I would like express my enthusiastic yet frightened agreement with Michael Goodwin on the loss of the freedom to fail. For years I have been simplifying this phenomenon with my friends as the “rounded corner effect.” When I was young my brother had a toy dump truck about 18 inches long, made of pure steel. It hurt when you dropped it on your foot, when you pinched your finger under the slamming metal truck bed, and when your hand hit the sharp metal corners. When I cut my hand on the sharp metal corner my mother told me to be more careful next time. Today’s toys are made of soft molded plastic and wide rounded corners. In this society people do not learn to watch for sharp corners until they are in their 20's or even 30's. These lessons are learned later and later throughout life, education, and careers because today’s society is full of “round-corners”. This is most critical for our nation when we think that this has already started infiltrating our nation’s top corporations, and our nation’s government. This generation does not learn from their mistakes, because they have not been trained to think “be more careful next time.” A few years ago I did office work for university research institute. Recently I contacted my old boss to ask if he had any good, honest, hard working students come through that may want a job after college, as my new employer was looking to hire students out of school. His response was that he did not have one student in the past 6 years that he would consider hard working and independent which he would honestly recommend to me. This set off a red flag in my mind. American’s have pride. But if our schools are not producing students that university employees would recommend to their friends, then how can we possibly have any hope in our future? The products of our universities are the next CEOs of our companies, and if we can’t recommend them from a performance standpoint, then what does that say about the future performance of our companies and our government? Corporations often talk about “risk-aversion.” They are penalized monetarily for “failure” and given bonuses and rewards for meeting their requirements. This is the exact equivalent of giving the average student an A. There is no motivation to excel when the average is given the highest score. And in corporate America, if the corporation performs as expected (average), they are given the performance bonus. This encourages risk-aversion, and discourages the attempt for excellence. The rounded corners have infiltrated our nation, which will not encourage excellence in America, as the average are being falsely told that they are excellent. This lie, I believe, will reduce America’s standing globally in all dimensions. I urge all to be honest with ourselves, with our employees, with our government officials, and with our children.
