Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
With Dr Rex Rogers

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Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 31 March 2011

When I see an especially large person I feel for them. I can’t help but think there’s a thin person inside wanting to get out.

I know this admission opens me to charges that I’m prejudiced or biased or immature or discriminatory or worse. But I honestly don’t look upon large people in a negative way. As I said, I feel for them. I wonder sometimes what they’d do differently or how they’d act differently if they could regain their thinner person of yesteryear. This is one reason I like NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” This program doesn’t make fun of people like other reality shows. It helps people.

Obesity is now rivaling tobacco, we’re told, as the number one preventable health problem facing Americans. Obesity, not just the clinical definition thereof, but people whose weight problem goes way past that the percentage of body fat considered mismatched with ones age and height. Americans have a problem, a big one. No pun intended.

Some 64% of Americans adults are considered overweight, 33% of those in the obese category. If that’s not enough, about 15% of kids 6-19 years are overweight. This puts us at much higher risk of cancer. Yet health professionals tell us we could cut our cancer risks in half simply be avoiding smoking, eating plenty of fruits and veggies with a lower fat diet, and—wait for it—exercising regularly. Not rocket science but equally powerful.

I know not everyone who is large or even obese is in this condition because of poor lifestyle choices. Some people indeed have medical problems that result in weight gain.

But for most of us, this is not the case. For most of us our weight is what we choose it to be. Or at least it’s a result of our choices—what we eat too much and how we exercise or otherwise remain active too little.

It’s also a product of our values, which for many people seem absorbed uncritically from surrounding culture. I travel a great deal, so I see substantial differences in people and restaurant portions by region or country. Travel in my home area of the American Midwest and you’ll see greater numbers of large or obese people than anywhere else in the country.

Go to most American restaurants and you’ll be served platters and drinks so large that by comparison what you purchase in Europe or the Middle East seem dinky rip-offs. But they’re really not. Portion size elsewhere matches what ours used to be. We’re into Super Sizing and Big Gulps about anywhere we go—portion distortion. Even “nicer” restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory are noted for their large servings. It’s great. I like it too, but that’s the point, it’s all too easy to like and like often.

Regular exercise is probably more difficult for some of us than eating right. I don’t know, depends upon the personality involved. I frankly catch it in binges, which isn’t good. I’ll exercise regularly, eat right, drop weight, then a few weeks or months later, especially in winter, put the weight back on.

I’ve dieted and lost 30 pounds or more about 5 maybe 6 times in the last 15 years back into my 40s. I’m glad I’ve been able to do this, in part to set an example for three sons who one day will face the same challenge, but this yoyo isn’t the best way to go.

Some of this exercise thing gets back to how the economy and professions have changed. We’re no longer a nation of farmers, woodsmen, and trappers. We’re not what we used to be as a nation of factory workers laboring daily and vigorously in manufacturing plants. We’re mostly office workers, desk jockeys. More of us use minds rather than muscles to earn a living and we’re sedentary while we do it. So work isn’t as calorie-eating as it once was.

Not to get too philosophical about it, but I do think American obesity is tied in with the current cultural zeitgeist, i.e. “spirit of the times.” Americans are into “excess.” We eat more than is healthy, pursue habits that are not good for us, and spend way more than our means. The budgets of every level of American government are also obese. We want more so we spend more. We want to eat so we eat. We try to eat and buy our way to happiness. But it doesn’t work.

So, I’m back on a diet. Don’t like it, but I’m working so it’s working. Pounds are disappearing. This is good, but here’s to committing to sustaining a proper weight and leaving the yoyo behind.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 27 March 2011

March Madness is a basketball fan’s fantasy: 68 of the best intercollegiate teams battling for supremacy. What more could a fan want?

Apparently for some it’s a chance to win money by gambling on the games. Sports betting is now a $100 billion per year “business,” and it’s getting bigger. March Madness offers the perfect opportunity, game after game, points and point spreads, quick results—some $12 billion bet in a matter of three weeks. It’s a multiple betting paradise, except for one thing: it’s mostly illegal, due to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992.

