This is what consultants do.
It is hard to imagine how Exxon survived Rex Tillerson. He engaged two pricey consultancies, and he didn’t even get a t-shirt out of it.
It’s possible to argue that the State Department needed some reorganization. The one substantive suggestion I’ve seen coming out of Tillerson’s shop (as distinct from the State Department) is that the number of special envoys needs to be decreased.
That’s actually a reasonable suggestion. A President sees a particular problem in foreign relations and appoints a person as special envoy to deal with it. Some are successful, some not. The existing organization is usually uneasy about them, sometimes hostile. They, or their office, may linger after the problem is no longer essential to address.
I’ve griped, mostly on Twitter, about the lack of information about this reorganization that Tillerson wants to bring about. What are his objectives? How does he plan to go about achieving them?
The State Department is not like Exxon. It is the primary governmental interface for the United States with the rest of the world, not a profit-making organization. Exxon’s objectives are much simpler: to get oil out of the ground in the cheapest way possible and sell it for the highest price possible.
That can become more complicated than the oilmen would prefer, so refineries must be built and the oil must be processed into a form that consumers want to buy. And so on. As an international corporation dealing in many types of sales in many countries, however, Exxon has a department that is not unlike the State Department in that it must learn about those countries and how to deal with them, again with much more limited objectives. So one might think that Tillerson has some sense of how the State Department works.
You might think that a proposal for a reorganization of the State Department might require as much information as is in the preceding few paragraphs, perhaps even more – that State issues passports and helps Americans abroad; that it develops the background information necessary to negotiate treaties; that it supports cultural and scientific exchanges, and more. Those functions are not the same as cost centers.
But consultants don’t even need to know that. They have apps that require only the name of the client to be input and can spit out a hash of processes, impact, execute, build, framework, and other buzzwords. “Elevate their leadership” and “appetite for change” are nice.
So look through this briefing for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. No mission statement. No description of what people actually do or are expected to do. No org chart for what the department will look like after the reorg. Thin even for what consultants do.
Does Rex Tillerson believe that this represents substance? Is he trying to BS Congress? As is so often the case in this administration, incompetence vies with maleficence.
Fair Economist
Tillerson is trying to sabotage. Closing down the sanctions office, buying out anybody who’s willing to quit – he’s just trying to do as much damage as possible. He’s gotta earn that Russian Order of Friendship award from Putin.
Snarki, child of Loki
I, for one, look forward to Trump’s minions “leveraging the synergy” and associated Buzzword 2.0 Compliant methods.
Seems like the best way to kill that stuff for good, at least until NASA gets its ass in gear and finishes up the “B Ark”.
gene108
God knows, who Tillerson is working for, but it sure as hell is not the American people.
Fair Economist
On a slightly different note, the consultants are doing what consultants do – giving upper management cover for what they want to do anyway. This seems particularly vapid because the goal is unusually destructive even by corporate management standards – there’s no plausible excuse possible so the consultants can do nothing other than emit of cloud of toxic impenetrable buzzword babble.
It’s easy to see how Tillerson became a leading Master of the Universe – he’s doing what they all do. The mystery is how they as a group are getting to run the world.
rp
When I was a little boy, my grandmother sat me down and said “grandson, the most important thing you can do in this life is to embed sustainable capability and produce demonstrable results as you execute change.”
I’ll never forget those stirring words.
HyperSphericalCow
@Fair Economist: It’s the modern-day equivalent of “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”. Today, it’s “Nobody ever got fired for following McKinsey’s recommendations.”
Raoul
Tillerson only wants to lift the oil export sanctions on Russia. That is his only goal.
dr. luba
Special envoys? Trump needs only one–Jared.
Raoul
Vaguely related to NatSec:
*Tweet contains blog-banned word
MattF
OT. Sausage roll Jesus deemed probably not kosher.
Tom
@Snarki, child of Loki: Still, I have yet to see anyone exceed my favorite, from (who else) W: “Catapult the propaganda.”
mai naem mobile
Are we sure it’s Tillerson and not Jarwd’s work? Remember Jared was the reorganizer in chief in the first few months. BTW, I remember hearing J9m Cramer on CNBC talking about how Dolt45’s cabinet were going to be patriotic Americans and their conflicts of interest weren’t going to be an issue. Asshole liars with their press courtiers.
randy khan
Although it hurt my eyes, I read (okay, skimmed) the whole thing. It’s a really fine aggregation of buzzwords, but a couple of things stood out:
1. Senior leadership is supposed to be involved in “breakthrough” projects as part of the brave new world. I’m guessing that peace in the Middle East or solving North Korea is not on the list, but it all will be about leveraging synergies to enable (I can’t even finish that sentence).
