I have been racking my brains to try to figure out how Israel's politics and the Israeli army have gotten so bad so fast. Between the corruption, President Katsav's and Justice Minister Ramon's sex and kissing scandals, the resignation of the Chief of Staff due to the military's failure in the war this summer, politically motivated appointments of incompetent ministers (read Amir Peretz) and bureaucrats and so and so on, the situation has become positively dreadful. The Prime Minister has an approval rating lower than any I can remember and is only thought of positively in context of the more pathetic standing of Defense Minister Peretz.
What is stunning is that political appointments and corruption have been around as long as politics have been around and certainly Israeli politics yet, somehow, it seems much worse now. I thought about this for a while and came to what I believe is an interesting perspective. Today's political situation in Israel resembles a family business.
The first generation of a family business, often an immigrant generation, is steeped in values of hard work, passion for a job or a mission and grew up in relatively simple surroundings. The pioneering generation of Israeli leaders were very similar. Formed in the melting pot of physical survival and the agricultural work ethic, they were salt of the earth and born leaders. From Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin to Ariel Sharon and Yitzchak Rabin (whatever you think of their individual political views), they were molded in a rag tag army that quickly became the envy of the Middle East and earned the admiration of generals everywhere due to their leadership. They made the desert bloom under incredibly difficult economic conditions and through financial hardship. They persevered, persuaded and, most importantly, inspired Israelis and Jews the world over to build our land. They were born leaders who knew the struggle of physical and economic survival. These great visionaries, leaders and icons were not corruption-free but they could escape scandal or brush it aside by force of personality or the overall greatness they personified. More importantly, they led through it. Great people, visionaries and executers can overcome the challenges and stigmas of scandal.
However, we are now suffering through the second generation of the family business. These people were once called the princes of Israeli politics. In fact what we have are leaders who were given their positions due to their name or influence and not true leaders. They have tasted wealth and hobnobbed with the wealthy and influential their entire life. They have been brought up in the system. I read this morning an Op-ed by Gideon Levy in Haaretz where he correctly points out that there is no difference between any of the candidates for Chief of Staff. They have no distinctions, nor has any Chief of Staff in recent memory except for Ehud Barak (I disagree with other parts of the op-ed). So true!
We have not escaped the statistics.
Just like 65% of family businesses fail in the second generation so too Israeli second generation politicians are failing us. Worse, if we do not wake up soon we will find ourselves in a worse problem, 90% of third generation family businesses fail. And, Israeli politics is a family (mapai) business.
What to do? Metaphorically, sell the business. We need to bring in new management - from the outside. We need an entirely new generation of politicians and army leaders. People whose foremost character trait is leadership and not the environment they grew up in. We need to aspire to greatness, not mediocrity and accommodated corruption. I just finished reading a monograph by
Jim Collins, author of Good To Great. In this monograph, he applies the lessons of Good to Great to the social sectors (not for profit). In his words:
"The critical distinction is not between business and social, but between great and good. We need to reject the naïve imposition of the Âlanguage of business on the social sectors, and instead jointly embrace a language of greatness."
The conclusions are the same as in Collin's book on business (check out
his website). You need to get the right people (managment) on the bus and the wrong people off. Well, we need to pack up many of the politicians and throw them off the bus before we get bitten by the 3rd generation bug. Let's bring in new leadership from the outside.
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