Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

This is an accepted fact about communities, taken from the science of Anthropology and Sociology: in any grouping, there are only a few leaders but a large number of followers. This is the principle of the Alpha Male or Female; see Appendix. It turns out that this fact is a key strategy for forging change:

“Everyone knows that we are sheep. It takes only the strong to break out from the herd mentality” – Published YouTube comment on the below VIDEO.

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean wants to forge change in the Caribbean. We have consider many different strategies, tactics and tools for forging change. Here’s another: skip the Alpha Male-Female and target the herd.

So is it that easy? We simply need to exploit the herd mentality and we can get hordes of people to conform, reform and transform. That is an exciting prospect, especially considering the positive value when leaders in a community want to pursue the Greater Good.

See as this is portrayed in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Social experiment – most people are sheep – https://youtu.be/MEhSk71gUCQ

Published on Aug 31, 2016 – Hidden camera…

This experiment is very thought-provoking. Sheep, goats and other animals follow a herd mentality. Apparently, humans too!

The motives of the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean is to forge change in the Caribbean. Plain and simple! The strategies, tactics and implementations from the book is designed to elevate the Caribbean for all stakeholders, to make the homeland a better place to live, work and play. This is conceivable, believable and achievable if we bypass the Alpha Males and target the rest of the herd. These ones can be led and influenced to adopt new community ethos. This is defined as:

“the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society”.

The Go Lean book asserts that with strenuous efforts, new community ethos can be adopted. The book cites samples, examples and Role Models:

• Smoking Cessation – Page 20 – At one point in the 1960’s, 67 percent of American adults smoked cigarettes. Today, smokers are a fringed segment of society, almost as “outlaws”. The cessation efforts are identified as an approach to forge change for an individual, “starting in the head (thoughts, visions), penetrating the heart (feelings, motivations) and then finally manifesting in the hands (actions). Role Model – Alpha Male-Female: Surgeon General.
• Civil Rights – Page 122 –  Even though the slaves were emancipated in America in 1865, the African-American population did not enjoy the freedom, justice and equality of full citizenship. The effort to bring Civil Rights to the Southern US succeeded only with millions of people protesting in a non-violent movement. Eventually the government leaders complied and made changes to laws guaranteeing equal protection. Role Model – Alpha Male: Martin Luther King.
• Farm Migrant Labor – Page 122 – The Latino American farm workers’ struggle was presented as a moral cause with nationwide support by Labor and Civil Rights leaders. By the 1970’s, the strategies and tactics of this movement had forced agricultural businesses and growers to grant respect to migrant workers, which helped to improve conditions for 50,000 field workers in California & Florida. Role Model – Alpha Male: Cesar Chavez.
• Drunk Driving – Page 122 – The values and attitudes of drunk-driving needed to change in America. Families endured heartache and pain because of the tragic loss of innocents due to negligence by inebriated drivers. Change was forged in this advocacy by challenging acceptance, laws and enforcement. Eventually the general attitudes – bars, passengers and drivers – changed for the good.  Role Model – Alpha Female: Candice Lightner, Mothers Against Drunk Driving or MADD.

The Go Lean book presents a plan to reboot economic engines (jobs, educational and entrepreneurial opportunities), optimize the security apparatus (anti-crime and public safety) and accountable governance (regional alliances) for all citizens … including many minority factions. The majority of the population must acquiesce and accept the new ethos in order to allow the societal empowerments to take hold.

Caribbean society have traditionally featured a parasite disposition – to their European colonial masters, or the American SuperPower, in effect an Alpha Male. As a region, we have been drawn to the “shadows”, gleaning opportunities from the leftovers from the host countries, think tourism-hospitality, off-shore banking, and the business of vices: cigar and rum production. The quest now  is a turn-around, to be a protégé, rather than just a parasite.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to make the region a better place to live, work and play. This is a roadmap to forge a Single Market of the 30 member-states of 4 language groups and 42 million people. If the region is to “herd”, they should be led to this elevated destination.

