The Difference Between Leading and Wonking

by BILL WADDELL

There are lots of reasons why even the most liberal pundits are acknowledging Romney as the clear winner of last night's debate.  The high point for me, however, was the exchange in which Romney explained the difference between leading and policy wonking to Obama.

You can read the actual words spoken by the two of them here in the transcript, but to paraphrase, Obama attempted to attack Romney for the lack of specific details behind some of his plans.  Romney replied that the details were not something he was going to dictate - just the principles.  He cited reducing tax deductions as an example, saying that there were lots of ways to do it.  One way might be to simply put a cap on them - keep all of the existing deductions in place but tell folks their total deductions could not exceed $25,000.  Another approach might be to go through the deductions line by line and keep some, while eliminating others.  His point was that the method was not important so long as the fundamental principle of reducing the deductions was met.  He cited the approach Reagan took when working with Tip O'Neill as an example.

The implication to me was that, had Obama approached Congress and the American people with a set of objectives for health care overhaul, for instance, asserting that he would go along with just about anything Congress wanted so long as it met his critical objectives - no one dropped for pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps on coverage, access to insurance for everyone, etc...the President would have been more successful.  Going to Congress with a comprehensive plan worked out in incredible detail and shoving it on Congress (and by definition, the American people) on a 'take it or leave it' basis resulted in confusion, dissention and a very strong possibility that it will be tossed out.

This resonated so strongly with me because of the clear parallels with effective leadership of a lean transformation.  Toyota's operational true north is nothing more than a set of guiding principles - one piece flow, zero defects, zero non-value adding costs, and 100% employee engagement.  The specific actions to move the company closer to those objectives are left to managers, groups of employees and engineers.  There is not a massive policy manual dictated from executives and staff wonks on high telling people exactly what they are supposed to do to meet those objectives.

The best road map and the maximum buy-in comes from letting people closer to the ground work out the details.  So long as the path they come up with effectively moves the group in the right direction there is little to be gained and quite a lot to lose by having the boss meddle with the details.  Perhaps the best boss I ever worked for was a guy named Dean Ruwe at Emerson's Copeland Division.  He often said that his job was to make sure the herd was headed north, which trail the herd followed was not important do long as it was headed in that direction.

Whether you are an executive attempting to transform an entire company, a manager tasked with changing a department, an employee leading a kaizen event, or a consultant advising an organization if you go into it with a set of specific, detailed mandates ... you must follow steps 1,2,3; you must implement systems or procedures that follow this precise logic; you must do things exactly this way because that is what Toyota did ... you are very likely to fail. 

On the other hand, if you go into it with a clear objective, telling people that it is up to them to set the detailed path; letting them now that one option might be to follow Toyota's example, but the best path will be one of their own making; that everyone's opinions and ideas are needed but the final decisions should be weighted most heavily toward the ideas from the people closest to the work actually being changed; you are very apt to succeed.

 Every organization has its nay-sayers and opponents to change.  They lie in the weeds waiting for the change agent to spell out the details so they can pounce with all of the flaws in the plan.  In politics, the Washigton Post's Ezra Klein is their Republican basher in chief - never having heard a Republican proposal he cannot criticize.  It is humorous reading his "Romney's Policy Vagueness Pays Off" acknowledging that Romney (1) won the debate, and (2) gave him no fodder.

It is as if Romney said ' we need to drive from Chicago to Tucson and people have proposed going south through St Louis, onto Oklahoma, through a corner of Texas and in from the east; others have suggested going straight west to Denver, then south into New Mexico and in that way.  I've looked at the map and both look workable to me; but even those routes can probably be improved on by people who have driven them before, and there may well be other options I haven't seen.  I will support whatever the people making the trip want to do so long as it gets us there on time.'  Do that and the Ezra Kleins in your organization are left to fume and fuss at your successful leadership, but powerless to stop you.

