"You Can't Do a Thousand Things"
When Erskine Bowles served as President Bill Clinton’s second chief of staff, he “carried around a card with the president’s top priorities written on it—and rebelled when Clinton tried to go off script. ‘One day the president came out of his office and he had another one of his great ideas,’ he recalls. ‘And believe me, they were unbelievably great ideas. And I turned to him and said, ‘Mr. President, you have got to go right back into that Oval Office, right now!
“‘You’ve got to look at this list of things that you and I agreed you wanted to get done. Not that I wanted to get done, but you wanted to get done. If you will stay focused on those three or four things, I can set up the organization and the structure and the focus to make ‘em real. But you can’t do a thousand things.’”That’s just one of hundreds (really!) leadership and management insights from
The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, by Chris Whipple. In this “Part 2” review of the book, I’ve included 32 “True or False” questions about the chiefs of staff that served Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. The answers are listed at the end of the quiz.
Click here to read my “Part 1” review of
The Gatekeepers, covering the 13 chiefs of staff from Nixon (1969-73) to George H.W. Bush (1989-1993).
On Dec. 5, 2008, 12 of the 14 living former chiefs of staff to U.S. presidents gathered at the White House to give advice to Rahm Emanuel—soon to become the chief of staff to Barack Obama. They didn’t hold back, as Whipple eloquently describes in this robust page-turner book. TRUE OR FALSE?MACK McLARTY, 1st Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton (1993-94)[ ] T/F: Mack McLarty “had attended kindergarten with Clinton in Hope, Arkansas.” Robert Reich, “who would become Clinton’s secretary of labor, sensed trouble. ‘The chief of staff cannot be a dear old friend. It’s too difficult to tell the president no.’”
[ ] T/F:
“Clinton spent an enormous amount of time picking his cabinet,” recalls John Podesta [4th chief]. “And no time picking his White House staff.”[ ] T/F: Wondering if Clinton would be as good at governing as he was at campaigning, one staff “would sum up the frustration of his first year and a half: ‘We went from
War Room to
Dorm Room.’”
LEON PANETTA, 2nd Chief to President Bill Clinton (1994-97)[ ] T/F: “Panetta knew the White House was run informally, but he had no idea how informally.”
There was no organizational chart! “That’s when I knew I was in deep trouble! I had to basically organize the White House using little boxes.”
[ ] T/F: “When his deputy [see Bowles below] revamped Clinton’s schedule, Panetta took charge as gatekeeper.”
[ ] T/F: “Leon had an iron fist in a velvet glove,” said Robert Reich.
ERSKINE BOWLES, 3rd Chief to President Bill Clinton (1997-98) and Deputy Chief to Panetta (1994-97)[ ] T/F: “’You have to remember that there are no business people in the White House. So what we had to do was make it simple.’ Mild-mannered and businesslike, the North Carolina-born Bowles had a missionary zeal for management.”
[ ] T/F: “His first three commandments were ‘organization, structure, and focus.’”
[ ] T/F: “The biggest asset you have is your president’s time.”
[ ] T/F: “To figure out how that asset was being used, Bowles conducted a ‘time and motion’ study of the president.” So…they color-coded the president’s daily schedules: foreign policy was red, economic policy was blue, etc.
[ ] T/F: “The president wanted to focus on X, Y, and Z. By color-coding just what they had laid out, you could see that he wasn’t focusing on X, Y, and Z.
The color-coding helped show Clinton just how inefficient his schedule was.”JOHN PODESTA, 4th Chief to President Bill Clinton (1998-2001)[ ] T/F: Author Chris Whipple: “On the last night in office (‘exhausted to the point of foolishness,’ as one writer put it), the president signed 177 presidential pardons and commutations of sentence [including the pardon for Marc Rich, financier who had fled the country. Rich’s wife had contributed $450,000 to the Clinton Library and $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign].
Clinton’s pardoning spree was a final paroxysm of bad judgment—and no one was around to talk him out of it. Podesta had gone home for the night.”ANDREW CARD, 1st Chief to President George W. Bush (2001-2006)[ ] T/F: “I broke the job down into the care and feeding of the president; policy formulation; and marketing and selling.
You have to make sure the president is never hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, and that they’re well prepared to make decisions that they never thought they’d have to make.”[ ] T/F: “And the last category is marketing and selling. If the president makes a decision and nobody knows about it, did the president make a decision?”
[ ] T/F: “If people tell you they want to leave the White House, they’re probably lying. Nobody really wants to leave the White House.” Card served longer than James Baker’s modern record—racking up five years and three months.
JOSHUA BOLTEN, 2nd Chief to President George W. Bush (2006-09)[ ] T/F: Bolten perceived that the White House was in denial about the Iraq War. “And I took it as one of my roles as chief of staff to say, ‘I am the new guy here—but this looks very bad to me.’”
[ ] T/F: Following Bush’s signing of the Oct. 3, 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Bolten noted that
“as shocking a decision as he had just made, he went around after that meeting and physically touched some of the key players, and I saw him giving them reassurance, saying, ‘We’re doing the right thing. We’ll get through this.’ Bush’s calm handling of the financial meltdown, with help from Bolten and his economic team, helped to avert catastrophe.”
