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Team Bush—Leadership Lessons from the Bush White House Donald F. Kettl McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 ISBN 0-07-141633-1 First edition McGraw-Hill books are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please write to the Director of Special Sales, Professional Publishing, McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2298. Or contact your local bookstore. This book is printed on recycled, acid-free paper containing a minimum of 50% recycled, de-inked fiber. Team Bush is not authorized, endor Birth of a Commander-in-Chief “This stuff about transformed? From my perspective, he is the same President Bush that I saw going through different issues in Texas. He’s always been decisive, he’s always been disciplined, he’s always been really focused, he’s always been a really good delegator.” —Karen Hughes, on the change in President Bush after September 11 Throughout his career as a political executive, George W. Bush has consistently exceeded expectations. Doing it once or twice might be lucky. Doing it over and over has to require real skill. What’s the secret? Bush has carefully honed a style, based on building an effective team, to make strong decisions. He doesn’t try to master the complexities of decisions. Rather, he builds a team, he makes them master the complexities, he has them frame the issues—and then he decides, firmly and without second thoughts. He’s ridden this style, over and over, to successes that have amazed his friends and stunned his foes. Consider a quick sc Part I: Building the Bush Team Chapter List Chapter 1: The Making of an MBA President Overview “I wanted to be my own boss.” —George W. Bush on applying to business school “George spent a lot of time learning from other people … Those who were book-oriented would think he wasn’t a serious student, but he was a serious student of people.” —Robert McCallum, Bush’s friend at Harvard Business School Leo Ccorbett was surprised by the apparent shift in priorities when he moved across the Charles River from Harvard College to Harvard Business School. Dinner conversations for his undergraduate class of 1970 revolved around politics and Vietnam. Many of his Harvard classmates talked politics, expecting to reach lofty political positions inside the Beltway, as Washington, D.C., was called. But when he started business school in 1973, he found that students “had become very serious and didn’t want to be distracted by these outside issues.” The go-go economic boom of the 1960s had dissolved into oil shocks and high inflation. The romanticis Chapter 1: The Making of an MBA President Making the MBA ManGeorge W. Bush, a middling C-average college student at Yale, had failed to be admitted to the University of Texas law school, and that failure embarrassed him. Page Keeton, the law school dean, wrote to one of those who had recommended Bush for admission, “I am sure your Mr. Bush has all the amiable qualities you describe and so will find a place at one of many fine institutions around the country. But not at the University of Texas.” Bush had to confront a very basic question: What was he going to do with his life? It was an uneasy time for the young man, and the law school rejection only underscored his problems. After graduating from two of New England’s most select institutions, Phillips Academy and Yale University, Bush had served in the Texas Air National Guard, but that didn’t prove to be a good career match. He worked as a management trainee for a Houston agribusiness company. He tried his hand at several political campaigns. His summer jobs included deliveri “Sky Decker” at Capitalism’s West PointThe taxi driver who first dropped him off at the school told him, “Here you are at the West Point of capitalism.” Bush in fact treated Harvard Business School as a serious cadet would, and that marked a big change from his college days. As an undergraduate, he took his partying seriously and quickly developed an easy rapport with his classmates. As his close friend Roland W. Betts recalled, while other students were still adjusting to freshman life, “George was the person who in three months knew the name of everybody and actually knew 50 percent of the class.” As an undergraduate Bush had been elected president of the Yale chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, renowned for its parties and sports talk. In business school he pushed aside the parties and focused more on the books. As Bush recalled later, “I studied, and ran and rode my bike a lot. I was there to learn, and that’s exactly what I did.” On weekends he partied at a country music club in Bosto The “Teamwork” MBA Though Bush distinguished himself for his easygoing ways, he did not set himself apart as one of the business school’s top scholars. Howard Stevenson, one of his professors recalled that Bush “wrote a decent essay.” Another professor, Michael E. Porter—who later became an economic policy adviser to the Bush campaign—agreed that Bush “was not a star academic performer.” He didn’t excel, but his diligence did put him in the middle of the pack. However, everyone who knew him agreed that he displayed unusual charisma and teamwork. For example, when students were put to work on a three-day, schoolwide business simulation exercise. Bush’s class section elected him one of the team presidents. Though his team did not win the competition, Porter told them that their collegiality would probably have produced the best results over the long haul. Bush, Porter remembered later, “was very good at getting along with people and getting things done.” The field of business was undergo Arbusto to the White HouseWith his MBA, Bush’s style blossomed. But it took some time to put it to work. After earning his degree, he returned to Midland, Texas, where his father had prospered in the oil business—and where he had lived an earlier life as a partying bachelor. He formed his own oil company and christened it “Arbusto,” the Spanish word for “Bush.” He achieved only moderate success as an oilman. In 1978 he launched a campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Bush was a hugely successful fund-raiser but a distinctly unsuccessful candidate. He lost the race by six percentage points. If his political efforts foundered and his oil business only modestly prospered, Bush did secure one large victory. In 1977 he met and married Laura Welch, a librarian and teacher, who has since been his anchor. She was one of the few people who could look Bush in the eye and tell him he needed to shift his tone or his message. After the September 11 attacks, for example, Bush sai Chapter 2: The Bush Leadership Style Overview “Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.” —President Woodrow Wilson “ … he does have a strong belief in providence, and in the necessity of gathering information, making good choices, doing your best, and trusting the result to God. That is a very strong personal belief on his part.” —Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson When George W. Bush moved into the White House on January 20, 2001, he faced a situation no business executive has ever encountered. More than half of the people involved in choosing him had voted for someone else. Half of the people on his board of directors—the Congress—were determined to see him fail. Sly observers wrote off his chances for success before he took the oath of office, and many were looking past him to his successor. The first rule for leadership is to lead. But that’s a difficult task when Chapter 2: The Bush Leadership Style Don’t Start Without a Business PlanBush got busy running the country by crafting a business plan for the transition and his initial months in the White House even while the outcome of the election was still in doubt. During the interminable vote-counting in Florida, Gore often seemed the senior partner in the team of lawyers fighting the case. Bush, on the other hand, left the legal battle to longtime family adviser and former secretary of state James A. Baker III. Bush publicly went about the business of being governor while more quietly working on the transition to the presidency. It was a two-pronged strategy, in part to signal to the country that he fully expected to win the recount and in part to make sure he got a fast start on the job. In less than three weeks he completed the task of naming his cabinet. He then made a ten-year tax cut his top policy priority. The projected budget surplus was huge, and he wanted to lock up the money before Congress could spend it. Some analysts Make the Bureaucracy Fit Your Personality Beyond the business plan was a set of basic rules to guide how the White House staff worked and behaved. “This is the only bureaucracy in Washington that can change to fit the personality of the president,” chief of staff Andrew H. Card, Jr. told a reporter. “This president is the first ever to have an MBA.” Bush was determined to impress his style on the White House—and to push out the influences of the Clinton team. Close observers were astounded at the difference from the Clinton years. In putting together his first budget, Card estimated that Bush invested about five hours in meetings. In contrast, in his initial weeks, Bill Clinton spent 25 hours in formal meetings and twice that amount in casual conversations. Bush quickly worked his way through the basic options and made his strategic decisions. He preferred oral briefings, short background memos, and quick decisions. Clinton wanted to know all the details, to talk about them with a wide Establish Rules Early and Stick to Them If the nicknames mark Bush’s informal side, he has a tough, formal, disciplined side as well. Soon after taking office, he imposed a set of White House rules. The contrast with the Clinton years could not have been more stark. Chief of Staff Card laid them out: Attire: suit and tie required. Gone was the informal Clinton dress code. Aides often wore blue jeans and T-shirts to meetings, even in the Oval Office. Bush insisted that men wear jackets and ties at all times in the Oval Office. Women were required to wear business attire. Card reported he hadn’t seen the president in the Oval Office without a suit and tie. Clinton, by contrast, was often observed wandering around the White House in his jogging clothes (sweats and sneakers). Brevity is a must. Bush limited briefing