Meanwhile, casinos offering legalized sports betting take in about $30 billion per year. But there’s pressure from legislatures and much of the public to legalize sports betting and tap its revenues for public coffers.

The problem, though, is that sports betting represents a significant threat to the integrity of sport. Reason being is that it’s not difficult to imagine people approaching players, coaches, and officials with monetary incentives to throw games. Think the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” World Series scandal, Pete Rose accused of betting on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds, and most recently in 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy serving time for betting on games he officiated. Intercollegiate sports associations the NCAA and NAIA both oppose legalized sports betting, as do all the professional leagues, NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, etc.

Yet sports betting via local, noncommercial office bracket “pools” is increasing geometrically. College students are particularly susceptible, and golfers of all ages are by far the most inclined to gamble. With more than 2,000 gambling websites available and smart phone mobile gambling apps around the corner, gambling is a now pervasive opportunity of postmodern life.

Gambling seems harmless, a victimless crime if crime at all. But gambling’s history is replete with emotionally devastated individuals and bankrupt families. Sports betting is no different.

Because of its penchant for luring cheaters, legalized sports betting would do little but destroy the competitive purity of athletics. Eventually, sports betting would ruin the fun and fandom that makes athletics so enjoyable in the first place. Given that sports is already beset by drug challenges, legislators and the general public would do well to look for revenues somewhere other than sports.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 19 March 2011

A Nation in Crisis: The Meltdown of Money, Government, and Religion (2010) is about economics, politics, and religion, or primarily about economics. Dr. Larry Bates and his son Chuck Bates are both economists with long experience in business, political office, and Christian leadership.

Their book is a clarion call for common sense values, certainly ones borrowed from the Christian faith yet ones that used to be embraced by anyone who watched how the world operated. Bates and Bates are concerned, to say the least, about the debt-oriented, live-beyond-our-means culture that’s driven politics at the state and federal level the past few decades. Now we find ourselves with record national debt, huge budgetary deficits, a struggling economy, and mountains of personal debt.

The book’s title uses the word “crisis” because the authors rightly believe our culture and country are standing on the edge of a cliff. It isn’t too late, from the Bateses’ point of view, but we need to act wisely and quickly. Unfortunately, most politicians, it seems, don’t have the wisdom or will or both to make necessary changes.

The authors’ prescriptions for a better way include: don’t go into debt, buy homes that cost less than banks say you can afford, take affordable vacations, invest in gold, build your family. At the government level: cut taxes, deregulate health care, reform entitlements, reinforce the family unit.

One doesn’t have to look far to discover other countries whose profligate financial practices have led them to the brink. Greece comes to mind, presently waiting for Germany and the rest of the European Union to bail them out. Meanwhile, several other countries in Europe, like Spain, for example, are also struggling with finances not simply because the economy has taken a dip but because of their own choices in the past few decades. Sounds like the United States.

Debt is a killer of initiative and vigor. It weakens a family or a nation against the inevitable day when storms come. Debtors owe lenders, which is to say, in time, debtors can be controlled by lenders. It is not wise for the United States to owe so much to nations like China.

We need more common sense economics like you find in this book and more writers and pols like Bates and Bates. Here’s to praying more leaders on both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C. and our state capitals find their way back to responsibility and accountability, which ironically, frees us all.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 17 March 2011

No leader leads forever. All leaders leave. It’s our humanity writ large.

We seize another opportunity, age, grow tired, get bored, get fired, take time out to “spend time with the family,” retire, get sick or die. But one way or another, no matter what we are leading, we eventually leave. For the President of the United States, it’s four years or eight years but no more.

So changing leaders is not the problem. It happens. But changing leaders badly can debilitate or destroy an organization. Poor leadership transition can disillusion people within and without, the organization’s personnel and public.

