Management #101 Midterms.

Indicate which, if any, of the following is UNTRUE and explain why.

A competent manager is

· Steady

· Diligent

· Honest

· Law-abiding

· Modest

· Prudent

· Consistent

· Supportive of excellence

· Comprehensible

· Credible

· Trustworthy

· Evidence-based

· Attentive to detail

· Leads by example

· Recruits the ablest talent they can afford

· Gives rather than takes credit

Now turn your attention to the largest organization on earth, as measured by wealth, power, employment, money, influence. Bingo: the US of A. Could you argue ANY of the traits specified above applies to the present administration?

Take your time.

Set politics aside, this is weirdest, most incompetent, collection of nincompoops, weirdos, grifters, liars, dopes, vermin to ever manage ANY organization of size. Not since Caligula and Nero has a great state floundered in such ignorance, indolence, greed, criminality, folly. I made bad hires in my career, some real doozies, but this one, by a wide margin, takes the cake. Nor could we be surprised by the result, for we endured this bozo’s bungling for four years. How could we the people have been so dumb!

To have made such a colossal and consequential blunder the American people can’t have cared much about America. We’d hire a babysitter or yard guy more responsibly. We deserve the mess we’ve got.

I’ve come to the sad conclusion that democracy at our present scale doesn’t work. We the people aren’t up to it. Luck – of geography, history, resources, leadership – made us a great power. In our wars, we mostly dodged bullets. But our luck ran out. Overconfidence, inattention, greed, complication, and corrupt communications corroded our common sense. If we survive our current debacle – a big if – we must get busy reconstituting our government on a less fallible basis.

Management is a bongo board balanced between freedom and authority: inspire your crew to their best and protect them from their worst. Absolute liberty and absolute license both fail. You don’t invent a computer by fiat or repair it with a sledgehammer.

To reconstitute America, we’ll need to make a hecatomb of sacred cows. I’d suggest the following:

· License voters as you do drivers, for minimal competence.

· Only participants in democracy can choose its leaders. Self-government means selves should help govern.

· Promote and enforce truth in public discourse.

· Enforce the laws or change them.

· Disqualify crooks and liars from public office.

The likelihood of achieving such goals? Close to zero – but to reconstruct you’ve got to start somewhere, steer by some star. In that hoary bromide, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.”

Democracy in America is not just having a bad day; it’s failed. The proof is in the pudding. Whatever their ideology (if they even have one), the Nameless One and his cronies aren’t up to the job. And the voters aren’t up to the job, to have made such a choice. And the cost of our incompetence will prove colossal, if not catastrophic.

I love our Founders for their wisdom and courage, but the America they made suited a simpler time and wasn’t managed (or mangled) by simpletons. Change is scary but not to change, when one must, is scarier. To outgrow an earlier idea is not to reject it, but to graduate into a new reality.

I’m whistling in the wind, I realize, but while we cope with our present woes, we must begin to consider where next. Deposing the Nameless One will not restore our status quo ante. The problems that produced this monstrosity will persist.

The bigger the crisis, the bigger the opportunity for correction. Our opportunity is huge, let’s not waste it.