LIFE CYCLE

We are born, we live, then we die.

The same goes for organizations. We all have a life cycle. When training organizations this was a major model I used. The Life Cycle is explained in detail in my book, From The Inside Out: How to Create and Survive a Culture of Change. There are a couple of books left on Amazon with used books starting at 14 cents. If you cannot afford that price, let me give a brief summery of the Life Cycle here for nothing.

Change, simply stated, is that something which was something is now something else. The reason it did not stay the something it was is because of the second law of thermodynamics (entropy). Entropy means that systems tend to break down over time. They break down to the extent that the energy needed to maintain systems exceeds the initial energy needed to start them. Entropy applies to all systems, which is why systems either grow or die. The Life Cycle model is off to the right.

Let's apply the Life Cycle to the United States government.

START UP   Thirteen states were populated with 2.5 million people infused with the passion and desire to be free from England, free from an autocratic government. They had, minimal laws were self-reliant, and they shared excitement and vision with their new country and government.

GROWTH   From a new, upstart nation we developed to the most powerful nation in the world. We found where our weaknesses were and plugged up the holes. We did things we could be very proud of and some not so much. The roles of the citizen evolved into one of being a follower of rules, regulations and an ever-increasing number of laws. We had war and peace. We grew and prospered. Our tomorrow stood a good chance of being pretty much like yesterday, and yesterday was a good day. We ate our dinners with Ozzie and Harriet, David, Ricky and the Beav and his family.

MATURITY   A complacency sets in. We accept the status quo. We accept we are the most powerful nation in the world and stop working at keeping it there and remembering how we got there. We listen more to the naysayers. We stop growing and really appreciating what we have. We begin to ........

DECLINE   We have lost our excitement and vision. Why? We now have 37 more states with 317.5 million more people than in our start-up phase. It's been 23 years since the last constitutional amendment even though we experienced very dynamic and changing times. Determining how many federal laws we have in effect is almost impossible, but it seems to be around 50,000. We have a 74,000-page income tax code, a 20,000 page Obamacare law with rapidly rising debt. Thirty-seven out of every 100 people are no longer participating in the job market. Almost half of us receive money from some government entity. We have classes of people who feel they are entitled to the bounty of other classes. We have a genuine concern over the  sustainability of Social Security and Medicare. We let everybody cross the Rio Grande who is not afraid to get their ankles wet. We have a Middle East we seem to have no idea what to do with, and they know exactly what they want to do with us. We have 3 designed separate branches of government which seem to function as one. Our longest serving "citizen legislator" John Dingell (D) served almost 60 years in the House before he retired. Some Congresspeople (against the Founders' intent) are still serving having been there 40-50 years. There is no clear delineation between the public and private sectors (Public sector telling the private sector what they must pay their employees). And, sadly, we have a two party system which, as they say, is nothing but 2 cheeks on the same butt.

What to do? What to do?

Before an organization gets so far into decline that it cannot get out it must....

RESTART We must get back the excitement and vision we had in start up. Restart is actually Start Up of a new and higher order.

While I completely disagreed with him politically I thought we might have had our restart with the election of Barack Obama, a minority with little or no experience at almost anything might just shake things up. He was certainly different. He promised to "fundamentally transform the country." Good! I believed we needed that, but what I believed we needed was a better, stronger America, not to restart by jettisoning the United States of America and replacing it with Denmark. We can see that restart doesn't always work. I believe our current restarting (Obama's "transforming") is like the corporate restart that brought us the Edsel, New Coke and the Betamax. The election of Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden would continue our trip down the yellow brick road. If Bernie Sanders is elected, we could change the name of the USA to the USD-the United States of Denmark.

Enter Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, we have 3 people in the presidential race today who have no political backgrounds, have no ties to policies currently in place and do not appear to "owe" any other politician their success. We know how difficult coming in and changing this is for a new President. Washington DC is really run by the 40 year government bureaucrats in a 6X6 cubicle in the basement, and maybe that will never change until we go into complete decline, but I really believe bringing in an outsider with proven leadership skills and a commitment to the Founders vision of America may be the best chance we have to restart the United States.

FINALLY, I HAVE RISEN TO THE BOTTOM

Today (8/30) I have turned 75 years of age and that is great because I am now very much a minority. Being in less than 3% of the population, I can now officially claim to be a victim. With my new minority status, I, like other minorities before me, feel compelled to impose my will and desires on the majority, and because I am a minority, the majority, for some bizarre reason, will feel a moral obligation to bend over backwards to my demands.

So, I believe that since there are more women than men in the later years, I should be able to marry as many women as I wish, and would expect the Supreme Court to allow that to occur in all 50 states, for no particular reason other than it's what I want. Then our new little family should be able, and even encouraged, to adopt any 50-year-old orphans looking for a home. I would expect to be able to commandeer any main street, organize, and participate in a yearly Geezer Pride Parade with participants proudly riding in wheelchairs or pushing walkers while shamelessly wearing open bathrobes, oxygen tanks and adult underwear. Anyone finding this spectacle eccentric and slightly gonzo, and who would be inclined to say so out loud, should be restrained by the police and called an ageophobe.

I believe if I have any problem supporting my new little, but old, family (which if I do, shame on the government), I should be able to get most any job I wish because of age hiring quotas (10% percent of your employees should be 75 or older) in place. Also, a company's ability to fire me regardless of how slow I am, how much I forget, or how much I never knew, should be pretty much legally eliminated. Considering my new age handicap and what I deserve for having it, if I don't choose to get a job, maybe I could using my minority quota to leap-frog over many more eligible people and get into an Ivy League university and major in Viking Studies.

Of course for me to live the life to which I have, or wish to, become accustomed, I would expect to get (I am a minority, you remember) most every job I apply for. My minimum wage should be in the $100K range. Now, I know I'm not worth that, and that this money has to come from somewhere, but I don't care. That's not my problem. I'm a victim because I am a minority, and it's the responsibility of people who have money to figure out how to get me what I want. Why? Because I want it...

As one gets older the eyes go, the reflexes are dimmed and judgment gets impaired, but those are no reasons for 75 plusers being stopped by the police in inordinate numbers while going 20 MPH under the speed limit. If this obvious harassment continues, we seniors will have to engage in a 1000 Walker March to demonstrate against being unduly targeted for traffic violations. When I was a majority and had no one but myself to blame things on, I used to think being stopped by the police was my fault, but now since I am a minority, therefore a victim, I know the real reason I'm being stopped is DWO (Driving While Old) .

I would also expect to see an elder as one of the main characters on all TV show or movies. I would also expect the police and fire departments to employ a percent of the seniors living in the community they represent. It would be a big benefit if they could pass the mental and physical criteria for the police or fire job, but if they can't, so what? Isn't it more important to placate the vocal minority than to protect the silent majority?

Lastly, since I'm running out of energy to write any more, and my government provided ghost-writer is useless, are we not sick and tired of all of the young policemen shooting the aged? Don't they realize that Old Lives Matter?

Boy! these next 25 years are going to be fun.