Organizations need to foster the development of a strong, vibrant middle class of employees as a mechanism to help them successfully compete in today's turbulent marketplace. The workers that make up this organizational middle class are the warriors by which the organization will either flourish or flounder. These workers will determine if the organization can endure. It is incumbent upon the organization to prepare employees and equip them properly for battle. What does this mean and how can this be done? There are some lessons to be learned by an examination of the behaviors of America's founding fathers.

"We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." - Abraham Lincoln, 1863, The Gettysburg Address

The Value of Education
One of the essential elements for a strong, vibrant, lasting democracy to exist is the establishment of a sizeable middle class-a middle class, by definition, that is not struggling day-to-day to meet its essential needs of food, housing and healthcare. One major way of helping to create a strong middle class is through education. The U.S. has been the benefactor of a relatively strong educational system since almost the start of the union, and even today, it has an advanced educational system that is the envy of the world. There are, however, many different models of educational systems. For organizations, a primary challenge is to determine the educational model that is best for their circumstances.

Thomas Jefferson, a founding father of the United States, was also the founding father of the University of Virginia. He began the institution with the notion that the university should train a new leadership-elite based on selecting individuals by their virtues and talent. While he clearly did not believe in inherited opportunities, he did seem to feel that people should be selected based on their talents and skills and then should be provided an opportunity for a fine education. This, in essence, created a new intellectual class of ruling elites, albeit a class distinction that was not assured to pass through to future generations in the lineage, but one that was based on merit. To help assure that this education was not based on class, the university education was proposed to be provided to those who qualified for free.

Benjamin Franklin took a different approach. He also was a founding father of a university, the University of Pennsylvania. His goal was not to select promising young men for leadership based on merit, but to provide an education for all who wanted one. Viewing a broadly educated population as critical to the future success of the nation, he felt that if individuals wanted to learn, they should be welcomed there. Each individual, through his or her hard work and efforts, had a chance for an education. Franklin's idea was not one of creating a new meritocracy, but of providing an education for a broad array of individuals from all occupations and all walks of life. Today the reputation of the University of Pennsylvania is unsurpassed for providing an excellent education, and it also turns out many fine leaders.

In 1749, Benjamin Franklin penned the Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsilvania-Philadelphia, which provided insight into his thinking about education when he stated, "That we may obtain the Advantages arising from an Increase of Knowledge, and prevent as much as may be the mischievous Consequences that would attend a general Ignorance among us, the following Hints are offered towards forming a Plan for the Education of the Youth of Pennsilvania." Franklin goes on to describe how schools should operate, how students should eat frugally and exercise frequently and what subjects should be specifically taught.

Benjamin Franklin was of the mind that leadership within the new nation could come from anywhere, that all people are created equal and should have an equal opportunity to make what they desire with their lives. He saw the benefit in having a highly educated population by implementing an educational system that provided wide access to all. Leaders, in his thinking, came from highly educated, motivated and intelligent common people. The same kind of people that Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg address would later say created our "government of the people, by the people, for the people…"

The contrast between creating a workforce that consists of a highly trained, small cadre of a select few versus a broadly educated workforce where everyone has a chance to achieve is a choice that must be made. Inherently, a broadly educated workforce is more flexible to changing environmental conditions, which makes the organization more resilient to external factors-a payback well worth the investment. A broadly educated workforce that has a strong emphasis on diversity also allows individuals with different backgrounds to propose new ideas or see unique solutions to the same problem, allowing the organization to examine alternatives in a rigorous fashion. And as Benjamin Franklin points out, ignorance usually leads to unfortunate consequences and behaviors.

The Engaged Voter/Worker
There were a number of times in the mid-to-late-1800s that turnout for the U.S. presidential elections exceeded 80% of eligible voters. In 2000, the U.S. voter turnout for the presidential election was just over 50%, and was just below 60% in 2004. The U.S. population of the mid-19th century was highly engaged in political discussions and widely debated public issues. The issues of the day facing the country were of great importance, and each and every American knew that the way issues were decided could dramatically impact their day-to-day lives.

A major disconnect today is how little we perceive that the decisions in Washington affect our day-to-day lives. For instance, how many of us can say that we have been directly touched by the Iraq war? Where are the war bonds that were used to finance the war effort, as was done in WWII? Where is the draft that reached (theoretically) into potentially each and every household? It is no longer the majority of the population, but only a small segment that is affected by war, making the decisions from Washington seem less relevant to each of us. When Representative Charles Rangel talks about reinstituting the draft, he does so not only because the current system creates a disproportionate number of minorities in the military, but also because it restores the sense that if we are at War (with a capital W), it should be felt by the entire nation. He does so because as decisions are made about a war, they are made with the notion that they will be felt by the nation as a whole. War is thought about a little harder when it may be your children asked to fight.

