January 24, 2018

"While the Obama administration infamously micromanaged policy from the West Wing, the Trump White House has given Cabinet secretaries and agency chiefs almost total freedom to do what they want..."

"... according to two close advisers to the White House," Politico reports.

Is this a new line on Trump? He's not really about anything at all....

I'm starting a new tag to keep track of this possible trend.

There's also this: "An Unexpectedly Smooth First Year for Trump’s C.I.A. Director" (NYT):
In Mr. Pompeo’s telling, the president is a sophisticated consumer of intelligence, and under his leadership, the C.I.A. is being reshaped into a leaner, more flexible organization whose officers have been freed to focus on stealing secrets, eliminating the United States’ enemies and giving Mr. Trump the delicate information he needs to confront the challenges facing the country....

44 comments:

tim in vermont said...

Compare to:

The former president was heard on an open microphone assuring then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that “this is my last election. After the election, I’ll have more flexibility.”

How is this any different than, for example, “Honey! My wife is out of town next week!”

Curious George said...

"While the Obama administration infamously micromanaged policy from the West Wing..."

That's funny. Obama over an over told the American people he learned of some scandal "when he read about it in the paper."

So which is it lefties?

Tom said...

I have an inside source in DIA and they say the exact same thing. Specially they say it’s nice to be lead by grown up again.

Bay Area Guy said...

"An Unexpectedly Smooth First Year for Trump’s C.I.A. Director" (NYT):

Unexpectedly!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I want to learn more about Peter Strozk's firing and his prosecution.

Clyde said...

Any good CEO knows that he can't do everything himself. He has to hire competent people whose judgment he trusts and delegate authority to them, and then hold them accountable for their results. In President Trump's case, most of his choices have been sound, and the ones that weren't didn't last long. President Obama came into the White House with no executive experience and a belief that he already knew everything he needed to know. The results speak for themselves.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

FBI has a new motto. It's Clintonesque.

You can't lie to the FBI, but the FBI can lie to you.

tim in vermont said...

Another guy let go at the FBI involved in changed “Gross Negligence” to “Extreme Carelessness,” which is like the old Frye joke about Nixon, “I accept responsibility.... but not the blame.”

Jim Rybicki notified me last month that he will be leaving the FBI to accept an opportunity in the corporate sector,” Wray said in a statement. “While this is an exciting move for the whole Rybicki family, Jim will be dearly missed by the FBI family -- and by me personally.”

...

Rybicki was involved in the drafting of Comey’s infamous statement exonerating Clinton in the email investigation before interviewing key witnesses, including Clinton herself – something Republicans have seized upon.


And we have a “Republicans pounce” sighting on Fox News. It’s a tip to Democrats that it is their partisan obligation to ignore the story.

tim in vermont said...

“By his fruits, ye shall know him.”

Derek Kite said...

And every one of the Cabinet Secretaries are able to do what they are doing, reform what needs reforming, get rid of who needs to be gotten rid of without worrying about being the target of a 72 hour media barrage.

They are too preoccupied over some silly thing.

Trump's removal of the media as a driver of policy is unprecedented. It isn't that he ignores them, he has rendered them irrelevant.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Clinton corruption spreads like an infectious disease.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Yes - "Republicans pounce" = DNC hack press-speak for "circle the wagons for the D and suffocate the real story."

Birkel said...

Micromanagement has always worked so well.

Just ask McNamara.

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JML said...

I am being micromanaged more and more each day. The more it happens, the more I am compelled to seek employment elsewhere. I suspect I'll have a new job in less than a year. You can use a management buzz phrase: "I empower my employees and give them the freedom to make decisions on there own after setting clear expectations and guidelines..." but the reality is, it is better for all to solve problems at the lowest level possible. Plus, I'm busy. Do your job and leave me alone unless you want or need some clarification or top cover or if I need to know incase someone gets all butt hurt and will complain. Mentor and coach and trust your people. And learn from mistakes, because if you do let them do their job, they will occasionally make one. And that is OK, as long as it isn't the same one over and over again.

Sebastian said...

Wait, an experienced business exec comes in and delegates? Amazing!

virgil xenophon said...

My fave New Yorker cartoon on this subj is that of a shot of an executives ofc as seen looking in from his door. He is sitting in his chair in a totally empty room devoid of anything with a floor-to-ceiling window behind him showing the skyline of Manhattan, explaining: "I delegate Everything!"

rehajm said...

He has to hire competent people whose judgment he trusts and delegate authority to them, and then hold them accountable for their results

I came here to write this. This is SOP in functioning organizations. If you micromanage from the top you don't need the underlings, except to take the fall for your fuck ups. Better not to have a leader expecting to fuck up.

Freder Frederson said...

Is this a new line on Trump? He's not really about anything at all....

I don't know why you think this is a new line on Trump. It has been one of the many objections about him from day one.

Original Mike said...

”I don't know why you think this is a new line on Trump. It has been one of the many objections about him from day one.”

Let’s ask ISIS which management style works better. Oh, wait...

tcrosse said...

Is this a new line on Trump? He's not really about anything at all....

If he's about nothing at all, why are so many people losing their shit about him ?

Fabi said...

He's not about anything at all -- that's why he's Hitler!

hawkeyedjb said...

I like the part about "eliminating the United States’ enemies." Step 1: Identify enemies. Step 2: Eliminate enemies.

Very little focus on Climate Change. Mission simplification.

The Drill SGT said...

Obama Micromanage? I'm shocked...

"“I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I’ll hire to do it,” he said. “It’s hard to give up control when that’s all I’ve known.” Obama said nearly the same thing to Patrick Gaspard, whom he hired to be the campaign’s political director. “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told him. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”


and lest we forget: Obama picking drone targets in the oval office

The Drill SGT said...

