ON THE SUBJECT OF WAR

Today is Memorial Day, so it is appropriate that I blog about war. There aren’t a lot of people around me who support the current war in Iraq. I live in a big city, work with mostly African-Americans, and live in the shadow of a major university. So I hear a lot of opposition to President Bush and don’t bump into too many conservatives.

The Memorial Day weekend has caused me to contemplate the nature of war and my opinion of war. Many of my liberal friends have told me they appreciate hearing from me because it’s not often they hear an intelligent person defending the conservative position. I realize there’s a subtle dig in there, but I take the compliment nonetheless. So I hope my musings can be of service to those who wrestle through these issues like I do.

To begin with, I am certainly not a hawk and would probably consider myself a dove; given the ravages of war, you have to be a pretty hard person to relish warfare, and I’m not. I also understand the financial cost war imposes on societies, and that there is an opportunity cost involved, for a dollar spent on warfare is a dollar that can’t be spent on something else of societal benefit, like public education or health care or hunger eradication. I also understand the emotional cost war imposes on societies, in the form of traumatized soldiers and widows and orphans and shattered communities, and I don’t wish those costs be borne by any country or any generation.

But I also worry when I hear certain anti-war statements being uttered. Liberal movie stars wonder why we all just can’t get along. Peace-loving Christians condemn military might as an arrogant way to reconciliation. Poor people lament all the money spent on weapons when so much good could be done with that money in our own neighborhoods.

Maybe I’m being jaded or haughty or callous, but I find these sentiments somewhat naïve and potentially dangerous. It is incorrect to say that “we” are the “good guys” and “they” are the “bad guys,” but it is also incorrect to look past the intolerance and brutality that is being incubated by global terrorist networks against America. It is true that the Bible shows us a way to peace that does not involve weapons and force, but it is also true that the Bible records many instances of God’s people using weapons and force en route to peace. Certainly, a dollar spent in Iraq is one less dollar that can be spent here in the US, but to question why we should spend overseas when there are so many problems domestically is to be oblivious to the fact that our world is increasingly interconnected and that it is impossible to shut out the world outside our borders.

Ultimately, I seek to look at war from a Christian standpoint, and in doing so, here’s what I’ve come up with. One, war is a cruel inevitability of this side of glory, and one of the things that will make heaven so great is that there will be no more of it. Death is the same way, and Christians that glorify either war or death are wrong.

Two, God is God of all people and places, and so to say that we should or shouldn’t go to war because it is the Christian thing to do reflects a false Americentrism that we Americans are quite good at. No wonder the world finds us arrogant. The US is not the center of God’s perspective and universe; God is the center of God’s perspective and universe. If we want to be Christian in our view of war, we should balance our perspective with His and with that of others.

And three, while it is proper to have a less US-centric understanding of God’s perspective on war, ultimately we have to form opinions and make decisions from a particular perspective. As Christians, we can wish all we want that nations didn’t need militaries because we shouldn’t have wars and we should be able to find more peaceful ways to resolve our conflicts. But as Americans, we should respect that some of our taxes support a military whose job is to defend us here and promote peace abroad, for such are tasks that need to be performed and for which our government ensures that they are performed. Safeguarding national security and punishing violent terrorists are, like enforcing laws and locking up criminals, tasks that just governments ought to do justly, tasks of which Christian citizens ought to appreciate the importance.

Today, we celebrate those who served our country, particularly those who currently endure hardships and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in their line of duty. Memorial Day is not a Christian holiday, it is an American holiday. Many of those whom we honor and many of us who are doing the honoring are Christian, though, and we have a Christian perspective on war. Today, as a Christian and an American, I choose to celebrate Memorial Day – I choose to honor the living and the dead who have served in the US military – by acknowledging their role as necessary, thanking God for those who conducted themselves with honor and integrity, and appreciating their sacrifices in the name of protecting our country and promoting world peace.

DOCUMENTING DEGREES OF SEPARATION

I just created an account on Facebook. I am absolutely intrigued by this website. For those who aren’t familiar, it’s a web version of the “face books” colleges put out every year so that freshmen can see who else is in their class: names, faces, and interests.

Of course, putting this on the web makes the thing explode with possibilities. Enter “Glee Club” under “Clubs and Organizations,” and you can click on it to see who else on Facebook is in the Glee Club. Type your high school name in, and Facebook will give you a list of everyone else on the site who went to that same school. Take the time to punch in your course schedule, and (you guessed it) Facebook will help you identify who else shares your classes. And at every turn, people can see your dating interests, political views, and favorite bands, and you can see theirs.

The function I find most interesting is “Connections.” Once you’re in, you can add your friends to a friend list. And since they have friends on their friends lists, before you know it, you can see how many degrees of separation you are from any other person on the site. There’s a guy in your Calculus class who shares your interest in mountain biking and chess? Under “Connections,” you can see how many links of friends it would take to get to him.

On this note, as I surfed around on this site, I’ve seen confirmed some of the findings of Milgram’s famous experiment on “super-connectors.” Milgram gave letters to 100 people in rural Kansas and told them these letters had to end up at a stockbroker’s house in urban Boston. The people were instructed to mail their letter to someone who might be able to get it closer to the final destination. Not surprisingly, most of the letters arrived after having passed through about five or six intermediaries. confirming the theory of “six degrees of separation.”

Interestingly enough, though, these paths were not entirely random. An overwhelming majority of the letters flowed through just three of four people. Milgram dubbed these people “super-connectors.” In social networks, apparently, we are all connected to each other within six degrees of separation, but the way that is possible is that we are close to a super-connector who gets us access to a bunch of other people.

And in fact, on Facebook, you can see who are the super-connectors at various college campuses around the world, because when you go to a random person’s page, you see that your path to that person somehow flows through one or more super-connectors. We’re all connected on our college campuses, and it’s the super-connectors that make those connections possible.

