Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - October 19, 2014
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Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.
When executives just don't know how to execute
- America made the mistake of starting off with a celebrity President
- But Washington became the "father" of the country by executing the goals laid out for him by the Congress
- We make a huge mistake in letting Presidents set any kind of agenda. Get the legislation and lawmaking out of your system in your youth.
- The root of "executive" is shared with "execute" -- what we really want are skillful technocrats in the executive branch; people who know how to get things done effectively and efficiently
- That's why Republicans have tended to do well as governors (their general political philosophy tends to be about getting more done with less, and people like the results) -- and why Senators make terrible Presidential candidates (the horse-trading and vote-swapping necessary to hashing out legislation isn't at all the same skill set that creates effective "national CEOs"
- There's nothing wrong with visionaries in government, and we should want our Presidents to come from some kind of philosophical background; but letting Presidents act also as prime ministers isn't healthy
- This is a different problem from the head-of-state vs. head-of-government problem, though it's real, too
Winning with the right temperament last week
- If you started every morning by reading Facebook or watching the news headlines, you were probably inclined to panic and think the world was coming to an end.
- The "noise" out there was definitely sour
- But if you started the day by reading something thoughtful, you could have programmed yourself to cut through the noise to get to the real "signal" instead
- Temperament matters in times like these
This week
In case you missed it
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