The aquatic metaphor is also apt. We swim in our culture, so like fish we do not notice it. It is the water that surrounds us, and we don’t analyze it. It is simply the environment in which we live.

The other common image of culture is the onion. Our daily lives are framed by layers upon layers of  unseen assumptions and mind-sets. Because we have no need to conceptualizing our world differently, we seldom see it through different interpretations, until some rather dramatic event gives us new eyes. Or until we choose to study behavioural sciences that may help us see many things are hiding, in plain sight, right in front of us.

One layer of the onion that interests me particularly (especially in recession) is the way that trust and collaboration operate in US business, and how this often limits opportunity and prosperity. I am also interested by the way that numerous scientific studies and popular books prove that our tendency to withhold trust and collaboration is ineffective, but it still prevails.

Let us call the general trend we can all observe the “small pie approach”. Small pie behavior says “If you win, then I am probably losing.” Small pie behavior prevents sharing ideas (they could be stolen and claimed by others), networking (others may get to know our prospects and then steal them), growing and building others (they may grow more powerful/successful that us and displace us) or trusting others (they may use us and then stab us in the back when they have gained all the benefit there is to gain.)

Let’s look at the science.  As always when examining culture, remember the mantra: cultures are not right or wrong, they is simply different. We are all acculturated, and one cannot make value judgments about cultures.

Firstly, as a culture, in the US we think short-term. Trompenaars noted that the US is a very present-oriented culture. Geert Hofstede measured the United States’ Long Term Orientation at 29, compared to the world average of 45. This aspect of culture is one of those deep, unseen and unnoticed dimensions which one seldom sees if one has lived all one’s life within a short-horizon thinking world.

Planning horizons in the US are less than 5 years, whereas they are about 10 years in Europe. They are closer to 20 years in the Far East.

Present-oriented cultures tend to expect shorter term relationships. Long-term “people farming” (which includes putting oneself on the line for people, and demonstrating caring and integrity over long periods of time) is therefore not core to such cultures.

Secondly, the US is a specific-oriented culture. We therefore tend to keep private and business agendas separate, and we tend to “box” our relationships into clearly defined sectors. We do not invite our contractors home to hold our babies and play with our dogs, and we are surprised when this happens in certain foreign countries. We have ‘mental boxes’ for tennis friends, gym friends, place-of-worship friends, and work friends. Few people overlap between these categories. As such, trust and collaboration are limited to the particular box in which a person fits.

Thirdly, as all social scientists note, the US is the most individualist nation on earth. We value individual achievement and self-determination as the highest form of personal development. While collectivist cultures value group well-being, and group belonging, as the apex of development, individualist cultures measure self-improvement by the achievement of our own potential.

(This is only beginning to sink into some US human resources departments, who are often still happily using Maslow’s hierarchy. This has started changing because individualist reward systems have produced some very odd results with collectivist Asian, African and Hispanic employees.)

Anthropological data like Trompenaars’ and Hofstede’s research is neither new nor secret. There is a Hofstede iPhone application (CultureGPS) to help international business people to understand US-international differences when traveling. You don’t get more mainstream than that free Mac apps!  http://www.culturegps.com/About.html

Let us turn to the many books and websites that prove that the “small pie” approach is more than ineffective: it is counter-productive to the development of wealth.

• Many things from McKinsey (e.g. Lowell L. Bryan, Claudia L. Joyce’s Mobilizing Minds)
• Most things from FranklinCovey (e.g. The Speed of Trust)
• Anything (almost) with the words Integrity, Innovation, Ethics, Collaborative Intelligence or Collaboration in the title (e.g. The Integrity Dividend, by Tony Simons)
• Anything (almost) that you can Google that talks about how ethics, trust and collaborative intelligence are profitable.

We live in a world where our international competition is often better educated, less fearful and more confident that we are. They are forging ahead in an age when collaborative intelligence and innovation are the keys to wealth, and when cooperation in the only answer to an Age of Complexity.

We can, however, collaborate more, trust more, make our pie bigger, and keep enlarging it.

The barriers we need to fear are the barriers we cannot see, or which we become defensive about, when we do see them.

So it is now time to look at Big Pie people. You can probably look around you and see who builds you, connects you, inspires you and encourages, irrespective of the gain to themselves. There is your first collection.

Visit www.zipcar.com, an example of bigger pie thinking, that uses the concepts of mutual trust, also known as cooperative capitalism.  Robin Chase has another new venture too, called GoLoco.

Bigger pie thinking is seen in many of the ventures called social entrepreneurship, where trust, ethics, and social responsibility move from non-profit to a ‘more-than-profit’ or blended business models, in which everyone wins.

You have seen an example of small pie thinking in the last week or two. You have probably behaved in a small pie way in the last week or two. So have I.

We can do better. Each day we can consciously reach out and make a bigger pie for everyone, build our community, our region and our nation.

I will work with you. Tell me what I can do to make your pie bigger, now or in years to come. I’d like to invite you around to play with the dog and baby, but my ‘baby’ has a masters degree now, and lives in Korea. My old dog has passed on.  Perhaps you have another suggestion? I’m listening.

If we make a bigger pie now, our children will dine well.

The Emory University Professor presents his figures showing a decline in US adult literacy (40% of high-school grads in 1992; only 31% in 2003) and the many areas where young Americans lack knowledge, such as geographic, historical and political cluelessness.

Bauerlein is even more annoyed because his Gen-Yers are unapologetic about their ignorance. They dismiss the idea that they should have more facts in their heads, and call it a pre-Google and pre-wiki anachronism.

CPS’s position is that Bauerlein has a good case, and is also completely wrong. Gen Y has massive skills gaps in some areas, but is the smartest generation ever in others.

1. We’re inclined to be impressed with the anecdotal, and the growing empirical case, that technology is changing the way people’s brains process information.

2. We see fluid intelligence and life-long learning as the keys to economic prosperity. We think that the trend in European education systems (smaller numbers of facts, higher emphasis on thinking skills) is the way to go to build the cognitive skills required for higher-paying, secure work in the 21st Century. It doesn’t matter if you know the fact, as long as you have the conceptual schema, and know how to retrieve the details. If the educational process builds a love of learning, and confidence in your mind-power, this will create a life-long learner.

3.    We’re not fans of the crusty professor’s assumption of “Millennial fault”. He’s quick to blame X boxes and technology, but is the blame to be placed on the GenYs? There are plenty of other places to place it:  the deterioration of family interactions (including the decline of the family dinner conversation, ever-blaring TV, and the parochial and sensationalist, sound-byte news-that-sells?)

4.    Bauerlein has a good point that education in the USA is broken in many areas. CPS is especially concerned about the way the demand for grade averages has led, by a domino effect, to the dumbing-down of K12 systems to achieve more A results for college entrance. In an effort to ensure that “all students are above average”, teachers are often pressured towards the lower levels of cognitions and the simple recall of knowledge.  Of course this often results only in temporary learning, because the material is not processed at the level of analysis and evaluation.*

*Note: CPS provides structured, competency-based, peer-coached and behaviorally-referenced professional development processes to school districts, to develop higher order thinking skills in our students. The cost is $1 per teacher, and we obtain funding from the private sector where necessary. This is a CPS initiative to make our communities more globally competitive.

Please let us know what you think: the Dumbest Generation? Yes? No? Why? All opinions welcome!