papers to a page—two at most. Clinton read voraciously. Bush insisted that aides boil issues down to their core. “He doesn’t like memos that state the obvious,” Card explained. Develop Your Own Leadership Style Bush is the very model of a modern MBA president. He builds his approach to the presidency on teamwork, especially in his West Wing staff. He builds a clear strategy and a business plan for implementing it. Unlike Bill Clinton, he has remained focused on a small agenda. He keeps his message sharp and focused. At a visit to the Pentagon less than a week after September 11, he told reporters, “I want justice,” and that meant tracking down Osama bin Laden. “And there’s a poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’” Few presidents have been that blunt. Bush insists on tough discipline among his staffers, with a tightly controlled flow of information in and out. Press secretary Ari Fleischer even refused to disclose what the First Family ate at their first presidential Thanksgiving dinner (although word later leaked out that they dined on turkey, green beans, sweet potato puree, and pumpkin pie). The contrast with Bill Clinton, whose s An Unusual JobThe scope of the job a president confronts is far larger than anything in the private sector. The risk of failure is great and the consequences enormous. Presidents have tight limits on deciding which markets to enter or which products to develop. If a war in Bosnia or a battle against inflation goes badly, the president can’t simply decide to abandon a product line. Presidents can’t easily reorganize their operations to increase efficiency or focus on a new strategy. Bush’s protracted struggle with Congress over the Department of Homeland Security, which was eventually approved, showed how hard it can be to shuffle the organizational boxes. In the private sector, boards of directors support corporate leaders—or they fire them. In government, Congress is the president’s board of directors, and Congress has a vested interest in many of the existing work patterns. And just as the president can’t fire them, members of Congress can’t fire him (only impeach him, and the odds o Bush’s Style George W. Bush unquestionably has a clear style. Unlike Kennedy’s, it is not built on blazing intellect, and unlike Johnson’s, it is not built on unrelenting personal pressure. It shares some of the same amiable qualities of Reagan’s approach to government, but it also has surprising elements of the shrewd style that Eisenhower brought to the White House. Unpacking his presidency to discover that style takes some doing, because what we see on television often does not match the way Bush works in the Oval Office. It requires understanding his family, his political roots, and the subtle way they shape his approach to the job. As much as anything, though, Bush is the prototype of the MBA executive who took over the biggest organization in the world. The question is whether the organization is a good fit for his MBA skills. Henry Mintzberg and Joseph Lampel, two management experts who have studied why CEOs fail, warn that they tend to do so in similar ways: “They ran their bus Bush Lessons Don’t start without a plan. Bush began crafting his plan before the vote count in Florida was finished. This helped him to hit the ground running when the dust settled. The lesson is clear: Establish a plan, and implement it early. That might mean the difference between success and failure. Make the organization fit your personality. Bush imposed his ways on the Oval Office, not the other way around. He starts and ends meetings on time, insists on a suit and tie, yet simultaneously imposes a certain degree of informality with staffers and journalists. That’s his way, and he uses it to his advantage. Keep focused on the task at hand. Bush watches the small things to sharpen his focus on the key tasks at hand. After September 11, 2001, Bush focused virtually his entire presidency on fighting terrorism. He understood that his administration had a new charter, and made sure that his inner circle brought the same degree of focus. Develop your own leadership style. One of the ke Chapter 3: The Teamwork Imperative Overview “I’m not afraid to surround myself with strong and competent people.” —George W. Bush, on naming his cabinet “Individual commitment to a team effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” —Vince Lombardi Even more than most executives, the American president must rely on a strong team. The problems are huge, and the costs of a misstep can be staggering. Choosing the best policy options requires a keen sense of the core problems and the most solid information available. Getting that information, however, is tough. The president is constantly surrounded by the Secret Service, monitored by television film crews, and trailed by reporters. That makes it hard for the president to get a good pulse on what people are thinking, to gauge what is happening beyond the White House gates, and to understand the most important issues of the day. The president lies at the bottom of an enormous funnel that distill Chapter 3: The Teamwork Imperative Get Unfiltered Information Bush wanted to avoid his father’s mistakes. First as governor, and then as president, he decided to avoid the hierarchical chief-of-staff model. Instead, he created a system that gave key aides easy access, without having to go through an all-powerful chief of staff. His Texas policy adviser, Vance McMahan, recalled Bush saying: I want a flat structure where my key senior staff members report directly to me. I don’t want opinions filtered through one individual. The chief of staff was in charge of process—making sure that what had to get done in fact got done on time. But the staff chief was not a “first among equals.” For Bush 43, the most important link would be his relationship with each adviser, not their connections with each other or to a central gatekeeper. It was this approach in Texas that “gave the senior staff members a great deal of access to the governor,” McMahan further explained. “It also gave them a chance to build relationships. The informat Building Team BushBush decided to run his Oval Office so that his five closest White House aides could see him at any point, without having to go through anyone first. The five insider players were: Andrew H. Card, Jr., chief of staff. Card served Bush 41 as secretary of transportation and, before that, as deputy chief of staff. He was President Reagan’s liaison to the nation’s governors and mayors. During the Clinton years, he headed the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, the trade association for the nation’s car makers. As chief of staff, he has served as Bush 43’s process manager, to make sure that things needing to get done are done. But he was not the gatekeeper to the Oval Office. Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser. She formerly was provost—the chief operating officer—at Stanford University. During the first Bush administration, she worked on the National Security Council as the president’s adviser on Soviet and East European affairs. Rice joined the Bush ca Nurture Talent and Get the Best from Them Team Bush would not have worked, however, without Bush’s knack for nurturing his personal links with his team members. As mentioned previously, there’s no better sign of that knack than his habit of bestowing nicknames on friends, staffers, government leaders, and journalists. Virtually anyone could be a fair target. One high-ranking Bush aide, known as “French” for reasons he can’t fathom, joked that “internal communications are in turmoil,” because aides sometimes can’t figure out the nicknames. Bush has christened Vice President Dick Cheney “Big Time.” National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is “Guru.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is “Rummy.” Communications Adviser Karen Hughes was “High Prophet,” while political strategist Karl Rove is “Boy Genius.” The nicknaming started inside the Bush family, where George W. Bush is “W” and his father is “41” (for the forty-first president—which makes W’s alternate nickname “Number 43”). His moth Bush Lessons Create the right structure. Bush arrived at the Oval Office knowing that he would not put a gatekeeper between him and his closest advisers. Instead, he employed a flat model built on personal relationships, to make sure that his inner circle had access to him and that he had access to them. Make sure to get unfiltered information. Top managers need all sorts of information, good and bad … especially bad. This is why it is crucial to have a mechanism in place that ensures a steady stream of information from all quarters. Hire people smarter than you are. Bush was not afraid to hire leaders and cabinet members that people perceived were smarter than he was. The first MBA president knew that the key to success had to do with his team and his ability to exact the best performance from each of them. Master the four keys of Team Bush. Team Bush has a four-prong approach, one that takes into account a finely etched strategy, a clearly defined message, discipline in execution, an Part II: Leading the Bush Way Chapter List Chapter 4: Bush as Strategist Overview “They can say what they want about me, but at least I know who I am and who my friends are.” —George W. Bush, speaking to NBC’s Alexandra Pelosi, 2002 “ … people should do what they say they are going do to, particularly in politics. … I think that is probably the single most important tenet of his philosophy.” Americans have long prided themselves on setting the standards by which the world’s elections ought to be run. They were certainly unprepared for the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, with a weekslong court battle that never seemed to end. Each press conference by the warring Gore and Bush featured an escalation of American flags in the backdrop, with each side struggling to appear more presidential. The two campaigns battled over the keys to Washington’s official presidential campaign headquarters—and the $5 million pot of transition funds. The nation got a painful, extended lesson in the Electoral College, perhaps the most arth Chapter 4: Bush as Strategist Prepare Early: The First Steps Are Crucial The electoral turmoil not only provided endless weeks of political theater. It also robbed Bush of the most important asset a new president