Stewardship

One of Accenture's 6 core values is "Stewardship" (the other 5 being One Global Network, Best People, Client Value Creation, Respect for the Individual and Integrity). It so happens there is a library at World Vision and as I passed by last week a book with the same title (Stewardship, by Peter Block) caught my eye. I had not really given much thought to Stewardship and what it really means for an organisation and an individual before, so I thought it would be worth checking out.

First - Accenture's definition of Stewardship on the company website (I admit, I had to check to remind myself of some of the other core values!) is "Building a heritage for future generations, acting with an owner mentality, developing people everywhere we are and meeting our commitments to all internal and external stakeholders". I am sure this is a good definition and was well thought out and consistent with the way the leadership should act, but I always felt something essential was missing from the description. It is the sort of definition which one understands easily enough in a "OK, I can recite this to others" fashion, but what is really at the core of this that will ensure Stewardship is actually practiced?

I think I found an answer in Peter Block's book, which essentially says that Stewardship is acting out of a will to serve rather than out of self-interest. It is giving up control without abdicating responsibility and accountability. It is partnership rather than parenting. This is what would enable individuals, and by extension the organisation to build a heritage for future generations, act with an owner mentality, develop people and meet commitments to all internal and external stakeholders. Now I can see why this definition was not chosen - it would require a total revamp of the organisation (not to mention human nature). It would mean the higher up you go in an organisation, the more people you are serving (not controlling!). It would mean everyone acting in the best interests of other people, not their own best interest. It would mean an end to a sense of entitlement, because stewardship means not being entitled, but still being accountable.

I am wondering how many organisations are ready for this kind of a revolution? By the way, Peter Block's book was published in 1993 and if anything, stewardship and governance have declined in the following years. Maybe it is one of those aspirational concepts that everyone agrees with in principle, but very few are willing to make the necessary sacrifices for.

Road trip - part 2 (Hearst Castle to Monterey)

We got to Hearst Castle around 2 in the afternoon and booked a tour for 2:40pm. It's a 15 minute ride in a bus to the top of the hill and along the way you can see zebras and other exotic animals if you're lucky (we weren't). As there are lots of steps to climb and strollers are not allowed, I picked up a "baby backpack" to carry Lucas on the tour. That makes for a good workout! It was pretty hot up there (we find it very strange that the higher up you go in altitude in California, the hotter it gets - this is the opposite of most places we've been). Hearst castle is quite impressive but somehow feels out of place compared to all the castles and palaces in Europe. I also tend not to like the super strict "conveyor belt" tours where you're not allowed to stray from the path (there's actually a second "guide" following us from behind who's more of a warden to make sure you don't "get lost"). I must say if not for that I might have tried to sneak a dip in the beautiful pool!

After the tour we watched a 40 minute IMAX movie at the visitor center which detailed the inspiration behind Hearst castle and how it was constructed. This was Lucas’ first time in a movie theatre and he was very well behaved and even seemed to be watching the movie. It seems William Randolph Hearst was so enamoured of Europe from a trip he made there as a young boy that he tried to replicate the architecture he saw there 50 years later – I wonder what will come of Lucas’ experiences in California! Will he build a replica of Disneyland or Universal Studios in the hills of KL?

We then took a short drive to our stop for the night, the Fog Catcher Inn in Cambria. The Inn is right by the beach, and there are sea otters (or seals?) basking on the rocks right in front of the board walk by the sea. We had a very nice dinner at the Sea Chest, a seafood only restaurant just a couple minutes walk from the hotel. This was a very relaxing place and it would have been nice to be able to stay an extra day.

The most scenic part of the coastal highway is the stretch between Cambria and Big Sur. The road winds and curves climbing high into the cliffs, and there are spectacular views of the ocean along each turn. There is also a place where elephant seals gather, and July is the best time of the year to see them. It's a good thing that we gave ourselves a lot of time for the drive - even though the distance covered was less than 100 miles it took us about 5 hours as we stopped frequently to enjoy the scenery. We took a late lunch break at a place that claimed to have "the Top 5 rated Fish and Chips in the USA" - well the fish and chips was so-so, but the location was amazing. Just off the highway high up on a cliff, with views to die for.

We finally got to our stop for the night (a free stay on points at Holiday Inn Express in Monterey) around 6pm after getting lost in Monterey's one-way system for half an hour. We missed a left turn to the road that we needed to go to and had to drive all the way out of Monterey because left turns were not allowed on any of the 10 following intersections! The annoying thing was that we had been within 100 meters of the hotel when we first drove into town but we did not know how to get to the next parallel street. That kind of tired us out so after a quick walk around Cannery Row - all those sardines in tomato sauce I used to like when I was in school were probably processed in Monterey - we skipped dinner and had an early night.

Road trip - part 1 (Santa Barbara and Solvang)

Last week we went on our most ambitious journey since Lucas was born - a 6 day road trip up the Pacific coast to San Francisco, driving a few hours each day and stopping at various interesting places on route. We started off driving towards Santa Barbara, which of course meant that we dropped by at the Camarillo outlet mall on the way. Santa Barbara is very pleasant, with a Mediterranean feel due to the architecture. We had a simple alfresco lunch which was surprisingly good - it was a fast food burger place but they had caesar salad with grilled albacore (white tuna). The burger was pretty good too! There was a live band playing at the posh restaurant next door so we got free music. Lucas was in a good mood throughout and we had a relaxing stroll down the main street to the pier. Santa Barbara is a little like Rodeo Drive, lots of nice cars and Harleys and people who look like they just walked off the set of The Bold and the Beautiful. We could not get a reasonably priced hotel in Santa Barbara (even Holiday Inn Express is over $200!), so we took a 45 minute drive to our destination for the night, Solvang.