IMPRESSIVE INTERNS

I have to say that this year’s crop of interns at work is an impressive bunch. I am intrigued by their life stories, inspired by their ambitions, and intimidated by their resumes. Among these 18 to 21-year olds who are spending some of their summer with us are those who are working four jobs, waking up at 4:00 in the morning for football practice, running student government, and starting new businesses. They are proficient with technology, since things like Facebook and iPods are natural extensions of their day-to-day life. They are cosmopolitan, having worked and traveled overseas and being proficient in multiple languages.

Most of all, they are busy bees. They’ve been through orientation here at work, which I liken to drinking from a firehose, and they haven’t blinked. The fact that we do so much in our organization and expect so much from them as interns has not fazed them; if anything, they welcome the challenge, for to settle into a pace any slower than what they are accustomed to would be, well, boring. I must say, I’m not easily impressed, but I am not only impressed but wowed by the caliber of our interns this year. Lucky for us.

A MORE POWERFUL MESSAGE

In my morning Bible study times, I’ve been reading through a contemporary-language version of the Bible called “The Message.” At first, I enjoyed the change of pace; after all, one of my soapbox issues is that the Bible in its original form was very much for the common man, and we Christians have done a pretty good job of mucking it up since then to make it inaccessible and stuffy. So it was good at first to read familiar Bible stories in language more consistent with the original cadence.

But lately, I’ve been longing for the stuffier versions. For in extracting out all religious words, “The Message” has taken away phrases that hold special significance for me, phrases that ring with passion and poetry. Take this verse from the second chapter of the book of Acts, which I read this morning (New American Standard Version): “And God raised Jesus up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” In “The Message,” it reads: “But God untied the death ropes and raised Jesus up. Death was no match for him.”

Give me the stuffier version on this one. And however you say it, how wonderful a reality – that in Jesus Christ, God has conquered death, and that someday, so will we.

SAM I AM NOT

Asian-Americans now have a version of Maxim, FHM, and the like: SAM Magazine, “for the successful alpha male.” Billed as a way to counter negative stereotypes of the Asian male, the rag’s goals (taken from their website) are “1) to enhance the image of Asian Americans; 2) to entertain and have a good laugh; 3) to encourage self-improvement; 4) to appreciate art and beauty; and 5) to make positive contribution to the world.” Meanwhile, the site itself (and I’m sure the print mag as well) are peppered with seductive pictures of scantily clad Asian women with captions like “Turquoise Fox” and “Pets of Sam.”

Wow. Where to begin? How about the fact that the publication is reinforcing the worst negative stereotypes of Asian females. That giving Asian guys sexy pictures to look at certainly does nothing to enhance the image of Asian males. Or that even the articles in the categories of “self-improvement,” “success,” and “world peace” (as if this was the kind of mag you would get for the articles) are peppered with, you guessed it, more seductive images.

Call me prude all you want – and I do evaluate this mag from the standpoint of lust and morality. But I also look at it from the perspective of an Asian-American male who seeks success and who cares what the mass media impression of successful Asian-American males is. And from that point of view, I am saddened and upset by this addition to the pop culture landscape. This publication brings nothing to the cause and takes a lot from the cause. For shame.

FINALLY DONE

I admit it: I’m a bit of a workaholic. I’m in perpetual motion at work from the second I walk in to the second I leave. When I get home, I’ve got to hit the books for my classes. On the weekends, I catch up on an ever-growing list of domestic, house, and personal chores. Even the things I do for “fun” have a purpose to them: crossword puzzles to keep my mind sharp, and running to keep my body sharp.

Right or wrong, I don’t know that I’ll ever be comfortable doing something completely for fun, like walking a dog or watching a movie. In my mind, there’s too much that I want to accomplish, too much I need to improve in my life, too much in the world that needs to be made right.

It is a double-edged sword. It is good to be fully allocated for the kingdom, to use a favorite phrase of mine. This world is full of half-Christians living half-Christian lives making zero difference for eternity. But it is not good to be so driven as to not rest, to not bask in life, to not tolerate non-workers as lazy.

I understand that it is right and wrong to be like I am. I take comfort in the fact – the absolute, sure fact – that someday soon, there will be a final judgment, and everything will be made right. And on that day, there won’t be anything around me or in me that I’ll feel I need to accomplish anymore, because everything and everyone will be just as it supposed to be.

I understand why the last prayer in the Bible is “come, Lord Jesus,” for the best saints long for that day to come. Come, Lord Jesus.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT

I jotted down some random thoughts on government on a Post-It note the other day, and want to transcribe them onto my blog so I can toss the Post-It (trying to unclutter my desk a little):

· Taxes and subsidies influence behavior. People will do less of whatever you tax and more of whatever you subsidize.

· Governments should see themselves as businesses and their citizenry as customers.

· Free markets only discount for the short-term and the financial; where that ends and other desirable ends begin, governments can and should get involved. Example: there is no market incentive to provide a safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, so it is proper and just that governments administer some sort of social security program.

· In the management of government administrations themselves, a balance needs to be struck between bureaucratic consistency (which enables entities as massive as government agencies to manage themselves) and decentralized decision-making (which acknowledges that it is possible to command-and-control everything, and therefore information and power must be delegated down where useful).

· Everyone says they want smaller government until they get into power, and then they love spending money. There are a lot of ways to ensure that government spending doesn’t get out of control, but the best way is an informed public and a wounded opposition party.

INDEPENDENT STUDY

I’m fulfilling one of my course requirements at Fels by doing an independent study this summer. I’ve decided to look at transit-oriented development and smart growth initiatives in Pennsylvania from a political and financial standpoint.

