“I will accomplish things through my people--promoting their accomplishments, championing their wins, and ensuring that they learn from their losses. I will have fulfilled my obligation as a manager if I help create a team of people who understand their strengths, are respected as experts by others within the organization, and need less guidance each day.”
Based on my experience, most managers don’t follow this credo--heck, many may even disagree with it--but in his battle against the Republican agenda I think U.S. CEO President Obama could benefit from at least one part of it: “promoting their accomplishments, championing their wins.”
Obama is up against a party that is so determined to make him a one-term president that they’ll even oppose the things they support. The solution, it seems to me, is to loudly and very, very publicly praise them for their contributions to bills the Dems would like to see pass. This would have three really positive side-effects:
1) The American people would see something that, up until then, had been in scarce supply: real bipartisanship
2) It would put Republicans on the hook for passage and success of bills
3) Republicans would have reduced “dark powers”
Obama would have to work hard to find Republican ideas he can support, but they’re there, and they’ll grow. But imagine the impact if the President came out and said:
“This new bill offers Americans new opportunities and will create new jobs, thanks in no small part to a provision added by Republican senator Eric Cantor. This addition was a key component that, I feel, drastically improves the bill.”
Now, the Republicans could kill it by saying that they didn’t like the paper it was written on or whatever, but if Obama praised the bill--and the Republican contribution--loudly enough, it would get a lot of press and the American people would quickly lose their patience with a party that denied them the benefits of ______.
The result of this unilateral bipartisanship will be a president that looks like he’s doing what the CEO of America should be doing and a Republican party that will have to make some tough choices about saying nasty things about someone who has so publicly been nice to them. The fastest way to lose support is to be overtly spiteful to someone who’s being nice to you.
This won’t solve all the partisan problems, but the Republicans have been as successful as they have by convincing half of America that everything Obama is doing is wrong and bad for America. Having Obama act like a good manager and loudly promote the ideas of those under him would only help matters. Don’t you think?
-Doug
2 comments:
I think you would make a terrific CEO, Doug. The steps Obama has taken in that direction don't seem to have worked very well so far. It may be, as you said, that he would have to keep saying it for a long time for it to have any effect. He did say that about the healthcare law.
The more immediate problem is the one you would have with Sen. Cantor's opponents. Cantor succeeded in adding this provision by defeating a Democrat, who had another provision, with another rationale, and other constituents, in mind. What you say about Cantor celebrates your guy's loss is putting forth an idea you encouraged.
Damn you, Thinky Dale.
I think I'd make a terrible CEO, but I can't thank you enough for your vote of confidence--no matter how misguided.
I know I should have something more insightful to say than "Eric Cantor is a weenie," but that really does sum things up for me. He just makes my skin crawn every time I see him on interviewed.
-Doug
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