Solving Complex Problems Requires Long Term Focus

A while back I wrote this article and included a link to a paper titled the Cyclical Process of Action Research.

In a 2012 article I included this video.

How action research can help to deliver better services from iriss on Vimeo.

To me this is a form of Total Quality Management (TQM) that I learned when I was working at Montgomery Ward in the 1970s and 1980s If we can learn from what we do, what our customers tell us and what our competitors do we can apply what we learn in constant process improvement.

I created the graphic below to illustrate the type of tutor/mentor program that recruits volunteers from different work background and connects them with youth who live in high poverty neighborhoods, where too few people hold jobs and careers or college degrees. Thus, too few people are opening doors to opportunity. See TQM pdf.

Building and sustaining mentor-rich programs requires on-going support. Action research also requires an on-going flow of resources to do the research, facilitate the learning, and invest in the suggested process improvements.

Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel focused on disadvantage youth in his inauguration speech yesterday.

To keep that commitment I think he needs to apply many of the ideas I've been sharing for nearly 20 years.

I'd like to find someone who would do videos like the one above focusing on the challenges non profits face in attracting consistent, flexible operating revenue and a wide range of talent needed to build quality organizations that would be available to k-12 youth in all high poverty neighborhoods of the city. If we can get more people into this discussion perhaps we can do much more to help high quality programs reach young people in more of the poverty areas of Chicago and other cities.

I've been looking for volunteers, partners and/or sponsors/benefactors to help me apply this thinking in the work of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC for many years.

Can you help?