the writings, and most of the uniforms.  Those days were compartmentalized and buried.   Always below the surface, in my head, but never publicized.  

In 1998, during a divorce and a difficult employment time, I went to a therapist and it all came back with a vengeance.  Those times and PTSD almost took me down completely.  But I had two kids then, and I could not give up.  Their voices and their faces, their futures, were my focal points.   I never shared all the details of my Marine Corps experiences with my wife nor my kids – my logic was that it would sound like an excuse by then.  Too little, too late.  I will regret that forever but, like Vietnam, there are no do-overs.   

Ultimately, over time, I have accepted my history, and I accepted my demons, and stopped hiding them.  The Marine Corps and Vietnam came back to become a proud part of my life.  

You’ve heard enough about me now, and if you take anything from what I’ve said so far it is that I never gave up on myself – you can’t give up on yourself.  If you’re down, get yourself up.  If you’re walking through hell --- just keep going, just keep moving.  

So let me finish, by telling you a little about veterans as a group.   As was once written by someone much wiser than myself, a vet named Dan Mouser, who in 1996 answered a college student's question, "What is a Vietnam Veteran?" with some of these words:  (I've elaborated, edited and added, but the idea came from him.)   

Veterans are men and women.  At some point in our lives we all signed a contract to serve our country and protect its people.  

We are dead or alive, whole or maimed, sane or haunted.  

We grew from our experiences - or we were destroyed by them - or we struggle to find some place in between.  We lived through hell or we had a pleasant, if scary, adventure.  We were Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, Red Cross, and civilians of all sorts.  

Some of us enlisted to fight for God and Country, and some were drafted.   Some were gung-ho to go, and some went kicking and screaming.

Veterans of all wars lived a tad bit -- or a whole lot -- closer to death than most people want to think about.  

Some combat veterans never saw the enemy nor recognized him or her.   We heard gunfire and mortar fire but rarely looked into enemy eyes.   Those who did, like folks who encounter close combat anywhere and anytime, are often haunted for life by those eyes, the sounds, the sights, those indescribable fears that ran between ourselves and our enemies, and the very strong likelihood of death for one of us.  

It’s not like in the movies, it’s not a video game, it’s real, and it’s not something we want for anyone.   

Some veterans get hard, calloused, tougher.

“All in a days' work.” 

"It is what it is."

“It don’t mean nuthin’.”   

“Life's a bitch and then you die.”   

But most of us remember and we get twitchy, worried, sad, moody, edgy, angry,…. pick one or all, sometimes or all the time…. Forever.  Forever.  

Veterans are those crazies dressed in camo, wide-eyed, wary, homeless and drunk.  

We are also Brooks Brothers or Brioni suit wearers, doing deals and appearing to live well.     

We are housewives, grandmothers, and even church deacons.  We are college professors or high school teachers engaged in the rational pursuit of truth about the history or politics or culture of the experience of life.  

And we are sleepless.   Oh my God, we are so often sleepless.

We pushed paper; we pushed shovels, we pushed gurney’s, we pushed each other.  We drove jeeps, operated bulldozers, built bridges; we humped machine guns through dense brush, deep paddy and thorn scrub.  We lived on buffalo milk, fish heads and rice.   Or C-rations or MREs.   Or steaks and Budweiser.   We did our time in high mountains drenched by endless monsoon rains or on the dusty dry plains or on muddy rivers or at the most beautiful beaches in the world. 

We wore berets, bandanas, boonie hats, and steel pots. Flak jackets, canvas, rash and rot. 

We ate chloroquine and got malaria anyway.   We got shots constantly… but then, and today, have diseases nobody can diagnose.  We blame Uncle Sam or Uncle Ho and their minions and secretaries and apologists for every wart or cough or tick of an eye we have.      Fifty years later, we wonder if Agent Orange got us.   Fifty years later we wonder if the water of Camp Lejeune got us.  

We spent our nights sweating on cots or shivering in foxholes filled with waist high water or lying still on cold, wet ground, our eyes imagining Charlie behind every bamboo blade.  Or we slept in hotel beds in Saigon - or barracks in Thailand - or in cramped berths on ships at sea.

