Courage of Conviction

The State GOP is now re-evaluating it’s priniciples.  I think this re-examination is a good thing actually, but not for the reason that most people will suspect.  In my real job, I work with small companies and individuals to help them identify their core values and their principles, their vision, their mission, and their goals.  Every company and every individual should do this ever few years if they are going to be successful.  If my understanding is correct, it’s been years since the state GOP has gone through such an exercise - far too long as evidenced by the large losses at the polls.  Republicans lost becuase they didn’t know what they stood for as a party anymore.  When that happens you have miscommunication.  If the people at the top don’t know what direction the party is heading, how are they supposed to effectively communicate a direction with the people under them?

The party should re-examine all of this every 5 years.  Why?  It will do one of two things - it will either confirm that the party is on the right track and solidify it’s values and direction, or it will become evident that something needs to change. 

I for one think that every principle should have to withstand scrutiny.  If it can’t be effective defended, then it should go.  Core priniciples and values are such a vital part of a successful organization, that you just can’t screw around with mediocrity.  Either the core principles, values and vision define the direction of the party, or they are a meaningless exercise.  If they define the direction of the party, then everything will align with those principles, values, and vision.  At that point all of this is much easier to communicate to others.  Then people have a decision to make, do they get on board with it, or do they not.  If not, will they just play lip service to the principles and values?  What will the result of that be?  How will that be perceived by the public?  What gets communicated in that event?  And the big question becomes, how committed is the party to its vision, values and principles? 

These are serious questions that every organization and individual goes through at some point.  Others more often than not. I would argue that the more successful organizations don’t wait until disaster strikes to re-evaluate these core values and principles - they re-evealuate when the organization is running smoothly.  They do it to ensure that it will continue to run smoothly and continue to grow and continue to succeed. 

Should the Republican Party re-evaluate it’s principles?  Absolutely.  Should they have waited so long to do it?  No.  They are now suffering the result. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 9:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.