has: a honeymoon with Congress, the press, and the American people. From the November 7 election, it took the courts 36 days to sort out the issues, and Gore conceded on day 37. If they concur on anything, presidential scholars agree that the first weeks of the transition are crucial to shaping a new presidency. If anything is clear about Bush’s transition, however, it’s that he had the right strategy to help him negotiate one of the most contentious election battles in American history. Any new job or management assignment is tough, and putting together a presidency is one of the toughest. The president-elect needs to assemble a staff, choose a cabinet, frame the big issues, rough out a legislative agenda, and prepare a budget. Thousands of résumés, from campaign workers and ordinary citizens, fall like a Team Bush’s Rules for Winning To make matters worse, Bush had only a narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The Senate was divided 50-50, with Vice President Cheney, presiding officer in the Senate, permitted to break ties. A pall hung over Bush’s claim to power, and he couldn’t count on much help from Republicans on Capitol Hill. Cannon wondered whether, with “half the voters thinking the president does not belong there, [if] anything can be done.” At most, Rep. Mark E. Souder (R., Ind.) suggested, it was likely to be “a presidency of small advances rather than broad, sweeping changes.” Democrats set to work to undermine the Bush agenda by reminding analysts about his weak claim to power. Only strong and quick steps toward conciliation—especially moderation in his game plan—would help him succeed, they proclaimed. But Team Bush rejected that counsel. Chief of Staff Card prepared background memos on every transition since 1960, drawing lessons, small and large, to Develop a Playbook . . . and Execute ItAfter the inauguration, Team Bush faced cross-pressures on what to do first—and how much to try to do. Democrats wanted the president to focus on health care, especially since reform of health maintenance organizations had been one of the major pieces of unfinished business in the previous Congress. John McCain, who had been Bush’s strongest rival for the Republican nomination, pressed for campaign finance reform. Bush and his advisers decided to stick with the principal campaign themes and built an agenda of five strategic issues: Education reform. Over the last generation, federal officials from both parties have been increasingly interested in education, which has long been the province of state and local governments. Bush campaigned on the need to insist that local schools do a better job. Tax cuts. When Bush took office, analysts estimated that the surplus would balloon to $5.6 trillion over the next decade. Rather than let Congress fund big Develop a Playbook . . . and Execute It Respond to Crises, but Stick to the PlanGenerals know that war plans become obsolete at the first shot. Similarly, Bush and his aides knew they would have to adapt their strategy to shifting events. All presidents face unanticipated crises. In large measure, their ultimate success lies not in their ability to fulfill campaign promises, but in their skill in coping with the unexpected. For Bush, the unexpected quickly materialized. In March 2001, Californians slid into the worst energy crisis America had seen in a generation. Parts of the state had such severe electricity shortages that power companies imposed “rolling blackouts,” which shut off the power completely to consumers from high-tech industries to individual homeowners. There was plenty of power around the nation. The problem, Bush and administration officials believed, lay in California’s deregulation of the energy industry, coupled with a rapid increase in demand for power during the summer of 2000. There was plenty of elect Debate, Decide—and End the Debate In the months after September 11, Team Bush seemed to struggle to find its voice—and to reshape its strategy. Policy battles raged and new, unexpected issues surged to the forefront. The president either had little to say about them or, when he did speak, did not convey a clear sense of the administration’s policy. Aides publicly voiced competing ideas about what the policy might—or should—be. Analysts and talking heads speculated about whether the administration’s wheels had come off, whether the president had lost control of his staff and of the terrorism issue, and what the policy ultimately would be. Reporters, looking for some edge in covering the story, parsed Bush’s remarks for some shaded meaning from which they could deduce the forthcoming policy. From a distance, observers wondered if it was a deep pathology in Bush’s management style, or whether that style was hard-wired into an approach that ultimately produced sharp policy and clear guidan You’re Only as Good as Your Last Victory Like all presidents, Bush learned important Washington lessons: Success lasts only until the next crisis nudges it out of the way. The American public applauded his handling of the September 11 attacks by sending his approval rating into the stratosphere, but Middle East turmoil and corporate scandals threatened to shatter his agenda. Political success has always been fleeting, but in the lightning-fast news cycles of the 21st century, success can evaporate faster than ever before. On the other hand, the best way to ensure future success is to build on past success. A president who can define his agenda—and then stick to it—is far more likely to stay successfully on track when events threaten to derail it. Among modern presidents, Bush was notable for the uncommon focus he brought to his initial agenda, for the way he pursued it, and, most of all, for how he hauled the strategy back to his driving themes despite hurricane-force crosswinds. In hi Bush Lessons The first steps give lasting signals. Bush knew from his study of previous presidencies that many of his predecessors started off balance and struggled to regain their footing. He worked hard to develop and project a confident stride, in style and substance, because he knew that first impressions last. Develop a plan—and stick to it. Writing a plan is relatively easy. However, what happens when unforeseen crises arise and demand attention? Bush dealt carefully and decisively with the crises, but he never forgot the main points of his strategy and constantly returned to emphasize them. Don’t fight battles you can’t win. Part of Bush’s success came from choosing fights he could win—and avoiding being entangled in those (like the California energy crisis and the Middle East conflict) where he wasn’t sure he could succeed. Never allow disputes among aides to simmer too long. Bush showed remarkable patience in allowing his aides to battle each other through the media about the Chapter 5: The Importance of Message Overview “I … had the responsibility to show resolve. I had to show the American people the resolve of a commander in chief that was going to do whatever it took to win. No yielding. No equivocation. No, you know, lawyering this thing to death, that we’re after them.” —George W. Bush, on addressing the American people about terrorism He [George W. Bush] stays on message, and I think that really matters more than anything else. He seemingly does not tire of saying the same thing over and over and over again. If you ask me what time it is, I’m likely to tell you about the history of timekeeping and clock making, about the manufacture of timepieces and other forms of measurement, about the kinds of regulation put in place by the government. If you ask George Bush what time it is, he’ll say, “I think Americans have the right to bear arms.” —Former Texas Governor Ann Richards It is one thing to have a strategy. It is quite another to convince others to f Chapter 5: The Importance of Message Manage the Media In other words, the president must struggle to be heard and, when he’s heard, to make sure that what people are hearing is what he’s trying to say. Some people—including presidential advisers—cynically call this “spin,” but the simple fact is that communicating a clear, consistent, digestible message is a difficult feat. So many diversions compete for citizens’ attention, and so many forces can distort the message, that communicating the president’s message is extraordinarily difficult. At the same time, it’s hugely important. Some things make that job easier. White House officials often refer to the press corps covering the president as “the zoo.” They often view them as dangerous wild animals who might snap at any moment, who must be carefully caged and properly fed. The press corps gets its news through a regular diet of briefings in the White House press room, a crowded and somewhat dank space above what used to be the White House swimming pool, where John F. Kenne Package the Story, Feed the ZooFleischer’s predecessors admire his disciplined focus on the message. Michael D. McCurry served as Bill Clinton’s press secretary, and he often faced wild skirmishes with reporters trying to uncover juicy details amid the investigations into the president’s behavior. McCurry believed that Fleischer might well have discovered the key to dealing with the White House press corps, which is “to be very, very disciplined and treat the press like caged animals and only feed them on a regular schedule.” The strategy worked for the president, and the media had little choice but to tolerate it. As Bob Schieffer, host of the CBS interview show Face the Nation, put it, “This is not an administration that’s interested in a happy press. . . . What they’re interested in is getting their message across.” One sign of how successful the Bush administration has been in managing the message is its skill in creating news events. Every occasion is a media event. Every media ev Have a Story—and Stick to ItThe disciplined message starts with the president himself. As he showed in the 2000 presidential campaign, to the surprise of his critics, Bush develops a theme and sticks to it. He rarely allowed himself to be distracted from his principal themes, and he relentlessly hammered away at his basic message. In his surprisingly successful 1994 gubernatorial campaign, Bush seized on a handful of big issues—welfare, juvenile crime, education, and tort reform. He repeated them constantly and rode the message to victory. From that experience, he learned an important