DAY 89 – USING WHAT WORKS

Years ago I met a man who ran a small city run governmental operation that helped recently released inmates from prison reorient themselves back into society. He told me that they had a ninety seven percent success rate and that only three percent of these men were reincarcerated. I asked them how many men his operation has helped and he said that there were three hundred men.

I started to think about the success this operation has achieved. Having three hundred men use these services with only three percent being returned to prison meant nine men did not successfully deal with their new found freedom while two hundred ninety one men created a life for themselves based upon living their lives in a manner that they didn’t do before. Over time I had constantly read about or saw reports on television about how there was a high rate of recidivism for former inmates. Here was a small organization set up by a municipality that found a way to talk to and give the type of support and encouragement that enabled former inmates to successfully deal with life after prison.

I have also seen other reports on tv about programs in a few prisons that have changed the attitudes of the people incarcerated there. When a person’s attitude is changed it means that their silent words are now different than before. With different silent words come different behaviors. With different behaviors over time come different ingrained habits. With different ingrained habits come a different human being. Such change is real and lasting.

When I started to think about all of this it became evident that too often we do not look at what works somewhere else on this planet and apply it to problems right where we live. We continually use the same methods to run a business entity, to govern a municipality or to administer to a nation that the next generation of administrators and workers inherit and adopt in their everyday affairs. Long lasting and profound new outcomes that change people’s lives for the better often require doing something differently.

If we are not striving for the best possible outcome in whatever we are doing we are then not giving our best to resolving problematic situations. Yes, we will not have everything in life fall in line as we want it to, but we still need to find the best way forward. Looking at what others have done to create a personal life with fewer personal difficulties makes personal sense. Looking at what other organizations have done to enhance their communities can be so insightful that it can be the guide post that makes it easier to bring about the desired beneficial outcome. Looking at what the citizens in other communities have done to create the long lasting underpinnings for fewer community wide problems can be the methodology by which one’s own community can use to uplift everyone living there.

I now realize that using what works somewhere else is necessary if we are to resolve issues that we haven’t solved. There are too many situations in community after community that stay the same because we are continually doing what we have done over the decades. The information and insights into how we can create a better personal life and a collectively better world is available to us if we choose to seek it out and use it.