首页
登录
职称英语
(1)Harry Truman didn’t think his successor had the right training to be pres
(1)Harry Truman didn’t think his successor had the right training to be pres
游客
2023-11-27
10
管理
问题
(1)Harry Truman didn’t think his successor had the right training to be president. "Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army," he said. "He’ll sit there all day saying ’do this, do that,’ and nothing will happen." Truman was wrong about Ike. Dwight Eisenhower had led a fractious alliance—you didn’t tell Winston Churchill what to do—in a massive, chaotic war. He was used to politics. But Truman’s insight could well be applied to another, even more venerated Washington figure: the CEO-turned cabinet secretary.
(2)A 20-year bull market has convinced us all that CEOs are geniuses, so watch with astonishment the troubles of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul O’Neill. Here are two highly regarded businessmen, obviously intelligent and well-informed, foundering in their jobs. (3)Actually, we shouldn’t be surprised. Rumsfeld and O’Neill are not doing badly despite having been successful CEOs but because of it. The record of senior businessmen in government is one of almost unrelieved disappointment. In fact, with the exception of Robert Rubin, it is difficult to think of a CEO who had a successful career in government.
(4)Why is this? Well, first the CEO has to recognize that he is no longer the CEO. He is at best an adviser to the CEO, the president. But even the president is not really the CEO. No one is. Power in a corporation is concentrated and vertically structured. Power in Washington is diffuse and horizontally spread out. The secretary might think he’s in charge of his agency. But the chairman of the congressional committee funding that agency feels the same. In his famous study "Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents," Richard Neustadt explains how little power the president actually has and concludes that the only lasting presidential power is "the power to persuade."
(5)Take Rumsfeld’s attempt to transform the cold-war military into one geared for the future. It’s innovative but deeply threatening to almost everyone in Washington. The Defense secretary did not try to sell it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, the budget office or the White House. As a result, the idea is collapsing.
(6)Second, what power you have, you must use carefully. For example, O’Neill’s position as Treasury secretary is one with little formal authority. Unlike Finance ministers around the world, Treasury does not control the budget. But it has symbolic power. The secretary is seen as the chief economic spokesman for the administration and, if he plays it right, the chief economic adviser for the president.
(7)O’Neill has been publicly critical of the IMF’s bailout packages for developing countries while at the same time approving such packages for Turkey, Argentina and Brazil. As a result, he has gotten the worst of both worlds. The bailouts continue, but their effect in holstering investor confidence is limited because the markets are rattled by his skepticism.
(8)Perhaps the government doesn’t do bailouts well. But that leads to a third rule: you can’t just quit. Jack Welch’s famous law for re-engineering General Electric was to be first or second in any given product category, or else get out of that business. But if the government isn’t doing a particular job at peak level, it doesn’t always have the option of relieving itself of that function. The Pentagon probably wastes a lot of money. But it can’t get out of the national-security business.
(9)The key to former Treasury secretary Rubin’s success may have been that he fully understood that business and government are, in his words, "necessarily and properly very different." In a recent speech he explained, "Business functions around one predominate organizing principle, profitability... Government, on the other hand, deals with a vast number of equally legitimate and often potentially competing objectives—for example, energy production versus environmental protection, or safety regulations versus productivity."
(10)Rubin’s example shows that talented people can do well in government if they are willing to treat it as its own separate, serious endeavour. But having been bathed in a culture of adoration and flattery, it’s difficult for a CEO to believe he needs to listen and learn, particularly from those despised and poorly paid specimens, politicians, bureaucrats and the media. And even if he knows it intellectually, he just can’t live with it. [br] Why did Rumsfeld’s attempt to reform the US military fail?
选项
答案
Because Rumsfeld worked like a CEO in pursuing the reform.
解析
原文说,Rumsfeld想要对军队改革,但他“没想过要把自己的想法兜售给”有关各方,结果,改革的计划落空了。本段是一个例子,用来说明前一个段落中的主题:政府权力机构与公司不同,政府首脑不可把自己当作CEO来运作。故本题答案可表述为Because Rumsfeld worked like a CEO in pursuing the reform。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3224022.html
相关试题推荐
Themoneytheyinvestfortrainingalsomorehighlyconcentratedonprofessional
PASSAGETHREE[br]Whatdoesthesentence"thegovernmenthascut...trainingcou
PASSAGEFOUR[br]Whyistrainingtobecomeabarristerorsolicitoracompetiti
(1)Trainingtobecomeabarristerorsolicitorisacompetitiveandexpensiv
(1)Trainingtobecomeabarristerorsolicitorisacompetitiveandexpensiv
(1)HarryTrumandidn’tthinkhissuccessorhadtherighttrainingtobepres
(1)HarryTrumandidn’tthinkhissuccessorhadtherighttrainingtobepres
(1)HarryS.TrumanHighSchoolintheBronxhaseightfloors,sevengymnasiu
PASSAGETHREE[br]Whatdoesthesentence"thegovernmenthascut...trainingcou
Theexpansionofadulttrainingprogramshasresultedpartiallyfromthefeminis
随机试题
AnimalLanguageSomepeoplesaythathumanbeingsare
NewYorkisthemostpopulous(人口多的)cityintheUnitedStates,inametropoli
WhatdoNationalSemiconductor,MaxwellHouseCoffee,Deloitte&Touche,and
某施工单位通过投标竞争承包了西山高速公路施工项目,并与建设单位签订了施工承包合同
建筑室内装饰装修设计的标高应标注该设计空间的相对标高,通常以本层的楼地面装饰完成
《公路水运工程安全生产监督管理办法》要求,生产经营单位应当建立健全生产安全事故隐
在温度和湿度状况不良的城市道路上,应设置垫层,以改善路面结构的使用性能。垫层分为
下列著作中属于语录体散文集的是( )。 A.《汉书》 B.《
关于期货居间人表述正确的有( )。A.居问人不能从事投资咨询和代理交易等期货交
机织土工布有()。A.加筋功能 B.隔离功能 C.反滤功能 D.防护功能
最新回复
(
0
)