We feared we would die or we feared we would kill.   We simply feared, and often we still do.  We are afraid to be afraid.   

We hate fireworks and crowds.  We HATE fireworks and crowds. 

We hate war, yet many of us believe it was the best thing that ever happened to us.  We believe that no nation’s ruler should be allowed to declare war unless he or she has been in one or had a child in one.  Wars are very personal undertakings too often created by people who don’t realize firsthand the impact.  

Mostly -- and I believe this with all my heart -- mostly, Vietnam veterans wish we had not been so alone.  Some of us went with units; but many, probably most of us, were civilians one day, pulled out of "the world", shaved, barked at, insulted, humiliated, de-egoized and then rebuilt and taught to kill, to fix radios, to drive trucks.   We went, put in our time, and were equally ungraciously plucked out of the morass and placed back in the real world.   But now we smoked dope, shot skag, or drank heavily.  Our families, our wives or husbands seemed distant and strange.  Our friends wanted to know if we shot anybody.  Life was not the same.  

And life went on, it had been going on, as if we hadn't been there, as if Vietnam was a topic of political conversation or college protest or news copy, not a matter of life and death for tens of thousands of us.

Veterans are people just like everyone else. We served our country, proudly or reluctantly or ambivalently.  What makes us different -- what makes us different -- is something we understand, but we are afraid nobody else will.  But we appreciate you asking, even if we can’t answer. 

Veterans are white, black, beige, and shades of gray; but in comparison with our numbers in the "real world", we were more likely black.   Our ancestors came from Africa, from Europe, and China. Or they crossed the Bering Sea Land Bridge in the last Ice Age and formed the nations of American Indians, built pyramids in Mexico, or farmed acres of corn on the banks of Chesapeake Bay.   We have names like Washington, Jones, Rodriguez. Dorsey, Luna, Stoddard, and Marcotte, and Stein and Romano and Kowalski.   We are Americans, Australians, Canadians, French German, British and Koreans; most Vietnam veterans are Vietnamese.

We were farmers, students, mechanics, steelworkers, nurses, and priests when the call came that changed us all forever. We had dreams and plans, and they all had to change...or wait.  We were daughters and sons, lovers and poets, beatniks and philosophers, convicts and lawyers. We were rich and poor, but mostly poor.  We were educated or not, mostly not.  We grew up in slums, in shacks, in duplexes, and bungalows and houseboats and nice houses and ranches.  

We were cowards and heroes.  Sometimes we were cowards one moment and heroes the next.  But we’d never claim the title “hero” and we are more than skeptical of anyone who does.

We came home and marched in protest marches, sucked in tear gas, and shrieked our anger and horror for all to hear.   Or we sat alone in small rooms, in VA hospital wards, in places where only the crazy ever go.  

We are Republicans, Democrats, Socialists and Confucians and Buddhists and Atheists -- though as usually is the case, even the atheists among us sometimes prayed to get out of there alive.

We are hungry, and we are sated, we are full of life or we are clinging to death.  We are injured, and we are healing, we are despairing and we are hopeful, we loved and we lost.  We got too old too quickly, but some of us have never grown up.  

Some of us want, desperately, to go back to heal wounds, revisit the sites of our horror.   Or we want to never see that place again, to bury it, its memories, its meaning.   

We want to forget, and we wish we could remember.

Despite our differences, all of us have so much in common.  There are few of us who don't know how to cry, though we often do it alone when nobody will ask us "what's wrong?"   We're afraid we might have to answer.

If you want to know what a Vietnam veteran is, go to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, or a travelling wall, on Veterans Day.  There will be hundreds there during the day.   But if you want to see the unseen among you, go in the middle of the night around 2 – 4 a.m.  That’s where you’ll see many of us.   Watch them.   Listen to them.  We'll be there, in Vietnam again.   

Don’t be afraid to talk to veterans or those old guys in the military hats.   Don’t be afraid to just say "hello" or "thank you" or "welcome home".   Even the ones who tell you they don’t need to hear it, do appreciate your effort more than you may know or they will ever admit.   

