George Bush`s campaign is successful because he has learned the simplest rule of management: How to delegate authority.
Robert Dole has been unable to translate his high name recognition into votes because he didn`t pay enough attention to that rule.
Michael Dukakis is the Democratic front-runner because he has recruited what many consider to be top-notch management specialists.
Jesse Jackson has stunned naysayers because he`s a quick study, not just of his constituents but of effective management techniques.
That`s how the world of management is looking at Campaign `88. Political campaigns traditionally have been considered huge-scale marketing efforts. But this time around, management and organization are taking the lead as the most-valued skills.
”Think of this as a CEO (chief executive officer) problem,” said Rosabeth Moss Kantor, a leading management consultant and Harvard professor who is working with the Dukakis campaign.
”A chief executive officer isn`t out there gathering firsthand data about customers,” Kantor explained. ”The CEO is relying on lots of other people collecting information, and the CEO is relying on lots of other people to implement. The CEO is relying on a well-managed team.”
Harry Vincent, vice chairman of the consulting giant Booz, Allen and Hamilton Inc., said: ”What are the very simple elements of management? It`s planning, it`s organization, it`s directing and it`s control. Any management, no matter where it is-a corporation, a government, an institution-has to do those four things and do them well.”
Though all the candidates are learning the need for good management, none appears to embody all the skills of the perfect leader. Eugene Jennings, professor of leadership and management at Michigan State University`s Graduate School of Business, said all leaders, in business or politics, have flaws:
Jackson is impulsive. Dole won`t delegate authority. Dukakis appears standoffish. Bush doesn`t come off well on television.
”You don`t cure these flaws, you don`t solve them,” Jennings said.
”You just minimize them. You learn to cope with it.”
The obvious way to cope is to recruit a team that makes up for the candidates` shortcomings. The consensus among management specialists is that Bush and Dukakis get top honors in team-building, and Dole flunks. Jackson is the scrappy entrepreneur who`s showing that his business can compete in the big leagues.
Politically, Bush and Dole aren`t nearly as far apart as their vote totals would indicate. The difference is in the quality of their campaign management.
”Bush knows what responsibilities to keep and what to delegate, and he doesn`t take back that which he delegates,” Jennings said. ”Bush holds onto very few things-the overall strategy-but all the other stuff he delegates, and he doesn`t second-guess.”
”A primary campaign is nothing more or nothing less than a service business, like an advertising agency,” said John Clemens, a writer and teacher on management and marketing issues. ”There`s no physical product whatsoever, and so one`s ability to manage people-the only asset in the business-is all that counts. It`s that simple, or complex.”
Vincent said campaign failure probably could be viewed in terms of the fourth element of management-control.
”Control implies systematic monitoring of results. That means you`ve got to have a little time to do the monitoring, so you don`t get an answer that comes out of one day or one week or two weeks. You`ve got to have a little time to digest what the results are. I would guess that the control factor is a difficult factor for all of them.”
Dole has been criticized for not changing his campaign tactics in the week between his Super Tuesday and Illinois primary losses. Critics also have said his campaign didn`t spend money wisely. Clemens said the senator didn`t appear to manage cash flow well.
Many of the comments of management specialists lack the insider`s awareness of constantly shifting campaign strategies in response to constantly shifting voter attitudes. But that doesn`t alter their belief that politicians could benefit by paying more attention to their craft.
”If you think of a campaign as a new product, it would involve the equivalent of product research, knowing something about who`s out there, who your customers are going to be,” said Paul M. Hirsch, professor of business policy at the University of Chicago`s Graduate School of Business.
”Fundraising is where it starts,” Hirsch said. ”If you`re going to hire people to raise funds, it helps to have people who know where the money is. That contrasts with the true believers, who like what the candidate stands for. The ideal campaign is a mixture of the people who know the terrain along with the newer, charismatic people who really like the ideas of the candidate. ”If you have all of one or all of the other, it seems to me you`re going to run out of fire.”
Putting those ”true believer” supporters into perspective may be the hardest part of a campaign, said Bart Zehren, a Chicago marketing researcher, strategist and political pollster.
Businesses tend to hire people with needed skills. Campaigns, on the other hand, tend to attract people who are highly motivated because they support the candidate, but they don`t necessarily have the skills needed to run an effective organization, he said.
Organization isn`t everything in a campaign. The best-managed campaign in the world probably could not elect an unpopular or unknown candidate. But the candidates are increasingly recognizing that modern management and marketing practices can give them an advantage.
Many veteran political operatives have picked up some of the techniques and incorporated them into campaigns. Others rely more directly on management talent such as Kantor.
Kantor isn`t exactly objective about Dukakis; she has written a book with him. But she`s a widely recognized name in business circles. Though Dukakis has attracted a number of professionals skilled in management, his campaign was originally put together by John Sasso, a veteran political operator.
Sasso recruited campaign veteran Christopher Edley, a Harvard Law School professor, to be issues manager. Sasso`s successor, Susan Estrich, also is from Harvard.
Bush`s organization tends to be from the more traditional political ranks. But, like Bush, that team is made up of veterans who understand not just the political system, but also how to work together.
”Bush is the consummate professional in all of this,” Hirsch said.
”His campaign was planned well ahead of time. It`s a well-oiled operation.”
Bush also has capitalized on his experience as a longtime Republican and politician, Hirsch added. ”He knows more about the inside operations of the national Republican Party; he has got the position of vice president; he has collected a lot of debts along the way.
”It`s a little bit like the distribution game in consumer products: If you don`t have distribution, you can`t get into the stores. Bush had the Republican Party organization in most of the states on Super Tuesday. He had the distribution locked up.
”If the management`s in place and the thing`s running well, it`s a hard thing for the new kid on the block, even if he`s well known, to cut into that share.”
Jackson is the success that seems to contradict the management theory. But Jennings said the business world has no shortage of successes who at first appeared to be underqualified.
”He reminds me of Jack Welch (General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO John Welch Jr.),” Jennings said. ”Jack Welch had no right to be chief executive his first two years. He said all the wrong things, made all the wrong noises. But he got on a steep learning curve and made all the right mistakes. Today he`s viewed as one of America`s leading executives.
”A wrong mistake is one you can`t recover from and can`t learn from. If Jackson makes the right mistakes and learns, he can be a very smart strategist.
”He has learned the lessons,” Jennings continued. ”He has picked the right people and he has stayed in strategy. The most important thing is he`s picking his fights. As he picks his fights, he`s developing his campaign. He`s picking his planks and gradually putting the whole platform together based, not on some prior notion of what will sell, but what is selling. He`s a good marketing executive.”
The last question, of course, is whether a well-managed campaign would translate to a well-managed White House. The answer is maybe.
”Certainly a well-managed campaign is at least one indication that a person`s presidency would be well-managed,” said Lawrence Howe, executive director of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
But, he added, ”efficiency” is hardly a winning campaign strategy.
”People will not vote only for that. There`s got to be some spark.”
