[Mb-civic] Who Moved My Fromage - Tierney

[Michael Butler]

The New York Times
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March 28, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Who Moved My Fromage?
By JOHN TIERNEY

As student protesters and workers try to paralyze France today, I don't
suppose many of them are looking to America to come to their country's aid.
Nor do I suppose many Americans are in the mood for a new Marshall Plan. But
I have a modest proposal anyway.

Someone needs to rescue France from its self-proclaimed malaise. Close to a
quarter of its young people are unemployed, but they're too busy burning
cars to look for jobs. They're protesting a new policy allowing workers
under age 26 to be hired for a two-year trial period during which ‹ quelle
horreur! ‹ they could be easily fired.

This policy, intended to encourage companies to take a chance on
inexperienced workers, is being denounced for producing "slave jobs." It
would be "like living beneath a guillotine," said Charlotte Billaud, a
Sorbonne student.

"We're not disposable ‹ we deserve better," said another student, Aurelie
Silan. "Aren't we the future of France?"

Yes, mademoiselle, you are. That's the problem. What kind of college student
wants a lifetime employment guarantee for the first job out of school?
France's future is a generation of students whose idea of a good career ‹
chosen by 75 percent of them in one poll ‹ is a government job.

The leaders of the French Revolution called for constant daring: "L'audace,
l'audace, toujours l'audace." Today's street protesters have another motto:
"Contre la Précarité." Against Precariousness!

Legend has it that when Napoleon's Imperial Guard was cornered by the
British at Waterloo, its leader boldly declared: "The Guard dies. It does
not surrender." Today's French can't even stand up to unarmed foreigners.
When French young adults were asked what globalization meant to them, half
replied, "Fear."

Beneath that facade of arrogance, the French are suffering from a condition
apparent to any American. They have low self-esteem. They're not feeling
empowered. They need that great engine powering our economy: the American
self-help industry.

The French produce great Camembert, but they haven't absorbed the wisdom of
Spencer Johnson's modern classic, "Who Moved My Cheese?: An A-Mazing Way to
Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life." They haven't heeded Donald
Trump's instructional CD, "Think Like a Billionaire." They haven't mastered
Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" or Anthony
Robbins's "Awaken the Giant Within."

A few French men and women have looked across the ocean for guidance ‹
Robbins says he advised François Mitterrand ‹ but the French masses still
haven't awakened their inner giants. And they won't, unless we help them
help themselves by sending over the titans of the American
self-actualization movement.

This Marshall Plan B wouldn't cost American taxpayers much beyond a few
French lessons, plane tickets and hotel rooms. The French might initially
resent the intrusion ‹ they have that fear of new things ‹ but we can
reassure them: there's a precedent. The U.S. government sent them the
pioneer of self-help literature, Benjamin Franklin, and Paris loved him.

The only serious objection I expect is from Americans worried about our
G.N.P.: Could the American economy struggle along without these gurus? But I
think we're ready to go it alone, thanks to the billions of dollars of
wisdom we've already stockpiled.

We've learned secrets like "Be Proactive" and "Think Win/Win" (two of
Covey's seven habits). We now realize, thanks to Robbins, that "the past
doesn't equal the future." We've paid $19.95 for Johnson's revelation:
"Movement in a new direction helps you find new cheese."

We can afford to share this knowledge with the French. If they understood
Covey's radical Win/Win theory ‹ "Seek agreements and relationships that are
mutually beneficial" ‹ French students might not be marching today. They
might wonder why they'd want to spend the rest of their lives (well, at
least until they retire in their 50's) working for someone who doesn't want
them around.

If the French students studied Johnson ‹ "The quicker you let go of old
cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese" ‹ they might even consider the
possibility of changing jobs. We could send them French versions of Donald
Trump's CD, "How to Launch a Great Career," which does not include
instructions for burning cars.

Eventually we could introduce them to Trump's television show, but not right
away. There's a good reason "The Apprentice" hasn't made it to French TV.
For now, "You're fired" translates as "We riot."

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