I am a Marine Corps Vietnam Combat Veteran, and after 50 years I think I am beginning to understand what that means.  

-30-

Dog's Christmas Thoughts

Deck the Halls
with the love 
of homes and holidays
unique to each.   

Open your ears to the music
of your mind’s chorus. 
Feel the warmth 
in your heart.  

It’s Christmas. 
Close your eyes and remember. 
Open your eyes and smile. 
Let a happy tear wet your cheek. 
It’s Christmas.  

It’s okay to love
the memories.
The love
that will always be 
your Christmas.  

The road to here has many smiles
if you let them out. 
The road ahead will have more smiles 
if you let them in. 

Baby please come home
to the Christmas of your mind.  

That’s where the real Christmas was,

is,

and always will be. 

Merry Christmas! 

Staging The Dog

(Don’t know why the Dog recollected this, except to say that lessons learned during time in the USMC carried through my life, both personally & professionally.  All the “management training” seminars attended only served to affirm that Marine Corps NCO and leadership training were those “management” lessons in so many other words, and a hell of a lot more serious.)

Staging Battalion, Camp Pendleton, California,
sometime in the fall of ….  

I don’t remember how I got to Pendleton, to the barracks or to anywhere else, but I do remember being called to a meeting for all NCO’s with the Staging Battalion Commander and Company Commanders.  

They went through introductions, gave the rah-rah pep talk, and then laid out the plan for the next few weeks of training.  Then one of them read off the names of each Company Commander, Executive Officer, Company SNCOs, and Platoon Sergeants.  Dog about dropped my bone when I was assigned to be the Platoon Sergeant of the 3d Platoon in the 3d Replacement Company, Unit 3511.  I had two Corporals and another Sergeant assigned as my squad leaders.  These guys were grunts and I was a journalist, but they didn’t know that.   

We grouped up with our officers, introduced ourselves, and got more briefing and a roster of the men assigned to each platoon and where we would be housed for training.  We were given schedules for the first week, and told to gather up our platoons, make squad assignments, and get them squared away and into their new areas, and then orient them for the training schedule and “expectations”.   After that, muster them up, do some light PT and march them to the mess hall for chow.   (Light PT, I took to mean loosen them up and don’t make them puke.).   After chow, there would be a company meeting with the CO, XO, and SNCOs.  

We rallied the troops, called names, mustered into a general formation, and marched each platoon away to a spot we could talk and they could hear.  I did my best Gunnery Sergeant Drakeford speech, introduced myself, the squad leaders, and then told them to divide up by MOS.
(Note:  Gunnery Sergeant George Drakeford was my Boot Camp Platoon Senior Drill Instructor.  He was a mentor in many ways he didn't even know.)

When that was done, Dog grouped my pack of squad leaders and told them to put the squads together with a mix of MOS’s and experience in each squad.  I didn’t want all the grunts together or all the REMFs together or all the anything else together.  I wanted those with previous Nam experience mixed in with newbies.  I wanted a “Marine Corps stew” that would balance squad strengths and talents.  If there were problems, I’d do it for them, but they had the chance to choose their squads. We could shuffle later, if need be, but mix ‘em and fix ‘em.  I told them this was their first test and there would be more.  They looked at me like I knew what I was doing.  I surprised myself that I had no plan, but kept channeling Drakeford.  

We had all sorts of grunts, we had tankers & amtraks, we had motor T’s, we had admins, and we even had a cook.  We had every size, shape and “ethnicity” of Marine.  We had squared away hard chargers, and we had “birds”. 

The evening meeting was about as expected.  Rah-rah Marine Corps rhetoric, mixed in with a couple of war stories and the goal of this thing called “staging”.   The First Sergeant drove the point home when he gave the “look at the Marine on your right and then look at the Marine on your left.  One of you is going to die over there, one of you is going to get wounded, and all of you are going to remember it forever.”  Sage words to ignorant minds.  