2. One of the slides actually mentions climate change as a current challenge. Whoever let that get into the presentation will pay for it.
mai naem mobile
@Raoul: was it a tint little one aimed at Dolt45? Wouldn’t a middle finger have been more appropriate ?
Gin & Tonic
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that my son is a current student at Fletcher. I think people there are kind of holding their breath and hoping sanity returns to DC at some point. But he wasn’t seriously thinking of a career at State – if he was, he’d have gone to Georgetown.
MattF
@randy khan: Agile!
ETA: I’m particularly taken with the descriptions of Phase II and Phase III without any mention of Phase I.
hellslittlestangel
OT: the lighter side of sexual misconduct —
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/absolutely-unacceptable-navy-apologizes-after-aircrew-members-draw-a-penis-in-the-sky/
Raoul
@Cheryl said “It is hard to imagine how Exxon survived Rex Tillerson.”
I think this is the most fascinating — and damning for much of corporate America — of the revelations of Rex’s ‘leadership’ at State. I have grown to loathe Dilbert for it’s idiot RW creator, but Rex seems to be the apex of Pointy-haired Boss.
And seeing how many corporations are supporting the GOP tax bill, I think a LOT of CEOs are as stupid and myopic as Tillerson. They see the impact of lower rates on their bottom line, but have, apparently, no understanding of how the one-two punch of increased taxes and destabilized ACA will have on a vast swathe of their customers. Jeebus! Who the fvk will buy the junk these companies are selling when we’re all broke and/or hoarding cash for future medical devastations?
The corporate world is so far from a meritocracy as to make me want to scream.
Just One More Canuck
it’s all buzzword bingo
D58826
OT but a nice writeup that explains the risk of the Frankel dust up much better than I can.
If Franken can be forced out based on a stupid sophomoric stunt 12 years ago then no public figure is safe. And if there is no convenient photo to display there is always photoshop to come to the rescue.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-al-franken-and-roy-moore-we-are-dangerously-close-to-botching-the-metoo-moment
Kelly
Amazing! I think that’s the same slides I saw at reorg meetings when I worked for Big Western Mining Corp and Gigantic Global Technology Corp back in the 20th century. What versatile set of ideas!
Paul W.
@gene108:
This
TenguPhule
Yes.
SATSQ.
TenguPhule
@Fair Economist:
I think Putin’s retirement policy for this Rex is the same one the T-rex got.
Fair Economist
@D58826: That’s a good writeup. The original #MeToo moment was working because it was focusing on serial sex offenders, where multiple witnesses to multiple events solves the he-said-she-said problem. It’s not going to fix everything, but it’s a huge step forward. Both the Franken attacker and the Moore lawyers are trying to undermine the factual basis needed for major reform – on the one side by an insistence on “always believe the accuser” and on the other by a claim that if *one* lied or exaggerated they all did. People are fairly cued into the Moore lawyer approach, because it’s old as the hills, but the Franken attacker approach will also kill reform because once you start demanding drastic action on wobbly accusations the consensus of support needed will collapse.
TenguPhule
@Raoul:
The Free Market will provide.
/I wish I was joking. This is their survival plan, apparently.
Betty Cracker
Good God, that’s depressing.
rikyrah
Serena Williams marries millionaire Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in a Beauty and the Beast themed wedding with an all-star guest list including Beyonce, Kim Kardashian and Anna Wintour
Kim Kardashian, Venus Williams, Beyonce and the members of New Edition were spotted arriving at the celebrity wedding of the decade
Sources say Serena chose a Beauty and the Beast theme for her nuptials to Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian
The tennis star’s best friends Ciara, La La Anthony and Kelly Rowland all arrived in the same car to the wedding venue, the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans
Editor-in-chief of Vogue Anna Wintour was seen spotted at the bar for the cocktail reception in a street, closed to the public, next to the venue
Serena was not spotted but sources said she wore two dresses for the occasion – one for the ceremony and one for the reception which was due to last until 3am
By Chris Spargo and Hannah Parry and Jose Lambiet In New Orleans For Dailymail.com
PUBLISHED: 19:33 EST, 16 November 2017 | UPDATED: 09:51 EST, 17 November 2017
tobie
I’ve got two management consultants in my family and for the life of me I can’t figure out what they do. It’s amazing that no matter what the industry the recommendations are always the same: downsize the work force and centralize authority in upper management. I’m waiting for the day a consultant would recommend decentralization. I guess the fear is that if this were to take effect, no one would be left to hire them at a hefty fee.