“Transit-oriented development” and “smart growth” are oft-misunderstood buzzwords in the field of economic development. They both argue for high-density, mixed-use development, as a better alternative to suburban sprawl with its far-flung developments and cookie-cutter designs, which are not only aesthetically boring but deleterious to the environment and high in cost because of the need to build new infrastructure, pave over natural resources, and force commuters into ever-longer drive times.

What interests me in the topic is that here is something that makes sense to me: save money, save the environment, and improve everyone’s quality of life. And yet such initiatives need to be justified from a political and financial standpoint. Politically, public transportation and land development are items that get people lathered up, because they involve lots of money and affect lots of people. Financially, I want to show the tree-huggers that these projects have to make fiscal sense to justify doing them, and I want to prove to the bean-counters that these projects do pass a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, particularly if you factor in gains in environmental conservation, quality of life, and economic equity.

I’ve read about 1000 pages of research so far, and all I’ve learned is how little I know on the subject. But I’m eager to digest the next 1000 pages of research. And eventually, I’ll be able to say a thing or two about the politics and the finances behind transit-oriented development and smart growth initiatives, to make a contribution to a body of research and an ongoing discussion that can lead to better public investments, better environmental stewardship, and better communities.

TICKET FOR 2008

Where I work, you don’t find a whole lot of Republicans. So on political matters, I tend to be asked about what’s going on in the Republican party. Last month, a friend of mine asked me who I thought was going to be on the ticket in 2008. I told it was way to early to speculate.

Ah, but isn’t speculating the best part of election politics? So here goes my best guess for the 2008 ticket: Jeb Bush and Condi Rice. I did a quick Google search and found this post at upforanything.net:

“I wouldn't be Suprised [sic] to see a Jeb Bush-Condi Rice ticket in 2008. America loves political families and dynasties (see Adams and Kennedy's). Jeb and Condi can rake in the minority vote. Hillary's biggest problem will be that there is a large block of voters who'd vote against her just for the sake of hating her guts. Give them a tolerant conservative who is running with a black female from the south and the backing of the supreme court, senate, and house, and I see a very bleek [sic] future for the dems and hillary in 2008.” (posted by: Hunter Golden at July 29, 2003 06:38 PM)

Cafepress is already hawking “Bush-Rice 2008” items: http://www.cafepress.com/eidoan/559493. So this ticket is already out there and being discussed.

By the way, as I was surfing around, I read some other “fascinating” political commentaries, which reminds me that this subject brings out a lot of religious fervor, class warfare, racial hatred, and crass humor. To politics: America’s favorite reality show (at least every four years). See you in ’08.

COMMISSIONED FOR RETIREMENT

Now that our church has identified a senior pastor, our interim pastor can move on. And having served for forty years, he and his wife have decided to move on to retirement. We had a retirement dinner for them last night. It was a fitting celebration of forty years of ministry, replete with pictures, letters, and testimonies from almost all of the places in which they have served.

At the end, our interim pastor was asked to say a few words. In addition to expressing his deep gratitude for such an honoring evening, he asked us if it was OK at the morning service the next day to have the elders of the church lay hands on him and commission him for retirement. He explained that while he planned to take at least the summer off and would definitely take it easy from here on out, that he intended to continue to do the work of God while he was alive, and so he desired to be commissioned for that work, whatever it was.

I appreciated the sentiment and only wish everyone who was retiring saw their post-work days in such a way. For just as God considers us all ministers equipped to do His work, He considers all the times in our lives to be useful for His kingdom. As our interim pastor put it, retirement is not an end but simply a transition; and he was humble enough to desire God’s guidance and power for it.

Many people do not retire well. Some fade into uselessness, others can’t stand to not work and give into drivenness, and still others get into all sorts of trouble as a result of their newfound idle time. This morning, I am glad we will be commissioning our interim pastor for a retirement that is none of those things, but rather that is a continuation of a lifetime of following God and serving others.

PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT

It is not surprising that intelligent young Fels students are often asked, “Why public management?” For it is a difficult time to begin a career in public service. The common man is frustrated with government, finding it both inefficient (wasting money) and ineffective (not delivering). While managers in the private sector have tangible bottom lines to pursue and easy yardsticks by which to measure achievement, public managers must juggle fiscal stewardship with considerations for environment, public safety, and equity. And the geopolitics of today leave most public managers with far too many high-pressure, no-win situations, like homeland security, crime prevention, and dwindling budgets.

But these challenges also create opportunities for intelligent young Fels students to become influential and productive leaders. Disgruntled citizens are akin to dissatisfied customers just waiting for a viable “product” to switch over to. Both governments and citizens are opening up to exciting reforms in performance measurement and civil service. And the fact that public managers are held to account for more than just a financial bottom line also means that public managers can effect significant positive change in important and noble non-financial arenas, like environmental sustainability and “quality of life” and international relations.

It is vitally important, then, for future public managers to understand how to lead and how to produce results. Specifically, success in the public arena boils down to picking the right roles to play within an organization, and finding the right levers within that organization to effect positive change. Public managers who desire to be leaders who produce results would do well to remember these eight principles of public management:

1. Public management is sometimes the same as and sometimes different from private management. Some of the public’s disgruntlement with its government leaders comes from a sense that they are not as effective as their private counterparts. In fact, there are far too many private sector “best practices” that do not get incorporated into public management. Public managers would do well to learn these practices and use them to run their agencies more effectively. But they would also do well to know where and how public management differs from private management. Government functions such as national defense and drug regulation operate under different rules and motivators that what governs the private market. Rainey discusses these similarities and differences, and exhorts public managers to strive for the best of both worlds: incorporating good private management practices when appropriate, but also understanding how to juggle the unique diversity of goals that public managers must strive for.

