“The small force that it takes to launch a boat into the stream should not be confused with the force of the stream that carries it along: but this confusion appears in nearly all biographies.”
–Friedrich Nietzsche
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In the software industry I learned early on that a collaborative effort always leads to a significantly better product. The one brilliant person making all the calls looks great in a movie but is horribly sub-optimal in real life.
Which leads to this interesting article in the Washington Post
Now there are two haves to this advantage. First women on average have a better approach to success in the post-industrial world.
Second there’s the fact that adding women to the mix diversifies the teams making decisions. And that diversity alone…
As to my company? Well I’m the only senior manager who’s male and we are pretty diverse throughout the company – in terms of background & experience as well as gender, etc. More importantly, we’ve worked from the begining in a collaborative manner so that’s baked in to the company culture.
But looking at the government, it seems to run in a top down manner with decisions made by a small group, or just one person, at the top. I think we might want to re-think how management is structured in the government.
the model used in higher education?
😉
Maybe we could have the White House and Congress switch over to Agile/Scrum methodology. All legislation will be planned as two-week iterations, with a publicly-available burndown chart that we can all review, and daily morning reports during the sprint.
</EndNerdySoftwareAnalogy>
How freaking clever people on this site are sometimes.
Ameerican Gov 101. Government is not like business because decision-making resulting in policy is made by elected officials and carried out by civil service employees.
.
Your observation is correct, because it is designed to make sure that the elected official at the top or the official at the top appointed by the elected official can carry out the agenda upon which the elected official ran and WON. It is called a representative democracy. This hierarchical organization also allows the voters to know who is responsible for policy and its implementation so that they may hold the elected official (s) accountable.
This is a vital part of our democracy.
I know it does not always work perfectly, but this is the principle behind the government organization. I will discuss consensus at a later date…brace yourselves.
When you close with “we might want to re-think how management is structured in the government,” you hit the nail on the head.
Government is NOT management, it’s government. What we’re living through today is a transition not unlike that in the 16th century where “administration” gave way to “government.”
I could wax on about this forever, but will trust that pushing my little boat into the stream facilitates further musings!
Effective decision-making is key to good outcomes. Top-down is sub-optimal.
Working on policy issues throughout the year, the best, although longer and more frustrating, way is through consensus. The ideal scenario is to work with people so all the details are worked out prior to legislation being introduced or a rule changed.
That said, however, building consensus is a long, difficult road to take and a few groups I’m involved with have been discussing the same issue for years to little effect. So in these cases it may make sense for a leader to change the dynamic and force the issue so something can be resolved.
As you note, many people in government don’t play this way since bringing in opponents could dilute the policy objective or derail it all together by giving early warning of the proponents’ intentions.
As always, there’s a balance to be found between the two extremes. Declaring that government must be run on a certain formula or ‘business like’ model isn’t realistic since government isn’t a business and has a life all its own.
It’s to get wide diversity within a team. For example, I would guess when the core group that makes decisions in the Ritter administration sits down it’s white, male, and mostly (entirely) people who grew up upper middle class, went to college and then work.
That makes Ritter the outlier in the group with his background.
and again, there’s a balance to be struck.
Creating diversity for diversity’s sake isn’t always helpful. I agree with what you say about women making better decisions. Some of the smartest people under the dome are women and I’ve learned much from them.
Also some of the meanest, most cunning people under the dome are women.
Ritter has some smart women high up in his staff. They were impressive before joining the Gov’s staff. Now, whether he chooses to listen to them or not is another question.
I’m not sure it is an appropriate example, concerning diversity, but I work with some mental health issues and we hear constantly that bringing in clients, or mentally ill indivduals, would help in crafting worthwhile policy.
Well, I’ve yet to discover a mentally ill client that was able or wanted to be part of a larger group discussing complex policy issues.
Government is premised on the notion that information is power, AND that access to and control of information grants power. It becomes top down as people seize, and hold, that information, and this was completely logical in an age where information had to flow UP in order to afford the “big picture” view.
In today’s information environment, this looks like (and perhaps IS) “insider-baseball” and “corruption.
What’s different is that today, information flows AROUND, not up, as evident on a site like pols. Control of information is no longer power, CIRCULATION of information is. As per your piece on campaigns and the web, management, or marketing, is the name of the game, not control.
So, this begs the question as to where politics lies in all this? My answer, the “state” has lost control of “politics,” just as the Monarch of Great Britain is now only a figure-head. It will continue to do so, and that’s something far more relevant than the hokey-pokey.
David, you are clearly a man who appreciates women – which most men don’t, IMHO.