He used that same motivator when he met with us platoon sergeants and told us that whether our assigned Marines lived or died was on us.   How well we got them through training, how well we pushed them when they weakened, how well we drove them, and how well we motivated them to push themselves.   All the time, unconsciously re-learning personal discipline.... Honor.... Courage.... Commitment...Esprit de Corps, and Semper Fidelis.  

As I recall the first day must have been various check-ins, check-ups, gear distribution, etc.  I remember the conversations about ponchos and shelter halves, and using them as stretchers more than rain covers.  

Forty-plus years later, this Dog doesn’t remember the specific details of what happened over the next few weeks, but I do remember some of the highlights.   We had classes on tactics and culture and history and weapons and other standard issue stuff.   We had practical applications of squad tactics in the field, and we had training in hand grenades, firing grenade launchers, firing M-60s, M-16s and .45s.  We set up Claymores, and even learned to rig a few of our own booby traps.  We even mixed in a little PT and some runs, just to stay loose.  

Days and nights we marched and trooped down the trails of Pendleton. We went through a mock up Vietnamese village several times, and we found tunnels, booby traps, punji pits, and a whole lot of fun things.   We set up LPs, OPs, ambushes, and did live fire exercises.  We did Huey and CH-46 mobilizations and extractions under fire. We re-learned first aid for sucking chest wounds, gut bombs, and severed/ fractured limbs, among other things. We learned how to care for the dead, and how to use the extra dog tag.   

Several of our Marines “died” a few times, and each time that happened I got ripped, the squad leader got ripped, and the “dead” Marine got to do it all over again.  After awhile, everyone learned that these do-overs weren’t going to be possible when the big bird landed in the Nasty.  

When all the training was said and done, we marched out to the parade deck for final review by the brass and Pendleton commanding general and his entourage.  It wasn’t as exciting as boot camp graduation, but there is nothing in that world more inspiring than a regiment of Marines marching in with the band playing.  

We then got a 48-hour liberty in beautiful Oceanside, California, and reported back for final debriefs and transport to Norton AFB for our flight to FMFPac, WestPac, Grnd Frces.  The Platoon sergeants got a shared room at some dive motel in Oceanside.  Some of the guys had their families waiting to spend the last 48 with them.  Funny thing, I also remember watching as everyone headed out and making sure that no one was alone or left behind.  There weren’t any.  

At the final company formation, with seabags packed, piled, and waiting to be loaded on the busses to Norton, the CO wished us farewell and then passed the word to dismiss the troops to get their gear and line up to board.  

As I called the 3d Platoon to attention, I put in my own final words of encouragement and told them to never forget that Marines smiled in the face of pain and death.  I then used my best DI voice to yell, “Third Platoon…A-ten-hut.....  Third Platoon, Attitude Check”.   

And, as one tight Marine Corps platoon they answered, “Sir!  Fuck It, Aye Aye Sir!”  

We were ready for whatever came at us.,  

“Dismissed Marines!”   

Guns

Dog thoughts on guns. 

“Guns don’t kill people.”  

Sorry but yup, they do.  But they need people to pull the trigger.   It’s the perfect codependent relationship.  

The mentally ill should not own guns.  Okay, who decides who’s mentally ill?   What degree of mental illness determines yea or nay?   This is when the arguments start.  

It’s when we ask “why do you want a gun?” that the arguments start.   

It’s when we try to determine what kind of gun you can own, that the arguments start.   

I don’t care if you own a gun or not, really.   What I do care about is how you use it.   I think most people would agree with that.   You want to “hunt”, shoot skeet or hit targets, have a good time.  Pretty sure you don’t need an assault weapon for that.  

Automatic weapons?  Assault rifles?   Gotta ask why and for what?  

My personal feeling?   No one outside the military or police should have one.   

But we’re probably beyond that hope. You want to be a macho military or cop copy?  Then meet their requirements.  You should be trained on how and when to use it; you should be tested to see if you’re fit to use it;  then get qualified on it, then requalify every year, then let’s consider it.  

Before you get an assault rifle, you should be required to spend time with a veteran who has killed someone with one.  You should experience VA PTSD groups.   You should see firsthand the damage those weapons can do to a body, physically to the victim and mentally to the shooter.  

