The American Dream, as James Thurow coined and described it in 1931, is about the equality of opportunity. If you believe that Thurow is right, then you need to wake up and open your eyes … now, because organizations from the American Federal Reserve to the International Monetary Fund to Science magazine have all released reports this year showing that inequality is dangerously high. The reports caution that if nothing is done to address the inequality of opportunity in the United States, the American Dream will slowly become a nightmare for Uncle Sam.
The nightmare is being conjured up by two interconnected trends: a growing income gap fueled by diminishing educational opportunities. Educational opportunity provides the surest footing when climbing America’s socio-economic ladder but that foothold is slipping away from an increasing number of Americans each year. In other words, education is becoming less of a force for economic opportunity because the number of Americans each year that have the resources to pursue educational achievements (which will help them climb the socio-economic ladder) is fewer and fewer.
Janet Yellen, Chairperson of the United States Federal Reserve, recently explained (October 17, 2014) “The extent and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me…I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity.” The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned in March 2014 that the level of inequality in the U.S. “has returned to levels not seen since before the Great Depression” and more generally that “rising income inequality is weighing on global economic growth and fueling political instability.” Science magazine focused its entire May 2014 issue on inequality and one of its main findings was that “the United States has both the lowest [socio-economic] mobility and highest inequality among all wealthy democratic countries.” There are many other non-partisan reports, books and articles released this year but I think you get the point: inequality and, more specifically, inequality of opportunity is rapidly growing thereby slowly killing the American Dream (it is neither a Democrat nor Republican issue but an American challenge).
The best way to keep the American Dream alive has been and continues to be through education, especially a college education (it offers every individual an opportunity to climb the socio-economic ladder). Although Yellen called early education and higher education the “cornerstones of opportunity,” she worried aloud stating “I fear the large and growing burden of paying for it may make it harder for many young people to take advantage of the opportunity higher education offers.” She cited a report showing that “the median annual earnings of full-time workers with a four-year bachelor’s degree are 79 percent higher than the median for those with only a high school diploma” but also provided statistics that showed that every year there are fewer Americans who have the resources to pursue such an opportunity:
…the wealthiest 5 percent of American households held 54 percent of all wealth reported in the 1989 survey. Their share rose to 61 percent in 2010 and reached 63 percent in 2013. By contrast, the rest of those in the top half of the wealth distribution—families that in 2013 had a net worth between $81,000 and $1.9 million—held 43 percent of wealth in 1989 and only 36 percent in 2013. The lower half of households by wealth held just 3 percent of wealth in 1989 and only 1 percent in 2013.
The problem is that although education is the key for unlocking economic prosperity—especially in a globalized-knowledge based economy—the key is out of reach for an increasing proportion of Americans every year. Education has been our society’s equalizer until the last couple of decades. However, a new college-rating index that ranks colleges on their ability to provide “pathways for social and economic mobility” was released this month and it seeks to refocus and strengthen America’s great equalizer: higher-education.
The Social Mobility Index (SMI), which was created by CollegeNET and PayScale, was constructed to “stimulate other schools to move beyond opportunity rhetoric towards meaningful action.” Some universities such as Western Connecticut State University (ranked #11 in the country and #1 in Connecticut), where I am fortunate to be a professor, are taking meaningful actions—but there are too few WCSUs “contributing in a responsible way to solving the dangerous problem of economic immobility in our country” (SMI). In answering the question “What should students and their families take away from the SMI rankings?” the authors reply: “If a student wants to pursue academics in an institution that models awareness and civic responsibility, the SMI can provide a valuable guide.” Shouldn’t all educational institutions and organizations strive to pursue such meaningful actions? Wouldn’t a focus on SMI rankings rather than “pursuing the false prestige in popular periodicals” (you know the ones) make our society stronger and more dynamic?
T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia) said “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” While WCSU is one of this country’s leading universities in creating Lawrence’s day dreamers, educational institutions and leaders at all levels have important roles to play in creating and sustaining America’s day dream believers (men and women capable of transforming their dreams into reality). This country was built on the equality of opportunity and education has been a cornerstone of not only building the American Dream but for its realization. Those who diminish and weaken our educational institutions and opportunities at any level (local, state & national) and for any reason will abruptly awaken to a living nightmare created by their own vanity. Education on the pre-K, primary, secondary and higher-ed levels are the ‘pillars’ upon which the strength of America rests and the ‘pillows’ upon which the American Dream occurs.
Binyamin Appelbaum, “Janet Yellen Warns of Inequality Threat,” The New York Times, October 18, 2014
Gilbert Chin and Elizabeth Culotta, “The Science of Inequality: What the Numbers Tell Us,” Science, May 2104
Pedro Nicolaci da Costa, “Janet Yellen Decries Widening Wealth Disparity,” The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2014.