In the 1800s, the speech was the major method of political communication from candidates or office holders. The great majority of newspapers-upon reporting on the speeches and issues-were described as highly partisan in their respective publications. Publishers, too, often had political ambitions. The news as unbiased reporting, in the spirit of Cronkite and Murrow, may have been an anomaly, and my perception of today's partisan reporting (and I have to add mostly trivial) may be more the historical norm.

If we were to look at the employee population of an organization, and they scored over 80% favorable on outcome items commonly used to measure employee engagement, we would say that the organization is doing quite well. And while not at the absolute highest possible levels of engagement, the company would be very, very solid. Organizations scoring just over 50% or just below 60% are in trouble. They have workforces that have lost or are losing enthusiasm, and clearly, for whatever the reason, maybe the workforce is not doing everything it can to help the organization succeed. If we look at voter turnout as a surrogate for voter engagement, we would say that the country was politically and organizationally healthier in the 1800s than it is today. Voter apathy, which is more prevalent today, is a potential sign of a disengaged or disengaging population-not a good state of affairs.

A vibrant middle-class workforce in organizations must be engaged and feel that it has a vital role in contributing to the decisions being made by the organization. The workforce must also feel that those decisions have the potential of affecting individuals on a day-to-day basis. It is difficult to engage a workforce if what is happening around it is viewed as having little to no importance to each member personally. The decisions of the organization should not affect only a small cadre of elites or small pockets scattered through the organization. If the organization is feeling pain, it should be generally felt throughout the organization, and if the organization is feeling success, likewise.

The King
George Washington could have been anointed king of the new nation-this new organization, had he so chosen-but he saw the benefits of another path. He did not see himself as a king, but as one of the common people in the newly emerging democracy. In relative humility, he chose to limit himself to two terms as president. He also chose, in his wisdom, to implement the parts of the constitution that called for the separation and relative equalization of power between the three branches of government. His choices enshrined him as one of the greatest presidents this nation has ever had.

The CEO can be thought of as the king of the organization. The New York Times (May 25, 2007) described the widening gulf between CEO pay and the pay levels of the organizational middle class and other elites in the organization only one or two levels below the CEO. This article titled, "More Than Ever, It Pays To Be The Top Executive," seems to describe a characteristic that some CEOs have developed or have fallen victim to. This notion, which George Washington was able to avoid, is that it is "good to be king." Moreover, some CEOs perceive themselves not of the common people, but rather that they should grab as much reward for themselves as possible.

CEOs today, often with the assistance of the Board of Directors, are creating a new isolated category based on the assumption that CEOs have some kind of special quality not commonly found. The article describes in some detail the establishment of a new small elite of very wealthy individuals, including sports figures, movies stars and CEOs. Will the choices of many CEOs today enshrine them as great leaders of their respective organizations, or will history view them as the modern version of newspaper publishers from the 1800s, trying to fulfill personal ambition and greed?

A vibrant organizational middle class must be equitably compensated for its contributions. People who are worried about putting food on the table, making a mortgage payment or worrying about their car breaking down are not concentrating on the things that are important to the organization. There is a Russian saying, "I pretend to work, you pretend to pay me." This represents the bottom of a downward, deleterious cycle that needs to be reversed in creating a vibrant organizational middle class. Interestingly, pay is often a driver of engagement only when pay is low. As soon as pay hits an adequate level, creating an organizational middle class, it is no longer important and drops out as a driver. People who are poorly paid or view themselves as not equitably treated tend to be unengaged.

Organizational Democracy
If we review some of the most successful, widely admired organizations today, we begin to notice a common characteristic: they tend to have a vibrant organizational middle class. They are organizations that make the most out of their intellectual capital-intellectual capital gathered from their highly engaged workers.

Clearly, organizations are not democracies, but I think both can each learn a bit from the other. Democracies have been described as messy and difficult at getting anything done. But they have overwhelming positive characteristics and benefits for those societies willing to put in the hard work of creating and sustaining them. Creating a collaborative environment where people are highly engaged is not an easy thing. Organizations have a lot of moving parts, and maximizing the effectiveness of those parts is not easy. Accomplishing things that are not easy is part of what leadership is about. True leaders have the ability to bring the organization along with them as the entire organization accomplishes jointly-held, aspirational goals.

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."  -JFK, September 12, 1962, Rice University

Senator Charles Sumner, while speaking at Abraham Lincoln's funeral, stated that Lincoln was mistaken when he said "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." He stated, "the world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."