At end of that, you should be asked again if you want a weapon and why.   

Those answers are then used in your mental health determination.  

Strategic Planning, "Learning Organizations", and Creative Tension…in Dog Speak

"Every act of creation first of all is an act of destruction

because the new idea will destroy

what a lot of people believe is essential

to the survival of their intellectual world."

                          --- Pablo Picasso

Successful organizational and personal change; successful organizational and personal learning, comes individually from within the people, and takes time.  One size does not fit all.  It is not dictated from the top or brought in from the outside, and then completed by the end of the year.  If you don't know that, you should.  

Too many programs still begin with the tenet to gain commitment from the top of the organization; and that is certainly necessary in the development of strategic plans and learning organizations.  I've never been convinced that is totally true for organizational change.  

However, numerous plans, programs and ideas die simply because they only have buy-in at the top.  Mission/Vision statements created by "senior" leadership then vetted by lawyers and handed to the masses on cool wall hangings aimed at building morale.  Apparently some MBA programs missed the Drucker line... "You can't motivate people, you can only thrwart their motivation.  They have to motivate themselves.".   Handing them a wall hanging does not create motivational circumstances.  

How many of us have witnessed a scenario where the “boss” attends a conference, sees a GREAT presentation and returns to the office inspired and espousing the need to "get this program going"?  The minions quickly read the material and then go off running in circles and being “proactive”, hoping to make the boss happy. 

By the end of the month they’re all In Search of Excellence as they try to get Out of the Crisis with Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ; but most often they end up with a new definition of Thriving on Chaos.    The program dies a slow death because the group was focused more on performing for the boss’s approval and not on creating the best outcome for the organization.   By the end of the year, the boss is discouraged, the minions are frustrated, employees are openly apathetic and nobody's talking about the benefit of anything, particularly the "program".[1]

Dog advice: Don't preach "change is constant, our organization is a learning one...", then follow it up with directives like, "have it done by ...." That is called a mixed message in dog speak.   It does great at building packs of angry dogs, though.  
 

Simply put, one of the basics of developing this organizational learning thing is the understanding that people (AND organizations) have been conditioned to be taught rather than to learn.  Think about it…. from the moment we entered school, we have been given grades and approval based on our ability to ingest information and regurgitate "correct" responses to tests.   Then we entered the job market and get ratings on our performance appraisal; and the need to impress our teacher has magically moved to impressing our boss. 

Simply put, from about the age of 5, people have been trained to go into a room, be filled with information and directions, and regurgitate correct answers.  Simply put, people have been taught to perform for approval, which is generally in the form of meeting other people's expectations.  Peter Senge, in defining a “learning organization” astutely positioned the learning organization as beginning with the basic principle of addressing people's need to re-learn how to learn. 

The research-based concept of continuous learning is foreign to most people.  The theory entails education of the individual and the organization, based on five disciplines:  1) continually clarifying and deepening the vision and understanding each individual's ability to create their own reality, 2) unearth the internal pictures that individual's and organization's carry of themselves and other things, scrutinize them, and make them open to the influence of others, 3) create a capacity to "think together" by learning to "talk together", 4) develop and share visions of the future which foster genuine commitment, and, 5) think systemically, which will integrate the other four and fuse them into a coherent body of theory and practice.  

Pretty high-brow esoteric stuff, huh?   Too deep, complicated and confusing for mere mortal dogs?   Not really.  It ain’t rocket science.  It is work though, very hard work; and can't be done in 30-60-90 days.   The concept is one of never ending, always moving. 

Dog advice:  
“Sometimes it’s what you want, sometimes it’s not what you want, sometimes it’s a combination of both – but it’s the whole system which creates that.  If you want to improve, what you do is improve the system; you don’t badger the people to work harder or work smarter.  You don’t threaten them with punishment or promise them rewards:  that’s looking in the wrong place.”
                                                                        --- Peter Scholtes 

You may also have heard about developing a strategic plan.   Many places approach “strategic planning” in the same way the boss did in the fourth paragraph.   I can tell you, as someone who was involved in these things on a regular basis, I have a lot of 3-ring binders with cool powerpoint inserts, that cost a whole lot of money for a minimal ROI.   And they gather dust.  All of the idea and programs inside those binders crying to get out.  