ericblair
@Kelly:
It’s all completely generic bullshit. Essentially, we’re going to list all of the high-level shit on the existing org chart, say that we’re going to make it better/more efficient/faster/bullshit bullshit, and then we’ll do it, somehow. That’s it, repeated over and over. Take a low-level grunt with zero insight, half an hour with wikipedia, and boom. I’m sure we all paid good money for this.
satby
@Cheryl up top:
True dat. For a minute I thought Tillerson swiped one of the slide decks my former company used to present at every outsourcing reorg, where we literally just changed the names and logos. I still have my own copies I used to customize for my presentations.
Then I remember Exxon used to be one of our accounts.
Eric NNY
@rp: A+
rikyrah
On taxes, GOP leader has some bad advice: ‘Just look at history’
11/16/17 11:20 AM
By Steve Benen
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) is back on Capitol Hill, and he’s doing his part to ensure his party’s tax plan clears the chamber this afternoon. As ThinkProgress noted, the Louisiana Republican’s pitch includes a straightforward suggestion: “Just look at history.”
Wouldn’t it be great if this were true? Wouldn’t it be amazing if policymakers knew with certainty, whenever economic growth disappointed, that they could simply cut taxes and turn things around?
Alas, reality is stubborn. Indeed, if we take Scalise’s advice and “look at history,” it points in a direction he and his caucus probably won’t like.
TenguPhule
@Fair Economist:
Not enough violent consequences for them.
Seriously. Those evil fuckers commit harm and never pay any price. That kind of lifestyle would warp anyone. But especially those who were evil at the start.
Chyron HR
@rp:
And be a simple kind of man…
Stan
Oh boy I can’t believe I am going to say this but: management is a thing. It is a distinct set of work just like digging a hole or cutting down a tree or welding two pieces of metal together. And just as you can generalize welding tasks (even though each job is a little different), you can generalize management tasks even though every organization is different.
I can’t believe all the people I’ve worked with over the years who were absolutely convinced that the problems in their organization were unique to their organization – that no one had ever faced these problems before – and therefore no advice I could give them was going to work. And they are almost always wrong.
I recently left a meeting with a bunch of PhDs discussing a management problem in a scientific organization that is essentially the same problem I dealt with 30 years ago in a VERY different organization. But no one would believe it.
There are crappy consultants whose knowledge is only powerpoint deep and who will screw up everything. And there are also really good ones who have a thing called ‘experience’ who can really help you out.
Just because Tillerson has the first kind doesn’t make this a universal thing.
rikyrah
Why the White House’s ‘welfare reform’ focus matters
11/17/17 11:20 AM
By Steve Benen
………………………………
The Hill had a related report, quoting unnamed House GOP members who said Trump specifically brought up welfare reform as of one his priorities. The article added, “The welfare line got a big applause, with one lawmaker describing it as an ‘off-the-charts’ reception.”
And while I’m sure the president was delighted by the applause, the political world needs to understand what the White House means by “welfare reform” – because it may not mean what everyone thinks it means.
The phrase immediately conjures up memories of 1996 and Bill Clinton’s compromise with a Republican Congress that overhauled the nation’s safety net, but in Trump World, “welfare reform” doesn’t appear to be focused on initiatives such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and related policies. Indeed, there’s not much more to reform on this front.
So what do Trump and his team mean when they use the phrase? As we discussed last week, Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council at Trump’s White House, shed some light on the subject when he sat down with CNBC’s John Harwood.
HARWOOD: Are you thinking that you’ll deal with that Social Security/Medicare/baby boomer retirement issue later by entitlement reform that reduces benefits?
COHN: Look, the president on the economic front laid out three core principles. Number one was [regulatory] reform, number two was taxes and number three was infrastructure. We’re working our way methodically through [regulatory] reform, taxes and infrastructure. I think when he gets done with those, I think welfare is going to come up. That’s our near-term economic agenda right now.
Note how “welfare” came in response to a question about social-insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare.