The corpus callosum is supposed to afford greater left brain/right brain crossover trafficking than the compartmentalized male brain – although I believe that’s an outdated model, I like it. The female energy inherent in collaboration, regardless of what gender is participating, is the most effective means of problem solving. You are so right about the top-down model that we typically see in government. What you get are a mess of egos who tend to compartmentalize and build their own personal power bases at the expense of the longer view.
That said, I have seen women who have wholeheartedly adopted the top-down view and are aces at compartmentalization and territoriality. And men who, like you, get it.
In all the press over the weekend I did not see any mention of staff hires. Just wondering.
NYT has an interesting article about all the things that apparently led Sarah Palin to resign. No big revelations, but I had once made the comment that she apparently could not take the heat and this article supports that observation.
One thing that stood out was Palin’s apparent inability to let criticisms and attack roll off, no matter how inconsequential. If she aspires to be POTUS, that’s GOT to change.
It’s never going to happen. Despite all the blame-the-media victimhood her water-carriers have been moaning about, the fact remains that when the going got tough, she quit. The NYT article you link to is another nail in the coffin. If she can’t handle the politics of a backwater like Alaska, the idea she could navigate through the waters of presidential politics is ludicrous.
Coulter’s a tool, but she nails you guys with this one:
It wasn’t just liberals that were horrified by the prospect of a Palin presidency. There were lots of daggers out on the right. And that’s when she already had the nomination. Imagine the Republican infighting when she seeks the presidency.
My guess is that she follows the Coulter path:
Write a book.
Makes some outrageous statements.
Revel in the attention.
Laugh all the way to the bank.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Were mostly from a McCain camp that was totally overshadowed by her.
Plus, anyone that makes fun of her intellect isn’t allowed to even mention Joe Biden’s name with a straight face ever again.
Coulter’s a one-trick pony. If you would read the recent coverage, you’ll see the biggest Palin-bashers are Republican political operatives (and have been since before the last November). Coulter may blame everything on “The Librulz” for the billionth time, like the silly ass she is, but the Palin meltdown consists of two things: (a) Sarah Palin’s willingness to play out her personal dramas in public; and (b) a divided Republican Party that is eating itself alive.
http://www.latimes.com/news/na…
The L.A. Times is not were I go for GOP insider info.
It’s a joke on the R blogs how the liberal press feigns having ‘insiders’ yap about Palin.
The biggest bashers are most certainly not Republican.
Comedy (in general) is not intended to be serious commentary.
Actually, that’s how I view most of te Huffpo already.
Please don’t try to justify that entry. It’s horrible, uncalled for, and undeserved.
Sort of like Palin’s VP candidacy!
🙂 I kid because I love LB.
Because judging it on just the title is known as “taking it out of context.” For example, if the author goes on to connect a Palin statement or policy to poor health outcomes (which most GOP health policies result in, being driven by ideology more than medicine), that headline might be right on, and have nothing to do with her youngest.
Or it might be a total slag on her family. Either way, without having something to read I can’t judge.
I’m saying he doesn’t speak for the left, and he doesn’t speak for me.
When he regularly headlines official DNC functions as both Coulter and Limbaugh often have for the RNC, then you might have an argument.
Palin is a dumper. The iconic picture illustrating her values and her priorities is that press conference. She is “dumping” the state of Alaska on to the Lt. governor…letting him deal with economic and legal problens which the citizens of Alaska elected her to do, not him. And there is her youngest daughter, seven or eight, who is almost falling from the burden of carrying Palin’s youngest son, a special needs child who has been “dumped” onto the care of the next youngest child so Palin can catch the spotlight and do her ego dance.
When you get to be my age, you may be blessed with a house of many colors and diversity. Hence my personal anger at how that youngest son is publicly displayed, and my contempt for the parents.
I don’t like the woman. I take her seriously.
are not mostly from the “McCain camp”. Conservative pundits like Kathleen Parker and all the Faux News talking heads who say she is toast are not from the McCain camp. And the majority of ethics complaints filed against Palin, (including the one she filed against herself) were the efforts of Alaskan Republicans, not Democrats or the McCain camp.
I think you’re mistaken about Republicans filing the majority of complaints (of which 15 of the 15 already reviewed have been dismissed).
Why were they such a burden that she quit her job over them?
But, the sheer number of dismissals doesn’t necessarily mean that they were all mean spirited, politically driven and legally void attacks. And IIRC many of those were filed by GOPers.
The legislature’s troopergate investigation (not the whitewash by the committee she appointed) and plane fares for her kids.
The time they take away from her might reflect her own obsession with the complaints rather than the actual work involved in defending against them.
Because of lack of jurisdiction or other technicalities, not because they were all unmerited
…like fake names being used in the filings?