In my estimation this happened at the University of Michigan when men’s football coach Lloyd Carr retired and Rich Rodriquez was named his successor. Rodriquez got off a horrible start and things went downhill from there—his buy-out penalty at West Virginia University wasn’t honored and WVU had to sue to get what was rightfully owed, statements were made on all sides that later proved suspect, and so it went. Add a poor win-loss record and Rodriquez was fired three years later. The entire story is a case study for what not to do in leadership transition.

One way to attempt to avoid (no guarantees) a major hiccup in leadership transition is to plan the transition. Plan leadership succession, not necessarily anointing an heir apparent, but plan the process by which the next leader will be identified.

The responsibility for planned leadership succession resides with current leadership—the Board and the chief officers of the organization. Herein lies a sometimes problem. For a variety of reasons and motives current leaders may not want to plan transition.

Current leaders are sometimes threatened by the prospects of developing a leadership succession plan. They confuse the process with their own security and sense of longevity. Sometimes leaders push planning into the future because they’d rather deal with immediate issues; classic procrastination.

Boards make a terrible mistake when they dilly-dally with leadership succession in the warped view that doing so is a statement of confidence in the current leader. Or, directors are so enamored by the current leader they beg him/her to stay forever. But forever doesn’t happen this side of the afterlife. Consequently, something inevitably happens and suddenly the organization is facing leadership transition with no idea of how to pull it off.

Stockholders in for-profit enterprises and constituents or donors supporting nonprofit organizations have a stake in who’s leading and who will be leading. For them, leadership succession planning is good stewardship that attempts to perpetuate the wellbeing of the organization. Without this planning, the organization can get caught shooting craps with its own future. Shrewd stakeholders who see this sometimes quietly opt out when they think the risk is getting too high.

The old biblical monarchies had a kind of built-in leadership transition process. Whenever Father stepped aside, Son stepped in. It was simple. Contemporary organizations sometimes operate on that principle, but usually they face a more complex task and thus need more planning.

Boards that develop a leadership contingency and succession plan, a kind of “Leader’s Will,” greatly increase the chances of a smooth and successful leadership transition.

Leadership transition works best when leaders know when to leave. An organization’s potential for long-term viability is increased when it is affirmed that no one is irreplaceable. Lame duck leaders or “Emperors who have no clothes” are deadly to an organization’s image, effectiveness, and health. In non-profit or profit settings, Boards must take responsibility. Weak Boards produce weak organizations and nowhere is this more quickly evident than in instances of current leaders being permitted to stay too long.

Formal search processes for new leaders are virtually inevitable and almost always desirable. Organizations do not always enjoy the comfort of an in-house heir apparent, and even if they do, it’s better for both the presumed heir and the organization for him/her to win or earn the new position, not be granted it outright. A search helps validate the choice. Besides, a search may make it evident that a presumptive heir is not so logical or capable after all.

One of the best ways to prepare an organization for leadership transition is to develop potential leaders who can later be considered in the search. “Up and comers” should be targeted for mentoring, role modeling, networking, and special assignment opportunities. Failure to develop young staff can drive away a whole generation of prospective leaders, crippling the organization for years to come. Organizations are strengthened by plans that proactively identify and support leadership talent from all walks of life.

Leadership succession planning becomes logically more important for organizations with long-term and older leaders. It’s just good business. More than that, it instills confidence in all stakeholders that the organization is in good hands today and will be, to the best of our abilities, in good hands tomorrow too.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 17 March 2011

I’ve known several leaders who didn’t know when to leave. They stayed too long, tainted their reputations, and nearly destroyed their organizations because they couldn’t pull the plug.

These leaders were good people, even superb leaders. But they didn’t have the will to leave. Or just as often, well-intentioned supporters begged leaders to stay long past when wisdom suggested otherwise and the leaders allowed themselves to be beguiled by vox populi. Their organizations paid the price.