RAHM EMANUEL, 1st Chief to President Barack Obama (2009-10)[ ] T/F: Bowles giving counsel to Obama on picking his team: “Leave your Chicago friends at home.” He added, “If you look back over history, the people who got most presidents in trouble are their old pals from home.”
[ ] T/F: Bowles (again): “What you want are great people around you who are strong where you are not.”
[ ] T/F: Jonathan Alter: “Rahm really believed that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”
[ ] T/F: Emanuel: “The president had three major initiatives: health care, energy, and financial regulation of Wall Street.”
[ ] T/F:
“Now that he had his marching orders, Emanuel was obsessed. ‘No distractions!’ he would shout, when someone brought up another subject.”[ ] T/F: “Every afternoon, at about five o’clock, Emanuel and the president would conduct ‘the Wrap’—a walk around the circular driveway on the South Lawn.” Their agenda: family, to-do lists, or projects. “A tough day meant multiple laps.”
BILL DALEY, 2nd Chief to President Barack Obama (2011-12)[ ] T/F: “Washington had changed since the Clinton years, and Daley was not up to speed. ‘It honestly seemed like someone held a nationwide competition: ‘Enter a drawing to become
White House chief of staff!’ says a former aide. ‘Every day he was amazed by something new—like “I didn’t know the federal government worked like
this. I didn’t know
that!” He was learning the whole thing as he went.’”
[ ] T/F:
Daley: “You know, someone once said: ‘In Chicago, if someone’s going to stab you, they’ll stab you in the stomach; in Washington, it’s always in the back.’”[ ] T/F: “After he left the White House, Obama’s Bill Daley came down with shingles—caused, he believes, by the stress.”
[ ] T/F: Bowles: “The key to success as chief of staff is being empowered by the president. When people saw that Bill Daley wasn’t empowered, he was dead.”
JACK LEW, 3rd Chief to President Barack Obama (2012-13)[ ] T/F: Formerly Obama’s “brainy” OMB director, he was the third budget director to become chief of staff.
“Budgets are not about numbers. They’re about values.”DENIS McDONOUGH, 4th Chief to President Barack Obama (2013-17)[ ] T/F: “I have a rule. Every day, I have to touch ten members of Congress. Phone call. Letter. E-mail. Text. And if people can’t at the end of the day get to yes on something, and they need to blame it on us, so be it.”
[ ] T/F: McDonough got parenting advice from Obama and “tried to make sure the president was home on time for dinner with Sasha and Malia.” Laughing, he noted, “I get calls if he’s not home at six thirty or so.”
[ ] T/F: “The role of the chief of staff has to be the flashing red light when you anticipate that the president may be doing the wrong thing, or that he’s not being well served.”
[ ] T/F: In 2013, “the president’s agenda was mired in partisan gridlock. On a Saturday afternoon in July, at an East Wing reception, the president spotted three former chiefs across the room: Duberstein, Bolten, and Podesta.
Obama approached them, looking frustrated. ‘No matter what I do in this town, all I get are singles and bunts,’ he complained. ‘Singles and bunts’ would become a favorite metaphor.”REINCE PRIEBUS, 1st Chief to President Donald Trump (2017-present)Author Chris Willard wrote
The Gatekeepers before Donald Trump took office. Will Reince Priebus be a long-term chief or, more typically, a short-term chief? Stay tuned to your favorite cable news station.
READ/LISTEN/VIEW: To order the book from Amazon, click on the title for
The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, by Chris Whipple.
To listen to a free three-minute excerpt of the book (or purchase and download the full 11 ½-hour audiobook), visit
Libro.fm.
Click on Amazon Video to download and view the four-hour documentary,
The Presidents’ Gatekeepers, which aired on the Discovery Channel, or
purchase the DVD for late night viewing at your next staff retreat. Leadership lessons abound!
TRUE OR FALSE ANSWERS: You guessed it. They are ALL true. (Yikes!)
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) “A great president can get away with a mediocre chief; a mediocre president can’t possibly,” said Robert Reich. “If you have a good White House staff—not just the chief, but the complete staff—it can mean the difference between success and failure.” How would we evaluate our staff—on a scale from Mediocre (1) to Great (10)?
2) Upon Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s election, President Harry Truman noted, “Poor Ike! He’ll sit here and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that! And nothing will happen. It won’t be a bit like the Army.” How responsive is our staff to the directives of our CEO—and are the directives clear or fuzzy?
"If You Have More Than 5 Goals, You Have None"
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
Erskine Bowles second chief of staff to President Bill Clinton was likely a fan of Peter Drucker who preached, “If you have more than five goals, you have none.”
Pop Quiz! Name the three to five “Annual S.M.A.R.T. Goals” (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-related) of your CEO. If they’re not in writing and followed up with monthly color-coded dashboard reports to the board, then they don’t really exist.
For more resources on S.M.A.R.T. Goals, visit the Results Bucket webpage.