lesson about the “vision thing” that so troubled his father. Bush defines a message, repeats it, and hammers it home. Some of that discipline comes from his personal style. Some comes from Karl Rove’s laserlike vision of how to keep his man on track. And some of it comes from a painful lesson during the 2000 campaign. Sam Attlesey, a reporter from the Dallas Morning News whom the Bush campaign regarded as Find Your Own Voice When Steering Through Crises No matter how hard any president tries, staying consistently on message is impossible. Reporters live to be fed, and they’re also constantly on the prowl for fresh tidbits not dished out by their White House keepers. Old issues come up in new ways. New issues intrude. Problems crop up that don’t fit the message. And crises emerge that inevitably take both the White House and the capital press corps away from the preplanned presidential agenda. Not only do crises strain the strategy, they also challenge the president’s ability to speak to Americans. When events suddenly intrude on the president’s agenda, they bump the president’s message from the front pages. Responding to crises can require a whole new strategy. It also demands that the president reassure the public and build support for the new plan. On September 11 these tasks challenged Bush in a way he had never been tested. The plane crashes in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania o Get Back on Message (Even If Events Pull You Off)After September 11, Team Bush faced a twin challenge: fighting the war on terrorism while getting back to the administration’s original goals. The January 2002 State of the Union Address, with its focus on the “axis of evil,” helped to accomplish part of this goal. The president suggested that the “axis” nations were involved in terrorism and that, therefore, an effective antiterrorism campaign required them to change their ways. That provided a bridge on the international issues, but getting back to the domestic issues proved more difficult. The administration tried to bring back its effort to privatize social security, and it explored several prescription drug measures. But soon another crisis emerged, this one—Enron—hitting disastrously close to Bush in Texas. By 2000, Enron had established itself as the sixth-largest energy company in the world. Revenues had doubled from the year before, and the company proudly put its name on the ne Listen to the Polls, But Don’t Be Ruled by Them In his campaign, Bush pledged not to govern based on polls. He said he was going to govern on principle, not on the findings of public opinion polls and focus groups. The promise was a barb at Bill Clinton, who polled more than any president in history, both to define his agenda and to shape his message. Cynics used to suggest, only half jokingly, that Clinton’s position on any issue was whatever 60 percent of Americans believed. His pollsters explored what vacation spot and which family pet would garner the most support by voters. Pollsters are not popular. They call people at mealtimes and, if they manage to get anyone to stay on the phone, ask probing questions. Citizens cynically (and correctly) suspect that politicians constantly use polls to spin issues. As columnist Joshua Green concluded, “One of the most dependable poll results is that people don’t like polling.” Bush’s promise to back away from polling was indeed a clever strate Link Message with DisciplineNo matter how effectively a president might craft and sell his message, however, it is only as good as his ability to deliver results. In the end, that is how all leaders are judged. The public would immediately sense whether a message was just a veneer papering over policies moving in opposite directions—or in too many different tracks at once. This is as true for a president as it is for a manager or a company executive. Message is key, but it is only one piece of the leadership jigsaw puzzle. For Team Bush, the message was the outside layer of the onion. The inside layer was discipline. The president insisted that his aides not only keep to the message, but also move that message consistently to products. That’s how Team Bush scored so many victories against such long odds. Bush Lessons The medium really is the message. Marshall McLuhan’s famous work has become a cliché. But for executives, it could not be truer. Bush has mastered the art of using the media to communicate his message. Use the hunger of reporters for a good story to hone the message. Bush’s media team has mastered the art of feeding the media beast. Reporters constantly bristle at the control that Team Bush exerts over what they do and how they do it, but that control produced unusual clarity of message. The whole package makes the message. The administration has used all the tools at its disposal to package the message and how it looks. That lessens the chance that the media can mediate or alter the message, and it improves the direct tie from Bush to the American people. Focus the message by repeating it. And repeating it. Team Bush proved remarkably successful at keeping the message focused—and in getting debate back on message—by a simple technique. Whenever the president or his aides Chapter 6: The Disciplined Chief Executive Overview “ … we don’t have a lot of last-minute scrambling. He [Bush] likes to have trust in the process, that he believes he considers every angle—and makes a choice.” —Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson “This is a buttoned-down administration, perhaps the most I’ve ever seen.” —Stephen Hess, Brookings Institution On the morning of February 7, 2001, Robert Pickett created chaos on the southwest side of the White House grounds. The Indiana man had fired a handgun, and that brought Secret Service agents and Washington police swarming to the scene. Tourists scattered as hostage negotiators arrived. Police negotiators demanded that Pickett put the gun down. When that failed, a Secret Service agent felled him with a single bullet to his leg. No one but the gunman was harmed in the late morning incident. Vice President Dick Cheney was at his desk, but President Bush was exercising in the White House residence. Some observers later snickered that Bush Chapter 6: The Disciplined Chief Executive Exercise to Build Discipline Bush exercises six days a week. Most of the time it’s running—outside, if he can manage it; inside, on a treadmill, if he can’t. On Camp David weekends, he runs a tough three-mile course in the morning before going on a two-mile walk with his wife afterward. If he doesn’t run, he uses an elliptical trainer, stretches, and lifts weights. The White House outdoor track is short and the Secret Service’s security worries keep him off the nearby Mall. Not being able to do longer outdoor runs at the White House is “one of the saddest things about the presidency,” he’s said. Running, Bush explains, relieves stress, helps him sleep, breaks up his day, and recharges his batteries. Most of all, “it keeps me disciplined,” proclaimed Bush, who said he expects the same of his aides. Bush is no slouch on the course, and it’s transformed him into remarkable shape for a man in his mid-50s. His times range from 6:45 to 7:15 minutes for a mile. Following the September 11 atta On Time, All the TimeAll presidents have strategies. All work hard to follow them. Success in executing them requires finding a way to quickly adapt existing strategies to new world events—to keep those events from pulling the manager away from the principal goals. For Bush, the key to adhering to his strategy and message lies in his relentless discipline. Nowhere is that discipline more important than in Bush’s penchant for punctuality. Bush insists on starting meetings promptly and ending them on time. He doesn’t suffer aides who arrive late. In Texas, Karl Rove once upset Bush by leaving a meeting to take a cell phone call. Bush promptly locked the door on him so he couldn’t get back in. Early in the administration, Karen Hughes received a presidential glower for being 10 minutes late for a meeting on social security. She told the president that she had been briefing the press on Dick Cheney’s health; it proved a barely good enough excuse. Staff members are expected to be present an Calibrate the “Loyalty Thermometer” All presidential administrations have problems keeping their team members in line. Sometimes it takes time for people to gel in their positions. Sometimes cabinet secretaries, who rarely are shrinking violets, speak out on issues they care about, even if their passions don’t match presidential policy. In a single week, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill suggested (in an unprintable phrase) that the administration’s 10-year budget surplus projections were unlikely to materialize. That undermined Bush’s case for his signature tax cut. Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that the administration would continue along Bill Clinton’s path of strengthening relations with North Korea, which flew in the face of Bush’s “axis of evil” policy. