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November 08, 2004

Simplicity

From a case study examining GE chairman Jack Welch:


For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple. For a large organization to be simple, its people must have self-confidence and intellectual self-assurance. Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick, convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they've know since childhood. Real leaders don't need clutter. People must have the self-confidence to be clear, precise, to be sure that every person in their organization - highest to lowest - understands what the business is trying to achieve. But it's not easy. You can't believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they're simple, people will think they're simpleminded. In reality, of course, it's just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple. (emphasis added - ed.)


Remind you of anyone you know?

If this doesn't exemplify the difference between the Kerry approach and the Bush approach, I don't know what does. Kerry is complicated, and anything but self-confident, when it comes to projecting the power and values of the United States. Kerry, who prides himself on his mastery of nuance, seemed terrified of being simple, for fear of being labeled "simpleminded."

Bush, on the other hand, is not only simple, he is villified as "simplisme." But everyone in that organization knows the purpose in Iraq, and in the war on terror. Rest assured, there's a lot of complex planning that going into a war, from the decision to go to the final execution. The trick is not to let the details obscure the purpose. Bush clears away that mental and moral brush, leaving a clear sense of mission.

It's one of his great failings that while the military and the executive follow so willingly, the President is so poor at articulating that mission to the American people at large. Still, they get it, and they get that he gets it.

Posted by joshuasharf at November 8, 2004 04:40 PM | TrackBack
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