Theory of Constraints – Eli Goldratt Lecture: Thinking Globally

so we made a movie…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU2iWZEYbKA

R & Z

R has pneumonia.
Z has started crawl, albeit backwards.
Yuck and wow.

on hatred

I do not support everything David Horowitz says.
I do, however, hear louder and louder the cries calling for an attack on Jews – not just Zionists, not just anti-policy cries, but calls against Jews for being Jews.
Sad to see that this woman actually agrees that Jews should be exterminated: http://www.collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=8982
The world is not a happy place for me today.

on non-profits and personal profit

Recently in Israel there has been a discussion about passing a law that would limit the salaries of the managers (CEOs) of nonprofit organizations (NPOs).
When discussing with people, I have found two interesting preconceptions. One is that a nonprofit belongs to the public in some way. The other is that nonprofits have to live up to higher moral standards than other organizations.
To start with the first, let me state something very simple – a (nongovernmental) nonprofit organization is a PRIVATELY OWNED organization. Yes, it is owned by its board members – the same as how a publicly owned company’s shareholders are represented on its directorate/board of directors. These individuals are the only people to be held responsible when the NPO folds/does anything illegally/has legal bindings, etc..
The “general public” does not OWN the NPO, nor does the NPO owe the general public anything.
The only question of ownership comes in when we discuss funding. And here there are two issues which I have found to be not clear to all individuals I have spoken with.
The first is governmental funding. Regarding governmental funding, the NPO should be 100% accountable and absolutely clear on where the money went. The pricing should be specific, and the money trail should be open to all. Any NPO receiving funds from the State should display its annual reports (verbal, financial, what-have-you) to all (nowadays that’s online).
The other is regarding individuals’ contributions. And here, I say “watch your step”. And feel free to hold an organization at least as accountable for your money as I stated regarding governmental funding, if not more so. One should make a personal value judgment. But that is YOUR, PERSONAL judgment. It is not one which you can enforce on an external, privately-owned body.

And this brings me to the second issue – the moral issue, i.e. holding NPOs to a higher moral ground, and deriving from this premise that they should limit themselves in some way. True, many NPOs claim that they are working for a greater good. (Then again, so do most organizations, whether private or public, profitable or nonprofit.) True, many of these organizations, when they make a fundraising appeal, try to do so based on the fact that they are working towards a greater good.
But this does not make them superheros, nor does it make them slaves. And, in fact, all they are doing is filling a gap in society which neither government nor the private (profitable) sector can or want to fill.
In other words, the fact that a pile of individuals saw a NEED in society which was not being responded to, and chose to try and fill it.
Now, this may mean that the people who founded this organization or its owners are claiming to have a higher value in mind. But when we come to ask what the people who WORK for this organization are like, we make a leap – a HUGE leap. Why on earth must someone who has the skills to help youth make less money working for an NPO than s/he would if s/he worked for government? Because a donor agrees with the vision of the owners of the organization? Why should a manager, whose skills could be utilized in profitable organizations, be interested at all in working for a nonprofit if s/he is given a ceiling?
Someone said to me yesterday “have the CEO give a donation, leave me alone”, and refused to move from his belief that the CEOs of NPOs should have a salary cap.
And I was wondering, if an NPO has more workers than a bank, for instance, or if it has an outreach wider than any parallel governmental organization, why shouldn’t he be adequately compensated?
In other words, if we can borrow from the “labor theory of value” – c+L=W. The constant capital of materials used in a period plus the depreciated portion of tools and plant used in the process+the quantity of labor time (average skill and productivity) performed in producing the finished commodities during the period = the value of the product of the period.
The M for Morality would seem to impact somehow in a way that should be incorporated in to the W (Wert!). This is, of course, affected by perception, of course, as value always is. However, to remind us once again, the salary is that justified by the board – i.e. the owners of this organization.
Why on earth should there be a law to limit this?
You don’t want to donate to an NPO whose CEO salary is too high in your opinion – fine, that is your version of the W. But why would you enforce your view on someone else?
I see no reason to do so.

NPOs do not give out dividends to the owners of the organization, profitable organizations do. That is the only difference. The fact that we want someone to hold a higher moral ground does not justify enforcing it on that person.
Moreover, the damage (CEOs being less qualified/less motivated and/or the image of the CEO as slave, etc.) has no balance to it. There is no real gain by limiting these individuals. There is no promise that the money not given to a CEO of an NPO will go anywhere “better”.

I hops this was clear, as I wrote it in 3 bursts…

oh, right…why knowledge is not power

knowledge is a potential
it is intent and utilization that creates power
unfortunately, too many people think that any static knowledge is the source of the power, whereas the truth is that most knowledge gets found out, sooner or later.
Moreover, most knowledge becomes either dated or irrelevant.
It is not knowledge that is power. It is thinking properly, constant thinking (i.e. constant scrutiny) that can always give you and edge over a competition (or to find a better win-win for you and the competitor…)

another thought I had

was about the fact that knowledge is not power
but pretending that knowledge is power gets people pretty strong, no?

I have two daughters

and sometimes, being a parent to two children – albeit beautiful, intelligent, charming, adorable, well-behaved, magnificent children – is taxing and exhausting.

Me tired
🙂