The education factory prepared us to comply with the norms of the factory world where we will gain and sustain employment – a place where we are permitted to lightly and politely stretch the boundaries of the system. We are taught to draw within the lines because that is the proper way to do things. Most of us are not taught how to develop our creative and competitive energy.  And, we are certainly not shown how we can put that energy and capability to work inside a complex human system. And so we walk away from what is possible and we settle for less.  After all, that’s the message we are being sent and to resist it can be to one’s peril.

As I talk to friends and clients alike it seems pretty obvious we have all started to come to the same conclusion: we have witnessed the peak of this country’s global economic leadership. Sad but I believe it is true. That peak happened at the end of the Great Recession because it signaled our country’s attitude toward the creation of value: financial trickery. That’s not sustainable or responsible behavior.

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