I just read an interesting article in Quality Digest. Here is the quote that sums it up.
The battle is raging in the world marketplace, and there’s no single, external foe. But we have in fact met the enemy–and he is us. Self-righteousness is our bête noir, and whining and mediocrity cripple us. Day and night, in India, China, and across the rest of Asia, there’s a passionate focus on learning, improving, and succeeding. There, the question isn’t, “Why are quality methods and organizational improvement the means to success?” They only ask, “How?”: How to get better, how to get faster, how to do what we Americans thought we did best. They have seen what we have, and they understandably want the same for themselves and their families. They’ll learn as much and work as hard as necessary to get it.
In my history of creativity class we saw a slide show of some of the most impressive buildings in the world. They are all in China or Dubai. This one for example, the Dubai tower, tallest building in the world upon completion.
The rest of the world is catching up and we don’t seem to care. Our TA in the class told a sad story. He is a 9th grade teacher, and whenever he would assign a reading and give a quiz, all 35 students would fail. Even if he did the same thing 10 days in a row, they would all fail. Sometimes he said, 1 or 2 kids would realize that they might actually need to do something, and read, but most of the time they would all fail.
And that is what is going to happen if we don’t get to work. We are going to fail. America is amazing. A land of opportunities. But are lazy. Things are easy and so we do the minimum possible. If we don’t get some urgency and motivation, we will fall behind.
Here is the link to the story. http://www.qualitydigest.com/magazine/2008/jul/article/while-we-are-sleeping.html