Obama’s Managerial Chops

April 7, 2009 on 3:14 pm | In Barack Obama |

It already seems like eons ago that there was a national political debate asserting that Barack Obama’s only experience in management of anything was as a “community organizer,” a throwaway phrase uttered with such overt disdain it could just have been “junior refuse collector.”

And yet no one could argue that, in the face of the seemingly endless onslaught of complex, data-heavy economic, housing, financial policy issues, corporate governance, international diplomacy and defense challenges, this man has demonstrated a command of leadership and management rarely seen in any forum.

Leadership because he has focused on the message, as much as on the means. Management because he has put in place capable lieutenants to drive forward processes, while keeping a tight hold on the big picture issues and top level decisions needing to be made.

Then, not just keeping up with the decisions, but driving the articulation of the right questions, and the pace of the decision making itself, including alternative plans when called for.

So far, in my humble but happy opinion, there may be no final score yet, but we’ve been seeing an incredible pace and quality of basketball being played–and I’m not talking about the NCAA.

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