I would go on to say that success in progressing through the strategic planning journey lies in senior leaders (personally and organizationally), working on a mission of con­tinually clarifying and deepening their own personal visions, focusing energies, developing patience, and seeing reality objec­tively. 

These leaders push, pull, prod their organizations/people from their “current reality’ to really see a “vision” of what may be.   And, Current Reality and Vision are clear pictures, not some vague hyperbole.   They involve speaking the so very difficult words called “truth”.  Hold a mirror up to the organizaton, and the individuals.  

This effort of moving from current reality to a new world vision generates something called “creative tension”; best described in Picasso’s quote above. 

Creative tension will come on strong as ways to improve and work together evolve in the processes and people.   People will impulsively look at things as “win/lose”; or from a perspective of “us vs. them” in “either/or” situations, rather than looking at what is best for what may be achieved TOGETHER.   They are operating from their long-held need to “perform for approval” and get a good grade. 

And, again, that’s okay.   That’s a normal part of the process.   The trick is to address those concerns in open and honest two-way communication.  This process is part of a longer plan, not a weekly plan, so a lot of things aren’t known and need to be worked out.   A lot of questions don’t have answers, and the need to learn more about some things to be able to formulate the best answers.  Ambiguity may rule, but the chaos may also ultimately bring new order.   (Thanks to Meg Wheatley for "Leadership & The New Science").

Success will be achieved in doing that, and building momentum.  Success will be achieved by keeping that momentum going.   Thus, no dust gathering.  

The principle of creative tension has long been recognized by real leaders.  Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind, so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths, so must we create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism."    

But creative tension can't be generated from vision alone; it demands an accurate picture of current reality as well.  Just as King had a dream, so too did he continually strive to "dramatize the shameful conditions" of racism and prejudice so that they could no longer be ignored.  As noted in the example of the “boss and the program” above, Vision without an understanding of current reality will more likely foster cynicism than creativity.  The death knell for strategic planning.

Many organizations also mistake analysis for action.   All the analysis in the world will never achieve a vision.  Many very smart people fail because they try to substitute analysis for vision.  The “boss” may say something about decisions needing to be “data driven” and "evidence based" – and, whoosh, the minions are off and running for a data analysis program!   Do they assume that if people see data, they will feel the motivation to change…because that’s what the boss said?   Then they are disappointed when people "resist" the personal and organizational changes that must be made to alter their reality.

Simply put, someone must transform the data into information, help it become knowledge, then generate understanding and, ultimately, facilitate the wisdom to find the way.  Get people to WANT to go to the new realities.  Leaders to provide the tools, the resources AND the common focus.  

What some leaders never grasp is that the natural energy for changing things must come from within the people.  Yes, the data analysis is important, but it only tells us where we’ve been, not where we are gong.   How to take action on the data and how we’re going to get to where we want to be…that’s what leadership is for.   One size solution may not fit all of the needs of strong organizations, and the numerous entities embedded within each one.  

Dog advice:   Don't mistake patience for weakness.  It's just the opposite. 

It takes time... and effort… and patience… to see the possibilities; the vision of what is possible to become clear.   Leaders fear that patience will be perceived as a weakness.   This is another common mistake in many places.   Yet, nothing is really further from the truth.   This isn’t just about solving the immediate day-to-day problems.  

Leading through creative tension is different than solving problems.  In problem solving, the energy for change comes from attempting to get away from a current reality that is undesirable.  That is reactive and can be done quickly.   With creative tension, the energy for change comes from seeing the vision of what we want to create.   That takes time.   Success is in solving the immediate problems with the future in mind.  

As the saying goes, “recognize the past, live for today and look for tomorrow”. 

