Time for a puzzle. It’s a simple question: Which chief executive am I?
And to make it really easy, it’s multiple choice, and there are only two
options:
Barack Obama
Rick Wagoner
How hard can this be? Here come the clues:
I took over an
organization that was bleeding red ink, and I expressed my
determination to fundamentally change the organization. But my
numbers for years on end only produced even greater red ink. I
explained that the desired change could not come about overnight,
but that we would get there through incremental progress.
I found that the
primary problem was too much spending and too much debt, and I
proposed that we get out of trouble by borrowing more so we could
keep spending. I am nothing if not counterintuitive!
My long-term
projections included assumptions about significant revenue increases
in the near future. These projected revenue increases made the rest
of the plan viable. Some people didn’t think the revenue would
actually increase the way I presumed it would. I was sure they were
wrong. I was so sure, in fact, I had no backup plan for what to do
if they turned out to be right.
When people pressed
me on the question of why I was spending so darn much, I explained
that it all came back to health care, and that we couldn’t fix it
until we got health care costs under control. I vowed that I would
get health care costs under control. (Want to know a secret? I
didn’t have a clue how I was going to do that! But I sure sounded
determined when I said it. I had the geriatric set expecting me to
pay for their doctors’ office visits for life, and it seemed like a
good idea at the time it was promised, but boy, talk about financial
disasters!)
Holy crap, did the
unions expect a lot from me. My life would have been a hell of a lot
easier if they would have just done what I needed them to do and
been happy with what they got in return. But these guys don’t work
that way. They demand and demand and demand, with no apparent
understanding of the notion that there is a limit to what anyone can
give. Even so, the path of least resistance is to just give them
what they want, and I don't deal too well with resistance.
Some of the people
I have to deal with to implement my decisions kept telling me that
huge parts of the organization needed to be either radically
reformed or gotten rid of entirely. (Think Hummer, Social Security .
. . ) I regarded these people as radicals and cranks. Whoever heard
of such ideas?
A few people
pointed out that my rhetoric about cost-cutting didn’t always match
my own personal behavior. Something about a jet? My office heated to
78 degrees? Who can keep track of all the nitpicky complaints? It’s
not easy being the boss!
I found it easy, in
the beginning, to lay blame for problems I inherited at the foot of
my predecessors. They created the problems, I reminded people. I was
fixing the problems. But the numbers under me were actually far
worse than the numbers under the schlumps I replaced, and while I
kept reassuring everyone that we were moving in the right direction,
I started finding that case harder and harder to make.
Things finally
reached the point where our creditors wouldn’t lend to us anymore,
and we were under so much debt, the viability of the entire
operation was called into question. I couldn’t believe they were
blaming me! I was trying to fix things, and hey, you don’t turn an
aircraft carrier in an instant. Or is it a battleship? I was never
all that clear on the military stuff . . .
So, which chief executive am I? Barack Obama or Rick Wagoner?
You’re not sure? You know, to tell you the truth, I’m not sure myself!
Click here to talk to our writers and
editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.
To e-mail feedback
about this column,
click here. If you enjoy this writer's
work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry
it.
