Then on a past Monday, our editor was lamenting on the purpose of life, his life in particular.

Me, I just spent a good part of the last two weekends working and talking with the homeless people in Detroit's (Michigan, U.S.A.) infamous Cass Corridor district. All of this got me reflecting on how organizations and people can suffer a "relevancy crisis", when their goals and missions aren't updated to reflect the changes taking place around and within them.

My title, which some of you might recognize as a parody of the opening line to the original "Star Trek" television series, reflects something subtle, but important, that I think many individuals and organizations are lacking due to a "relevancy crisis", something that makes them question themselves, and be doubted by others: Grace.

Ed Cantarella

His book, The Practice of Management, published in 1954, gave business management an ordered approach that could be taught. He is now in his nineties, and believes that great humanitarian and social changes can be accomplished by non-profit organizations and movements, if they would apply the focused approaches he suggested to big business.

According to Mr. Drucker's theories, individuals and fractured groups, like those that protested recently in Seattle (U.S.A.) and on May Day in London (England), could get organized, garner more support and fulfill their real missions, if they applied his time-tested "5 Questions of Self-Assessment".

Most people --- and organizations --- instinctively avoid self-assessment because it might call for change or, worse yet, cast doubt on the very basics of their entire mission.

The all-time poster boy for organizational self-assessment gone bad is Nikolai Kondratieff. Kondratieff was a prominent Economics professor during the Stalin era. He was commissioned for a study envisioned to show, objectively, that capitalism was destined to fail (thereby validating the communist movement.)

Professor Kondratieff studied wages, interest rates, commodity prices and industrial output back to 1789. He concluded that cycles of economic activity are approximately 54 years in length, each cycle containing ever-increasing build ups of economic expansion and consolidation, ending in tremendous inflation, debt, bankruptcy and a severe economic correction.

Contrary to the Stalinists' expectations, Kondratieff also concluded that a free market (capitalist) economy, propelled by free people, would ultimately survive and be perpetuated. This assessment led to his exile in Siberia, where he allegedly died in the 1930s.

So, changes are cyclical, good and bad times come and go, and self-assessment is not a good job for the honest.

Let's take the test anyway.

#1.What is our(your) mission? This is not the same as: what have we/you been working on? Missions are focused on what they should be, where they are going; not, just short-term results/profits/pleasures.

Drucker believes that his 5 questions need to be answered and responded to honestly but, more importantly, they need to be asked again, when results are less than anticipated. Re-Assessment.

Re-Assessment. Al Dunsmuir noted in his recent article regarding May Day that many of the protesters and rioters had no real opinion or even knowledge of the underlying mission of the causes they were supporting. The mission isn't even clear for them, so is it any wonder that results are so poor? They need to re-assess the situation AND their methods.

Pride and stubbornness are the main stumbling blocks to individual's re-assessing: they think that it would somehow be disgraceful to re-assess their goals. They'd rather be stubborn as an Ass.

The French origin of the word assess actually means: to sit. Times change, situations change, opportunities change; don't just sit there, "Where do you want to go today?"

#2. Who is our customer? Whose life are you trying to change?

Mr.Vivian made a good point in his article: the bulk of the protesters in Seattle hadn't considered that those third-world workers may not like the working conditions, but they want to keep their jobs.

The protesters hadn't figured out who their customers are. IF the customer's are "all third-world workers who are being exploited", a focused global approach, not a case-by-case attack on manufacturers, would better avoid the constant migration of manufacturing to fresh areas of exploitation. Back in the "old days" of union activism, this organizational concept was called "Solidarity". Non-profit organizations make this mistake frequently, due to a lack of their "customer's" perspective.

Individual self-assessment (and re-assessment) also can clarify "who is the customer" in the same fashion. Compared to ten years ago, are you still as interested in:

• trying to please your parents;
• keeping up with the "Jones";
• appearing/getting rich; whatever?

Who is the customer now?

#3. What does the customer value? Mr.Drucker refers to volunteers, partners, patrons, donors and other participants in causes and non-profit organizations as supporting customers.

He says that considering what these people value, and tailoring the goals and methods of the organization to satisfy the values of the "supporting customer", is crucial.

On an individual basis, supporting customers are the people around you: boss, spouse, lover, neighbors, co-workers, customers, friends, family members, etc. If you don't consider what THEY VALUE, you will probably see a shortage of support - possibly even some derision. I've been trying to impress this upon my 19 year old; hopefully, he will "get it", so I can be a more supporting customer. HAH!

#4. What are our results? Those supporting customers want to see results; results prove your relevancy.

Ironically, for social causes, positive results can give detractors an opportunity to say,"THAT problem doesn't exist anymore" - the positive results reduce relevancy. Re-assessment is needed to proclaim the NEW MISSION or define the areas of the old mission that still need work. Rod certainly picked a good mission for G21, "Fighting the Forces of Evil" - talk about perpetual relevancy.

#5. What is our plan? This is your plan of action. This is what you plan to do tomorrow. Whether you actually get it accomplished is inconsequential to taking this test (you didn't forget the test - did you?).

Just make some plans, and try to carry them out once you have (re)focused your missions.

Kondratieff made one other noteworthy conclusion, "...From a depressed period, using a new technology discovered but only partially utilized in the previous high period, a new cycle of growth would inevitably occur."

Professor Drucker stated in a recent speech entitled Managing Oneself, "..it is not the Internet, it is not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time -- and I mean that literally -- for the first time, substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves."

I think right now, despite the nay-sayers (including the person in the mirror,) many good organizations and people are moving forward in managing themselves, albeit clumsily; history indicates, given time, they'll learn to carry on, with Grace.