So, simply put, the pursuit of real learning and accomplishing a strategic plan needs not just endorsement and acceptance at the top, but leadership which is willing to accept a challenge to transform the organization's culture.  It needs leadership who understands that such acceptance places an emphasis on continuous learning and compels them to have enough self-confidence to admit that they don't know everything, but they have the resources to find the solutions.  When problems arise, when capabilities are less than ideal, leaders must understand that they can institute effective changes from the top through their own learning.  It needs leaders who can learn, as well as lead. 

That alone can be the biggest challenge. 

People who have changed the universe never accomplished it by changing officials, but always by inspiring the people.

---

[1] The italicized titles are of popular business books by: Tom Peters/Robert Waterman, W. Edwards Deming, Steven Covey, and Tom Peters, respectively.

Speak HR Dog !!

I had just walked out of teaching a class on “Mental Models”; and someone referred to me as an “HR Guy”.   My immediate thought was, “Please don’t call me an ‘HR Guy’.   I hate it.  I hate the ‘HR’ stereotype.   I hate the “mental model” that it conjures up in too many people’s minds.  I am not an ‘HR Guy’, and I’ve been working for 35 years to change the stereotype.  I fear I’m losing the battle.”  

As many of my colleagues may suspect, I have no formal training in the subject of Human Resources.  My degrees are in Economics (Socialist and Healthcare…who knew?), my heart was in Journalism.  I stumbled into HR when it was primarily old men who were either not good at the “real” jobs in their companies or they were injured on the job and couldn’t do anything productive, so they were assigned to “Personnel”; and then blamed for everything wrong in the company.    Strangely enough, I honestly believe a lot of people still think most HR departments are staffed that way and have no understanding of “business”.   Over the years they’ve come to believe that HR departments are only good for hiring, firing, creating policies and then telling people what they can’t do because there’s a “policy”.  When all else fails, people can always blame HR.  I get headaches, and heartaches, from such things.  

Originally, it was just a job for me, an income and a means to an end.  I came in with the idea of getting out of it when I finished college and law school.  I did one but not the other, and by then it was too late.  I was having fun doing this thing called “human resources” and someone told me I was good at it.  I’ve always been a sucker for a compliment. 

Anyway, I got into HR by opportunity, not by conscious selection.  I learned it by doing it.  I started before computers, or blackberries, and when “management by walking around” was what we did to communicate and keep in touch, and not a slogan or part of a job description.  I was lucky enough to have someone as a mentor who thought I’d be “exceptional” at it and give me a chance.   I might say he was right, since I’ve been called “exceptional”… and a lot of other adjectives that can’t get printed here. 

The years have a lot of fond and fun memories.  One of them is my first Wisconsin Hospital Association HR meeting some 20 years ago.  I was fresh from five years working overseas for a large international healthcare system and was still getting acclimated to the “Midwest”.  I walked into the meeting at a resort in the Dells and there was a conference room full of older men in bad sports coats, perma-press slacks and short sleeve shirts.  I felt like Arlo Guthrie on the train to New Orleans (listen to the song, you’ll figure it out.)  

Now, the field of HR is changing; and drawing a much younger and more progressive individual into its ranks.  The old men have been replaced by men and women who live to “tee it up” in their “networking sessions” and “add value” with their “out-of-the-box” thinking, as they “deep dive” into various “awesome” subjects and try to “get a seat at the table”.   I still don’t go to the meetings, I’m not PC enough and I get lost in the buzzwords.   

I do have to say one thing about those “old guys” though, they actually knew a lot about the companies they worked for.   It now troubles me, that very few of the new HR managers I’ve seen have ever actually “worked” in the fields where they practice Human Resources.   Sad by-point to that statement is the number of managers in any field who have actually “worked” in the businesses they manage is declining rapidly.  How can management people understand the “work” and the people and the cultures, if they never get out of their offices after they got out of their classrooms?  

So, you may be asking, what does he think “Human Resource Management” is anyway?   Well, it’s kind of like that famous definition of pornography:   “I can’t really define it, but I know it when I see it.”  

I can tell you what it isn’t.  It isn’t writing policies and procedures.  Policies don’t make the organization work right; PEOPLE do … and working with the people, to get their job’s done the best they can… that’s “Human Resource Management”. 

