I’ve spent a significant portion of my career in the wireless industry. Like many technology based, fast growing industries, we thought ours was very unique and difficult to understand for people from the “outside.” Because of that, the industry was very incestuous, not in the ‘Desperate Housewives” kind of way but in the “you hire and rehire the people you know kind of way.” Nearly every job that opened that was a “move up” role was filled by people who were already employed by the company.
“Hiring from within” became part of our company culture. The good part about that is that we were able to keep some very talented people motivated and challenged as they got progressively more challenging roles. The downside of the “hire from within” culture is that a few people took that as an “assumed.” They assumed that because they applied for the job they would get versus an outside applicant, just because they were an “insider.” Another downside was that we had some people who would hire into the company at an entry level and immediately begin positioning themselves for a promotion and not paying attention to the job they had been hired for. I had more than one conversation with people who either worked for me or were interviewing for a role with me where I told them that while they may be really capable people, they weren’t going to get the promotion because they hadn’t paid attention at their current role and were doing a poor job at it. While “hiring up” was part of our culture, you only got “hired up” if you were doing a great job in your current role.
Barack Obama was sworn into the US Senate on January 4, 2005. He announced his candidacy for President on January 17, 2007. Between the date he was sworn into the Senate and the date he announced an exploratory committee he spent 143 days working in the Senate (that’s less than 7 months of actual work for the mathematically challenged.)
Barack Obama has been attempting to hang the current economic challenges around McCain’s neck. His attacks have gotten louder and more personal throughout the past 7 days. Obama has been talking broadly about what he would do to fix the economic issues but has not provided any specifics to his plan. In some articles, the Obama campaign was quoted as saying they were “working on a plan” that Obama would unveil soon.
This morning as even more unprecedented “fixes” are being implemented into the financial system Barack Obama said
Given the gravity of this situation, and based on conversations I have had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I have asked my economic team to refrain from presenting a more detailed blue-print of how an immediate plan might be structured until the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have had an opportunity to present their proposal.”
Really? You’re going to wait until other plans are out and then second guess them? Wow! That’s leadership! Wouldn’t a real leader be sitting down at this critical juncture saying “I’ll show you mine, you show me yours and we’ll see what the best answer, or combination of answers might be?”
Barack Obama is just like the wireless people who were busier looking for promotions than doing there current jobs. Just as in wireless, where we told people that the weren’t going to get the new job because they were doing a cruddy job in their current role, we need to tell Obama,
“NO. Maybe you’ll get a shot when you show us you can do your current job well. If that doesn’t suit you, your other choice is to find another company that will hire you.”
In wireless, most of our situations where that exact conversation occurred the people were smart enough to go back, focus on their job, show that they were capable and focused and usually got hired for the next promotion. Once in a while, the person thought the work for which they were hired was beneath them. They didn’t change their ways. They groused and became poison to the point where they became poison to the team. Ultimately, they were fired.
Which of those two experiences do you think Barack Obama will have?