Solvang was started about a hundred years ago by Danish emigrants from the Midwest and all the buildings without exception look like they were transplanted from Denmark. It is quite a sight, in the middle of California wine country! It happened to be quite chilly when we arrived so that added to the impression that we were in Scandinavia. Just as in Europe, all the shops were already closed by 6pm and we were lucky to find a restaurant that would still serve us dinner at 8pm! It was actually enjoyable for a change to be somewhere that is not on the go 24 hours a day.

The shops did look very interesting though (all family run businesses, no chain stores here) and the next morning we went to check them out - there was a "Christmas shop" selling Christmas tree ornaments and decorations, which even had hard-to-find wood carvings from the Erzgebirge (a region in Germany bordering the Czech republic which not many tourists have been to). There was also a shop selling cuckoo-clocks and beer steins - more Bavarian than Danish but I guess there's a big demand for these items. One of the beer steins was about 3 feet high and cost $1600! Anyway, it's a good thing we had no more space in the car (partly because we had bought stuff again in Camarillo), otherwise I might have been tempted to buy something that would only end up gathering dust at home.

From Solvang we drove on the 101 through wine country towards Cambria and Hearst castle. If you've seen the film Sideways, you'll recognise a lot of the places we drove through. Unfortunately we did not have enough time for any wine tasting, but since it's only about 2 hours drive from Pasadena we can always come back (I know writing this that we probably won't - not because we don't like the place but somehow we always end up going somewhere else instead).

So we survived the first day of the trip quite well and covered quite a bit of ground, considering that we had to stop for feeding and diaper change every now and then! Just a few months ago we couldn't imagine going on a trip like this with Lucas, but it was actually quite enjoyable (for Lucas as well). Everytime we think it's difficult to travel with a baby we just think of how do parents with 2,3 or even more toddlers manage. I guess we'll start to find out once Lucas learns to walk...

Independence Day

July 4th was Independence Day in the US - it's hard to imagine that the world's only superpower was not so long ago (relatively speaking) fighting for its own independence. I was actually intending for this blog to be about our road trip up the coast to San Francisco but we somehow found ourselves at an Independence Day parade in Monterey and we were reflecting that we never attend these parades in Malaysia (at least, not since we were forced to in school). It was an enjoyable small town parade complete with dancing Aztec warriors (see pic), girl guides and the bookmobile (mobile library), and after the parade many headed out to Fisherman's Wharf for some clam chowder or ice cream.

Anyway, watching the parade got me thinking about the nation state, independence and patriotism and why people should have allegiance to the place they happen to have been born in. Surely in terms of natural beauty, climate, culture etc. every place has its attractions. After all, California and Saudi Arabia probably look quite similar at first glance, especially when the sheikhs are out shopping on Rodeo Drive. What sets them apart is the political and economic system. Maybe that is why Americans tend to be more patriotic - many of them deliberately chose to emigrate to the US, whether it was their ancestors a hundred years ago or themselves more recently - they didn't come because the weather was better, or the culture more interesting, they came because the system allowed them to come and seek a better life.

I can therefore appreciate why people in the US think that they have the best system and yet why the US is viewed with such ambivalence by those from abroad. People in other countries admire the US for what it has achieved, but at the same time they are envious and perceive a certain arrogance in the way the US conducts its affairs, especially in dictating that democracy is the only acceptable form of government for all nations (this is itself a contradiction!). However, viewed from the perspective of those who live here and have fought to preserve The American Way of Life, and those who struggle everyday to come and live The American Dream, it seems self-evident that any system that does not allow the people to determine their own ruler by choosing their government and replacing it if necessary cannot be superior to one which does.

However, a lot has changed in the meantime. The US no longer welcomes the tired, the poor, the huddled masses with open arms. So the poor no longer benefit from being able to emigrate to a nation where they can gain upward mobility (ironically it is those who successfully transformed themselves from being the tired, the poor, etc. who most vehemently oppose letting more aspirants in). The rich, on the other hand, need have no allegiance - they can pick and choose where they live, make money and spend it (making sure they get the maximum of services for the minimum or no tax). Perhaps, therefore, instead of trying to impose democracy on other countries, the US should open its doors once again to all comers – after all, isn’t this what made the US great in the first place? If the US is indeed intent on spreading democracy, perhap the best way to do so would be by letting all people, not just the well-to-do, vote with their feet!

I guess that’s just my crazy idea of the day, after reading about how much the war in Iraq or the war on terror are costing it seems it may be cheaper and more effective to support a few million extra people who actually want to live the American Way of Life rather than trying to impose it where it is not wanted.

Otherwise we can just wait one or a few hundred years until the concept of the nation state fades away on its own (after all, many of the countries we know today did not have their present boundaries and were not known by their present names just a century ago). Perhaps then there will be less wars and the flags of each country will seem as quaint as medieval royal emblems today seem to us.