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said he was troubled by congressional prohibitions on fetal stem-cell research, even though Bush at the time approved of the law. Senior adviser John J. DiIulio, Jr. Build on Pragmatism, Not IdeologyBush avoided appointing ideologues to key jobs, with some exceptions—most notably Attorney General John Ashcroft. Given the strong support of the Republican right for his campaign, and the Republicans’ long exile during the Clinton years, that was no small feat. Leaders of the Religious Right and conservative Republicans pressed ideological true-believers on the Cheney-led transition team. Leading conservative intellectuals, like Paul Wolfowitz, found themselves shunted to second-tier positions, and big thinkers grumbled that it was a “NINA” administration—No Intellectuals Need Apply. The pattern continued during Bush’s first two years in office. When economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey resigned in December 2002, Bush replaced him with Stephen Friedman, former chairman of Goldman Sachs. Friedman has been active in the Concord Coalition, a group that had long argued for balanced budgets and fiscal restraint. Many key conservatives did not think he was the Plugging LeaksThe well-executed media leak is one of Washington’s most highly developed art forms. Every presidency has learned to feed bits of stories to reporters, disguised as comments by a “senior administration official” or “an official close to the president.” When a story is too hot for a leak from the White House, the administration will find a way for the story to surface from a cabinet department, making sure to keep the leak far from the Oval Office. And, some White House officials say slyly, if they want a story to get out, they simply tell it to members of Congress, for no tale ever stays quiet for long on Capitol Hill. White House reporters live like animals in captivity, penned up in the press room or shuttled around on the White House press room. They survive on meals and scraps that the press secretary regularly feeds them—but they are always on the prowl for the behind-the-scenes tale that will separate their reports from everyone else’s. That’s what makes the leak su Work Hard But Take Breaks (and Then Still Work Hard)If Bush imposes discipline on his staff and office, he does the same for his vacations. An August 2001 Washington Post survey found that Bush had spent 42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots—or en route to them—including Camp David, his parents’ Kennebunkport, Maine, estate, or his Texas ranch. But those “vacations” have often been busy, even exhausting, affairs. His daily security briefings continue, regardless of where he is. Teleconferences link aides in discussions on important issues. His exercise routine becomes more intense, with longer runs through open country. Like Reagan, he enjoys clearing brush at his ranch. But unlike Reagan, he has put his aides to work on the ranch as well. In August 2001, Bush twisted the arms of some aides, in toasty 102-degree temperatures, to help him construct a nature trail through one of the canyons on his ranch. Bush also interrupted his 2002 summer vacation constantly for campaign swin Bush Lessons Staff discipline begins with personal discipline. From a tough exercise regimen to a regular sleeping regime, Bush believes that good managers have to stay in top condition to function effectively. Discipline begins with respect. People who respect each other show up for meetings on time, stick to the issues, and explore important questions. That respect, Bush concludes, breeds the discipline an organization needs. Allow discussions—but don’t allow them to simmer long as public disputes. Bush learned from his father’s administration how corrosive public battles among aides can be. He determined that his own administration wouldn’t tolerate them. No manager can be all discipline, all the time. Bush programs breaks into his week and longer vacations into his schedule. Some of these breaks can be frenetic, in the Bush family tradition. But he’s discovered what relaxes him, and believes all managers have to do the same. Chapter 7: Leveraging Assets Overview George Bush and several talented people around him have made the White House a power center in ways that I haven’t seen in a long time—all the way back to Lyndon Johnson. That is a big statement. —Robert S. Strauss, former chairman of the Democratic Party and longtime presidential adviser In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside. —John F. Kennedy The president’s job comes with surprisingly little power. The chief executive’s performance depends on the power the president can build—and keep. Richard Nixon discovered that truth the hard way. In just two short years, he went from one of the biggest electoral landslides in American history to a resignation in disgrace. Americans greeted Jimmy Carter’s sincerity but found him weak in dealing with the Iranian hostage crisis. Ronald Reagan was lionized, not only by conservatives but by many Americans. And Bush 41 fell from stratospheric personal popu Chapter 7: Leveraging Assets Focus Your Power to Enhance Your StrengthBush was no stranger to such a job, however. Longtime Texas columnist and wag Molly Ivins noted that Texas has a “weak-governor” system. In fact, she argues, not only is the governor not the most powerful statewide official—the office ranks fifth, behind the lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, and land commissioner. Many observers would disagree with her ranking, but the simple fact is that the Texas governor has relatively little real power. The state has hundreds of boards and commissions, appointed by the governor. The terms of their leaders often overlap the governor’s term, so new governors can find themselves surrounded—outnumbered and outgunned—by the previous governor’s appointees. Once appointed, most can’t be removed. As Ivins pointed out, however, the job provides a bully pulpit from which the governor can speak—and try to lead. Despite the weak powers, Bush became a hugely popular governor who was able to campaign for Don’t Take Allies for GrantedJob One was dealing with Congress. Without a working relationship with legislators on Capitol Hill, Bush would be a lame duck before he had a chance to start. Republicans were anxious to move their long-stalled agenda—and to restore the heady days of the Reagan presidency. Democrats were wary of the new administration’s agenda items. With such narrow party splits—a nine-vote edge for Republicans in the House and a dead-even split in the Senate—there was no margin for error, on anyone’s part. Bush’s initial strategy for dealing with Congress was the same one he had successfully used in Texas. One reporter called him “a world-class schmoozer” who built legislative success on personal relationships. His personal ties were legendary, and even Democrats admitted liking him—to the point that one Democratic legislative leader appeared on a 2000 campaign commercial to tout Bush’s ability to work across party lines in the legislature. William Allaway, a veteran lobb “It’s About Control” John Dean, Richard Nixon’s White House counsel and no stranger to ruthless political maneuvering, noted, “This administration has been stiff-arming Congress.” On homeland security issues, the administration has been reluctant to give information to members of Congress, and even when the information was shared privately, the administration has refused to declassify it so legislators can publicly discuss it. That has led some members of Congress to complain that what they have learned in private has contradicted what the president says in public—but that they can’t use what they know to engage the debate. When the General Accounting Office—the investigative arm of Congress—asked for records of Vice President Cheney’s task force, the administration refused. As Dean argued, “not since Richard Nixon stiffed the Congress during Watergate has a White House so openly, and arrogantly, defied Congress’s investigative authority.” Many of the administration’s key members, espe Act Quickly, But Leave No Fingerprints Team Bush sometimes played hardball in their relations with Congress, but sometimes they applied a deceptively deft and subtle touch. In December 2002, Republican Senator Trent Lott threw the Republican Party into turmoil by appearing to praise the segregationist legacy of Senator Strom Thurmond at Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. For Bush, the turmoil that resulted was a political nightmare. The Republicans had just stunned the Democrats by wresting away control of the Senate, and Lott was about to become the new majority leader. Bush was planning on using the new legislative session to ramp up his 2004 presidential campaign and broaden his political base. Lott’s comments threatened to distract attention from the Bush agenda and undermine the president’s efforts to appeal to moderate voters. Bush could not afford to be seen pushing Lott out of the GOP majority position. Republican senators would resent being muscled that abruptly. But the last th Use Innovative Tactics to Maintain a Cohesive Team A president not only has the daunting job of dealing with 535 members in the two houses of Congress, each of whom has a separate base of power; he must appoint the 650 top positions in the executive branch. And these officials in turn choose about 2500 other appointees—for more than 3000 political appointments in all. Every decision is politically important, for there are more people who want key jobs than there are jobs to fill, and applicants inevitably believe they’re more deserving than anyone else. In the 18th century, Louis XIV complained, “Every time I bestow a vacant office I make a hundred discontented persons and one ingrate.” Things haven’t changed much since. Political appointees are critical to a president’s ability to accomplish his agenda. Most of what happens in the federal government’s far-flung operations—from rescuing boaters in trouble to putting out fires in the national forests—is under the control of managers thr Focus on ResultsTeam Bush reached out even more to tackle bureaucracy through an aggressive management agenda. The Clinton administration had attempted to “reinvent” government. Its downsizing movement, however, quickly stirred opposition among federal bureaucrats, and its effort to “empower” those officials never received much support in Congress. Bush decided on a different approach. Where the Clinton government reform movement was run out of a small office distant from the center of West Wing power, Bush directed his management agenda from the Office of Management and Budget, the often feared and always respected voice of the president’s budget priorities. Where the Clinton strategy worked to motivate employees to do more with less, Bush focused on measuring the results of government programs and then on using those results to drive budget decisions. During the 2000 campaign, Bush said bluntly: Governments should be results-oriented. . . . Where we find success, we should repeat it, Outflank Critics—QuicklyBoth these strategies—rebalancing power with Congress and increasing leverage over the executive branch—came together in the president’s proposal for a new Department of Homeland Security. In the aftermath of September 11, critics argued that the administration had fumbled over key pieces of intelligence that might have alerted officials to the attacks. Calls arose almost immediately for restructuring the government to cope with the new threat. The Bush administration fought that argument fiercely. None of the key players—Defense, State, the FBI, and CIA—wanted to be reorganized, and