2. He who frames the issue sets the agenda and wins the battle. Because of this gangly mix of ends public managers must pursue, it is important to define the context of the issue at hand. The current debate on Social Security reform is an excellent example of the importance of this truth. Like most public issues, Social Security reform has several, often conflicting angles for discussion. It can be debated as an issue of budget stewardship, of the government’s role in citizens’ lives, of retirement security, or of age and class divisions, for example. The winner of this debate will be the side that best frames the issue for the American people in a way that is compelling and that best suits a particular solution.

3. Effectiveness starts with setting the right goals and clearly defining them. Wilson argues that the success or failure of government initiatives can be traced back to the very beginning: were goals set, were they the right ones, and were they clear to all involved? Once a public manager has correctly framed the issue and before the actual work can begin, the right goals must be determined. They must be clear enough for all to understand, and compelling enough for all to rally around. A public manager would do well, then, to emulate Wilson and determine all of the players who will be involved in their work – executive/legislative/judicial, external/internal, media/public – and decide if his or her goals are sufficiently clear and compelling to all of these players.

4. Translating goals into action depends on deciding on the best level at which to make decisions. The issues facing public managers are too complex to use old hierarchical structures, in which all decisions were made at the very top and then disseminated down the organizational chart. Effective managers understand that deciding where decisions are made is the most important decision to make. In making that decision, they are able to navigate the tricky interplay between who is closest to the information (often the person at the very bottom) and who is more accountable to the public (always the person at the very top). Here again, Wilson’s multi-perspective work is instructive to public managers, as is Goldsmith and Eggers’ work, which discusses how to balance decision-making power with accountability. Kettl’s System Under Stress uses the extreme example of the 9/11 attacks to underscore the challenge of determining where decisions should be made. The attacks themselves, and the emergency response to them, were a case study in how difficult it is to decide who should be in charge at the street level. Meanwhile, the overall function of homeland security is also tricky, since increased federalism translates into decreased reliance on local self-government and decreased civil liberties.

5. Organizational culture counts for everything. A public manager’s initiatives will only be as successful as his or her ability to manage the organization’s receptivity to it. Almost every lecture and reading stressed the importance of organizational culture. Changes in the IRS, for example, were found to have little to do with changing the information technology and instead had everything to do with changing the organization’s assumptions about its role, its customers, and its approach. Wye offered 39 suggestions for public managers to influence the organizational culture towards greater receptivity of performance measurement initiatives. Wilson’s entire book is about context, and he speaks early and often how the context within an organization determines that organization’s effectiveness.

6. Change happens because leaders manage it. Fels students are book-smart people who have excelled in school settings where success meant getting the right answer. In the public arena, the “right answer,” even if such a thing exists, is just the first step in an inherently political process of change. Wye’s 39 suggestions about performance measurement are based on two important assumptions: 1) performance measurement is the “right answer,” and 2) leaders still have to manage the change process within their organizations if they want performance measurement to work. Rainey also concludes his book with an exhortation for public managers to focus on transition and on the political influence that will need to be wielded to get others to buy in to the transition.

7. Performance measurement connects decisions to actions and actions to results. It is a long way from the planning and strategizing done by public managers and the tangible results observed by the general public, to whom public managers are ultimately and visibly accountable. Performance measurement can serve a number of useful functions to public managers on this long journey. It can be used as ammunition to prove to supervisors that inputs are translating into outputs. It can expose bad performers and highlight good performers within the organization. It can serve as a dashboard of pertinent and timely information from which to make decisions. And it can signal to the general public that the government is action-oriented, results-driven, and open to accountability. President Bush’s performance scorecard is an example of a recent performance measurement initiative that is seeking to accomplish these and other ends.

8. At the end of the day, if you don’t have integrity, you don’t have anything. People expect both public and private managers to be ethical. But breaches of ethics by public managers seem to hurt more, because public managers operate literally within the public’s trust. Public managers can be effective in all of the methods described above, but they must also understand the ethical yardsticks by which they are being measured. The New York Police Department’s crackdown on crime in the 1990’s, the infamous 1985 MOVE incident in Southwest Philadelphia, and the NASA’s Challenger and Columbia disasters are three examples of public officials being judged not just on financial and operational success but also on ethical and moral grounds. Public managers must understand this aspect of accountability and measure up to it in order to be successful.

Fels students that graduate from the program understanding these eight aspects of “leadership for results” can indeed be considered leaders who produce results. They will understand how to initiate, manage, and complete positive change. They will understand the unique conditions under which they operate, and wield the right levers accordingly. And they will do so with a strong moral compass, not just to avoid bad publicity but to generate positive goodwill. If Fels can produce such leaders, government will not only be more productive but it will also be more inspiring.

LEADERSHIP LESSONS LEARNED

1. Public management is unique because of managers’ responsibility to the public. Public managers face a distinct form of scrutiny because of their stewardship of the public’s trust. Leaders in the public domain can wilt under this unyielding scrutiny or they can embrace the chance to demonstrate good stewardship of the public’s resources. That the public holds its managers accountable to more than just “profitability” – fairness, honesty, and quality are other desired outcomes – can be seen as a crushing burden or a rewarding opportunity.

2. Organizational culture counts. Initiatives can only survive in contexts conducive to their success. Good leaders, then, are careful to create organizational cultures that are healthy and vibrant, and to work across departments and up and down the organizational chart to foster a shared commitment to success.

3. One achieves results through leadership and influence. The “right answer” is merely the first step in a leader’s work. In order to actually effect results, he or she must then mount a successful internal “PR” campaign to influence others to get on board. To convince others to follow your plans is an inherently political process, and effective leaders know how to influence that process to carry through their initiatives.

4. Get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus. In his bestseller, Good to Great, Jim Collins argues that rather than setting a course and then finding people to help get there, leaders should fire the bad people and find the good people and then move. I tend to agree, for I have seen strong organizations crippled because they allowed the wrong people to hang around, and I have also seen mediocre organizations do great things because they found and mobilized the right people.