Likewise, Human Resource Management isn’t doing compensation surveys, satisfaction surveys, turnover surveys, or any surveys.  Compensation surveys are always my favorites.  I’ve done a lot of them and paid consultants to do more.  Do you know the number one thing that ALL compensation surveys have in common?   I’ll bet you do.  When you give the survey to the people who asked you to do it, they respond with the comment, “this is good, but … WE’RE DIFFERENT HERE.”   I just smile and bite my tongue. 

And Satisfaction surveys?   I understand the need to do them, and good ways to use them, but if an organization really needs to do surveys to tell them what their staff is thinking or feeling, then I’d start looking for better managers.  As that great HR guru, Bob Dylan, once wrote, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind’s blowing.”  If you need a survey to tell you how your staff feels, then you’re already in trouble.  If you’re a manager, get out of your office, cancel a few meetings, and go see which way the wind is blowing.  That’s Human Resource Management. 

The job of management is to work with their staff, listen to them, and gain their input, ideas and feelings.  Then carry those messages back to their bosses, who carry them to action and a response to the staff.  THAT’S Human Resource management.  

Likewise, good HR management isn’t just winning the “Employer of Choice” award, the Baldrige Award, the “Best Place to Work” or any other such recognition that seems to attract some people like flies to flame.  I mean, seriously, how many places give out awards?   It seems that they’re everywhere.   Eventually every company will get one from somebody and we will all have achieved high-level mediocrity. 

The Baldrige Award is my poster child for missing the point.   Malcolm Baldrige, by the way, was a real-life cowboy.   He was also Secretary of Commerce under Ronald Reagan, from 1981 until his tragic death in a rodeo accident in 1987.  I’m not going to give you a biography of him but if you’re interested just Google him.  You might also look up Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act of 1987 - Public Law 100-107, and read why it was created.  Then peruse the winners of the awards… and what happened to some of them after they won.  But, the point is that Malcolm’s intention was not for businesses to pay bazillions of dollars just to try and win his award.   He wanted to improve the quality of the world.   He would probably be the first to admit that most American’s don’t even know what his award even is.   Do you?   Why don’t you ask your friends and neighbors if they ever heard of it and what it is?   Thank you.  You just proved my point about “awards”.  

But, don’t get me wrong.  Winning awards is great recognition for the organization.  However, real Human Resource Management is building the organization into one that can carry on that exceptional level of performance beyond the award ceremony.  An organization that performs well year after year, and where the majority of staff actually WANTS to come to work there – that organization practices good Human Resource Management. 

Alas, I am now an elder in the family of HR managers.  I’ve had the senior accreditation for the practice of Human Resources since 1981, which is before most of the HR people of today were born.  I’ve forgotten more than most know… but that doesn’t make me special, it makes me experienced…and forgetful…and, well…old. 

I still don’t attend too many meetings and rarely, if ever, attend any HR professional association meetings.  They scare me.  I keep up with new trends, new regulations, any legal issues, and other relevant things by using my computer or reading any number of journals that cross my desk.   I don’t attend meetings just hear about policies, compensation programs, or “best practices” or “network” with a lot of “awesome contacts”.  I really do get queasy around people of any age who talk like that.   Seriously, I get visual impressions of people with an inch deep understanding of their real work. 

So, you might ask, why have I stayed in this profession for so long?  Simple answer: I love it, I really do.  On most days, it’s still fun; and thrills come in architecting and building the systems of real human resource management.  I enjoy taking our “HR” people and giving them the opportunity to become good business people who know how to keep the “human” in human resource management.   Ask anyone in my department what is expected of them.   The answer won’t be remotely connected to traditional HR functions. 

Outside of my department, I get a whole lot of reassuring pleasure out of working for any employee, physician, manager, or anyone to get something accomplished and watching them succeed.   It’s hard to describe how good it feels to find ways to help someone with a problem and have it work out okay… personally or professionally. 

So, I guess if you want to call me an “HR Guy” – go ahead.   I hope that the mental model of “the HR guy” is better than it was years ago, and it is getting better all the time.  I hope.