These fights don’t appear to be imminent – the GOP’s tax plan is clearly the party’s front-burner issue – but it looks like Trump World is laying the groundwork now. And given the increasing frequency with which the president brings up this priority, the fight is likely to be a doozy.
Dave
@rp: You know I’ve written crap like this as a damned buck SGT (so if you are a high priced consultant putting out this low quality of bullshit word salad you should be ashamed take some pride in your craft) because I needed stupid verbiage to fill up a silly report to people operating in fantasy land but how the hell did we ever collectively decide as a culture that this is what official language should evolve into?
Oh yeah and the smash and smash they are doing to State is horrible. It has it’s problems but this is possibly Bannon’s one real success when it comes to dismantling the “adminstrative state”. My cousin is on her first tour as an FSO in Vietnam I need to ask her how that’s going especially with Trump’s visit.
Cacti
This all sounds problematic, but at least we can agree that Al Franken is the worst person in the world.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: Ya think?
Cheryl Rofer
@Stan: I can absolutely agree with you, but that’s not what these slides are doing. They have no content relative to management as a thing either. They don’t point out that span of control is too wide in one place and too narrow in another. (From what I know about State, this is very likely true.) They don’t point out incompatibilities and hostilities between departments, like civil service versus foreign service, or that consular service gets dumped on by everyone.
And scientists, PhDs in particular, can be the worst at seeing generalities in management. I’ve seen that too.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: Someone has obviously cut the power to the traditional third rails of politics.
Just One More Canuck
The takeaway from this is whether they be able to operationalize their action steps in real time to roll out a synergistic turn-key solution and thus create a paradigm shift
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: Has he resigned from the Senate yet?
Teddys Person
@rikyrah: Someone needs to tell Scalise that it was JFK Jr’s dad that cut taxes.
rikyrah
Trump’s faux-billionaire cabinet secretary faces new troubles
11/17/17 10:42 AM—UPDATED 11/17/17 10:49 AM
By Steve Benen
When it comes to Donald Trump’s beleaguered cabinet, there’s no shortage of controversies, and one high-profile member has already been forced to resign. But of all the competing stories, the mess surrounding Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ finances might be the most entertaining.
Two weeks ago, Forbes magazine reported that Ross, one of the president’s billionaire cabinet members, appears to have been lying about being a billionaire. The article explained, in striking candor, that “Ross lied” to the magazine, and the “fibs, exaggerations, omissions, fabrications and whoppers” have been ongoing for over a decade.
This led the Bloomberg Billionaires Index to lower its net worth calculation for Ross to $860 million from $3 billion.
And while $860 million is the kind of extraordinary wealth most of us will never see, there’s a whole round of new questions about the scope and consequences of Ross’ alleged dishonesty. Forbes reported this week:
Among other things, these Senate Dems suspect Ross may not have been truthful with Congress during his cabinet confirmation process. Their letter asked the Commerce Department’s inspector general to examine “whether Secretary Ross has provided fabrications about other assets or shielded the existence of assets, and the extent to which false representations impacted the evaluation of and implementation of the ethics agreements he must now follow.”
Hoodie
@Raoul: these guys don’t think beyond the end of the quarter, and then they’re only thinking about the share price. This tax cut is fuel for a market run up, pure and simple. CEOs know that, which is why no one put his hand up when Cohn asked about expansion. They’ll take the bloated option packages, however. I think the GOPs game plan is just a Hail Mary to juice the stock market, hoping that the wealth effect will counterbalance the reduced demand coming from raising taxes on everyone else. The market is due for a downturn which, if coinciding with the midterms, means a bloodbath for the gop. This is their only hope, but it’s just setting up for a bigger crash down the road as the degradation of fundamentals (e.g., demand) accelerates.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: How do you know that’s a pork sausage?
Adam L Silverman
One point that I think is important to keep in mind and almost never reported is the Department of State actually went through a reorganization that began under Secretary Clinton and finished under Secretary Kerry. Specifically, the two distinct organizations under the supervision of the Secretary of State – the State Department and USAID – were reintegrated. Or better integrated. USAID, which had long been run as and saw itself as a semi-autonomous and separate department with a wholly separate mission from the Department of State was basically pulled back into State. This was a huge deal, because while USAID folks are foreign service officers, they are a niche, specialized type of foreign service officers with their own organizational/service culture, traditions, and preferred manner of undertaking their missions. I had the privilege of supervising a senior USAID officer while this was going on and got regular updates.