Andree McLeod is a Republican and who filed the most complaints by an individual
Brian Kraft is a Republican
Zane Henning is a Republican
Sondra Tompkins is a Republican
Do their efforts make a majority? Not sure. I give you that because we do not know the affiliations of the “groups” of people who filed complaints. But Alaskan Republicans have been hammering Palin for a long time. (well…long…if you look at it from Palin’s perspective)
Sort of all ironic in the end, seeing how it was Palin who pushed through Alaska’s ethics law to snag other R’s.
like George Will and David Brooks, as well.
Seriously? You’re going to compare Biden and Palin intellectually? Good luck with that. If you want to compare “foot in mouth disease,” then, yeah, there’s plenty there to play with. But to even suggest Biden isn’t an intelligent guy with years of experience under his belt is crap.
And I remain unconvinced of Palin’s deep intellect as did quite a few of my friends who were Unaffiliateds and voted for Obama because the thought of her being one heart beat away from being the president was more than they were willing to gamble their vote with.
is that most of us were never actually involved with Palin. We didn’t once love her. We just find her funny.
“Normal people” talk about whatever celebrity did something stupid recently, or about sports, or (encompassing all that and more) something they saw on TV. Palin is the liberals’ Britney Spears or Sanjaya. Cuz we have to do something to seem normal, and that gives us something to talk about with relatives and coworkers who don’t agree with us politically.
I’ve got a bunch of Republicans in my family, and they all think Palin is hilarious, even though they think Obama is a communist who will destroy the world by the end of his first term.
I think she’s done politically, but she’s also been treated very poorly and so has her family.
It’s unseemly. She wanted to swim in the deep end, and despite plenty of warning, never had the sense to get out. Ninety percent of presidential primary politics is an exercise in the survival of the fittest. Sarah Palin never had the humility to sit down and figure out what the rules of survival are.
What it boils down to is that she has sought and received extremely poor advice. She’s proven she can’t administrate; the collapse of her governorship is simply proof that she doesn’t have the characteristics of a president.
… as usual. She has a nugget of a point, but twists it in the wrong (right?) direction.
Palin is not the ex-girlfriend, she is the the pretty (air headed) girl that won’t give the liberal the time of day. Liberal and his friend gossip endlessly about her because they can’t understand why she is so popular when to them she is so shallow. Every Palin stumble is an opportunity to say “See, I told you so.”
I’m happy that a patently unqualified person isn’t there to rally the half-wits that form the hard right base again – we know from the experience of W that being patently unqualified is no bar against becoming president. But suggesting that Palin is some sort of obsession that I fail to get away from is more a measure of what you choose to see and not see.
Read the article and comment on that. Without any unnecessary and unsupported claims that the article is biased. (Note: that’s different from a necessary and supported claim, e.g., one that has evidence backing it up. I always welcome those.)
Just sayin’.
You being the big ol’ Palin supporter and all. 🙂
But let’s not get sidetracked. It’s not about me, or you, or any other liberal. It’s about Sarah Palin, she who would be President. Did you read the article yet?
And you’re wrong. It’s 100% about Ralphie.
n/t
But back to the topic at hand… What do you think of the article? Sarah Palin seems to be someone who can be easily distracted by attacks which is bad; imagine Obama handling all the “he’s not a natural-born citizen” BS with press releases attacking the people who are making those charges. And she seems to be vindictive about it, too, which is the basis for all the ethics complaints.
I believe her when she says stepping down from the governorship is best for Alaska; if the chief executive of the state can’t stay focused on governance, it’s best she let someone who can do it.
and may not be able to extent my well wishes to Sarah Palin on her retirement from Alaska government on that day, please allow me the opportunity to do it now, as we are discussing Mrs. Palin here.
Governor , after your Roberto Duran moment, I would like to extend my sincere and heartfelt hope that the Republican Party will make you their 2012 nominee for President of the United States. And as I do not have a gold salmon hook to give you on your retirement, please allow me to dedicate a song to your future well being. I know how much you love “shout outs”. -wink wink
I predict that the candidates for Governor will raise this quarter with reports due in October:
Penry $800,000
Ritter $425,000
McInnis $300,000
While no one has paid much attention the National Republican Campaign Committee is touting the very impressive $200,000 that Cory Gardner raised last quarter. Cory’s fundraising prowess has made him the choice of national Republican leaders and will likely mean he will only face a token primary challenge. Markey vs. Gardner is going to be one of the most expensive races in the Country.
You must have missed all the attention paid to Gardner’s fundraising when it was announced:
http://www.coloradopols.com/di…
from Buzz Machine