History and anthropology can tell us just about everything we need to know about good intentions and what happens if matching results do not occur, if only we would learn.

     Remember, Rooseveldt's "New Deal", Kennedy's "New Frontier", Johnson's "War on Poverty", Nixon's "Energy Independence" and Carter, the "Education" president. Reagan's "Trickle Down", Bush ?, Clinton's "Re-invention of government", and now the second Bush's "War on Terrorism". Has intent come even close to matching the results?

     We also have, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, more than 30 million people, most of whom are children, who live under conditions of poverty.  We are building prisons at a record rate.  Our educational system is, at best, a disgrace.  There is rampant racism among all ethnic groups. All of this, after 70 years of public intentions and enormous expenditures to create prosperity for all.

     Have we learned how to perform better?  Or, have we learned to be more skeptical, cynical and angry?  One thing is quite certain.  It did not have to be!  Prosperity for all could have been had, but somewhere we went the wrong way.  We have not come close at all to getting the results that we set out to achieve more than half a century ago.

     I believe that we can obtain a fundamental understanding of why and how we have gone wrong by examining the relationship between good intentions and results.  It is this relationship that defines performance, and it is performance that we seek.

     There is much more to the expression "Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk" than meets the eye.  It is no accident that it emerged when it did in the culture that it did.  We have a culture where the gap between talking and walking has never been greater, and we are paying an enormous price for this gap.  We will be paying an even greater price if we do not start closing the gap.

     When the gap between intentions and results becomes large a dangerous unreality sets in.  We begin to accept all sorts of public contradictions and illusions that have no basis in fact.  When we fake things, to ourselves or others, we usually pay a price that is not worth it.

     I can vouch personally about the difficulties that arise when the gap between good intentions and results is too large.  I can sincerely and truthfully say that I have always had good intentions, and I have enjoyed some successes, but I also, at times, have wreaked some considerable havoc because the scale of my intentions did not match the results.

     I believe that the relationship between good intentions and performance is absolutely critical to our well-being at all levels of human relationships, including our individual mental health, but also the support of enterprise and advocacy of community well-being.  In fact, the gap between good intentions and results is perhaps the best measure of psychological and cultural sickness or health that we can use.

     If we want to create and sustain prosperity, we have to become much less accepting of the gap between good intentions and results.  This means that we have to accept personal responsibility and to hold one-another more accountable.  It means that we have to keep score and that we have to create negative consequences for those of us who treat results, and lack of results, with disdain.

     If we set up a scoring and statistical tracking system for community prosperity that is half as accurate and followed with a fraction of the attention that is given to sports scores and statistics, we would generate ten times better results than we are getting.  We are talking about real responsibility and accountability, for all.

     I was involved in the founding of Enterprise and Community Support Company and am strongly committed to ECSC's approach.  I am also serving on the Advisory Panel that is working with Citizen Compact to establish an enforceable public accountability system.  It is past time that we act more forcefully to get better results, faster!  It can be done.