The difference between then and now seems to be that the reorg that better integrated USAID into State is that effort was purposeful, coordinated, and had clearly delineated objectives. Other than reducing the number of special envoys, not all of whom were really special envoys, some had the label/title, but were running specialty shops such as dealing with anti-Semitism, extremism, and religious discrimination, which coordinated efforts against these problems with counterparts in allied and partner states. This position was created in order to give a dedicated ambassadorial ranked envoy within the larger office that dealt with issues of religious discrimination a dedicated point person when dealing with these issues.
Fair Economist
@TenguPhule:
You’re making a joke but that’s what’s happened. The media is minimizing discussion of a bill that will produce hundreds of billions in cuts to the core safety net. That’s the third rail, and by not talking about it they cut power.
The Franken distraction yesterday was key because they got the opposition distracted on the day they took the first step. It’s only part of an ongoing strategy, though.
TenguPhule
@Hoodie:
Its Pump and Dump, but on a scale well beyond the normal penny stock scams.
rikyrah
Senate GOP pushes tax hike on families making less than $75,000
11/17/17 10:00 AM—UPDATED 11/17/17 10:17 AM
By Steve Benen
…………………………….
It’s worth emphasizing that the Joint Committee on Taxation is basically the Congressional Budget Office for tax bills. This isn’t a think tank or an advocacy organization; this is the congressional office responsible for scrutinizing tax bills for federal lawmakers.
And right now, that scrutiny is telling senators that the current Republican legislation would raise taxes on American households earning less than $75,000. If the GOP’s goal is “tax cuts for middle-class families,” the Senate Republican’s proposal does the exact opposite.
Amir Khalid
@Kelly:
Management consultants are like the crew of the Crimson Permanent Assurance. That set of ideas has yielded them decades of profitable success — decades, I tell you — at bilking corporations and duping CEOs into tearing the business apart for nothing. Why would they ever change it?
rikyrah
The Hill: The latest version of the Senate Republican tax bill includes a break for companies that manage private jets. https://t.co/WPiFyRbWxa
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 17, 2017
rikyrah
I think what bothers me most about Hatch is his self-righteousness on process when he’s held no hearings and wrote an intentionally partisan RECONCILIATION bill behind closed doors. https://t.co/4uHsEIJB0B
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) November 17, 2017
Obvious Russian Troll
I think part of it is that when times are good in most industries any idiot can make money if they have the infrastructure behind them. Competent leadership helps companies in bad times, and helps them avoid bad times in the first place.
Look at ESPN. For a while they could (and did) throw any old crap at their viewers (hello Skip Bayless!), but now that cord cutting is picking up momentum they’re struggling. They don’t have anybody who knows what they’re doing in charge.
There’s also inertia. Look at Sears, which still hasn’t gone under despite at least 15 years of craptacular management (and that’s just the period where I’ve been following them closely). Per wikipedia they had a profit of $1.5 billion as recently as 2006 but have lost more than 10 billion this decade. But because of their 20th century success they’ve managed to stay alive this long.
sharl
But if we kill a lot of special envoy slots, where will political apparatchiks like Sam Brownback find jobs after they’ve finished destroying state governments and whatnot?
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: It’s a British bakery. That’s how.
KithKanan
@Stan: The problem isn’t that good management consultants don’t exist and can’t provide meaningful benefit. The problem is there’s a large market for bad management consultants whose only function is to provide upper management with cover for the misguided policies they wanted to pursue anyway.
Major Major Major Major
@mai naem mobile: Was there talk of clouds or blockchains? That’s how you know it’s Jared.
Adam L Silverman
@sharl: They’re killing the ones that don’t play well to the Bannonite national-populists and/or the religious/social conservatives. Brownback’s position is specifically tailored to tickle the latter’s pleasure centers.
rikyrah
Dems, get a spine like Congressman Lieu
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool us 127 times all of which conveniently relates to omitting incriminating information about Russia, and you just might get prosecuted. https://t.co/dGTYpJYpTF
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 17, 2017
rikyrah
In moderation, please help
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Phrasing!
rikyrah
Should be noted that, throughout this process, Democrats have recommended many amendments which Republicans rejected. https://t.co/nCLWUU7gfl
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 17, 2017
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So I see, Tillerson mighty reorg just another hire some consultants to write a mission statements, design a new department logo and identify lateral synergies to accelerate. How very corporate America of him.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Well played.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And continue shoving every employee out the door.
