Advice for President Obama on Completing the Team

Max's advice for February 23, 2009

Dear President Obama,

Max grew up as the son of a man who knew 'ALL' the answers to the problems of the world. Max's father said so! Many times, his father let everyone know that anyone who didn't know that he had the answers was a turkey or a knucklehead.

The famous Ma Bell, the second most powerful force in the world (next to God of course), thought so much of Max's father's opinions, that she made him 'Supervisor of Troubles'. This is true!

The advice Max promised you, President Obama.

Take a few days and complete your team!

Max knows that your head must be spinning by about now. All the running around you have had to do to get the stimulus passed; visiting with a neighborly head of state in Canada; phone calls from Hillary to keep you up on things; calls from people in Palestine, Israel and other Mediterrean based countries; strategic planning with the generals and admirals; and economic planning to salvage the economy.

On top of this you have your family to think of. Your head must indeed be spinning.

Be that as it may, you need to get more boots on the ground in Washington as soon as you can. You need to make sure that all positions have a candidate named. It would be a good idea to have a few alternatives ready to fill the roles. Your Chief of Staff should either be out there looking for you, or he should have a team actively looking for good candidates.

It would not hurt your government to have a senior citizen or two filling some of the important roles (as long as you have some good second in commands to fill in as needed).

Bureaucracies work best when they are both lean in number assigned and bloated in number of potential candidates. This means the sitting candidate must perform or must hand off to a qualified person when the bureaucracy is well managed.

Many of your first picks have fallen out without you being able to quickly name another candidate. This shows a lack of progression planning of the part of yourself and your team.

You should assume from the beginning that events will take people out of position, cause them to leave, be needed in another position, be affected by a personal event, have fate kick them for a loop and all the other contingencies that can occur.

Just as a realistic budget assumes monies to handle risks, like war and floods, a realistic personnel plan assumes that no one person will be available tomorrow morning for the job you thought they would be doing. Your administration needs to learn how to do some contingency planning so that when Mr. X steps back from the secretary role, Miss Z can step right in.

In running a country it is not about who your friends are. It is all about competence for the job assigned. You need to be dispassionate about who you put into each position and you have to demand that they deliver to their stated plan with you.

Max wishes you well in all your efforts build a government for the 21st Century.

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Link one is the National Center for State Courts' take on succession planning.

Link two is an OPM blurb on succession planning.

Link three is the GSA blurb on this topic.