Qualified?

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

The party in opposition to the sitting president of the United States is sure to make one claim that is true about the sitting president: He or she is not qualified for the job. 

Quite simply, the job has gotten too big and our expectations are too high for any human occupant of this office. In fact, our expectations merely show our ignorance as voters.
 
By way of example, early in my career, I worked for a mega-corporation, a consumer behemoth in Cincinnati. Yes, you know who they are, but we don't need to mention their name.

We can mention their annual sales are nearly $85 billion and they have 25+ brands that bring in more than a billion dollars a year each. No doubt, you have some of their products in your home, no matter how modest your dwelling may be.
 
This company recently had a problem. Its chief executive was found lacking in meeting the expectations of the board and shareholders. He was gracefully relieved and his predecessor was brought back with the mandates to: (a) right the ship; and, (b) find a successor for himself.
 
This highly visible problem shines a light on an issue I am told their senior executives have fretted about for years. That problem is this: Despite a desire to groom executives from an early age to run the company, the company has gotten so large it is very hard in 30 (yes, I said 30) short years to prepare an executive to run this company in his or her prime, say their mid-50s. 

In other words, they have to have the perspicacity to spot solid rising stars at the tender age of 25 who they can swoop through 10 to 15 two-year assignments so they then produce a crop of 50- 55-year-olds with the knowledge and experience to run the entire company.  
 
Now, let's not just pick on a company that is still near and dear to my heart. Other large companies no doubt have the same problem. 

The organizations have become so large it is difficult to train leaders in one short career of 30 years to be ready to spend their last 10 years at the helm.
 
But all of these companies are tiny compared to the federal government. And, our process to pick a leader stinks. 

We basically trust what they and their spinmeisters tell us. The last president with a resume commensurate with the job was George H.W. Bush. He worked all over the government, starting in the military in World War II. Yet, we threw him out in favor of the former governor of Arkansas with comparatively limited experience.
 
Then, our system compounds the error of hiring a novice by letting this person pick his or her own direct reports who are supposed to really run the government – the Cabinet members. We then add even further silliness on top of this, by threatening to change this management team every four years. 

No wonder the whole mess seldom works correctly.
 
A certain faction of the populace wanted a big government to solve our problems. We now have it, and it is too big to manage (David Axelrod's words, not mine).
 
How to fix it? 

Well, for starters, Cabinet positions should probably be appointed positions, something like the Federal Reserve chairman. And they should be for six years, starting and continuing on a staggered schedule. This would provide some continuity from administration to administration and slow down the whipsaw changes every four years to which we are currently susceptible.
 
Further, we need to be responsible voters, examining the candidates as if we were going to hire them to entrust them with our lives – which is exactly what we are doing. Our current method of listening to their self-promotion is not working.
 
Face it, government has reached a size that stability is impossible with our current election cycles. 

We need to either reduce the size of government or tweak the day-to-day management and be more critical in our hiring (voting) practices in order to bring back stability.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.