each one had a powerful champion in the president’s inner circle. Over the next few months, however, reporters discovered that before the attacks, two different FBI agents had warned that suspicious individuals were seeking flight training. A Minneapolis agent—Colleen Rowley, later named one of Time’s “persons of the year”—wrote a devastating 12-page memo suggesting that the field s Shifting the Balance of PowerNot only did Bush have an ambitious, if highly focused, policy agenda when he came into office. He also believed deeply that success depended on strengthening the office of the presidency. That was at the core of his management style. While policies come and go, he understood that shifts in the institutional balance of power often have far deeper and lasting impact. At the beginning of his term, some people saw Bush 43 as a continuation of the presidency of Bush 41. Cartoonists and columnists found the dynastic theme irresistible. Some Republicans quietly hoped that the Bush administration would mark the completion of what they called the Reagan Revolution, launched in 1980, continued in the Bush senior years, and interrupted by the eight Clinton years. Bush’s insistence on disarming Saddam Hussein, who had tried to have Bush 41 killed, fed the former belief. His initial tax cut plan helped confirm the latter. But seeing Bush, in substance and style, as ext Bush Lessons Power has to be built. From his close observation of his father’s presidency, Bush knew that the job comes with little reservoir of power. A president has to work hard to fill that reservoir in order to get anything done. Target your effort. Both in Texas and in Washington, Bush was convinced that too many goals were worse than no goals at all. A focused strategy was the keystone of success. Broaden the base. Many key players can make the difference in achieving the agenda. Discovering who they are and how to win their support—or blunt their opposition—requires a subtle combination of the tools at the president’s disposal. Reach deeply to engage all team members. Winning loyalty from the inner team is one thing. Everyone sets their compass by the budget; using the budget to focus managers’ energy improves the odds that everyone sails in the same direction. Part III: Teaming Up For the Future Chapter List Chapter 8: Avoiding the Seven Deadly Leadership Traps Overview If I have erred, I err in company with Abraham Lincoln. —Theodore Roosevelt My administration will continue to act on the lessons we’ve learned so far to better protect the people of this country. It’s our most solemn duty. —George W. Bush, November 27, 2002 George W. Bush amazed even his foes with his steady hand on the tiller. It was no secret that half the country questioned his legitimacy as a sitting president. Yet the responsibility for directing the response to the worst attack on American soil in more than half a century fell to him. He rode the roller coaster of the economy, including a huge stock market collapse and criminal charges against some of the nation’s largest corporations and most powerful business executives. He charted a war against Iraq, strategized about the Korean peninsula, and tried to broker truces in the endless Middle East struggles. Through it all he remained remarkably consistent. His style, Chapter 8: Avoiding the Seven Deadly Leadership Traps 1. Painting Everyone with the Same Brush People who know Bush report that his most outstanding feature is his easy way with people. He often teases visitors and mugs for the cameras. He was a prankster on the 2000 campaign plane and sometimes (literally) turned the cameras back on reporters. Engaged in arguments over policy issues in the hallways of the Texas legislatures, legislators sometimes were surprised when Bush snuck up behind them and put them in a bear hug. Bush’s ability to connect with people in a warm and likable way has been one of his greatest strengths since his college fraternity days. In the spring of 2002, however, the easygoing, fraternity manner landed with a thud in Europe. One British journalist dourly reported, “Like certain distinctive wines, President George W. Bush does not travel well.” In fact, “those aspects of his personality that play best in Peoria play worst in Paris.” The journalist noted that, in the three years he had covered French president Jacque 2. Imposing Rigid Discipline that Stifles Deliberation and Debate Team Bush demonstrated more discipline, focus, and efficiency in its first years than any presidential administration in recent memory. “If there is dissent within the administration, we never hear about it,” one Washington reporter said. When the president makes a public appearance, he has a story to tell and steadfastly refuses to be distracted by other issues, regardless of the questions or agendas of the reporters covering the event. Bush reviews his options crisply. He decides quickly. Aides tell of being intensely nervous before briefing the president. They knew they had only a minute or two to focus the issue, present the alternatives, and frame the options. It is not, they say, that the president is anti-intellectual. But he is very demanding. As a former White House official explained, “He is very focused on what is and is not ‘presidential level.’ He takes details—demands details—if he sees it at that level.” B 3. Allowing the Team to Unravel During its first two years in office, Team Bush showed remarkable cohesion—and remarkably little backbiting. The administration included some of Washington’s most renowned and experienced in-fighters; yet, at least in public view, the policy debates were civil and the team remained tight. Tight and disciplined, that is, except for the economic team. From almost the beginning, Bush’s economic team attracted fierce fire. Unlike the foreign policy team—led by Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice—the economic team seemed missing in action. As economic problems increased—the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, CEOs in handcuffs, a stock market crash, and a ballooning budget deficit—media attention on the economic policy team became intense. When team members fumbled several key decisions, public criticism, even among the president’s friends, also grew. Budget director Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. took early shots for being abrasive with members of Congress. A former executive at 4. Making Black-and-White Decisions in a Shades-of-Gray World Especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Bush stirred widespread approval for his strong stand and pledge to avenge the thousands of lives lost. He told Americans he wanted to bring Osama bin Laden to justice “dead or alive.” He called the terrorists “evildoers” and “barbaric people.” He called for allies to stand “with us or against us.” A month after the attacks, he told Americans that al Qaeda was “on the run.” And in a pointed jab at Bill Clinton, who once tried to take out bin Laden with a cruise missile attack but hit only empty tents and sand, Bush was blunt, saying: When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a ten dollar empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. That style framed a sharp, decisive response to the terrorist attacks. But that approach did not work well when applied to other thornier issues, for which black-white, “with us or against us” responses were not appropriate. F 5. Losing Control of the Agenda Bush’s style comes from the MBA playbook: focus on the big issues, decide on the major strategy questions, and delegate the details. He’s practiced it more than any president ever has. The style, in turn, has framed the way the rest of the White House staff has worked. Bush created both the aura and the reality of command, built around a strong team. With that style, however, comes the risk that the top leader can appear disconnected. The president built a team composed of strong people, both as aides and cabinet secretaries. Strong people don’t like to be told what to do. When a leader allows his strong-willed team members to set the agenda and handle the details, there’s a possibility that people will perceive that leader as being isolated from the real action. A top leader’s effort to decide and delegate can appear detached and toothless. During the summer of 2002, in fact, the roiling debate over the administration’s Iraq policy spilled over onto the 6. Driving Away Those Who Don’t Share Your Vision Team Bush, if nothing else, quickly became the most tightly managed White House operation in recent memory. Internal dissent in the Carter and Reagan administrations regularly appeared in newspaper headlines, with warring leaks captivating Washington insiders. Those leaks, and the scuttlebutt they produced, undermined the Carter administration (even before it got started) and weakened the Reagan juggernaut. Some of those battles spilled over into the first Bush administration. Bush 43 watched some of the disputes firsthand and helped resolve some of them as his father’s enforcer. His own resolve was that his administration would not suffer a plague of leaks and disloyalty. Some of his team members were champion “leakers” in the old days, but Bush clearly communicated an unmistakable message. They were part of his team. Once the president made a decision, he expected them to follow loyally, without public brawls or private backstabbing. 