Hmmm...wonder why Vrai didn't publish these two articles from this week (I'll post the second one in a moment)...she spent the entire primary proclaiming Trump's CEO capabilities???
The title of this piece is: "Would You Let Trump Run Your Company". Go ahead Vrai...go ahead Gilligan...answer that question...answer it honestly...and with the long term future of this country in mind (not your pathetic little financial interests Gilligan...the country's).
None of these failings are the result of Democrats, fake news, Russia or NHboy's stupid memes. ALL of these failings are the direct result of the obvious and transparent character, leadership, ethical and educational flaws of Mr. Trump. Flaws that "informed" Republican voters ignored in the primaries.
The title of this piece is: "Would You Let Trump Run Your Company". Go ahead Vrai...go ahead Gilligan...answer that question...answer it honestly...and with the long term future of this country in mind (not your pathetic little financial interests Gilligan...the country's).
So out of all the ways in which Trump might want to be measured, judging him as a chief executive would seem to be the fairest to him. Forget about ideology, his political agenda, or whether you voted for him; just judge him on whether he has been a competent executive. Would you want to leave him in charge? Or would you be calling an emergency board meeting?
The Comey fracas is the latest in a long list of apparent transgressions for which a normal CEO might lose his job. In the last week, Trump stood accused of having passed on intelligence secrets to the Russians. Any business chief who invited a competitor into the boardroom and then disclosed sensitive information would be in peril. (Klaus Kleinfeld lost his job at Arconic Inc. merely because he wrote an unauthorized stroppy letter to a truculent shareholder.) Appointing inexperienced relatives to important positions is not normally seen as good corporate governance. Jes Staley is currently in trouble at Barclays Plc just for allegedly protecting a friend. The White House was made aware that Flynn had lied to the vice president on Jan. 26, but he didn’t hand in his resignation to Trump until Feb. 13. Any board would want an explanation for that delay. Finally, any CEO who says something that is manifestly untrue in public or on his résumé is in hot water. Those who refuse to correct themselves quickly and satisfactorily often have to go—as happened to the bosses at Yahoo! Inc. and RadioShack.
Behind this list of individual transgressions sit four larger failings: This CEO-in-chief has failed to get things done; he has failed to build a strong team, especially in domestic policy; he hasn’t dealt with conflicts of interest; and his communications is in shambles.
It’s harder to achieve things in politics than in business, as many businesspeople-turned-politicians (including the owner of this magazine) will attest. But Trump’s record of achievement would make any corporate compensation committee cringe. Despite his party controlling both the Senate and the House, health care is stuck: Trump seems to have made the elementary CEO mistake of wanting to get rid of something without having any idea of what to replace it with. Tax reform, another signature theme, currently fills a single piece of paper. If any chief executive had shown that to his board, the members would have assumed it was an April Fools’ Day prank. The details of his great promise to build $1 trillion of infrastructure have yet to be delivered to Congress. He has issued a string of executive orders, but some of them, notably on restricting immigration, have been so poorly crafted the courts have blocked them.
It’s not a completely blank slate. Trump has appointed a competent Supreme Court justice. He’s made deregulation a priority. In national security, perhaps thanks to the grown-up trio of Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and H.R. McMaster (Flynn’s replacement as National Security Adviser), he’s shown some signs of deftness and purpose, such as the missile attack on Syria. On “fair trade,” the area ironically where most businesspeople wish him failure, he may have made progress with Mexico and Canada. But in general, America’s stock has dropped abroad: The president has messed around his customers and suppliers (one way to look at allies), with many drifting toward America’s principal long-term competitor, China.
Much of this would be retrievable if Trump had been doing what most sensible incoming CEOs do: building a team to govern the country. This second big failing is where he looks least professional. His list of unfilled posts and ambassadorships is far lengthier than Obama’s. Europeans don’t even know whom to discuss the G-7 with. And there’s the whiff of cronyism. Trump’s instinct has been to stick with friends, like Flynn, and relations, like his 36-year-old son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He seems to spend as much time listening to Kushner on foreign policy as he does to the more seasoned Tillerson-Mattis-McMaster trio. There appears to be little structure in the White House. It’s more like a court than a company, with the king retiring to bed with a cheeseburger and spontaneously tweeting orders.
This dysfunction is fed by a cavalier approach toward conflicts of interest. In most businesses, this is something most incoming bosses deal with quickly and automatically. There’s an ethics policy, and you follow it. That policy usually has two levels: first, obeying the law; second, setting standards and following processes that avoid even the impression of any conflict. This second prohibitive level is crucial.
None of these failings are the result of Democrats, fake news, Russia or NHboy's stupid memes. ALL of these failings are the direct result of the obvious and transparent character, leadership, ethical and educational flaws of Mr. Trump. Flaws that "informed" Republican voters ignored in the primaries.