Rex Tillerson’s actions are those of the worst kind of traitor.
Major Major Major Major
@tobie:
The management consultants I have in my life don’t know what they do either.
piratedan
If we’re ever fortunate enough to have a legitimate election again and we throw these assholes out, it sure seems like they’ll be an inordinate amount of time unfucking what the GOP did. Everywhere. Yeah, lets modify the tax code, lets see some 50% tax brackets for folks making over 5m a year, corporate tax rate up to 25% and strip out all of those lovely exceptions tat they made forthemselves. Estate taxes re-introduced. Taxes on yachts, gold courses… hate to say it, but all of this heinous shit makes me want to be a wild-eyed radical in sticking it to these people that are intent and making themselves untouchable in a perpetual economic and politically safe bubble.
Kelly
@Stan:
If you know how to dig holes, if you know how to cut down trees, If you know how to weld, yes you can generalize. But the generalizations are only useful on the surface and to approximate project resources. My old man ran heavy equipment mostly building logging roads. He could tell at a glance what the dirt was going to do and which trees were dangerous to fall. I grew up listening to the latest arguments about engineers project plans meeting forest realities. The I got a CS degrees and had remarkably similar arguments with bright young MBAs about what are systems really did or really could do. Full disclosure my youngest son is now a bright young MBA ;-).
TenguPhule
JFC, Grad students across the nation are going to become Sovereign Rights recruits if this tax abomination passes.
Taxing the stipends is bad enough, but treating their TUITION WAIVER as fucking taxable income?
rikyrah
Trump’s DHS community outreach director quits over racist record
11/17/17 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen
Marc Short, the White House’s legislative affairs director, recently told NBC News, “I think the president believes it is his role to improve race relations.” If so, Donald Trump has his team have quite a bit of work to do.
The Washington Post reported late yesterday, for example:
And what a report it was. Johnson, who was appointed to lead the DHS’s outreach office by John Kelly, now the White House chief of staff, established quite a record of ugly rhetoric towards minority groups.
CNN’s piece highlighted one particularly striking instance in which Johnson explained his belief that black people were anti-Semitic out of jealousy of the success of Jewish people.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 11/16/17
Newly flipped witness may have info on Turkey’s and Mike Flynn
Tom Winter, NBC News investigative reporter, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian national wanted by Turkey and charged in the U.S. for sanctions violations is talking with prosecutors and may have information about Mike Flynn.
TenguPhule
@piratedan:
Room on the couch over here.
8 years of President Obama playing national janitor, then 10 months of Republican rule and now the Augean stables are worse off then when he started.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I want Flynn to go down and pull Under His Eye Pence with him.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: He’s not even the worst one at DHS. You’ve got Seb (son of Hugo Drax and Soviet era coffee machine) Gorka’s wife there. And you’ve got Frank Wuco there as well.
Mike J
@MattF:
Would it have been better if the sausage had been human meat?
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: He’ll have to ask: “Mother may I?”
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: Yeah but there’s not a lot of them, they’re already Democrats, and they tend to live in those pesky blue states that the tax bill is actively punishing, soooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
trollhattan
If they don’t use paradigm-shifting to leverage their core competencies in a fashion that results in synergies and peak efficiency then they need to
be firedhave their contract extended.rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 11/16/17
Senate asks Kushner for info about ‘Russian backdoor overture’
Rachel Maddow reports on a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee to Jared Kushner asking for him to submit a more complete set of documents, including one about a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” – whatever that is!
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Not a lot of them compared to what?
debit
@Mike J: Only if it was made of priest. /Sweeny Todd joke
Kelly
@Mike J:
I’m certain the lab grown steak folks are working in this.
rikyrah
They are trying to kill American citizens.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 11/16/17
Inept recovery keeps most of Puerto Rico still with no power
Rachel Maddow repots on the continuing botched recovery effort in Puerto Rico where progress in bringing electricity back is regularly countered by backslides in areas that are supposed to have already been repaired.
Aleta
Great post. Also you describe so concisely the infection that (imo) is killing traditional functions of US institutions. They are not just physical operations; but (imo) social cohesion is purposely being ignored to advance political philosophy.
Stan
@Just One More Canuck: That’s EXACTLY what I was trying to say ;)
Booger
@Just One More Canuck: Hey, why don’t you stop getting wrapped around the axle, think outside the box and take the thirty-thousand foot view fer chrissakes? We aren’t on the Road to Abilene here!
