Go Lean Commentary
Do “you” have 20/20 vision?
20/20 vision is a term used to express normal visual acuity (the clarity or sharpness of vision) measured at a distance of 20 feet. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. If you have 20/100 vision, it means that you must be as close as 20 feet to see what a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet.
So do “you”?
I am not talking to you the reader, rather “you” the community; (with a focus on the Caribbean). Do we have clarity and sharpness in the execution of our societal deliveries? Unfortunately, for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, the answer is an undisputed “No”. We have the greatest address on the planet and yet our societal engines (economics, security and governance) are so dysfunctional that our people are “beating down the doors” to get out. In a recent blog-commentary from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, this historic fact was enunciated:
“The Caribbean region has exported more of its people than any other region of the world since the abolition of slavery in 1834. While the largest Caribbean immigrant sources to the U.S. are Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Haiti, U.S. citizen migrants also come from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
The same as vision can be corrected with glasses and lenses, community vision or planning can also be perfected with reboots and turn-around activities. Our current vision is bad, we need correction. We cannot see (nor seem to care about) all of our citizens that are fleeing the homeland and looking for refuge elsewhere. Yes, we need to correct our vision; we need to get back to 20/20 …
… we need to see clearly. See this quest as messaged by a Caribbean musical artist in the VIDEO here:
VIDEO – Jimmy Cliff – I Can See Clearly Now (Video Version) – https://youtu.be/MrHxhQPOO2c
JimmyCliffVEVO
Published on May 3, 2014 – Watch the official music video for “I Can See Clearly Now” performed by Jimmy Cliff Music video by Jimmy Cliff performing I Can See Clearly Now. (C) 1993 Sony BMG Music Entertainment #JimmyCliff#ICanSeeClearlyNow#Vevo#Reggae#OfficialMusicVideo
- Category: Music
- Writers: Johnny Nash
- Licensed to YouTube by: SME; PEDL, LatinAutor, LatinAutor – Warner Chappell, ASCAP, IMPEL, UBEM, Warner Chappell, Wixen Music Publishing, and 11 Music Rights Societies
2020 is not just a reference to vision; it is also the next year on our calendar. This intersection allows us to use the actuality of 2020 to perfect our vision for Caribbean planning. Perfecting our vision to 20/20 would mean executing better on the 3 C’s – conceiving, communicating and compelling – the plans, strategies, tactics and implementations.
We are already pursuing these activities! While we are planning for the new year – 2020 – we have already published this Go Lean book and distributed it widely in the Caribbean region for the quest of forging change-correction in the Caribbean vision. We have also promoted the book aggressively by publishing related blog-commentaries. While the book was published in November 2013, the commentaries started in February 2014. Now we are up to a new milestone:
This submission is blog-commentary # 900.
These prior entries are all categorized and tagged for different subject areas. A “Vision 2020” presentation is all associated with Planning activities. Of these 900 blogs, the number tagged with a Planning category is (as of this publication date): 125
The Go Lean movement, introducing the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), is bent on planning or presenting a new Vision for the year 2020. 2020 is a milestone in a lot of ways: new decade, new generation, even a new census (from an American perspective).
Many others are thinking New Vision for 2020.
Do a quick search for “2020 Vision Plan “on Google, and you will get some amazing results; see this sample here (retrieved June 6, 2019):
| https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/vision-2020-cwp/vision-2030-cwp.page | NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan: Vision 2020 – NYC.gov The NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan aims at making New York City’s 520 miles of waterfront accessible, active, and resilient. This plan provides a vision for the city’s waterfront for the next decade and beyond. The plan will be released by the end of 2020. |
| https://www.njit.edu/2020vision/plan-success/ | 2020 Vision: A Plan for Success New Jersey Institute of Technology strategic plan studies the college’s potential to achieve important goals for students, learning, & research. |
| https://www.charlottecentercity.org/center-city-initiatives-2/plans/2020-vision-plan/ | Center City 2020 Vision Plan – Charlotte Center City Partners Center City 2020 Vision Plan Charlotte’s Center City has undergone dramatic growth and change over the past decade. From the development of new cultural .. |
| http://www.buffalo.edu/ub2020.html | UB 2020: University at Buffalo’s strategic plan UB 2020 is UB’s far-reaching vision for our continued growth as a world-class public research university. |
| https://www.sandiegounified.org/vision-2020-and-mission-statement | Vision 2020 & Mission Statement – San Diego Unified School District A community-based school reform plan that engages all parents, staff, students and community members. It will result in a high level of confidence in public schools to develop a world-class school system for all of students. It culminates with graduation of the Class of 2020. |
| https://www.who.int/blindness/partnerships/vision2020/en/ | VISION 2020 for World Health Organization VISION 2020 is a global initiative that aims to eliminate avoidable blindness as a public health issue by the year 2020. VISION 2020 is a partnership that provides guidance, technical and resource support to countries that have formally adopted its agenda. |
Reform and transform …
… seems to be a consistent theme among these preceding samples.
For this effort to reform and transform the Caribbean, we are in good company, for the act of planning is a noble pursuit; it is both an art and a science. See how the Go Lean book presented these 21 Advocacies under the category of Planning for a new Caribbean (Page 124):
- 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region
- 10 Ways to Improve Trade
- 10 Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce
- 10 Ways to Model the EU
- 10 Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
- 10 Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed
- 10 Ways to Better Manage Image
- 10 Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices
- 10 Lessons Learned from the W.I. Federation
- 10 Lessons Learned from 2008
- 10 Lessons from New York City
- 10 Lessons from Omaha
- 10 Lessons from East Germany
- 10 Lessons from Detroit
- 10 Lessons from Indian Reservations
- 10 Lessons from the American West
- 10 Lessons from Egypt
- 10 Lessons from the Bible
- 10 Lessons from the US Constitution
- 10 Lessons from Canada’s History
- 10 Ways to Measure Progress
This is what planning is all about: learning from the past and preparing for the future; perfecting the vision. The Go Lean book opens the Planning section with the Biblical quotation from Proverbs 29:18:
“Where there is no vision, the people perish…”.
This theme – perfecting the planning process – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17358 | Marshall Plan 4-Part Series – Ideal for Caribbean Application |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17135 | Way Forward 6-Part Series – Hope for Change in the Homeland |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13952 | Welcoming a Caribbean Intelligentsia for Planning the Plan |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10043 | Integration Plan for Greater Caribbean Prosperity |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1470 | COB Master Plan 2025 – Reach for the Lamp-Post |
“Reach for the stars” – Old Saying reflecting a grandiose vision-plan.
Surely, planning is something that keeps us striving to be better. We want to do more for 2020.
But we do not have to wait until the Year 2020. We can do more now! We urge everyone to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … now.
Vision is where it begins. This depicts a journey, which is appropriate for our consideration, because the destination of our roadmap is simple: a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.
Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of [bad] communities … [and to] implement the good examples learned from [good] developments/
communities … .
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.