The Getting-Things-Done President
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The Getting-Things-Done President
Is GTD any way to run a country?
By Paul Smalera
Posted Monday, August 3, 2009 - 4:23pm
Getting Things Done is a productivity system invented by David Allen. Currently all the rage among the lifehacking set, Allen uses seminars, books, and private sessions to teach people how to handle all the "stuff" in their lives. Allen, echoing the theory of alienation that Marx applied to industrialized labor 165 years ago, thinks that the relentless stream of "stuff" white-collar workers process every day makes it hard for them to retain control over their accomplishments and larger purposes. His theory is basically this: By creating an external system to track our big goals and breaking those goals down into discrete actions, we free up our minds to actually complete those actions, which, after all, get us closer to our big goals. Then we use chunks of time to think, to plan our next steps, and to adjust our courses of action.
Applying GTD on an individual basis or within a corporate department, where everyone shares roughly the same goals and incentives, can be effective. But in a political context, it's easy to see how players with different agendas could subtly pervert the GTD workflow to serve their own ends. Obama, like any president, has far too much to do without the help of a staff that acts as his extension. Thousands of the little actions of governance must to be delegated to them so that he can focus on the big picture. And he needs Congress to pass bills that enable his programs. But what if those people don't "get" Obama or simply don't share his outlook to the extent he thought? What if, like a trading algorithm on the fritz, these discrete actions keep coming back from his staff and Congress just a little bit altered, so that when the big goals are reached, they aren't in fact what Obama said they would be or his supporters expected them to be?
Click the image below to see our take on Obama's GTD workflow:
To see the original GTD wallpaper, click here.
Many of the president's legislative victories—like the stimulus package, FDA regulation of tobacco, credit card reform, and climate change—have featured such pernicious compromises. Take the Cash for Clunkers rebate program, which was so popular it ran out of its $1 billion allotment in less than one week. The problem is, car-state senators gutted the program's efficiency standards. Originally touted as a way to increase the fuel economy of the American "fleet," it morphed into just another auto industry stimulus bill, leading environmental groups like the Sierra Club to qualify their earlier support. The only "clunkers" benefitting from the rebates are Chrysler, Ford (F), and GM (MTLQQ).
Obama's executive branch policies, which he has full control over, have only added to his problems. By deciding not to investigate the Bush administration's scandalous torture directives nor its possibly illegal counterterrorism programs and continuing that administration's policies of document secrecy and using signing statements on legislation, the president is making it too easy for his critics to ask, whatever happened to "Change We Can Believe In"?
All of this makes it reasonable to ask: Is President Obama merely moving "stuff" through his GTD workflow? Are the administration's actions actually leading America to the big goals he promised to deliver?
The Getting-Things-Done President
Comments
it is not his
obama first gave money to banks
later to the average joe for clunker
now to the terrorist dictator
GTD is resulting dear to the taxpayer
Compromise vs. Concession
Squeek, appreciate the comment, but I have to disagree with most of it. Regarding the stimulus, the only people happy with it were centrist Democratic congressmen, who saw many "earmarks" (by another name anyway) and pet projects inserted into the bill to help them in their home districts. Conservatives argued for no stimulus, and liberal economists argued the stimulus was far too small to match up to the Administratoin's rehetoric, which has proven to be true, thus far.
On healthcare, the power Obama is yielding to Congress has left it unsteady. I appreciate the attempt to restore co-equal branches of governance, but there's a free-for-all happening right now, with almost half a dozen competing comittee plans being drafted at once. No one believes these plans can be combined in any reaosnable way into a single bill that has majority support. Obama likes to govern by laying out broad principles and letting legislators do the dirty work, which may work at times, but in the case of healthcare, I'd simply much rather see a firmer hand on the tiller. I'd like to see more of the "workflow" running through his and his staff's systems, because it is his signature issue, and then finding allies in Congress to work with that make sense. It's disconcerting when, as the Times reported today, we hear about the Administration's role in healthcare negotiations only in regards to protecting drug companies from letting the government save too much money on them by negotiating prices the way every other insurance provider already does.
Breakthrough vs. Compromise
I think your analysis is off. First of all, you say both left and right believe the stimulus hasn't worked. Three problems: both left and right have a political interest in slamming the stimulus; many economists believe we'd be in far worse shape without it; the full effects have not been realized. So reserve judgment. I have a hard time with Obama turning major legislation over to Congress, but there may be a method to his madness. Give Congress a stake, then let them fight it out. Get certain key reforms passed. Build a foundation for the future. Yes, there is disagreement with what those reforms should be. But even if they 'only' amounted to: 1) insurance portability from job to job; and 2) no discrimination for existing disease, it would be a monumental step in the right direction and give insurance security to millions more Americans; 3) add a subsidy for those not able to afford coverage. These three points seem to have majority, if not bi-partisan, support. They 'make sense' to people, those insured now, as well as those not insured. If these reforms are passed, will Obama be criticized as a spinless compromiser in2012? Or someone who broke the decades old health care roadblock.