Nicholas Kristof, “It’s Now the Canadian Dream,” The New York Times, May 14, 2014
Survey Acknowledges WCSU as a Leader in Promoting Social Mobility Western Connecticut State University website
Ian Talley, “IMF Warns on the Dangers of Growing Income Inequality,” 3/14/2014, The Wall Street Journal
Yellen, Janet L., “Perspectives on Inequality and Opportunity from the Survey of Consumer Finances,” Speech at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System at the Conference on Economic Opportunity and Inequality (October 17, 2014), Boston, MA.
Compassionate achievers—successful people who are other-focused and have stronger internal (i.e., looking for meaning in work) rather than instrumental (i.e., looking for money in work) motives—reach higher levels of success than self-centered achievers. Internal or intrinsic values “are those we uphold regardless of the benefits or costs” and instrumental values are those we support because they directly benefit us. Compassionate achievers are people who follow intrinsic values that have positive instrumental consequences; the consequences, however, are not part of their motives. A recent study of over 11,000 West Point cadets concluded: “Helping people focus on the meaning and impact of their work, rather than on, say, the financial returns it will bring, may be the best way to improve not only the quality of their work but also—counterintuitive though it may seem—their financial success.” Learning to be a compassionate achiever increases a person’s success not only at school and home but work.
A Wall Street Journal article outlining tips on “How to Get Ahead ” provided this general advice: “Top executives are attracted to people who lift their heads up from their desks and understand the impact their assignments might have on other departments—not just their own teams.” Employees that help each other are the engines of successful companies and top execs know it. Understanding what others need or need to avoid and then acting on that understanding is at the heart of what compassion is and what a compassionate achiever does. How do you foster compassionate workplaces and achievers? Shawn Achor—author of The Happiness Advantage: the Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work—provides one way with his idea of social investment.
Social investment (building and strengthening the relationships of our social support network) in the people around us is one of Achor’s seven principles for fueling success and performance at work. Success is dependent on the quality of our connections to the people around us and compassion improves the quality. Achor talks about how positive social connections release a specific hormone — oxytocin — that increases our focus and attention while reducing anxiety. The more employees socially invest, the more oxytocin there is around the office. And the more oxytocin, the greater chance for success. In a section of Achor’s book called “Glue Guys,” he writes “The people who actively invest in their relationships are the heart and soul of a thriving organization.” Glue guys, as the Wall Street Journal describes, is baseball speak for players who “quietly [hold] winning teams together…Statisticians don’t buy that they exist, but psychologists do. And players and managers swear by them…They’re the reliable guys…players who are greater than their statistics indicate…If you have some outstanding role models who deal with pressure effectively, that glue is going to spill out of the bottle and help everyone.” Social investment is about spreading the glue so that success will stick.
So how do you invest? You can become a giver. Givers, according to Adam Grant (professor at The Wharton School and author of Give and Take), are people who “are other-focused, paying more attention to what other people need from them” as opposed to takers who are exclusively self-focused. Grant warns, however, against becoming a selfless giver who becomes a doormat to others. Rather his type of giver is someone who balances the concerns of others with concern for themselves. A giver helps others without selflessly sacrificing their own interests; it is otherish as Grant likes to say. He cites Tania Singer’s neuroscience work on compassion to highlight the difference between who his givers are and those who empathize to a fault. Model givers not only help people network together and address otherish needs, but they ask thoughtful questions and patiently listen to colleagues and employees. An added benefit of being an otherish-giver is that it helps with self-compassion (concern for oneself) and that facilitates creativity. An office with more creative people is an office where innovation is constantly generated. Is it any wonder that top executives are attracted to employees who lift their heads off their desks to understand how their work affects others? Compassion brings meaning to work and, therefore, success to individuals, departments and companies. When employees find meaning in their work, they are three times as likely to stay with their company, they “report 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and are 1.4 times more engaged at work.” Compassion adds to the bottom line without even trying, something compassionate achievers intrinsically know.
ARTICLES & BOOKS:
Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work (New York: Crown Business, 2010).
Jessica Amortegui, Why Finding Meaning at Work is More Important than Feeling Happy, FastCompany (June 26, 2014)
Darren Everson, “Baseball’s Winning Glue Guys,” The Wall Street Journal (July 16, 2009).
Adam Grant, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success (New York: Penguin Group, 2013).
Melissa Korn and Anita Hofschneider, How to Get Ahead As a Middle Manager: Try These Tips: The Wall Street Journal (August 8, 2013): B5.
Amy Wrzesniewski and Barry Schwartz, The Secret of Effective Motivation: The New York Times (July 4, 2014): SR9.
Darya L. Zabelina and Michael D. Robinson, Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself: Self-Compassion Facilitates Creative Originality Among Self-Judgmental Individuals: Creativity Research Journal 22, no.3 (2010): 288-293.
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