5. Make the big decisions and make sure your little actions are in sync with them. I have ready many biographies of great American leaders, particularly Dwight Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt, and I am always struck by how few decisions they actually made. Good leaders, it seems, know which are the important decisions to make. Then they make sure they make the right choices in those decisions. Finally, they align their day-to-day details around those big decisions. This leadership style gives followers comfort in knowing that their leader is courageous enough to make the big decisions. Also, it is a mark of integrity that a leader’s actions harmonize with his words, so living accordingly engenders a deep level of trust from followers.

ASIAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

In honor of Asian-American heritage month, I'm running three pieces. One is my speech from this morning, one is a speech I gave six years ago, and one is an article I wrote eight years ago. Ironically, all three took place in the month of May. Enjoy.

PRESENTATION FOR THE US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S ASIAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH CELEBRATION (MAY 2005)

Ever since I was invited by Lena Kim to speak to you, I have been excited about what I was going to say to you. Well, excited and nervous. I am honored and humbled to address such an esteemed group of people. And it is particularly a challenge as a speaker to prepare comments that will resonate with such a diverse group, on such important yet sensitive issues as culture and identity. How to break the ice with such an audience on such a topic?

I’m reminded of an American consultant who was once invited to give a speech in Japan. He sought the advice of a Japanese colleague of his, who advised him, "You have to understand that the Japanese like you to put on a great show of humility, so begin your speech by saying you're not really qualified to be speaking here, you're going to make mistakes, and you want to apologize in advance for any mistakes you make."

The American followed his colleague’s advice and began the speech that way. But to his shock and dismay, the audience erupted into uproarious laughter. He couldn't understand what had just happened, and struggled through the end of his speech.

When he got off the stage, he was met by the head of the Japanese company that invited him. “What just happened,” asked the American. The Japanese manager replied, "Oh, we are so sorry, sir. You have to understand that I had briefed my employees before your speech that Americans always start their speech with a joke, so whatever you said first, I told them they have to laugh."

So hopefully I’ve covered my bases by beginning with an apology and a joke. But seriously, it is an honor and a joy to be here with you this morning. My wife Amy could not be here with me this morning, because she is out furniture shopping. We are preparing our home and our hearts for our first child, a daughter who we will hopefully be traveling to China later this summer to meet and take home. My wife is Caucasian, of Hungarian, Italian, and Polish descent, and I am Taiwanese. We are both US citizens, as will be our daughter.

But she will no doubt wrestle with a sense of dual identity, on a number of levels. As she grows up, she will come to know that her parents are of different ethnicities. She will come to understand that she is adopted, and no doubt struggle with what that means. And what will it mean for her to be an American but to be born in China? To which culture will she feel at home, if either?

I have a feeling that our daughter will become a very thoughtful young woman, because she will have had to wrestle with some significant identity issues by the time her childhood is over. But I am heartened by the fact that she will have a father who understands what it is like to wrestle with a sense of dual identity. And I take seriously this responsibility I will have to help her navigate through her own inner wrestlings.

Some of you, I’m sure, can identify with this sense of dual identity, or as I like to call it, the feeling of being “hyphenated.” Many of us in this room cleave to one culture at home, and one away from home, and are proud of both and identify with both. I consider myself simultaneously Taiwanese and American. I want to retain the heritage, culture, and language of my family. But I also want to embrace new ways and new philosophies on my own. Taiwanese and American. Why can’t I be both?

Some of us in this room are of some religious persuasion, and struggle to know what it looks like to be faithful followers in an increasingly secular society. I myself desire to follow Jesus, and to see the spiritual side of material things and the material side of spiritual things. And in doing so, I’ve been accused of being too secular by the religious folks and too religious by the secular folks. A Christian whose eyes are on heaven but whose heart beats for what’s happening here on earth. Can I be both?

What I want to convey to my daughter is what I want to convey to you this morning. I want to tell you about my upbringing, about how I first clashed with my parents and then sought to bridge the many gaps – cultural, generational, and faith – that kept us from seeing eye to eye. I want to tell you about what I do at work around minority entrepreneurship, and why I do it. And I want to tell you about what it is like today, to be an Asian-American working and living where I do, to add my perspective and my stories to the rich tapestry of perspectives and stories that this entire month has been about.

Let me start with my relationship with my parents. The older I get, the more I appreciate their parenting. I have them to thank for my work ethic, my values, and my education. They say kids, by nature, grow – and that the goal of parenting, then, is just to provide fertile ground for them to do what they will inevitably do, and that is to grow, physically and emotionally and intellectually. And my parents provided me with fertile ground in which to grow. They made sure my childhood would be about playing sports and learning math and loving music. They made sure that I was safe, that I was fed, and that I was loved. And, like a kid should, I grew.

I became a Christian in my teen years. And to the extent that being a Christian meant going to church and making friends with good moral people and not doing bad things, my parents were fine with my newfound faith. But I was never one to do something halfway. As I grew in my faith, I began to realize that there was more to it than just going to church and being a good person. I felt challenged and invited to make it my life, to trade earthly treasures for heavenly ones, and to work for the benefit of others and not for my own honor or gain.

My parents, of course, thought I had lost my mind. And we began to clash. Looking back, I realize that back then I saw our conflict purely in faith terms: we had different beliefs, after all, and that must be why we were disagreeing on major life issues.

I know now that in addition to a faith gap, there was also a cultural and generational gap. My parents immigrated to America in the 1960’s to go to graduate school. Their cultural and generational values were that of highly educated immigrants. Their greatest desire was to work hard and ensure that their children had economic opportunities and financial security. Their view of work was as a vehicle for providing for family, a means to a greater end. Technical careers, and therefore technical educations, were particularly sought after, because they allowed for a maximum of financial reward with a minimum of job risk. Hence the proliferation of highly educated Asian immigrants in professions such as doctor, engineer, and scientist.