No leader lives nor lasts forever. Sooner or later, all leaders resign, retire, are fired, or die in office. I know leaders who’ve found ways to delay or avoid the first three options. I don’t know of any who’ve delayed the last option—other than by moving on and dying out of office.

Whatever. Leaders eventually leave. It’s a given. The concern here are leaders who try to lengthen “eventually” indefinitely.

Not to pick on the man, but Dr. Robert H. Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral may be a case in point. I’m not attacking him, but I believe he’s given us plenty of evidence recently to make my point about great leaders knowing when to leave. Dr. Schuller hasn’t left.

The man is 84 years old. I attended a service last fall, my first and only, and saw for myself how as an older man he got confused a couple of times in the pulpit. More to the point, he turned the reins over to his son and then took them back. He’s turned the reins over to his daughter and just this week countermanded her leadership in public, even calling the press to state his open disagreement with something she had done. Whatever right and wrong or good and best might be regarding the specific issues, Dr. Schuller is demonstrating what it looks like when a leader is so tied into his/her organization that he/she cannot leave long past the time when he/she should have done so.

Leaders sometimes get to a point they confuse their own ego with their position, i.e., “I am the President,” or CEO, etc. It, the leadership role, and me are the same in the leader’s mind. This is not good for him or her or the organization.

Leaders who don’t know when to leave can, in a short time, nearly destroy an organization they worked years to build. I’ve seen this happen and out of grace to others involved I won’t name two universities where this indeed took place.

I could name a university where the newly appointed president found 7 former presidents serving on the Board. How’d you like to face that each time you suggested a change? It's a free country, and this university can do this if it wants, but freedom to act doesn't guarantee wise actions.

I can name “big name” pastors who didn’t know when or how to leave, and worse, hadn’t over the years developed a “bench” of new leaders. In other words these pastors failed to do what John Maxwell says is one of the most important things a leader can do: develop the leaders around you, for the sake of the future of the organization.

Leaders who stay “too long” only end up weakening their organizations. No one stays on top forever. No leader, no matter how good his/her track record, is the only person capable of running the organization well. Sure, there are great ones out there who’ve gone away and come back—Steve Jobs of Apple, Howard Schultz of Starbucks—but they are rare.

Great leaders know when to leave—and then they do. It’s a simple as that. President George Washington retired to Mt. Vernon and then studiously resisted multiple overtures attempting to lure him back into politics or to get him to make public statements criticizing his successors. His is a good model.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 March 2011

Everyone who’s still breathing experiences difficulties. Sometimes they come one after the other, trials or tribulations. Punch. Punch. Body punch. Health issues, family relationship stress, personal problems, financial duress, loss of employment, passing of a loved one, the examples are endless.

How do we survive? Better yet, how can we thrive in the midst of periodic, overwhelming onslaughts of the “vagaries and vicissitudes of life”?

The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk provides an answer:

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fail and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights” (3:17-19).

I remember a time early in our marriage when we experienced a run of problems that placed us in difficult financial straits. It caused me a great deal of stress until one day the thought occurred to me: “It’s just money. What if we lost everything we have? They’re just things.” With those ideas in mind I prayed “Lord, I give it all to you, everything we own, including our current financial pressure. If for some reason in your will it all disappears, it’s OK.”

Of course the Lord did not need my permission to work his will. My submission was more important for me than him. I will never forget that day.

Since that time, when under duress I’ve prayed that prayer a few other times, i.e., “Lord, it’s OK. I give it all to you for whatever you want to happen.” When sincerely offered this prayer results in incredible spiritual rest and emotional release. The problem didn’t go away. The pressure is still there. But how I process it is entirely different. If there are “no cattle in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

I don’t write this in a flippant or self-righteous way. I know certain problems are bigger than others—a loved ones life-threatening illness or death, for example. But I believe “the Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.”

I used to believe because this verse represents the theology of my faith. I was supposed to believe it. Now I believe because I’ve experienced the Lord’s strong arm for myself. It’s a continuing lesson, but the Lord is always there—when the fig tree buds and when it does not.

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