Aleta
@rikyrah: That was well worth the new character count limit …. And thanks, I really enjoyed that. I’m grateful there are still people like him to inspire me and for us to admire.
Dave
@Adam L Silverman: I’m trying to imagine Mrs. Gorka. The mind boggles at it. It just refuses to engage with the idea.
Stan
@Kelly:
Well yes, we agree. That’s what generalizations are.
And I’m an old MBA with a sore back….but I’ve done lots of jobs and learned that the same management problems come up again and again. Ad its usually shitty leadership ;)
trollhattan
@Dave:
Well, the frau certainly hitched herself to one alpha male. Just ask him!
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Yup. He creeps me out worse than the Marigold Moron.
Just One More Canuck
@Booger: The core competencies I bring to the table are an ability to facetime with relevant stakeholders to get buy in at the C-level., componentize deliverables on the critical path, then circle back around to incentivize best practices implementation
Kelly
@Stan: I worked with some good MBAs. They usually had experience closer to what we we’re working on. Although one that worked out well the tech company hired from Frito Lay. She used to say “Corn chips microchips it’s all the same”, but she meant it in jest and burrowed down to detail.
Adam L Silverman
@Dave: She’s one of the Corning heiresses.
Jack the Second
I think there’s a particular bias, maybe not unique to Americans but certainly prevelant here, to assume the head of a large company is a better leader than the head of a small company. This is a bit akin to assuming the driver of a large car is a better driver than the driver of a small car. Which may also be something people assume, but–
Aleta
@D58826: I see it as another example of the threat we face from news operations driven by profit, speed, popularity, political pressure. Up against fake news and distortions we need to support ethical journalists by reading and subscribing.
Right now the fastest way, that I can think of, to reduce distorted news coverage is to reduce the number of people who watch it, or at least to have large boycotts organized at the same time.
Ruckus
@tobie:
Going to unpack this a bit.
Those management consultants? They don’t know what they do either. Except get paid to enhance the next quarter’s bottom line. The only fast way to do that is cut costs. So the mantra is “Always Cut Costs.” You can’t sell office space, that’s where management lives. If it’s a production company you can’t sell equipment, you can’t produce. So the only thing left is sell people, or more specifically sell jobs.
Here’s the kicker. As they are in the job elimination business, they do understand that if anyone caught on to the base idea, they would be even more useless than they are. So they bullshit with lofty words that mean nothing. That’s why you can’t understand them, they don’t want to be understood, they want to be hired.
catclub
@Fair Economist:
I think there are at least 6 Department heads who are doing nothing but sabotage. And somehow the press just will not use that word.
Today it was Mick Mulvaney appointed to also run CFPB.
KithKanan
@catclub: Only 6? I’m trying to think of anyone Trump has appointed (outside of police/military) who isn’t fundamentally opposed to the mission of the department/division they’re in charge of.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: …compared to most voting constituencies? Might be 2 million grad students in a good year, spread out around mostly blue, mostly high-population states.
catclub
@rikyrah:
that was when SS (FICA) was INCREASED on workers to save up for the lock-box future.
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
Your opening sentence tells all. They don’t look past the next quarter. They will worry about the quarter after that next quarter when they are rich. It’s grab and run economics. That is one reason why most any business person in politics is horrible.
A country requires long term thinking, but almost all business people above middle management these days are only interested in maximizing profits in the next quarter. And with our Must Be Asshole business education structure that’s about all that’s left in management. All that’s left that gets listened to.
catclub
@KithKanan: DHS and DOJ: they are finding more evil ways to use the tools.
EPA, DOE, Interior, Education, State, Labor, HHS are sabotage. Commerce basically unchanged. Defense relatively unchanged.
what else is there?
KithKanan
@catclub: Arguably, most of the sub-level appointees at DHS and DOJ are fundamentally opposed to the stated mission of the divisions they lead too.
Particularly DOJ. Like Trump would appoint anyone who supported effective prosecution of civil rights/anti-trust violations or financial crimes/money laundering.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
To the current PTB middle class requires a minimum 6 figure income. Anyone less than that is poor. Can you live on $80,000 a year? Yes you can. You won’t drive a $100,000 car or own your own plane but one can live, have health care, survive. It can be done on less if everything lines up reasonably.