My generation is different. As the second generation, and the first born in the US, we value more highly things like prestige and power and influence. We desire to make a difference. And while our parents were more apt to cluster themselves with others of their country of origin, we are more comfortable building pan-Asian alliances, and reaching beyond Asians to other ethnic groups for our political, commercial, and social networks.

To be sure, you could explain my career trajectory solely in faith terms. My Christian values certainly influence my desire to give back, to effect social change, and to work for racial reconciliation. But I think that would be an incomplete analysis of my life decisions. My choices and my values, like my conflicts with my parents, are better explained as an intertwining of faith, cultural, and generational influences.

Let’s hold that thought so I can tell you a little bit about what I do, and then we’ll come back to this point about how my perspective as an Asian-American and as a second-generationer flavors my life choices. Since I graduated from the Wharton School of Business in 1995, I’ve worked for one organization, The Enterprise Center in West Philadelphia. It’s been an incredible ten years, and I am proud of what I do and who we are as an organization.

You can boil our work down to three words: accelerating minority entrepreneurship. For an organization that barely has a $1 million budget, we do a lot: we run an award-winning youth entrepreneurship program, three separate training courses, a business development center contract with the federal government, a capital corporation that administers three loan funds, a real estate development corporation, and a global consulting and replication division. We operate a 35,000 square foot facility, have a dozen business tenants, and host 50-60 major events per year. And everything we do is about accelerating minority entrepreneurship.

But while we have never wavered from that mission, in the past year or so, we have undergone some significant changes in direction and focus. Circa late 2003, we were correctly termed a business incubator, a place that nurtures businesses to self-sufficiency. We provided startup ventures with facility resources, business advice, and an all-inclusive environment that was about helping businesses survive and thrive. We incubated about 15-20 businesses at a time, and worked with them for a period of 3-5 years, during which they might grow from one to two employees and $100,000 in annual sales to 10-15 employees and $1 million in annual sales.

At least that was the goal. But two things kept getting in the way. One was financial: to provide such a comprehensive program was pretty expensive for us. In fact, for every dollar we were spending on our clients, we were charging them about twenty cents. We were fortunate in the mid-1990’s to have good relationships with a handful of key foundations and corporations from which we could find that other eighty cents. But when the stock market took a nosedive earlier this decade, that source of money began to dry up, leaving us with a hard-to-sustain business model.

But our adjustments over the last year or so have not been just about financial pressures. The other thing we were noticing when we were running our business incubator was that we were pretty good at growing businesses from $100,000 in annual sales to about $800,000, but we struggled mightily at helping these entrepreneurs get over the $1 million hump. We began to suspect that we there were some programmatic flaws that we would have to address if we wanted to help get these businesses over $1 million in annual sales.

Specifically, we began to identify some areas in which minority entrepreneurs needed support in order to break through the $1 million level. We identified four, which all conveniently happen to start with the letter “C.” First is capital. This is well-documented: minorities struggle to obtain sufficient capital to grow their businesses. You can go from $100,000 to $800,000 by scraping together funds from various sources. But if you want to play with the big boys above $1 million, you need that larger infusion of cash. So we knew we needed to help our businesses get capital.

The second “C” is contracts. It is also well-documented that minorities have had shockingly low participation rates in large private sector and public sector contracts. And again, when you’re first getting started, anybody who wants to pay is a customer. But if you want to grow to scale, you can’t just cobble together a bunch of little contracts; you need the big contracts. So we knew we had to help our clients identify, compete for, and then win these large procurements.

The third “C” is consultants. This one is a little less publicized. But think about it for a moment. When you are first getting started, there are now quite a few places you can go for free or cheap help. SBDC, WORC, SBA: there’s a whole alphabet soup’s worth of places where you can get free or low-cost consulting services. Not to be snobby, but when you’re looking to approach and pass the $1 million threshold in annual sales, that help might be too basic for you. But the next tier of consulting help might charge you $70 an hour, $90 an hour, $150 an hour. And you might not be able to afford that. So we knew we had to figure out a way to get our clients high-end consulting help at affordable rates.

The fourth and final “C” is community. This one is a holdover from our incubator days. For all the great resources and coaching we made available to our clients, oftentimes the greatest value they derived from our program was not from us but from each other. Entrepreneurs are, well, entrepreneurial; and our entrepreneurs, because they shared a common facility, were constantly networking – in the hallways, at the water cooler, and even in the restrooms. Among other collaborations, they swapped market information, linked up on jobs, and pooled their purchasing power. We knew this kind of entrepreneurial fraternity would be vital for businesses trying to break through the $1 million mark, so we had to figure out how to foster it.

In early 2004, we bid for and received the designation from the US Department of Commerce to be the Minority Business Development Center for the state of Pennsylvania. And since then, this has been our vehicle for testing and implementing some of our findings. We are constantly hustling to help our clients connect to opportunities for capital and contracts. We have developed an in-network of consulting partners who we can refer our clients to, and for whom we can subsidize the cost of the engagement through the federal contract, so that the consultants get their regular rate and the businesses pay a reasonable fee. And we are fostering community amongst our clients through CEO roundtables, organized trips to the White House, and the development of a “PA-50” designation for the fastest growing minority businesses in the state.

Along the way, we are adjusting to the changes this contract is bringing. Our old incubator model, after all, was about housing 15-20 businesses, mostly local to Philadelphia and mostly African or African-American, for a three- to five-year period. Our new model means that our clients are geographically diffuse, further along in size and sophistication, and much more ethnically diverse.

In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of our organization now is the simultaneous outreach to non-immigrant minorities (i.e. African-Americans) and immigrant minorities (i.e. Africans, Latinos, and Asians). We are up for the challenges involved when you add in new cultures and new languages, but we can do better. We are building relationships with key people and organizations around the city and across the state, but we need to continue to add to what we are already doing locally, particularly in the Asian and Latino communities. We are improving in having more languages and cultures represented on our staff and board. And we are working to make our business resources and marketing materials accessible to people for whom English is not their dominant language. But we can do better.

