X-Message-Number: 30253
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:31:06 -0800 (PST)
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Reply to flavonoid

FLAVONOID SAID:
I note with a certain amount of dark amusement, David
Pizer's concern that somehow 5 people could
insidiously manage to get themselves onto
Alcor's board of directors, thus forming a majority
and taking it over.

MY REPLY.  By the way, the takeover that can ruin
Alcor does not have to be by evil people that want to
hurt Alcor on purpose.  It can be by incompetent
people who can do just as much or more damage then
evil people. 

For example, I had an employee who stole $200 dollars
one day.  I had another worker who was loyal to the
company and tried to do his job well but who was a
careless driver on one occasion and drove our company
truck into another car and the whole thing cost me
$17,000.  Which employee hurt the company the most?

One of the first things that I learned in business
long ago is that some nice, well-meaning people in
your company can hurt your company much worse then the
most evil mean-intentioned person in the company.
You prevent damage from both these potential problems
by putting systems in your company that prevents
losses, for any reason.

Alcor can do the same thing. The system they have now
for electing and re-electing directors will eventually
ruin Alcor by either allowing evil or incompetent
people (incompetent in running a business like Alcor)
to get on the board.  I am saying we need to change
the system and if we get a better system it will help
us get more efficient people running Alcor and that
system will also make all the members feel they are
trusted and a part of Alcor like they used to when
Alcor first started up and when things were much
better in those areas.



FLAVONOID;
It should be as clear as the bright daylight to
anyone, that this has already happened.  Alcor's Board
has been taken over by a self-electing
group who, from what I'm told, never ask the Alcor
membership what they think about anything on their
agenda, not to mention who have no
inclination whatsoever to abide by what the membership
might want.

If Alcor's board of directors wishes to claim
otherwise, then let them give the vote to Alcor
members to prove that indeed they have not
 "taken over" Alcor.

MY RESPONSE: I agree with what you say.  Here is how
it happened.  The board members did not like
controversy.  They got tired of having conflict and
strong debates at the meetings.  We had fiesty
meetings which involed the whole membership. They were
fiesty but this made the members take notice of what
was going on and feel more a part of Alcor. As some
board members left the board over time, the existing
board only replaced those who left with new people who
they (the existing board members) felt sure would
agree with them. The criteria to get elected to the
board was to show the existing board members that you
would go along with them.  And so a complete takeover
has taken place as you have so astutely observed.  The
people on the board now have their main priority to
get along just swell with each other, keep secret some
of the terrible mistakes that have been made, and to
never say anything critical about another board
member.

That is good for making the board meetings more
comfortable for the directors and a bad way to run a
company.  

The board members have come to some agreement that the
political process is a bad thing.  I agree that some
specific processes can seem bad or hard to deal with. 
But the political process in general is the very best
way to make each candidate stand for election or
re-election.  Instead of hiding his record, the
process makes his record public and his opponent can
make claims and he has to defend his record. 

Under the present process there is no motivation to
bring the problems to the public attention where there
will then become pressure to fix them.  If someone
brings a mistake to the attention of the bard, the
board has no outside motivation to fix it unless they
alone want to.  If they don't fix it, they can't be
fired.  

The common political system of making people run for
election and re-election on their record to the
general public  isn't a perfect system but is is
better then the dictatorship that runs Alcor now. 
Think about it.  We really know very little about the
people who are on the Alcor Board.  We know only what
they tell us.  There is no public opposing person to
tell us if they are withholding info or putting too
much spin on their story.

We don't know much about our board members because
they don't have to reveal it to us.   We don't know
all the mistakes Alcor has made because they can keep
some of the really bad one secret.  Or they can reveal
a little and say they have to keep the rest
"confidential."  

FLAVORED AGAIN:  David Piers explains very clearly how
it was in the earlier years, that
Alcoa's board simply did the will of the then-smaller
general membership.  Now that membership is really too
large for that scenario  to function, and a voting
system is needed to replace it, in order to get
the same level of accountability from the directors.
Until that happens, the situation remains that Alcor
is being run by a small group of self-appointing
dictators who feel no need to answer to
anyone, and indeed in most cases do not do so.

MY REPLY:  You have hit on the other really big
problems that the present system of only directors 
electing directors has caused:  it is a system that
estranges the members from the organization.  Also, it
allows people to get into office without having to
reveal very much about themselves.  Also, it allows
those running Alcor to not have to be held accountable
if they make mistakes.  

People who are held accountable, all other things
being equal, will do a better job running a company
than people who are not held accountable.

I brought this matter up to the Alcor board a while
ago and they relied by calling me a bad guy and other
names, and not debating the specific claims I was
making.  Since then things keep getting worse at
Alcor.  Things may be bad enough now that the members
may be able to cause the directors to make the needed
changes.  Or, things may have to get worse until the
changes are made.  

One thing I will predict is that things will keep
getting worse under the present system Alcor has in
place now.  They *must* get worse because the present
system causes things to get worse.  Systems and
structures within businesses cause how things we get
done.  The present system will cause the membership to
feel alienated from Alcor.  It cannot be any other
way.  As we learned in South Africa - You can tell the
darkies whatever you want about how much you like and
respect them but as long as you refuse to let them
vote they are going to know you are not telling how
you really feel and they are going to feel that they
are not part of the team.

How bad will things have to get before the changes are
made.  That is the question.  If they make the changes
now, they can still revive Alcor and get things back
to the way it was in the good old days.  But if they
wait until there are too many things have gone wrong,
then even if they make the changes then it will be too
late and the damage will be too great to fix.  



      
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