Yes you can!!!
Lost, bewildered, confused, “at a loss to understand” are just some of the comments we hear about the impact on people of the current financial crisis. There is certainly a lack of confidence in our leaders being actually aware of what is going on as each major injection of taxpayers money into the Banks does not appear to achieve the necessary release of funds to businesses in need. The one potential sign of hope and confidence is in Barack Obama as a quite different style of President of the USA. There is a lot of optimism and faith being placed on him being able to gather a team around him with the capability of achieving a turnaround in the economy of the US.
With this in mind I am attracted to the term “Smart Power” recently used by Hillary Clinton and others to describe what they see as an effective strategy to deal with a range of global issues including the financial meltdown in the US. The term and what it implies is a neat fit for what I consider is needed to assist every bottom-up-leader fulfil their mission. Bringing together a range of tool and tactics designed to tackle the four critical areas of helping ourselves and others to develop potential, be self-assured, debt free, and continue to shape a better life for all. Fulfilling the mission is becoming even more essential as we enter a period of deepening economic recession.
Self-assurance is the foundation on which the other three are shaped. Self-assurance grows as our self-belief increases in relation to our ability to achieve our goals. However, it is interesting to note that being debt free would place us in the advantageous position of having the money to pay off credit cards, the mortgage, loans, and any other financial liability. In today’s financial climate this must be a great confidence and self-belief builder.
Smart Power and the bottom-up-leader
For those of us who aspire to be bottom-up-leaders we have the opportunity of using the smart power strategy to continue to assist our colleagues to take greater control of their lives. The first challenge is to be informed on what is going on in the local, national, and international business environment. Because being “up with the play” means that we are in a better position to make informed choices that are beneficial to all we interact with. Therefore when we work with others to develop their potential we are in the best position possible to truly assist them to build capability in the four areas.
Being relevantly informed about the actions you plan to take is most important if you are going to achieve the desired results. You have probably noticed how the description of an incident by several people tends to have quite significant variations on the detail. This is a natural phenomena caused by the fact that we each see things and situations differently. To avoid this trap it makes sense to triangulate by seeking input from three or more people to see what the common denominators are that would enable you to gain a relative clear picture on the issue. However, you may need to take a bigger picture perspective to enable you to really capture what is influencing the issue you are interest in dealing with. As an example, and before examining what we can do as bottom up leaders let us briefly explore the current situation and how it was created.
Financial turmoil impacts most on those who have been responsible savers
I have observed with amazement the sudden meltdown in the global financial market and how this has robbed many investors of most, if not all, of their savings. In addition the majority of sensible and responsible savers are seeing their hard earned savings being eroded by inflation and the miniscule interest now being paid by the Banks due to the financial meltdown. During the boom years many investors were seduced by high interest rates offered by investment houses and placed their capital with them only to be left high and dry when many of then were unable to continue to pay interest or even return the capital invested. Although they may now be considered greedy and unaware of the high risks associated with high interest earning believing that growth was inevitable as this was the investment culture for the past decade. Others who invested their savings conservatively have also lost out considerably as the interest on these accounts is now pathetically low.
However, it is almost beyond belief that those who helped create the crisis are being given extraordinary financial assistance from governments around the world. Yet even during this extraordinary time we learn that these same Banks and Investment businesses are unbelievably considering giving generous bonuses to their top executives with the spurious explanation that this is needed to keep their top performers. This could be considered a travesty of logic as it was reported that many of the very people they are attempting to retain were the ones whose greed and irresponsibility helped create the global financial mayhem.
The Deviants appear to have all the Power!!!
I was recently made aware of a very interesting video that shocked those who viewed it. The video explained in simple language that the mess we are currently in had been carefully orchestrated by a small group of very influential financiers. The video called “The Money Makers” described how a small group of very influential people managed to manipulate the American economy for many, many decades for their personal benefit. In fact their influence has extended around the world to the point that they can effectively plan for bust and booms to take place at a given time in the future. The most surprising piece of information was learning the that the US Federal Reserve, the US Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund are all privately owned and are not under the control of the US government. A number of specific actions to remove the power from these individuals is proposed with the warning that they would be aggressively resisted by the cartel.
Where from here?
The scary thing is that most people are given the impression that no one really knows what is going on and how to fix it. However, if what is said in the video is true, action is required by governments to take away the power of the “Money Makers”. This begs the question “do government see the need and if so do they have the will to act in face of what could be a tough battle with the “Money Makers”. The one thing that encourages me is the availability of information on the internet that provides different perspectives on the issues that face us today that was not available during previous recessions. This means that we can be much better informed about what is going on and thus able to interpret the messages that are communicated through a variety of channels ranging from the main stream media to blogs on the web.
As mentioned earlier, it makes so much sense to be better informed as this enables us to identify the choices we have when making decisions about many of the things that impact on our lives. Instead of being influenced by misinformation we are able to interpret issues from different perspectives to help us arrive at the best decision possible.
Using Smart Power to Stop the Rot
The goal of using Smart Power is to help us all to regain the power we have allowed to be taken from us. It is very illuminating to hear the stories of lost power being told by those who have decided to act to recover it. They have become aware that their power was drawn from them from a number of sources including; parents, friends, work colleagues, organisations, and local and national government. Learning to seek and triangulate information we need from a range of sources will enable us to better able to identify when and where our power is under threat. Armed with this awareness we can act in ways that stop the rot and thus keep us on a path of increasing personal power.
Smart Power can be strengthened by like minded bottom-up-leaders connecting with each other to share experiences. In this way we can enhance the information in ways that leads to more effective methods to deal with the power reducing actions we encounter. Instead of being fed a diet of gloom and pessimism by the media and those around us we are able to tap into the wealth of constructive ideas and actions that already exist and can be improved through sharing. Collective sharing of information can lead to the types of constructive action needed to redress the balance of power in ways that assist more and more people to regain their personal power.
This will happen when a greater number of us truly care about each other and act in a responsible manner when dealing with the issues that have an adverse impact on our personal power. Being responsible means avoiding taking an unnecessary advantage of others when you are in the stronger position than them and instead to look for ways to help them empower themselves. President Obama described the opportunity in a nutshell when he recently said “Don’t underestimate the power for people to pull together and to accomplish amazing things.”
Regaining Our Personal Power
In my next post I will focus on the steps we can take to regain our personal power for the good of ourselves and others by developing the four areas that assist ourselves and colleagues to become more effective bottom-up-leaders through our use of Smart Power.
Tom