But the current PTB are not reasonable. The are living in a bubble, and they don’t care about anyone who isn’t in the same bubble.
Ruckus
@KithKanan:
The current business bullshit has been going on long enough that the people that used to be middle management are now upper management. This is what most upper management knows, it’s what they were taught, it’s what got them into upper management.
laura
@rikyrah: Solange set a pretty high bar for a NOLA wedding, but if anyone could clear it, it would be Ms. Williams.
While a theme wedding isn’t my cuppa tea, I’ll bet a grand good time was had by all in this beautiful City.
TenguPhule
@catclub: Food and Drug
But her emails!!!
@Stan:
If the leadership were good in 9 cases out of 10 they wouldn’t need to hire management consultants to do the job that higher level management is ostensibly paid to do. There are occasions when companies face unexpected challenges/opportunities or a rapidly shifting competitive environment where management consultants are justified and useful but in most cases consultants are brought in after a clusterfuck of the current managements making. The sure sign of the consultants being full of fecal matter is when their recommendations in addition to laying people off, include the idea of further centralizing power and control with the individuals who screwed the pooch in the first place thereby requiring the firm to pay for high priced management consultants.
laura
@trollhattan:
Needs moar “platforms.”
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
As near as I can tell, SOP for contemporary Republicans in government positions is 1) show up knowing nothing about your department (remember Ben Carson’s “I’m not qualified”), 2) spew a bunch of platitudes about how, being a public/federal agency, the organization you’re in charge of is necessarily and inevitably wasteful and inefficient and bad and inferior to private sector organizations, 3) thump your chest about how, as a private sector Captain Of Industry, you’re going to trim the fat and crack the whip and make those lazy bureaucrats work for their salaries, and 4) leave the room and let a few cronies worry about how (like you did in the private sector), with no instructions to them other than “Do Something.”
It’s a religion. They don’t need to know what’s going on with their organizations; their ideology provides all the answers, namely “you suck” and “I’m going to run you like a business,” and they think that simply by virtue of their awesomeness they’re going to make it better. After all, they’re swimming in a culture that won’t stop telling them that their status as rich people makes them special and awesome and the smartest ones in the room.
Chris
@rikyrah:
The only thing that surprised me is that he quit. As someone at LGM said, this probably means there are imminent sexual harassment accusations on the way.
wvng
@Raoul: I do wonder if Russia doesn’t also have serious dirt on him as well as their shared goal of lifting sanctions.
FlyingToaster
As a tech consultant, I’d make this kind of presentation to sell my services, not once I was being paid.
When I’m on contract, my clients get a full report, with citations, examples, and breadcrumb trails. Or they’re paying me to build the damn thing, so they’re getting functional objectives (rather more detailed than this), functional outline, and a functional spec, before construction starts.
If you hired these assholes to write an educational simulator, they’d deliver a PDF file.
J R in WV
@Cacti:
No, NO NO we can't!! Everybody knowses that Killary Clinton and her husband Bill are the worst person in the world!!!
Actually, pseudo-president Rump is the worst person in teh free world, and Vladimir Putaneausco is the worst person in the Soviet Blok. Short Fat Rocket Boy is the worst person in the feudal Korean world, also too.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
So… Mr Gorka may be kept on a short leash by his Ms. An acquaintance of mine, fellow who worked in another office for the outfit I worked for, married an heiress, but there were hidden barbs. Pre-nup from hell. The money is hers, and she decides how it is spent. Kind of hell for a guy who wants to be an alpha male.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@wvng: The obvious answer is yes. I mean, if I were a foreign adversary of the US, #1 on my list of objectives would be to severely damage the US State Department as it’s the vehicle via which the US projects its soft power, negotiates in its own interest and advocates for itself. Tillerson is selling us out to Putin…the consultants and reorg are just cover because they just can’t up and admit they’re committing treason, despite the fact that It’s happening in plain sight.
Tehanu
In Connie Willis’s book Bellwether, a change of management brings in a load of consultants doing their consultant thing. One of the characters asks a friend for help in filling out a required survey of actions the company should take. The friend says, “Oh, that’s easy, I use these for everything:
1. Optimize potential
2. Facilitate empowerment
3. Implement visioning
4. Strategize priorities
5. Augment core competencies and structures.”
I’ve used these myself at the office and nobody ever says a word. That’s because when you’re slinging bullshit anyway, somebody else’s better-written bullshit always trumps yours. Thanks Connie!