Along the way, I have considered my own personal perspective on this work, and have found it interesting to see how I am received in various settings. For example, I am not always ready when I speak to non-Asians who assume that my agenda is solely about Asian business formation. Nor am I always prepared when I speak to Asians who wonder why my agenda is not solely about Asian business formation.

Given my line of work and where I live and work, it is not uncommon for me to find myself in settings in which I am not only the only Asian in the room, but the only Asian with whom the others in the room have had any meaningful interaction. Unfortunately, sometimes this leads to comments that are ignorant or even offensive. I have been called “Bruce Lee,” even though I don’t look anything like him and don’t know kung-fu. I have been asked if I’m related to the kind Korean couple that runs the corner store down the street, as if all Asians were somehow part of one really large family. And I have also had my language ridiculed and my culture insulted by people whose only other Asian points of reference are mass media caricatures like William Hung from American Idol or the sinister Taiwanese bad guy on Alias.

I believe that Asian-Americans have an important role to play in work like what I do at The Enterprise Center and in neighborhoods like where I live in West Philadelphia. If entrepreneurship is the engine of our national economy, and if we are fast becoming a “majority-minority” country, particularly on the coasts and in the big cities, then accelerating minority entrepreneurship is of utmost importance. And if cities lead, in terms of economics and sociology and culture, then what happens there matters a great deal.

And in both areas, I believe Asian-Americans have an important role to play. For we have a unique position in the racial stratosphere. We are able to relate to the African-American plight of being seen as “different” in mainstream circles, and of being racially profiled and stereotyped accordingly. With Latino-Americans, we can understand the challenge of speaking one language at home and another outside the home. With other Asian-Americans, of course, we can find solidarity on issues specific to Asians in America, like the “model minority” and “perpetual foreigner” stereotypes. And with all minority groups, we can empathize about the struggles of being a minority in America, and wrestle together over such issues as “passing,” “assimilation vs. multi-culturalism,” and what it means to identify oneself as hyphenated – fully American and yet having strong ties to a particular country of origin.

These inter-ethnic bridges, when combined with other assets we have, like family and social networks and academic and professional resources, position us to play a distinct and important role in accelerating minority entrepreneurship in urban settings. But only if we act.

“To whom more has been given, more is expected.” It is a Biblical theme, but one to which I believe all people should hold themselves, regardless of their individual creed. For Asian-Americans like me, who are well-educated and bi-cultural, we have been given much in the way of material and educational resources, for which we ought to be thankful.

But with those resources come opportunities and responsibilities. To build bridges, to be a voice for other groups and not just our own, and to together form a pan-Asian identity that gives us the strength in numbers that will help all sub-groups within – Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipino, Taiwanese, and so on.

This concept of looking beyond the self to enrich those around is one I hope to pass on to my daughter, and one I hope you will also take to heart. Strong family values and high quality education have been invested in us. We can hole up comfortably in our own familial and ethnic enclaves. We can physically separate ourselves from others in the never-ending quest for safety, for identity, for home. We can avoid meaningful, authentic relationships with others different from us, deciding that while our stereotypes may be incorrect, we’ll hold on to them because they help us make sense of our world.

Or we can use our voice and our access to do good in ways for which we are uniquely positioned. We can embrace our hyphenated state – spiritual and secular, Asian and American, work responsibilities and family obligations – and do good works, even at the cost of being misunderstood or underappreciated. And we can ask ourselves – and this is a quote I strive to live by every day – “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” -- and we can decide that the highest enrichment of our own souls is in enriching and strengthening others, and we can devote our careers and our lives to this cause.

The conclusion I have drawn, from my perspective as a second-generation Asian-American living and working in West Philadelphia, is to enrich my soul in this way. I fall short daily. But I try again each new day. And, for the sake of our city, for the sake of racial reconciliation, and for the sake of a better world, I hope that regardless of your own individual perspective, you will reach the same conclusion, and join with me and try again each new day. Thank you.

PRESENTATION TO ABC6 MINORITY ADVISORY BOARD (MAY 1999)

On behalf of The Enterprise Center, I want to thank Larry Smallwood and WPVI-TV for inviting me to be part of this important celebration, and all of you for joining with me in celebrating the history, culture, and contributions of Asian-Americans here in Philadelphia. As we gather in this beautiful restaurant and on this festive occasion, I want to invite all of you to join with me in my personal process of seeking a balance. I hope that my own personal exploration into the subject of balance will trigger your own thought process of how to achieve healthy balance in your vocational, social, and personal lives.

I'd like to start by sharing my own journey, and the importance of balance in that journey. I was born in Seattle, grew up in Northern California, went to school at PENN, and have settled in West Philadelphia, where I work at The Enterprise Center at 46th and Market Streets and worship at Woodland Presbyterian Church at 42nd and Pine Streets. I am a second-generation Taiwanese-American. I am hyphenated.

I have lived my whole life as a hyphenated person, sometimes getting the best of both of the worlds I live in, sometimes not feeling at home in either world. Your own journey may be different than mine, but perhaps you can relate somewhat with my struggle to be both Taiwanese and American, to retain the heritage, culture, and language of my family, while embracing new ways and new philosophies on my own. Perhaps you can relate somewhat with my struggle to be both West Coast and East Coast at the same time, both California surfer dude and sophisticated Philadelphia urbanite. Perhaps you can relate somewhat with my struggle to be a faithful follower of Jesus in this society, and one who sees the spiritual side of material things and the material side of spiritual things. I've been accused of being too secular by the religious folks and too religious by the secular folks. I'm hyphenated.

