I first became aware of what our US society has become on the soccer field. During 13 years of coaching soccer in my spare time, I constantly faced the politically correct expediency of "fun" vs achievement. After another 10 and 0 season, I was informed that my priorities were all wrong. Kids played soccer to have fun, not to win. My simple response was and still is, "Isn't winning fun?"

 

I certainly agree that the hidebound and blind adherence to winning is wrong-minded. Fair play and sportsmanship, emotional maturity, collegiality and collaboration are equally important, of course. Do these imply that we have to lose in the process? I contrast this concept of fun vs achievement with what Nikolas Kristof of the NY Times wrote about what is expected of Asian students in the US; "A-is an Asian student's F."

I encountered this phenomenon in the classroom (during the rest of my spare time) and after I gave a Korean-American student a C on her paper. She protested that her grammatical and spelling mistakes were due to the fact that English was her second language. She protested about this until I patiently explained that English was my second language and how I had tears in my eyes when I had to learn the English language when my mother foresaw that my siblings and I would one day be refugees to the US.

 

The Economist stated the US's future mission in the world with a wonderful economy of words: "Forceful diplomacy and the judicious use of force."

These objectives are not achievable through a society where we reward mediocre achievement equally as we do the achievement of excellence and the exceptional. Deming explained that we cannot control variation in a process unless we have a deep understanding of this process. The superficial will simply not do. We cannot continue to laud and praise, elect and promote those who propose failing and failed solutions to processes they scarcely understand. Steve Jobs said that we must start with the customer experience and work our way back to the technology, not the other way around. The problem with Jobs is that he did not apply this concept across the board of his life. We must start with respect for the fundamental worth and dignity of human beings and work our way back to solutions to human problems, not the other way around. 

 

The formal economic development professionals have belatedly discovered that a major source of economic inequality is the way in which capital has been allocated. Capital has been principally allocated to multinational corporations, to an elite who have unsurprisingly garnered more than their fair share of the goodies. The formal economic development apparatchiks have in the process discovered the SME. The problem is that this is not the solution. The solution is the empowerment of the immigrant community in its ability to conduct bilateral and multilateral trade with their native countries. The process of converting mom-and-pops to micromultinationals does not end with the culturally-connected community, it begins there. In the US, the Asian community with its aspiration to excellence, is well disposed to engage in this trade. Jaime Escalante of "Stand and Deliver" fame, demonstrated that when we have high expectations of people, they reward us with high achievement. The cultural connection of black refugees and immigrants to the US with business opportunities in their native countries, is more than obvious. I finance this connection every day. Credit Unions and small banks together with government guaranties and export credit insurance are the tools which empower participation in $36 trillion in global flows in goods, services and financing.

 

It is time to stop rewarding mediocrity in the US; whether on the soccer field or in any other field. Winning is fun!