via OpenCongress.org
Some time ago, our CEO, a well known and incredibly successful and charismatic man, addressed his employees via a video link to talk about how the company was doing overall. He talked about the future, and the successes of the past. I was struck by a common theme throughout his talk. He declared, on a number of occasions what we were not involved in, what we not prepared to do, what wasn’t of interest to us as a company, what wasn’t yet a mature market.
Not, no, never, can’t, shouldn’t, won’t.
That is strategy: the realisation that you can’t do everything, that you have limited resources and limited time, and that you are much better off doing some things very well rather than doing everything poorly.
So, when I was listening to President Obama’s inspirational inauguration speech yesterday I was struck by the level of expectation heaped upon his shoulders, and what he expects his government will be able to achieve in the next 4 plus years. I couldn’t help wonder about the depths of the problems facing him. Iraq. Afghanistan. Al Qaeda. Global Warming. Financial Meltdown. Liquidity. Unemployment. Homelessness. Inadequate healthcare. A crumbling infrastructure. An educational deficit. Peak Oil. The restoration of international law and America’s moral standing in the world.
Where do you start?
However he does it, he will need to pick his battles wisely, because he and his administration will not be able to do it all. He can’t do everything. Maybe all we can expect, at least in the short term, is that he is judicious in sowing the seeds of change.
Passive Impressions 
What I liked about his speech (apart from the fact that it wasn’t aimed at the lowest common denominator among his audience and didn’t pander too much to jingoism) was that he made it explicitly clear that no administration could solve all these problems – that the people of the United States have to roll up their sleeves and rediscover their work ethic and their determination to succeed.
Nonsense. I gave this guy my money and my vote because he is clearly “The One” who can solve all these problems in short order. Watch the first 100 days.
“Happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again, so let’s sing a song of cheer again, happy days are here again. Altogether shout it now, there’s no one who can doubt it now, so let’s tell the world about it now, happy days are here again”
Please don’t get me wrong – I am absolutely delighted about Obama’s election. He speaks to the world, he is intelligent, he is a uniter, he is charismatic, he is a leader. If he can’t inspire people to change, well, nobody can.
And also, I guess the wildcard are the American people themselves. There is a “can do” attitude in the States that is often missing elsewhere. I have seen it so many times – there’s an irrepressibility about the American character that is admirable in the extreme.
This is a given.
But I’m struggling with the hows of it all. I’ve seen organisations try to do everything, and accomplishing nothing. In contrast, I’ve seen organisations doing selected things very well and succeeding. So the question is, where does Obama go from here? What will the priorities be? If the aim truly is massive, widespread change in a very short time, how will it be accomplished? is there a precedent? And if such widespread change *is* possible, then can organisations learn from this?
It took almost eight years and a World War for Roosevelt to to work the U.S. out of the last banking crisis. I’m looking for economic activity to be heading up again in mid-2011, but at a very modest rate.
For Obama, the economy is job 1, 2 and 3. The other issues merely require a different attitude.
Ding Dong, the wicked witch is dead.
Thanks Phred. Interesting.
I was triggered into writing this by what Obama said about Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, the tribal areas of Pakistan, Somalia, Darfur, the DRC: the human wastelands of the world. Intractable, yet cancerous. impossible to ignore and yet long term solutions are not at all obvious.
In these cases, it’s more than a different attitude I think.
I’m fairly sure Obama was not serious about sending more troops to Afganistan. Various superpowers have tried that with uniformly dismal results. It was mere campaign rhetoric.
The last time anyone seriously supressed insurgents was the British in Malaysia in the 1950 sand that was in an island environment with no land routes to smuggle drugs out and weapons in.
Here’s what you need:
Step one: Count the insurgents
Step two: Interdict supply routes
Step three: Supply ten conventional troops for each insurgent
It was interesting to read yesterdays Afghanistan opinion piece by George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic candidate for U.S. President. Unfortunately, we elected Nixon instead.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012102489.html
Some interesting stories also regarding how Gen. Petraeus and a few other generals conducted themselves in their areas in Iraq when they arrived. The style was very different to the shoot first and ask questions later style of their peers.
The trouble with Afghanistan and Somalia is that you can’t really leave them alone. Leave them alone and they fester, until all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately such countries are going to need a huge amount of international assistance and low-level military support for decades to come. If not from America, or supported by America, who?
(Iraq, I think, could be easier – it’s a nation, it has structures, it’s people can probably get along fine without interference from anybody. There are things to do, but a withdrawal is definitely possible in the near future).