Original: http://www.idatix.com/manufacturing-leadership/the-difference-between-leading-and-wonking/

Comments

[Jonathan]

Bill, this is very well put but I think you left out an important dimension. At best, Obama's style of leadership is like that of a lawyer drawing up a contract. His goal is to win by maximizing his client's share of the gains while minimizing the client's share of the responsibility. At worst, Obama is a political narcissist whose goal is personal political gain while deflecting to others all blame for mistakes. By contrast, Romney is making clear that he is the kind of leader who seeks to benefit by improving the overall performance of the company, or in this case country. It's not only true that effective leaders are skilled at leading, it's also true that they tend to define their interests differently than the naysayers do, and that some of the naysayers see their own interests as being contrary to the interests of the organization.

[Mark Welch]

Bill - In principle, I agree with this passage of your post:

"The implication to me was that, had Obama approached Congress and the American people with a set of objectives for health care overhaul, for instance, asserting that he would go along with just about anything Congress wanted so long as it met his critical objectives - no one dropped for pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps on coverage, access to insurance for everyone, etc...the President would have been more successful."

The thing is, congress has proven time and time again, not just year after year, but decade after decade, that with healthcare, they are/were incapable (reluctant, actually) of doing just as you prescribed. The only way a comprehensive healthcare law like the AHA was to be passed was the way it actually did, UNFORTUNATELY. Russ Mitchell (R-KY) made it clear what his party's first objective was when Obama was elected, which was to make sure he wasn't RE-elected. Cooperation, I believe, was NOT going to happen.

The aspects of Obamacare that you mention (no lifetime limits, pre-existing conditions covered, etc. etc.) would NEVER have been approved by the GOP. It would have pissed off the health insurance companies, whom we all know care so deeply about us as people (choke, cough, gasp, puke), just as their commercials tell us.

Sarah Palin, that font of fiscal and political wisdom, and darling of the TeaPublicans, talked about "death panels." We already have them. They're called insurance companies, and they've been cutting off care with lifetime limits, noncoverage of pre-existing conditions, etc. etc. for decades.

Of course, if all one cares about is his own pocketbook, and has his/her own coverage set, and he/she doesn't give a damn about others, keep on supporting repeal of Obamacare. That's real Christian Social Doctrine, a la Paul Ryan, whose views on this subject the Catholic Sisters have ripped bigtime.

Sorry for the rant. Perhaps this wouldn't even be an issue had not a greedy insurance company pissed off the future President of the United States by trying to deny coverage to his mother while she lay in her hospital bed fighting terminal cancer.

There's your death panel.

[david foster]

Mark Welch:

Re Obama's mother and insurance companies, see this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/09/06/fact-checking-joe-biden-did-obama-fight-his-mothers-insurance-companies/

[AC]

Bill,
If I remember correctly, Obama did go to Congress with a set of overall objectives for what he would accept in the health care plan. He then told Congress to work out the details. Obama was then excoriated in the press and by Congress for a lack of leadership because he did not provide enough details as to what he wanted. You can't have your cake and eat it too on this one.
By the way, Romney is not the solution to what ails the nation. Anyone that can't understand that our ability to manufacture products is critical to our national security isn't fit to be the President (See Romney Op Ed regarding the Auto industry).

[Lou English]

Bill,

Excellent leadership article. You have guts in bringing up a political example!

In working with leaders I talk about the difference between leading and managing. Most all transformation failures are due to the fact there is an a lack of one or the other or both. Leaders love ideas and fail to execute. Managers love order and are afraid to delegate.

[RS]

AC is absolutely right. Obama famously left it to Congress to put together the healthcare plan. And the plan is based on one first formulated by the right wing Heritage Foundation and backed by Republicans in the early 90s. Mysteriously, not a single Republican would vote for the bill come 2009. The reason Obama has not been "successful" with Obamacare is because he hasn't sufficiently explained it to the American people, but mostly because the Republicans didn't want him to succeed at anything. So they talked about "death panels," without mentioning that insurance companies act as death panels every day. And they talked about how the government would make decisions about your care and you might not be able to choose your doctor and on and on without mentioning that insurance companies decide what they'll pay for and which doctors they'll pay for, and how much care they'll pay for over the course of the insured person's life, etc. The Republicans effectively scared many Americans with lies. That, in a nutshell, is why Obama was not successful.