You're hyphenated, too. Your worlds may be different than mine, but you can relate with my struggle, to be in two worlds at once and yet not feel at home in either. Maybe you're struggling to be a good worker and a good father, or mother or husband or wife: you know they go hand in hand, but it seems like everywhere you turn, you're being asked to sacrifice one for the other. Maybe you're struggling to maintain integrity in a job setting that is constantly seducing you into compromising your personal standards. Or maybe you're a dreamer like me, and you're trying to reconcile your youthful agenda to save the world with the reality of violence, moral decay, and tragedy that is taking place in our communities and in our society. You're hyphenated.

We're all hyphenated. What can we do about it? I'm sure you've heard people talking about "seeking a balance," maybe so much so that those words have become hollow and empty. What does it really mean, "seeking a balance," and how does that help me as a hyphenated person? I'd like to share three aspects of "seeking a balance" which I've tried to practice in my life; perhaps they will be useful for yours.

To begin with, "seeking a balance" first means focusing on what you are about. Focusing on what you are about. Maybe you can relate with me when I say I want to start three businesses, get married and raise a family, learn a foreign language or two, travel the world, and brush up on my piano skills . . . all in the next three years. Seeking a balance first means focusing on what you are about. That can be difficult for talented and ambitious people like you and me.

One of the things that challenges me about the life of Jesus is his focus. Here's someone infused with enough talent and ambition to establish new schools and hospitals, lead a military revolution, and find a cure for cancer . . . and yet, instead he focused almost all of his efforts on twelve men, one of whom betrayed him, another of whom denied knowledge of him, and all of whom abandoned him at his darkest point of need; yet these men carried his name and his legacy to the ends of the earth. Jesus was a man of focus. And that challenges me, because as a follower of his, and as someone who isn't nearly as talented or ambitious as he, I'm not nearly as focused.

I'm in the process of re-writing my personal mission statement, and re-aligning my life around it. It's a work in progress, but right now it reads something like this: "I love God, I champion people, I cherish life." Like a corporation, I am examining my current activities and my pursuit of new activities under this new rubric. This approach allows me to maintain my focus and achieve my purposes without being derailed, distracted, or diluted. I challenge you to also take some time to reflect on what your personal mission statement would be. Seeking a balance as a hyphenated person in a chaotic world starts with focusing on what you are about.

Secondly, seeking a balance means accepting failure and rejection. Accepting failure and rejection. You know, that doesn't sound too positive or inspirational. Yet its one of the most popular messages we preach at The Enterprise Center where I work. We're in the business of helping people start businesses, and my job there is to promote entrepreneurship to youth, which we do through business camps, school-based curriculum, and for-profit ventures. We make sure our youth understand that failure and rejection will be part of every step on the ladder of their success in business and entrepreneurship. In every successful entrepreneur's closet are the skeletons of failure and rejection. It is our ability to bounce back from adversity, and our perseverance to maintain true to our vision in the midst of opposition, that prepares us for success in business and entrepreneurship.

Accepting failure and rejection is fundamental to seeking a balance as a hyphenated person. If you want to play it safe, and never venture into new possibilities and new relationships and new worlds, you may not have to deal with failure and rejection. But for those of us who are hyphenated, who live in two worlds, and who juggle oftentimes conflicting priorities, we will face failure and rejection head-on. Again, I invite you to look into the life of Jesus. Because he focused on what he was about, he was able to stay true to his purposes: in the midst of overwhelming popularity, he made controversial and uncompromising demands that shrunk his fan base, and in the midst of crushing opposition, he carried out his stated agenda without wavering. We, too, once we are focused on what we are about, and once we accept failure and rejection, can navigate the complicated waters of seeking a balance as a hyphenated person.

Finally, seeking a balance as a hyphenated person involves embracing diversity. Embracing diversity. Diversity is at once a familiar buzzword that no one would argue against, and at the same time a sensitive and touchy subject. On the one hand, we all recognize the value-added of different people offering different opinions and different perspectives; and on the other hand, we are socialized to only trust people that are similar to us. On the one hand, we understand and applaud the need to open doors for traditionally disenfranchised peoples; and on the other hand, we wonder how empowering it actually is to someone if we are no longer hiring them based on their own merit. What does embracing diversity mean, then, and what does it have to do with seeking a balance?

Embracing diversity means relating to different kinds of people, without acting like you are "one of the guys." As a promoter of entrepreneurship to youth in West Philadelphia, I work predominantly with African-American teenagers who come from inner-city neighborhoods. I'm not African-American, I didn't grow up in an inner-city neighborhood, and I am certainly not a teenager. And I don't try to act like one. But I do try my best to listen, empathize, and show respect. Sometimes my kids think I'm corny because I listen to classical music and read business magazines all the time. That's OK: I just keep on listening, empathizing, and showing respect. My kids understand that I am trying my best to understand them, but that I am not one of them. And it is my hope that with the help of my example, my kids will become leaders who embrace the diversity in the people they interact with, by also listening, empathizing, and showing respect.

Embracing diversity also means valuing others as equals, and as people who have much to offer us and much to teach us. The stereotype of Christians is that we are close-minded and imperialistic, and that we harbor a "messiah" complex that encourages dependency and undercuts empowerment. Sadly, that stereotype is a correct portrayal of our history and our present. But it is not a correct portrayal of our Hero. Jesus spent more time and had more good things to say about the outcasts of society than about the day's religious leaders. He asked for water from a woman of ill-repute from a hated ethnic group. And he cared intimately and uniquely for each individual who he came into contact with.

You may have other role models or heroes; mine is Jesus. You may have other agendas or passions; mine is promoting entrepreneurship and championing youth. You may have different pasts, presents, and futures than I. But all of us can relate to the dilemma of being hyphenated, and all of us can relate to the challenge of seeking a balance in a chaotic world. I urge all of you: Focus on what you are about. Accept failure and rejection. And embrace diversity. Thank you.