A good friend of mine, a successful small business
entrepreneur now retired, once observed that “all politicians should have
written a payroll check at some point in their career.” He felt that the
experience of waking up each morning responsible for keeping business doors
open, and meeting one’s employment obligation to employees, would keep many a
political position grounded in some appropriate first-hand business realities.
Among the CEOs community, there are many fine successful leaders who remain grounded
in that “doors open / employee payroll” perspective. Sadly, far too often that
connection has been lost. For the big corporations, the organizational layers
are too many and too dense, the subsidiaries are too diverse, the employees
have no names but are merely summarized numbers on an expense spreadsheet, and
the CEO is all-too-frequently a financial manager pouring over marketing
analyses with little knowledge of affinity for the actual products and services
being produced.
Some “successful” CEOs – meaning they have personally become
very rich while their stockholders and suppliers may or may not have benefited
much – decided that their business success can be transferred to the national
economy and political governance. We have certainly had presidents before from
the very wealthy class: George Washington (probably our richest president
measured in today’s dollars), Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy,
George H.W. Bush. Yet all but Washington were beneficiaries of inherited money,
not earned wealth. Such inheritance allowed them to follow a career of public
and/or political service that helped prepare them for the presidency. But when
a CEO/businessperson directly enters the political ring, it is typically from a
“business managerial” perspective. Unfortunately, that perspective does not
often translate well into public governance.
Why? Because the business world and the government world are
each built upon fundamentally different premises, exist for completely
different objectives, operate within vastly different working processes, and
are subject to totally different metrics of measurement. About the only aspect
they share is a baseline that neither can exist for long if they go broke.
Beyond that one commonality, business success is measured by net profit, and
the Return on Investment (ROI) to its owners/stockholders. Our American
governments are measured by their adequacy of maintaining public safety and delivering
certain basic infrastructure services, while ensuring equal opportunity and
treatment for all citizens who have widely divergent backgrounds, ambitions and
life choices. Business is built on a command-and-control decision-making
structure with clear centers of absolute authority. Government is built on
persuasion and consensus, even in these frustrating times of “no compromise,”
with few centers of absolute authority.
In 2008, Mitt Romney (a very wealthy businessman) ran for
the Republican nomination for President, emphasizing his business success and
economic promises as his qualifications for office. He lost that nomination
campaign to John McCain. In a July 2, 2008, post (full text still available on
this blog site) reflecting on “Buying the Presidency-2,” the following
observations were made:
“For Mitt Romney, it was not his wealth I objected to, which
he seems to have come to quite legitimately.
It is his attitude that came through so pervasively, i.e. that his
electability should be predicated on his wealth, that being successful in business
inherently qualifies one to be successful in governmental leadership.
The reality is that American government is
not a business, was never
designed from the get-go to be ‘run like a business’ (although that does not
preclude utilizing business-like operating efficiencies).
Political leadership and achievement is about
vision, compromise, building consensus among divergent but equal stakeholders,
attending to and balancing conflicting needs rather than playing to “niche
market segments” (a la Karl Rove and George Bush).
It is not about electability, it is about
governing.
The US Congress is not a stockholder’s meeting, the Supreme
Court is not a corporate board, and state governments are not subsidiary
corporations.
It was Romney’s lack of
understanding and connection with many facets of the American citizenry, and
the failure to truly understand “government” for what it is, that I think
ultimately undermined him.
It is why his
(or any other) campaign must show a broad body of public support – via
volunteerism, fundraising, and ultimately votes – in order to qualify one for
public office (versus being designated as corporate CEO).”
I spent most of my career years in the non-profit world,
primarily with public and private colleges and universities, with side ventures
in artistic and spiritual organizations. I watched firsthand the difficulty
well-intended business people had in serving on Boards of Trustees or in
management / advisory positions with non-profit/public service organizations.
There would simply be a fundamental disconnect in the thinking, perception, and
verbiage of the business people vis-à-vis the non-profit / public service
people – a disconnect that would be bridged only infrequently. It is not easy
to shift from a “giving orders” environment to a “persuasion” environment.
General Dwight Eisenhower was a career military man, fully
schooled in giving and taking orders within the chain of command. When he was
elected President in 1952, his predecessor Harry Truman mused privately to
friends, “Ike will sit right here [in the Oval Office] and he’ll say ‘do this,
do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike. It won’t be a bit like the army.
He’ll find it very frustrating.”
The United States Presidency may be the most powerful
position in the world. But each President can also speak to the all-too-real
limitations of that power. Limitations from other personalities, the various branches
of government, the authority of other elected officials, the extended
bureaucracy, the sovereign rights of other nations we cannot trample over.
Then, of course, are the People of these United States. The real owners of all
layers of our governments, armed with their bulwark of rights to express their
opinions, criticize at will, protest against perceived injustices, and cast
their vote.
Government is built on checks and balances to preclude
errors of excess. The checks may be continually tested, the balances tipped on
some occasions, but the center must ultimately hold. Decision-making is slow
and messy by Constitutional design (though decisions must eventually be made);
efficiency in deliberation was never a priority. Unlike in the business environment,
governance requires many voices to be heard and opinions to be considered. The
President is one voice among many.
After his 2008 loss, Mitt Romney went on to win the Republican
nomination on the same platform in 2012, only to then lose to Barack Obama. So
far over the years, Americans have intuitively sensed a reservation about the
“political CEO.” With some exceptions, wealthy businesspeople, spending large
sums of money for political office, have not had a great track record of
electoral victory. There are many more “workers” in this country than there are
managers and entrepreneurs and CEOs. Perhaps that view from the rungs further
down on the career ladder makes the citizenry suspicious of what a CEO of a
United Corporation of America might have in store for them. Perhaps they
understand corporate America all too well, and seek in their government a
counterbalance to the economic driver that prevails over so much of their life.
I hope so. Best to proceed with caution when the wolf shows up covered in that
sheep outfit.
One other thing we should remember. Being President is about
more than just the economy. Certainly our national economic viability and our
personal economic well-being are vitally important. They always constitute
standard topics for campaign rhetoric. But as any mayor, county commissioner,
governor or former President can attest, there is a full and wide-ranging menu
of issues that require experience and skill from elected executives. With all
due respect to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential election, it is not solely
about “the economy, stupid.” The Presidency is much bigger than that.
© 2016
Randy Bell www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com
