It dawned on me recently listening to Herbie Hancock’s masterful remake of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Don’t Give Up’ (Pink, Legend, Jeff Beck et Tal etc..) that there is equilibrium – at least in the music market.

Allegedly, the great Mr Gabriel wrote the song as a response to the carnage which spread through Britain in the 1980′s as Prime Minister Thatcher tried to execute the free market dreams of crazy Chicago School economists including one Milton Friedman.

You can’t describe a song – listen to it and you’ll get the picture. Although this line below tells all:

“for every job – so many men…so many men no one needs.”

Need I say – it says it all as far as how you can desecrate a generation sitting deluded in an ivory tower with a bunch of books and a blackboard.

Sure – the free market and its equilibrium did look pretty on a university blackboard (the economist’s heroin). But it should never have been allowed to escape from its academic chains (just ask the Wall street quants).

So anyway, thanks to Herbie, the song is energized again for another generation to soak in its eerie, morbid beauty – shaking the memories of the horror it must have been to live in the British coal country in the 1980′s. Ironically, while this beautiful song lives its second coming, we can be thankful that the ideas of Thatcher and her cronies quietly fade as a blotted post mark on the history of the late 20th century.

Thanks Herbie.

So there you go. I learned recently that one of the executive managers (one level from the CEO) who looked over me quite some years ago had recently died at a relatively youthful age.

Apparently  there were some serious problems – some said their marriage and career hit the wall as a result of  drugs.

I recall that this manager was always hard to predict. One moment brilliant and insightful then the next yelling and complaining or distant and scheming. He would dress people down in front of others. His technique was to confront them by asking questions about information knowing they would not know – public ridiculing.  Their behavior intimidated staff making them diffident and fearful.  People lost confidence, and the business performance reflected the change to a defensive culture where no one is willing to take responsibility.Strategy and action deteriorated into the politics of fear as staff (in fact senior staff) tried to manoeuver out of the firing line.

Of course, in retrospect, if it was really drugs then that probably explains it. Even so the cost to the business and staff was pretty catastrophic.

While there is more to this story (a liturgy of extraordinary decisions by the manager which simply ended up in broken profits and careers – including yours truly temporarily), the fact remains the manager should heave been removed.

It raises an interesting issue for a large corporation – How do you know if you’ve got a psychopath in your management team?  Directors, CEO’s and managers aren’t psychiatrists. In my experience, they are strangely tolerant of poor Executives and generally let problems go on far beyond what they should, with sometimes grave consequences for the business and committed staff.

Similarly, staff are are by nature tolerant, adaptive and will try and survive by ducking and weaving and where necessary (but unfairly) taking an outburst on the chin.

Quite honestly, I don’t know how I feel – my compassion is still diluted with the anger at the managers behaviour – but maybe that should be directed at the company which failed to manage such a risky fellow.

Can people over 50 years old work with people under 30 (and vice versa)?  Its becoming a touchy subject in many places this one for a number of reasons.   For example, many developed economies are running a bit low on workers and need the Gen X’ers (and baby boomers)  - now well into their fifties – to stay in the workforce for as long as possible.  And in the developing Asian countries, the generation Y’ers (and subsequent Pokemon generation now entering the workforce) have been influenced by their western peers and are less likely to honor and respect patriarchic and authority figures who don’t cut the mustard (perform) in the workplace.

The issue is compounded by the rate of change in todays world.  Generational change does two things.  First and most obviously it makes it hard for older people to stay up to date and therefore, have something  relevant to contribute.  Not only do they have to learn new knowledge but they have to give up existing knowledge and behavior which has become less relevant or redundant.   For many people learning is a confronting requirement.  They will try and avoid the effort it takes amidst their busy day to day lives and when at all possible seek a familiar solution.  But giving up behaviors and values thats another thing.  That’s like giving up smoking.  You have to forsake the things which give your life meaning and purpose.   I remember once working in company which moved from offices to open plan.  Not only did they shifted managers out from their glass closets, they took away their dignity. (They didn’t really, its just that many middle managers used to hide their incompetence in the bottom draw of their desk, out of view behind their closed office door).

Second, it means that younger generations mature into a different world with different skills, values and expectations.  They learn it as they develop and then push the boundaries and older workers are racing to catch up.   They want to use the skills and values which are natural to them to construct a new world.  A world a world in which gather in a few short years, the riches their parents accumulated over a lifetime (and they can….).   A world, more sophisticated and educated, where life is comfortably grey, and where respect is founded not just on hard work but being clever and proving it on account.  A world where President’s who fight wars without real purpose get found out, and where conserving the world becomes an everyday domestic activity.   And at work, their ambitious, they want to be participants in a company with a purpose where they can develop and grow and contribute something they value.