The challenge and alternate strategies for forging change have been identified in a series; see these previous Go Lean blog-commentaries, published over the past 2 years:

1.       Forging Change – The Fun Theory (September 9, 2014)
2.       Forging Change – The Sales Process (December 22, 2014)
3.       Forging Change – Music Moves People (December 30, 2014)
4.       Forging Change – ‘Food’ for Thought (April 29, 2015)
5.       Forging Change – ‘Something To Lose’ (November 18, 2015)
6.       Forging Change – Herd Mentality (Today)

This commentary – Number 6 – is urging the herding the people of the Caribbean to a new protégé destination – that sounds unnerving. But there is nothing nefarious or malevolent about this Go Lean roadmap. As detailed in this previous blogs, the efforts to forge change in the region are not intended for any one person or organization to wrestle power or the elevation of any one leader. The roadmap features only one objective: the Greater Good. This is defined in the book (Page 37) by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer as …

… “the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”.

The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs all accept that forging this change in the Caribbean will be hard, heavy-lifting. There may not be just one strategy; we may have to employ all 6. This would be worth it in the end, with these sought-after prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines, creating 2.2 million new jobs and growing the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and ensure better public safety for stakeholders of the Caribbean.
• Improvement of Caribbean governance – with a separation-of-powers between member-states and the CU federal agencies – to support these engines.

As depicted in the foregoing VIDEO, “most people are sheep”; they can be cajoled and persuaded to change, to improve their habits and practices. The act of cajoling and persuading implies messaging campaigns. With campaigns from the technocratic leadership of the CU, the Caribbean as a region can be reformed and transformed to becoming a new destination: a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean book presented the roadmap for reach the people, to herd them effectively and efficiently. The roadmap details the new community ethos to adopt, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to forge change in the region. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

The quest to change the Caribbean will require convincing people through messaging campaigns. We have seen the effectiveness of this strategy with movies; we have influential actor – of Caribbean heritage (Bahamas) – Sidney Poitier as a fitting Role Model:

Movies are an amazing business model. People give money to spend a couple of hours watching someone else’s creation and then leave the theater with nothing to show for the investment; except perhaps a different perspective. That is all!

But no one wants to live in a world without this art-form, without movies. Those few hours can entertain, engage and transform; sometimes even “break new ground” and change the world. So movies and movie stars can be extremely influential in modern society. This is the power of the arts, and this art-form in particular. – Blog: How Sidney Poitier changed cinema by demanding and deserving a difference

The empowerments in the Go Lean book calls for permanent change. This is possible. The people of the Caribbean only want opportunities; they want to be able to provide for their families, and offer a future of modernity to their children. It is an “easy sell” to convince people that the best-practices in the roadmap will bring benefits. Especially with reporting of the success of the same best practices in other locations. This point was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14) in the book with this statement:

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 communities like East Germany, Detroit, Indian (Native American) Reservations, Egypt and the previous West Indies Federation. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like New York City, Germany, Japan, Canada, the old American West and tenants of the US Constitution.

In general, being called sheep is not “derisive”. It is a complement when the comparison is made to goats – (The Bible; Matthew 25: 31–46). While this is a reference to a grouping of benevolence versus malevolence, for this commentary, there is similarity in sheep and goats as they both display a herd mentality; they follow the lead and assimilate the habits, practices and ethos of the Alpha Male-Female.

The CU/Go Lean seeks to assume the role of the Alpha Male-Female. We encourage all Caribbean stakeholders – residents, institutions and governments – to lean-in now, to the Go Lean roadmap. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – Alpha Males-Females

In studies of social animals, the highest ranking individual is sometimes designated as the alpha. Males, females, or both, can be alphas, depending on the species. Where one male and one female fulfill this role together, they are sometimes referred to as the alpha pair. Other animals in the same social group may exhibit deference or other species-specific subordinate behaviours towards the alpha or alphas.

Alpha animals usually gain preferential access to food and other desirable items or activities, though the extent of this varies widely between species. Male or female alphas may gain preferential access to sex or mates; in some species, only alphas or an alpha pair reproduce.

Alphas may achieve their status by superior physical strength and aggression, or through social efforts and building alliances within the group.^[1]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_(ethology) retrieved October 10, 2016.