not a politician
June 9, 2010
with his oil spill experts, he crudely tells us, so that
he knows “whose ass to kick.” We have become
accustomed to his management style — target a
scapegoat, assign blame and go on the attack. To
win health care legislation, he vilified insurance
executives; to escape bankruptcy law for General
Motors, he demonized senior lenders; to take the
focus from the excesses of government, he
castigated business meetings in Las Vegas; and to
deflect responsibility for the deepening and
lengthening downturn, he blames Wall Street and
George W. Bush. But what may make good politics
does not make good leadership. And when a crisis
is upon us, America wants a leader, not a politician.
We saw leadership on Sept. 11, 2001. Then as now,
black billows seemed to come from the center of the
earth. Lives had been lost. The environmental
impact was immeasurable. The looming economic
impact from lost tourism was incalculable. Into the
crisis walked Rudy Giuliani. While that was an
incomparable human tragedy, how the mayor led
New York City to recover is a useful model for the
president.
Rudy camped out at Ground Zero — he didn’t hole
up in his office or retreat to his residence. His
that someone was in charge, it also enabled the
mayor to assess the situation firsthand, to take the
measure of the people he had on the ground, and to
understand the scope of the crisis.
The president has many critical matters that demand
his attention, but brief and tardy tours and being
photographed with a smudge of oil on a sandy
beach don’t work on any level. There is no
substitute for being there.
In a crisis, the leader must gather the experts —
federal, state, local, public and private — not to
discover who is to blame but to secure their active
and continuous involvement until the crisis is
resolved. There is extraordinary power inherent in
an assembly of brilliant people guided by an able
leader. In virtually every historic national crisis, our
most effective leaders gathered the best minds they
could find — consider the Founders in Philadelphia,
Lincoln with his “Team of Rivals,” Roosevelt with
scientists and generals seeking to end World War II,
Kennedy with the “Best and Brightest” confronting
the Cuban missile crisis.
What happens when men and women of various
backgrounds, fields of expertise, and unfettered
intellectual freedom come together to tackle a
problem often exceeds any reasonable expectation.
Ideas from one may cross-fertilize the thinking of
another, yielding breakthroughs. The president of
MIT told me that the university spent millions of
dollars to build a bridge connecting two
engineering departments that had been separated by
a road — the potential for shared thinking made it
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more than worth the cost.
But even a gathering of experts won’t accomplish
much unless a skilled leader uses their perspective
to guide the recovery. So far, it has been the CEO of
BP who has been managing the oil spill in the Gulf
of Mexico. The president surely can’t rely on BP —
its track record is suspect at best: Its management of
this crisis has been characterized by obfuscation
and lack of preparation. And BP’s responsibilities to
its shareholders conflict with the greater
responsibility to the nation and to the planet.
The president must personally lead the effort to
solve the crisis. He cannot delegate this
quintessential responsibility of his presidency in
the way he delegated the stimulus bill, the cap-and-
trade bill and the health care bill. It may be an
instance of learning on the job, but it is a job only
he can do.
The first rule of turnarounds is to focus time,
energy and resources on what matters most. The
president simply cannot treat this crisis like another
of his many problems. The oil disaster could hurt
millions of families, slam the regional economy, kill
untold numbers of non-human lives and irreparably
damage the planet. Among other things, he must not
hold more rock concerts at the White House — I
understand James Carville’s venting: His hero
fiddled as oil churned.
Finding fault is easier than finding answers. And
worse, it paralyzes many of the very people who may
be needed to solve a crisis. When Hurricane Katrina
devastated the Gulf Coast states, Louisiana Gov.
Kathleen Blanco went on the attack; Mississippi Gov.
Haley Barbour went to work. His state’s recovery is
textbook; hers is not.
President Obama’s instigation of criminal
investigations of BP at this juncture is classic
diversion politics — and worse, it will engender
bunker mentality at a time when collaboration and
openness are most critical. BP’s actions and
inactions are reprehensible; it must be made to pay
the billions upon billions of dollars that this spill
will ultimately cost. But call out the phalanx of
lawyers later — solve the crisis today.
The president can learn a good deal from the crisis
leadership of men and women in government and in
business. Giuliani is a notable example, but so too
are Washington, Adams, Lincoln, Roosevelt,
