immigration

Canadian Generosity Can Inspire Americans to Resist Authority

 I am an immigrant to Canada from The Netherlands, and cannot be more proud of my adopted country and its whole-hearted embrace of Syrian refugees and pride in being a multicultural nation.

I’m also a part-time resident of the United States and based on numerous discussions I have had with many Americans, as well observing the protests and reading sources from honest journalism, I believe the majority in the U.S. are more like Canadians than not.

In the research I have done in workplace dynamics, I have come to understand how people become entrapped in an authoritarian culture. Stanley Milgram, in the Perils of Obedience put it so well when he wrote, "...ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of mortality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

This is why it is so critical for people to unite against the shift to totalitarianism. My new book From Bully to Bull's-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire  directly addresses how everyone can provide leadership as described by Mohandes K. Gandhi when he declared,  "It is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honor, his religion, his soul and lay the foundation for that empire's fall or its regeneration."

Credit: BIGSTOCK

Trump’s Stand on Immigration Jeopardizes the Labor Market

Donald Trump’s recent decision on immigration, besides being a human rights nightmare, makes one thing very clear—he understands very little about attracting and retaining talent.  In this article by Jeffrey Sparshott in the Wall Street Journal, the author discusses how small businesses are spending more money than ever to find and train skilled workers. One of the ways we fill this need is attracting talent from overseas to fill highly skilled labor needs, which is why Trump’s cruel ban on Muslim immigration jeopardizes the U.S. economy. Forbes points out the very real brain drain caused by this policy and Scientific American reports that thousands of physicians and medical students banned by this executive order and may leave hospitals without staffs. Affected technologists and scientists could easily go to Canada, Europe—or even China—instead; top talent is in high demand. As I discuss in my new book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, the need to attract and retain talent should be one of the driving factors in creating psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces. Trump’s policies do the exact opposite.  

Credit: CNN