7. Losing Support of Important Outside Constituencies Along with the Team Bush penchant for disciplined pursuit of strategy and message came a proclivity for closed-door, closed-mouth decisions. Leaks were rare and leakers quickly found themselves on the outside looking in. There simply wasn’t a presidency in memory that managed such tight control of the decision-making process. The secrecy of the administration’s discussions, however, sometimes caused serious problems. Amid the turmoil of the California energy crisis, Bush asked Vice President Cheney to convene a national energy policy development group. It included high-ranking members of the administration, but it met as well with several executives of major energy businesses. Reporters got wind of the group’s conversations with the energy executives and asked the White House to reveal the names of those senior managers. After the White House refused, environmental groups filed suit. Some members of Congress asked the congressional Bush Lessons Don’t try the same touch with everyone. Find the approach that works best for each key player. To avoid groupthink, stimulate internal discussion and debate. Not knowing what you don’t think to ask can sometimes pose the biggest risks. Loyal, experienced team members aren’t enough. Matching their skills and style to the job to be done is just as important as it is for the leader. Being decisive is critical, but sharp decisions don’t fit every problem. Good leaders know how to balance hard and soft approaches to achieve success. Internal debate is healthy and essential. It can even help distance the leader from the fallout of tough decisions. But never let anyone forget who makes—and owns—the big decisions. Make room on the team for those who, at first blush, may not seem to fit. They could become critical allies—or dangerous enemies. Maintain discipline on message and strategy—but don’t sacrifice the chance to broaden support for the plan. Chapter 9: Winning the Expectations Game Overview “I’ve got confidence in my capabilities. I love to be underestimated.” —George W. Bush, Quoted in U.S.A. Today, June 8, 2000 “What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.” —Benjamin Disraeli Perhaps the most consistent thing about George W. Bush’s career is that he has consistently exceeded expectations. Texas punsters said he wasn’t a bush but a “shrub,” and the joke fueled a best-seller by columnist Molly Ivins. But the joke ultimately was on those who underestimated him. The profits from his oil business paid for his ownership share of the Texas Rangers. When he sold that share, he realized a $15 million return. Few analysts gave him a chance of unseating Texas governor Ann Richards in 1994, yet he beat her in the race. Political handicappers gave him slim odds for a successful gubernatorial term, but he rolled to a huge victory in 1998. He explored a presidential run, but cynics suggested he wasn’t nea Chapter 9: Winning the Expectations Game Playing the Expectations Game Bush has always been easy to underestimate. He was a C student at Yale better known for partying than studying. His first political race, a run for Congress, ended in defeat. His penchant for malapropisms became well known, with Web sites devoted to cataloguing his misuse of words. Crispin Miller’s The Bush Dyslexicon is a treasure trove of Bush favorites, and NBC’s Saturday Night Live celebrated his “strategery.” Bush himself made fun of his own fractured syntax in the 2002 HBO documentary Journeys with George. Bush has made playing the expectations game into an art form. He started with expectations very low indeed. One Republican pollster, Whit Ayres, was pleased with that. “It makes it all the easier for President Bush to succeed,” he said in January 2001. Democrats realized the trap. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle worried, “I think we underestimate this man at our own peril.” The cycle of underestimating Bush only to have him exceed expectations Build Capital to Spend It Effective leadership depends on the political capital leaders have to spend. Some leaders start with a large supply; some with little. Leaders can only act if they have the capital to reinforce their decisions. Fighting battles drains capital. Winning them can help build it. John F. Kennedy’s defense secretary, Robert McNamara, charted it on a graph: “You come into office at zero years, and you’ve got eight years ahead of you, hopefully.” The key, he told Kennedy, was lasting the eight years, accomplishing as much as possible, and spending all the political capital as he walked out the door. It’s impossible to act effectively without political capital; political capital unused is opportunity forgone. Bush held that as a central principle of leadership. He watched his father’s painful lesson. With his Gulf War triumph, Bush 41’s approval rating soared to 91 percent. He looked virtually unbeatable, with the presidential election just a year away. But he did not Build Narrow Support Into a Broad Base As the 2002 midterm elections approached, Karl Rove developed a strategy for a full-court press. Conventional wisdom is that the party of incumbent presidents always loses seats in Congress in the midterm elections. That has held true for every midterm election in the last century, except for Democratic party wins in 1934 on the coattails of Roosevelt’s enormous popularity. Most policy issues don’t matter. The real question is how many seats the party will lose. On average, Republican strategist Mary Matalin estimated, the party loses 30 House seats and two in the Senate. But Rove believed that the strategic application of presidential presence and power could reverse the trajectory of history. Bush decided to put a good many of his chips on Rove’s poker table, and Air Force One hopped around the country to stump for Republican candidates. In Arizona, Matt Salmon, Republican candidate for governor, ached for a photo of him and the president emergi Use the Broad Base to Champion PolicyBush aimed to translate his electoral success into a two-pronged policy strategy. First, on the international front, he carried over popular support for his war on terrorism into a campaign to disarm Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Second, on the domestic front, he worked to cement his first-year tax cut into an enduring economic stimulus plan. Together, the two elements would become the strategy for his reelection bid, a combination of policy decisions and political tactics that he believed would secure his reelection and his legacy. EXAMPLE: The Bush Doctrine Bush and his advisers denied that he was driven by the failure of his father to win reelection, but the parallels were too obvious to ignore. In the Gulf War, Bush 41 halted American troops short of a campaign to remove Hussein. At the time, his advisers believed that continuing the war would risk splintering the multinational coalition, and that, in turn, would turn the effort from success to failure. The result was that Hussein remained in power. George W. Bush and his advisers argued that the Iraqi dictator was building stockpiles of dangerous weapons and that he might very well use them, either directly or by supplying terrorists. They worried in particular that Hussein might acquire a nuclear weapon. Stopping him before he became more fully armed—and even more dangerous—became the administration’s foremost national security goal. The first part of Bush’s international plan was a huge gamble. It framed a new strategy, christened the “Bush doctrine,” that EXAMPLE: Economic StrategyBush was also keenly aware that his father had failed to capitalize on the success of the Gulf War and on the huge surge of public support that accompanied it. The economy weakened in the months following that war, and it dragged down Bush 41’s hopes for a second term. In Bush 43’s case, as the economy limped through 2002, its sluggishness was seen as a major threat, in both policy and political terms. And Bush and Rove were determined not to repeat the fate of Bush 41. So it came as no surprise that Bush dumped his economic team soon after the midterm congressional elections and installed a new team. The job of these new economic appointments was to trumpet the message of economic growth. The Bush Team believes strongly in the power of positive rhetoric for shoring up the economy—that confidence will help spur investment and stimulate spending. In addition, the new appointments were to help frame and sell the stimulus plan Bush assembled for early 2003. Bush Pluck and Luck: A Winning CombinationBush has long concentrated sharply on decision-making as the focus of his style and behavior. He strongly believes that the most important thing he can do is to decide, and thereby chart the course for his team—and the nation—to follow. He’s tough and he sticks to his guns. “He’s made a science out of selling tough partisan proposals with cool rhetoric,” the Brookings Institution’s Thomas Mann argues. Having little political capital never slowed him down. He seized on even weak positions as chances to create capital and, once it was created, to broaden his base and deepen his support. Not only does he not shy away from risks—he sees them as opportunities. He has kept to a short, sharp agenda, and insists on absolute discipline among his team members in pursuing it. As decision maker, Bush has placed great confidence in his own compass. He believes he knows what is right, and he’s determined to follow that course. However, as new and unanticipated pr Bush LessonsThese principles frame the core of Bush’s style: Decide firmly from principle. Shape tactics pragmatically. Insist on loyalty from team members in pursuing those tactics. Devise a clear message and then sell the plan. Use success to broaden the base, enhance the chances for further success—and exceed expectations. The Strength of a Leader “ … the executive is, first of all, expected to get the right things done.” Peter Drucker By any standard, George W. Bush has been a remarkably effective executive. Not only is he the nation’s first MBA president, he is also, to borrow from Gilbert and Sullivan, the very model of a modern MBA executive. For Bush, the decision is the central presidential act. Bush’s decisions build on the hard work of his team members. He counts on them to identify the issues, probe the facts, develop the options, and explore the implications. In the end, though, there can be no mistaking who is running the show, with an uncommon focus and discipline. However, though Bush’s style has proven effective, it would be dangerous to suggest that all managers—or all presidents—ought to pursue such a style. What is most important about the Bush style is that it works for him. The lesson is not that managers ought to copy the successful style of another leader. Rather, the lesson is the b Sources and Notes Overview George W. Bush has neither written nor talked much about his management style. He does not spend much time in self-reflection. Whether he’s running Oval Office meetings or frenetically clearing brush at his ranch, he is a man of action. As I wrote this book, there were few inside accounts of how the president managed the White House, and those accounts that did exist clearly had the stamp of individuals trying to spin the story to their own advantage. That means the portrait of Bush’s style has been woven together from a pastiche of interviews, campaign narratives, biographical portraits, and newspaper accounts. Bush’s campaign autobiography, A Charge to Keep (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), is a revealing first-person account of the president’s journey to the White House. But it also has some remarkable gaps. Bush, for example, devotes just a few pages to the tragic death of his sister when he was a young boy. He spends less than three pages on his days at t Birth of a Commander in Chief“This stuff about transformed? …” Anne E. Kornblut, “Year One: Faith, Resolve Steady Bush,” Boston Globe, December 30, 2001, A1. “never knowing when she might fall on her face.” Robert Novak, “Advantage Bush,” CommentMax, October 16, 2000, at http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2000/10/16/093700 “Can nice guy George junior shed his image …” BBC News, “Talking Point,” August 15, 2000. “It was, in fact, one of those moments …” New York Times¸ September 12, 2001, A26. “It’s often said he’s a man comfortable in his own skin …” Vance McMahan, interview, December 3, 2002. “The thing that struck me most …” and subsequent discussion. Dick Kirschten, “Bush as Boss,” Government Executive, July 2000. “He was somebody who has as little degree of pretension …” McMahan interview. Chapter 1“I wanted to be my own boss.” George W. Bush, A Charge to Keep, New York: Harper Collins, 1999, 57. “George spent a lot of time learning from other people.