Barack Obama's Victory

On their website, Jack and Suzy Welch recently posted a short piece about Obama's "Victory" and the lessons top executives could follow to have their own victories.

You might think that someone as seasoned as Jack Welch would be well aware that all outcomes are produced by many factors beyond the person. Any one of us could have made the observation that people in large numbers wanted to change the policital leadership of this country. So they voted against the status quo - as it usually happens after two terms in office. It's likely they would have voted for anyone who promised "Change." If you happen to be standing in the right place at the right time, that would be good advice for executives. So was the "victory" his or theirs?

You might think that the era of the "great man" was over. But egomaniacs and celebrity explainers would like to keep it alive.

You might think that emulating the person who had become the president-elect would be a good idea. It's never worked in the past. But we would like to believe that there's a recipe out there somewhere just waiting to make you rich and famous. You would be wrong.

You might think that the overwhelming evidence suggests we can learn far more from failure than from success, and that the "lessons" distilled by the Welch's would be more useful if they had been derived from the losers.

You might think that Jack Welch became rich and famous by using the lessons that magically arose from Obama's campaign. Hmmm...

But knowing how anyone became "victorious" doesn't enable anyone reading the "lessons" to do it. Are we saying that Obama could have defeated Reagan at the time, in those circumstances, in the context of that zeitgeist?

It is thin broth, indeed, two parts hubris and one part greed. It must be awful to feed on one's celebrity, even when undeserved - as evidenced by the effort to identify with the "victor - indeed to pose as official explainer of success in the cauldron of politics.

The test, of course, is how many people will become wildly successful by taking the lessons to heart. Obama was "victorious." But suppose he fails in office. What would be the lesson in that.

Comments

[Sarah Cook]

Hey, not sure where you were trying to go with this . . . can you clarify? Are you trying to say that success is measured by its failures?

[Rob Rasch]

My question to you is this:

Why are you not more widely read??

Have you failed? Or succeeded?

Would it be best to BE the best in terms of the "business press?"

Yet Suzy and whatshisname thrive in comparison at least as far as I can see(well, not too far actually). I REALLY love the lighting they've built into their profile photos though.

While superior thinking goes unnoticed, unread, unconsidered, poorly photographed etc...

Long live the RADICAL CENTRIST!

Pissing EVERYONE off for all the right reasons!

God love you LEE THAYER!

P.s. Am buying your books for gifts this year