The Time Mike Bloomberg Tried to Teach Donald Trump About Management
Great business leaders can also be great at governing. On the other hand…
More than a year before the next U.S. presidential election and Democratic candidates are already having their third (their third!) debate. We’re well into the cycle of speeches and polls, bloopers and media scrums — all the trappings of a campaign marathon to win the most important job in the world.
Even with all the campaign confetti, we voters and our agents in the media keep forgetting one important question: Who can actually manage the American government? Who can run a behemoth of an enterprise with 2 million employees and more than 400 agencies designed to serve 356 million people? (And who can cope with the daily complications from the courts, Congress, all the dramas from the media and the public and, of course, the rest of the world?)
We now have a good idea how Trump manages the country. He reigns in self-imposed, gold-plated chaos. He needs praise. He can’t bear bad news — don’t mention how Russia helped him in the elections, for example. He reacts to every blip on television. His employees are expendable, disposable like old golf balls after they have tarnished whatever reputation they once had and then used up their powers to help him. Some…
