In her eloquent way, Peggy Noonan writes in today’s Wall Street Journal that people in Washington must speak forthrightly to President-elect Barack Obama about the problems the country is facing and about the potential shortcomings of his attempts to fix those problems. She says people often intend to be blunt, then get tongue-tied right as they walk into the Oval Office. Noonan suggests the problem will go away if we can just stop putting presidents on pedestals.
That’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t work. At least, it hasn’t worked historically, whether in Washington or in the world of business.
New ground rules for conversation have to be set by the president-elect (or by the CEO or board of directors in the business world) if the unvarnished truth is what’s really wanted. In terms of what Obama faces, he needs to encourage people to challenge him and needs to demonstrate that he’s sincere, time and again, until people believe him. He can’t be like President Lyndon Johnson, who had a weekly lunch at which senior advisers were told they should challenge his handling of the Vietnam war but who then made clear in unofficial ways that he didn’t want any objections–when one adviser did challenge him, Johnson subsequently greeted him by saying, “Well, here comes Mr. Stop-the-Bombing.” Obama can’t just ask for honest opinions about his plans. Even when they aren’t dealing with the leader of the free world, people tend to try to be nice even if they believe an idea is brain-dead. If Obama really wants the truth, he needs to ask just for potential problems and for suggestions on scenarios that would upset his plans. He also has to make clear that he’s not going to hold people accountable for their ideas–in other words, he’s not asking for predictions, just for possibilities.
If Obama really works at changing the dialogue, he can do it, at least for a while. But it isn’t enough just for him and those who work for him to be aware that problems exist. Obama has to do numerous things that change the environment in which the dialogue takes place.
Our research is full of companies and executives that were very aware of potential pitfalls but that didn’t change any processes and ran into disaster as a result.