Even if the Gen Y’ers are in developing countries, they get a good dose of modern western values through their foreign education,  TV and the internet.  In Asia, the values of disposable consumption have been gnawing away at formal patriarchy.  The desire to get ahead perpetuated by increasing access to education has eroded age old cultural commitments and values.   A degree in IT or engineering has become the basic stepping stone to the new life, working in a western (or western style) company where your creativity and effort gets you ahead.  A modern Indian professional, may well be considering arranging their own partner rather than relying on their parents to organize their nuptial destiny.

In this uncertain world, the Gen X’ers have a number of possible responses.  The best outcome (for all) is that they keep learning about the evolving world and adopt their ways to operate effectively. Of course this is rare, and even so they may be inappropriately typecast by the younger generation as a member of another one of the group.   Alternatively, they may keep learning and adapting; know their limitations and find ways to leverage their experience and wisdom into the changing world. Perhaps the key thing they can bring to the table is some experience.   For example, while they probably haven’t seen that new whizz bang piece of technology and don’t understand how it works, they probably have seen the problem your trying to solve with it.  They have met a lot of people and lived through a lot of situations and probably know how co-workers or clients will react to the latest great idea.   And… they’ve probably heard the new idea before, and might be able to give some good advice about why it didn’t work last time and what’s got to happen to make it succeed.

The value of experience is sometimes hard to capture.  But making the same mistake twice is easy to cost.  If there are no Gen X’ers in your business then the risk is that you could spend a lot of expensive time re-inventing the wheel, finding out what the old guys already new.  Your career and the company’s wealth might not survive.   Mind you, if you want to get the best out of the Gen X’ers then be mindful of the difficulties they are facing.  Don’t put them in embarrassing situations where their old ways or lack of modern knowledge will make them flounder and their ego’s deflate.  They’ll probably just get angry and obstreperous.  Guide them gently so they have confidence in the new world and you won’t make the same mistake twice.

I have been trying to resist commenting on the US healthcare strategy.  However, coming from a country with a reasonably sophisticated social infrastructure (I use the words carefully), I find the debate about healthcare in the US rather curious.

In the PM’s homeland (a peaceful and picturesque inner suburb of West Cyberville) a minimum level of healthcare for all, funded based on the income tax system (alright there must be some cross subsidization there if everyones covered) , has been in place for many decades and is somewhat taken for granted.  Wether you’re rich or poor, you’ll get looked after if you’re sick and the sicker you are the quicker you’re treated.  The downside, (if you want to get picky) is that you have to take out extra health insurance from a private supplier to get directly to the front of the line for that knee reconstruction, otherwise you may have to hobble around on crutches for a few months to wait your turn. For the majority of Cybervillians then, the issue is not wether the government tax funded healthcare system should exist or the specified tax level, its how to make it better and share it around in a fair manner as the system creaks and strains under exploding demand and cost super-inflation.

The curious aspect of the US situation is that so many developed economies have figured this out and have implemented a Government funded system which provides at least minimum services and care for their population.  In these countries, there is a general awareness that (and lets face it): we are all probably going to get ill at some point and need medical services. Given that, providing health services to all just seems to be a logical step for a wealthy community which believes that everyone has a right to live a life.  The schemes are usually characterized by high levels of regulation of both service and input suppliers cross subsidization (spread across the largest possible revenue base) and government controlled budgets.   I suppose from a free marketeers perspective they break every law in the book, but irrespective of you’re income, if you get sick you get medical service as a general rule.

When you read President O’bama’s healthcare plan the most striking message is the failure of a free market to provide for the community. The healthcare market in the US, left unfettered to run free, just crashes into a heap of mismanagement, inefficiency and opportunism (hold on – isn’t this a familiar story). I’ll leave you to read the script – but it isn’t a pretty picture.

To my mind social and individual cost was always an achilles heal in the free market economic theory.  It just didn’t consider the carnage which occurs along the way to market equilibrium.  In fact, I think the challenge of creating efficient and fair markets for community and social services is perhaps the number one challenge occupying governments in new sophisticated post-developed economies.   The theories never accounted for the fact that people will not necessarily think of the consequences their actions may have beyond their nose.  And business life isn’t that transparent that quickly that you can see it coming soon enough to mitigate the costs.

What  I like to call post free market economies, are about identifying the markets which are essential to maintaining thriving people and communities and develop the frameworks which optimize their performance. Some require complete freedom while other require varying degrees of framework from elected governments.  Developing an increasingly sophisticated community and social framework is really the challenge of the century.  One where it doesn’t matter whether your a rubbish collector or a billionaire – if you get sick, someone will care for you and if you invest your money it will be there when you wake up in the morning.

I have avoided considering to deeply the arguments of the opponents of US Healthcare reform – that it constrains personal freedom.  Looking into my garden in downtown West Cyberville, which is green and flowering, slightly scented with a little light rain – I just don’t get it given the human cost.

(PS.  OK I’ve got this off my chest.   Next time I’ll write something about management.)