"Curse of Professionalism"

Last week, I was thrown off and read this week’s chapter in Goldsmith’s The Power of Social Innovation.  So this week, I caught up and read “Animating and Trusting the Citizen”.  In the chapter, he writes about a local pastor who fought against “curse of professionalism”.  This pastor believed that results mattered more than the degrees or expert opinions.  As I read those few lines, I thought about the many social services that occur in our country.  The goal is to help people who at the moment are not able to help themselves.  Those helping often have little to no experience being in the shoes of those they are helping.  They are only armed with education and theory or data about what should or could help.  As I thought more about this curse, I wondered if the social service system would be better off if those being served were asked what they actually need.

 In the 1990’s President Bill Clinton worked to reform Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) better known as welfare.  His plan was to address complaints that recipients were making little to no progress in finding employment or were out-right abusing the system.  His solution was to turn over the system to the experts of each state.  However, I wonder what would of happened if he had taken the time to asked recipients what they thought of the program or how would they redesign the program.  Not just a wish-list of wants that keep them “stuck” in the system but a program that would return welfare back to its original purpose of being a temporary assistance for those with little to no income. 

This reminds me of my reading on wikinomics, for my other leadership class.  In the article, Wikinomics: The art and science of peer production, the authors write about a gold mining company, Wikipedia, and others that have benefited from having an open system that allows individuals to collaborate and share their ideas in order to bring about innovation and growth.  I wonder if this approach would be beneficial for our government.  It would be interesting to hear the solutions from those currently using welfare.  What would happen if the people that are experiencing homelessness provided solutions to address their growing population?  Or even if students and parents played an active role in addressing the achievement gap, high school graduation rates or behavioral problems in school?

I know not everyone would welcome hearing from those who have traditionally been excluded from the decision making process.  I mean I am talking about giving a voice to welfare recipients, people who are homeless and even worse - the actually students who are struggling, and behaving poorly.  These people lack “education”, they aren’t armed with all the data and theories but they armed with common sense and basic knowledge of their problems.  What if we ditched “professionalism” and aimed for getting results.  How would our country look differently??