My wife and I have 50+ years combined experience in helping companies select great candidates for executive positions - my wife as an executive recruiter and me first as a corporate HR guy, then as a consultant in performance and selection. I've been thinking about how what we have learned might transfer to selecting a President. McCain's ridiculous choice of Palin today inspired me to write this diary.
First,"past performance is the best predictor of future performance." If you read the fine print in your broker agreements you know that "past performance is no guarantee of future performance." No, but it is the best predictor of what people will do in new jobs.
Let's apply this simple principle to recent Republican presidential candidates and Democratic candidates in general:
more below
Republican candidates come from priviledged backgrounds, have a poor or mediocre record of academic achievement and a pattern of partying and/or alcohol abuse.
Democratic candidates have come from challenging means, records of outstanding academic achievement and significant effort toward improving the lives of ordinary people.
Now, if the job you are filling requires good partying skills, a candidate with strong experience at partying might be a good choice. And if the conceptual demands are not too great, a mediocre student might be a satisfactory choice.
But what about the President of the United States? What does the job demand?
At the least, the job requires the ability to:
Learn and adapt to changing circumstances;
Maintain high levels of physical, emotional and intellectual energy;
Manage complex intellectual/strategic challenges;
Create an inspiring vision of the future and mobilize others to participate in and support the vision; and,
Resolve disputes between competing interests and people.
(Feel free to add your own thoughts in comments)
Comparing Republican and Democratic candidates - based on their "past performance" - is revealing:
Learn and Adapt
Obama - practiced at adapting to radical changes in life situation (Kansas to Indonesia to Hawaii to Occidental to Columbia to Harvard to Chicago)
McCain - raised in "traditional" military family; party-boy in college, POW in Vietnam (one could argue about how McCain "adapted" to this); married into a priviledged situation, etc.
Maintain high levels of energy
Obama - rose to the top of his Harvard Law group (Law Review editor), taking on significant challenges in addition to his already strong load.
McCain - because of his age, McCain's "past performance" is not a great indicator here. In fact, there has been a good deal of discussion about how age does affect stamina. Further, it is reasonable to ask whether his POW experience may have stressed him physically more than he acknowledges or we can know.
I could go on here, but at this point, I think the argument is fairly straightforward: Obama doesn't just have a character and temperment that better suits the job of President than does McCain, but his experiences and record of consistently "rising to the top on his merits" actually also has better prepared him to be President. In contrast, and in keeping with traditional Republican values of promoting those of a "certain" social class, McCain has a mixed record of accomplishment.
His leadership during his primary run is a strong indicator of how he will do as President. McCain's ridiculous choice for a running mate is a valid indicator of the kinds of stupid decisions he will make as President. (One could argue that the Primary process is like an "assessment center" that provides a simulation of the real job.)
What do you think? If you were "hiring" a President, what would you look for?