"hawkeyedjb said...
I like the part about "eliminating the United States’ enemies." Step 1: Identify enemies. Step 2: Eliminate enemies."

Find 'em
Fix 'em
Fight 'em
Finish 'em

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

This is the value of hiring a real executive to run things, as opposed to a community organizer. Effective executives hire Type A people to run divisions (in this case departments) and give them the freedom to succeed. Micromanagement is a sign of an insecure Type B executive, who doesn't have the skills to really LEAD people and tends to hire Type C and D so as not to be overshadowed by high-performing underlings. Obama hiring Hillary is a classic example. Hillary was a terrible executive, a poor leader who has a small group of sycophants but left a department in chaos and despised following procedure so much that she left Obama innumerable headaches that are only now coming to light.

It all flows from the guy/gal at the top. Personnel is policy. Insert your favorite Drucker aphorism (or Dilbert cartoon) here.

Amadeus 48 said...

"Unexpectedly" in a headline. Who ever heard of such a thing?

Every bad development for the years 2009-2016 and every good development since January 20, 2017, has been unexpected by the media. I wonder what changed.

Amadeus 48 said...

Mike--Don't forget that Obama was a bad community organizer. I don't think he liked his clients.

Birkel said...

Freder:

Would you say Trump is more like Hitler or Hitler-lite?

We were really curious to know the subtleties of an overpowering intellect like yours.

traditionalguy said...

The myth that Obama was a President that guarded America from its enemies is still the base assumption . That makes the writer a brain dead propaganda apparatchik that went to sleep in 2009 and has yet to awaken. And, unexpectedly, Trump looks better by merely not intentionally destroying the USA every way possible.

readering said...

The downside to this method is Trump second guessing his agency heads and cabinet officers, as is rumored with Commerce and EPA.

Leigh said...

Can't find a cafe' post for this, so I'll leave the link here.

When you're President Obama, you can do anything! Break laws by emailing classified material on an unsecure server, obstruct justice by telling the FBI and DOJ to back off on their investigations ... anything! And they let you!

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455696/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-emails-key-decision-not-indict-hillary

Leland said...

The same type of comment was made about W, and depending on your 2D preference, was either a compliment (he's a leader that can delegate) or a slam (he's a lightweight incapable of understanding his full job).

Kevin said...

Didn't they write this same story a year ago about Trump letting Mattis run the DOD?

Did these Bozos with bylines think he'd run the rest of the government differently?

Michael Ryan said...

So, it’s a Seinfeld presidency?

Gahrie said...

and lest we forget: Obama picking drone targets in the oval office

Doesn't every Nobel Peace Prize winner do that?

Big Mike said...

I agree with JML and Clyde. Good top managers find people they trust to meet their goals within guidelines set by the boss. As a corollary, they ruthlessly get rid of people who can't get the job done. We've seen and are still seeing both behaviors by Trump, and we will continue to see them.

Dubya, with his Harvard MBA, was into delegation, but not so good with the ruthless. He should have replaced Rumsfeld way before he did, for instance, and Cheney should have been dropped from the ticket in 2004 and Tenet paid no price for tilting the collected intelligence on Iraq. OTOH, replacing General Casey with General Petraeus was a very good example of managing by results.

Yancey Ward said...

Trump is so hands off that he has allowed Tillerson to stay on even though Trump fired him in December.

Darkisland said...

As several people have pointed out, President Trump is simply being the competent manager that Mr Trump, the entrepreneur/businessman was.

It is one of the reasons he was hired to be our President. He is competent at hiring good, competent, people, giving them broad goals then leaving them alone to accomplish them.

It is why he has been able to get so much accomplished in just a year.

I liked what someone pointed out about him keeping the press spun up over trivia all the time. Because they are spun up over his (allegedly) calling Haiti a shithole, nobody notices all the real things that his secretaries are getting done.

I've been saying that for a couple of years. The man could give Penn Gillette lessons in distraction. Keep the audience looking at the right hand while the left does the magic.

Tiredness check: Nope, not yet.

This clip never gets old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg "Honeybadger don't give a shit, it just takes what it wants" Donald W Trump IS the honeybadger.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Re those saying that President Trump is like Hitler. Check your email. You should have gotten a talking points memo a week or two ago that Hitler comparisons are out. Stalin comparisons are the new thing.

Don't ask me why. It just is.

John Henry

Big Mike said...

Obama picking drone targets in the oval office

Which reminded me of Lyndon Johnson boasting how "they can't bomb an outhouse without my OK," which was quite literally the truth. And guess who was losing the war in Vietnam at the time.

Big Mike said...

Thanks for the reminder, Yancy!

David said...

The CIA is not all about spying. One of their important functions is to take publicly available information and use it to assess economic and political developments and trends that impact national security. This kind of work inherently reflects the world view (pejoratively "bias") of the analyst. Likely as many errors arise from consumption of ideologically tainted misanalysis as anything else. The most well known is the failure of the intelligence community to understand how close to collapse the Soviet Union was. Fortunately others had their own sources and conclusions. Overall the job is not easy under any circumstance but the political pressures and preconceptions make it even more tricky.

Kep Hartman said...

1. Know what you want to happen (the "vision thing")
2. Hire good people who agree with you (the "talent thing").
3. Set goals. If necessary, review their plans (the "strategery thing")
4. Let them loose, with occasional look-ins and props for good work! (the "leadership thing")
5. Sack their ass if they can't fulfill the strategery, or they turn out to be bad apples ("the management thing.")

---
Not hard to do unless you lack vision (ex. Bush), are insecure (ex. Obama), arrogant (ex. Obama; Hillary), or are incompetent (ex. Obama; Hillary).

OT: Obama is the poster-child for the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.