If the citizens of the United States were satisfied with their government, there would be no need for this book. Americans would be building, incrementally, on efficiency in the workplace and satisfaction with leadership. That vision, however, remains a fantasy, farther away than ever as we complete the second decade of the 21st Century. A majority of Americans today (over 60 percent) believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. A greater number (over 80 percent), is of the mind that Congress is not doing its job. Why the disconnect between the governor and the governed? Where is a relatively young country, under 250 years-old, going wrong? Where is the vigor and enthusiasm of the pioneers? The "can-do" spirit of the founders? The optimistic entrepreneurs? The working-class plying its trade and always learning more at night school? The upwardly-mobile waves of immigrants? The United States has resigned itself to inhabiting a stagnant malaise when it comes to leadership. Why? Why have we allowed government to play by a set of rules unthinkable in the world of business or even non-profits. The rules that would make any company unresponsive to its own workers and unprofitable for its shareholders are not only tolerated when it comes to government, but often encouraged. That is bad enough. Worse, in an effort to placate our population, the country's leadership is always in a, "We are doing something," mode, which is often more dangerous than neglect. We must do something, our leaders reason, but they do so without understanding the source of the problem they are seeking to solve. The result? We provide solutions that, "put out the fire," that buy time but fail to provide the solutions that deal with roots. In some cases, we merely delay solutions. In many, we exacerbate the problems and make the cost of real resolution much higher and, sometimes, impossible. Confronting structural problems today may be wrenching, but the out-of-sight costs of not acting today may be catastrophic. Our resignation to accepting mediocrity in government is not inevitable. It is a question of our national willpower. Utilizing "Bottom-up," a proven management approach and its templates, rather than political ones, will turn what some consider "intractable" mediocrity into excellence. Faith in leadership should be a given, not a question of chance. The depressing statistics cited above should be inverse. The decline in faith in the institution of government is not inevitable. The "bottom-up" approach rallies key stakeholders around a set of shared values and goals. The shared values and goals help ensure that the majority are "moving in the same direction." This approach is longer, more painful and time-consuming than one mandated or legislated by politicians. However, the results are sustainable. They have real results for those with a stake in the solution. The, "We know better," approach of politicians, now a mainstay of American government, vanishes once and for all. Grassroots Metamorphosis offers citizens a path to play their role in recapturing the very essence of our country's creation: self-reliance, independent thinking, faith in the electoral system and sacrifice for the common-good. If these two questions are answered in the affirmative, there is hope: Are we ready to listen to "bottom-up" management? Once we've listened, are we committed to implementing? Therein, Grassroots Metamorphosis.
About the Author: Sa'ad Allawi has been making the American workplace more productive for 40 years. He has done so by listening and forging consensus among everyone in an organization. He gets everyone to, "buy in." Mr. Allawi has done this job as the co-founder and chairman of the board of Performance Logic Inc. His experience, by a coincidence of time and place, has been primarily in health care, working for NextEra, a consulting firm; chairing the provider practice of William M. Mercer, the world's largest benefits consulting company, and; directing operations improvement practice for APM, a leader in healthcare consulting. Outside of healthcare, Mr. Allawi, a native of Iraq and mechanical engineer (thermodynamics and nuclear), was the director of business development for AI industries, the largest private Kuwaiti conglomerate. He worked for McKinsey and Co., the world's premier global management consulting firm, providing services to Fortune 100 companies and public sector organizations. Earlier, he worked for CA Parsons, a turbine generator manufacturer, and was a section leader for MW Kellogg, petrochemical design-engineers. Mr. Allawi served on the advisory boards several healthcare, consulting, and technology companies, and advised the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, on private-sector development in Iraq. He is the author of numerous white papers and 20 articles on healthcare management entities including Healthcare Forum, Clinical Laboratories Management Review, Viewpoint (Marsh and McLennan Companies Quarterly), Business Quarterly (University of Western Ontario), Hospital Marketing and Public Relations, and Healthcare Productivity Report. Mr. Allawi co-authored 100 Top Hospitals, a study that has become the national benchmark for gauging hospital performance. He authored a chapter of Redesigning Healthcare Delivery, by Boland Healthcare, entitled "Applying Performance Engineering to Healthcare Organizations." Mr. Allawi, past President of a Rotary chapter, received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering, with concentrations in Thermodynamics and Nuclear, from Liverpool University. He holds an MBA from Columbia University, School of Business, with a specialty in Operations Research and International Business.