J.Pascal
6/17/2012 4:02:00 AM
On Thursday, June 14, 2012 10:24:37 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <f1cea5c6-feac-4196-9f9e-7d837ced91c8@googlegroups.com>,
> J.Pascal <julie@pascal.org> wrote:
> >On Thursday, June 14, 2012 2:43:31 PM UTC-6, Ric Locke wrote:
> >> On Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:20:25 -0400, David Friedman wrote:
> >>
> >> > In article <M5LCAq.1DHM@kithrup.com>,
> >> > djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>>Then as now it was apologia; whether you agreed with what Reagan
> >> >>>actually /did/, there was no doubt he was able to handle the job with
> >> >>>few problems.
> >> >>
> >> >> Except he didn't really handle anything: he was managed by a team
> >> >> of, shall we say, conspirators.
> >> >
> >> > 1. Which you know how?
> >>
> >> Catechism.
> >>
> >> >
> >> > 2. How do you distinguish between "he was managed by" and "he had a
> >> > staff to help him do his job?"
> >>
> >> "When the Superior Man has done his work, the People say, 'We did it all
> >> ourselves.'"
> >
> >I hardly pay attention and I'm a bit younger than you and Dorothy but I
> >got the reference to the claims that it wasn't Jimmy Carter's failing,
> >it was simply an impossible job. Too big for one person.
> >
> >Probably I remember, though, because I had a college professor in
> >1985-ish who talked about Carter's "I must do everything myself"
> >management style. The fellow was sympathetic to Carter's amazing work
> >ethic and earnestness in service, but also clear that Reagan had a
> >management style that actually worked.
> >
> >Because the "work" done by the Superior Man (as opposed to the nice
> >fellow with the good heart) is not to do the tasks that his staff is
> >supposed to do. It's to do *his* work.
>
> Yeah, but Reagan was never a Superior Man. He was an okay actor;
> he went on getting acting jobs because HE COULD TAKE DIRECTION.
> He did what the director told him to. This made him an ideal
> sockpuppet for a committee.
This doesn't explain why what seemed to be simply too much work for Carter to handle, being a single man, seemed doable for Reagan (if one liked his politics or not.) Unless we're going to pretend that a committee bears no resemblance to a herd of cats, and will operate efficiently without leadership, and, in fact, can operate a sockpuppet, or any other puppet, with each member holding a different string.
In the end, though, I think that it's a case of someone being very good at taking direction and doing what the director tells him to do, not meaning what you think it means. (As the fellow says.)
Can you imagine the local pizza place taking the employee who could never manage to do what he was told on account of he knew better or just didn't like being bossed around and making him the shift supervisor?
No amount of being smart would make that person a good shift supervisor. Not ever.
At basic training they took one girl who had a problem with taking direction, she knew too much - at least in her own mind, and made her the squad leader. It was a *cruel* thing to do to her. She was smart and knew a lot about the military (and had been in JrROTC and her dad was an Admiral) but she couldn't have managed to get cooperation from a robot programmed to follow her every command.
Since she couldn't take direction, she didn't understand what direction was.. She hadn't been cooperative, thought it was all a joke. How was she supposed to understand how to get cooperation from anyone?
She didn't even have the option of doing it all herself, though she had no other option but try. She had tried to do what the TI's did, what she saw them do but didn't understand, to get us to do what we were supposed to do.
In no time at all she was sleeping with her eyes open and had made her own life so miserable they recycled her (put her back a week in the progression to a different unit) likely out of pity.
There is a reason for the little truism... if you want to lead, first follow.
-Julie