…” Helen Thorpe, “Go East, Young Man,” Texas Monthly June 1999. “had become very serious …” Michael Kranish, “Hallmarks of Bush Style Were Seen at Harvard,” Boston Globe, December 28, 1999, A1. “I wasn’t political then.” Kranish, Boston Globe. “I am sure your Mr. Bush has all the amiable qualities you describe.” From Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, xxi. “to know that [business] was not what I wanted to do with my life.” Bush, A Charge to Keep, 57–60. “Here you are at the West Point of capitalism.” Bush, A Charge to Keep, 60. “George was the person who in three months …” Thorpe, Texas Monthly. “I studied, and ran and rode my bike a lot.” Bush, A Charge to Keep, 61. “He was the perfect Sky Decker.” John Solomon, “Bush, Harvard Business Scho Chapter 1 Chapter 2“Every man who takes office in Washington …” Attributed to Woodrow Wilson. “he does have a strong belief in providence …” ABC News, Up Close, December 20, 2002. “Whenever you are asked if you can do a job …” Attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. “This is the only bureaucracy in Washington that can change to fit the personality of the president.” Richard L. Berke, “Bush is Providing Corporate Model for White House,” New York Times¸ March 11, 2001, Sec. 1, 1. “Get me Knuckles on the line …” Bruce McCall, “Yo, Sparky. Yeah, You Know Who You Are,” New York Times, February 18, 2001, Sec. 4, 2. Andrew Card’s version of Bush’s rules and Card’s commentary. Berke, New York Times. “I want justice.” “Excerpts From Bush’s Remarks on Retaliation,” New York Times, September 18, 2001, Sec. B, 4. “He’ll sit here …” Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1960, 9. “Hidden-hand” presidency. Fred Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eise Chapter 2 Chapter 3“I’m not afraid to surround myself with strong and competent people.” Stephen Hess, Organizing the Presidency, 3rd ed., Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2002, 168–169. “Individual commitment to a team effort …” Attributed to Coach Vince Lombardi. “I want a flat structure …” and “gave the senior staff members a great deal of access …” McMahon interview. “did not want someone to be chief of staff who was over-territorial …” John P. Burke, “The Bush Transition in Historical Context,” PS: Political Science and Politics, March 2002, 24. “I hope the American people realize that a good executive …” Stephen H. Hess, Organizing the Presidency, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2002, 168–169. “permanent campaign.” Interview, September 20, 2002. “Working in the White House should not be your first job.” Charles O. Jones, Passage to the Presidency, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998, 106. “Bush has tended to surround himself with people he’s taken the measure o Chapter 3 Chapter 4“They can say what they want about me …” George W. Bush, speaking to NBC’s Alexandra Pelosi, about fellow members of the media, Journeys with George, HBO documentary, 2002. “ … people should do what they say they are going to do …” Ronald Brownstein, “Bush’s Agenda Strategy: First Stand Fast, Then Bend,” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2001, A1. “Most White Houses are lucky if they get the furniture in.” Richard L. Berke, “Bush’s Transition Largely a Success, All Sides Suggest,” New York Times, January 27, 2001, 1. “No one in the public knew much who Ford was” and “but nobody every questioned his legitimacy.” David S. Broder, “Bush’s Challenge…,” Washington Post, December 19, 2000, A39. “half the voters thinking the president does not belong there …” Broder, “Bush’s Challenge.” “a presidency of small advances rather than broad, sweeping changes.” Janet Hook, “The Presidential Transition: Deep Rift Awaits Bush in Capital,” Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2000, A1. “… to strike th Chapter 4 Chapter 5“I … had the responsibility to show resolve. …” Woodward, Bush at War, p. 96. “He stays on message, and I think that really matters more than anything else. …” Evan Smith, “How W. Can Lose,” Texas Monthly, July 2000. Number of presidential press conferences. Presidential scholar Martha Joynt Kumar, quoted in Jim Rutenberg, “White House Keeps a Grip on Its News,” New York Times, October 14, 2002, C10. “bumblebee” approach. Francine Kiefer, “To Ask Bush a Question, Wait Your Turn,” Christian Science Monitor, April 6, 2001, 3. Kiefer was the “bumblebee” in question. “has the uncanny ability to suck information out of a room.” Jim Rutenberg, “White House Keeps a Grip on Its News,” New York Times, October 14, 2002, C1. “In this administration, the controls on information are tighter than in any other one I have covered.” Rutenberg, “White House Keeps a Grip on Its News.” “to be very, very disciplined and treat the press like caged animals and only feed them on a regular schedule.” Chapter 5 Chapter 6 “… we don’t have a lot of last-minute scrambling. …” Gerson interview, Up Close. “This is a buttoned-down administration, perhaps the most I’ve seen.” Matthew Engel, “Bush Thrives on Crisis Management,” The [Manchester, UK] Guardian, September 7, 2002, 4. “I was so out of shape,” along with the cover story. “A Postrun Chat with G.W.,” Runner’s World, October 2002. “one of the saddest things about the presidency” and “it keeps me disciplined.” Runner’s World, October 2002. “I guess that’s part of the stress relief I get from it.” Mike Allen, “Since Sept. 11, Exerciser Bush Finds Himself on War Footing,” The Washington Post, August 22, 2002, p. A15. Bush body fat measurements and pulse rate. Lawrence K. Altman, “Doctors Who Examine Bush Say He Is Exceptionally Fit,” New York Times, August 7, 2002, A13. “pump a few Arnies” and James Wilkinson pizza count. Dana Milbank, “Fit to Govern, and Then Some,” The Washington Post, June 17, 2002, C1. “The omnipresent feeling was confusion. Chapter 6 Chapter 7 “George Bush and several talented people around him have made the White House a power center …” Adam Nagourney, “Shift of Power to White House Reshapes Political Landscape,” New York Times, December 22, 2002, Sec. 1, 1. “In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside.” John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961. Molly Ivins’s description of Texas’s “weak governor” system. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), xiii. “to be for everything is to be for nothing.” Burka, “The W. Nobody Knows.” “We had so many goals we had no goals.” Vance McMahan interview. “We envision a state where it continues to be true that what Texas can dream, Texans can do.” Vision Texas, at http:// www.tcb.state.tx.us/Strategic_Plan/Toc482673721.htm “world-class schmoozer” and “He’s the only governor I’ve ever known that I would like to have sitting on my back porc Chapter 7 Chapter 8“If I have erred, I err in company with Abraham Lincoln.” Attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. “My administration will continue to act on the lesson’s we’ve learned so far …” President Bush Signs 9-11 Commission Bill, November 27, 2002. “Like certain distinctive wines, President George W. Bush does not travel well.…” Ben Macintyre, “Until You Laugh at Plastic Fish, Bush Will Be a Mystery,” The [London] Times¸ May 25, 2002, p. 26. “has a lousy legal system,” “Bush would be sitting in prison today,” “The Americans have enough oil,” and “Bush wants to distract attention from his domestic problems.…” Peter Finn, “German Official Compares Bush on Iraq to Hitler,” Washington Post, September 20, 2002, A19. “If there is dissent within the administration, we never hear about it.” Confidential interview with the author, November 12, 2002. “He is very focused on what is and is not ‘presidential level.’ …” and “He sniffs ill-conceived stuff by staff with almost unfailing intuition.” Confiden Chapter 8 Chapter 9“I’ve got confidence in my capabilities. I love to be underestimated.” “George W. Bush: Easy to Underestimate,” USA Today, June 8, 2000. “What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.” Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli. Not a bush but a “shrub.” Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, New York: Vintage Books, 2000. “It makes it all the easier for President Bush to succeed.” Richard S. Dunham, “The Best Way to Help Bush: Underestimate Him,” BusinessWeek Online, January 29, 2001. “I think we underestimate this man at our own peril.” Dunham, “The Best Way to Help Bush.” “Those who think that they can say we’re only going to have a stimulus package …” Press conference, March 29, 2001. “You come into office at zero years, and you’ve got 8 years ahead of you, hopefully.” “A Life in Public Service,” Conversations with Harry Kreisler, April 16, 1996 (Institute of International Studies, Berkeley, CA), at http: Chapter 9 The Strength of a Leader“… the executive is, first of all, expected to get the right things done.” Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive, 1.

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