Fight House (Part 2 of 2)

 

Issue No. 463 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Feb. 10, 2021) revisits Fight House, the page-turning book that chronicles rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. This Part 2 review features a Pop Quiz! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies).  Author Tevi Troy notes that many White House staffs engaged in “process fouls,” defined as “not going through normal channels, not inviting the right people to meetings, not sticking to your lane, and the like.”   White House/Fight House (Part 2) Today marks the 22nd day of the Biden/Harris administration. So far, it appears, all of Biden’s White House staff and cabinet members are still at their desks, unlike Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s second White House Director of Communications. He exited after just 11 days in that position! This is Part 2 of my review of Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, by Tevi Troy. (Click here to read Part 1.) Staff turnover, leaks, and rivalries—fueled by ego, arrogance, and all sorts of character flaws—are sadly the stuff of every White House. It’s disappointing, but delicious reading. For example, Obama’s brilliant brand and aspiration, “No Drama Obama,” while sincere and noble according to the author, missed the mark many times. Obama’s first term cycled through three chiefs of staff (Rahm Emanuel, William Daley, and Jacob Lew; and four if you count an interim chief) until finally Denis McDonough survived all four years of Obama’s second term. In Part 1 we spotlighted snippets on Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. So why should you read Part 2 on Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump? The author quotes Harry Truman: “The only thing new in this world is the history you haven’t read.” POP QUIZ! Match these eight presidents to the eight statements below. (There will be prizes for perfect scores.) 1) Gerald Ford (1974-1977) 2) Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) 3) Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) 4) George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) 5) Bill Clinton (1993-2001) 6) George W. Bush (2001-2009) 7) Barack Obama (2009-2017) 8) Donald Trump (2017-2021) ___ A. “Read my lips, no new taxes.”  ___ B. “When asked about stories of infighting in the White House, [he] responded that strife did not bother him; he encouraged it. ‘I like conflict,’ he told reporters, elaborating that ‘I like having two people with different points of view. And I certainly have that. And then I make a decision. I like watching it. I like seeing it and I think it is the best way to go.’”  ___ C. “[He] was also the first MBA president. As such, he stressed strong management principles and discipline in the running of the White House staff. On the management side, [he] took the theory and practice of management seriously. As [an aide] put it, ‘I have read Peter Drucker, but I’d never seen Drucker until I saw [the president] in action.’ [His] campaign manager…agreed, saying that [he] ‘is the best one-minute manager I’ve ever been associated with.’”  ___ D. “As president, though, [his] niceness was part of the problem. Immediately after acknowledging that [he] had the right skills and temperament for his House job, [the author of Organizing the Presidency] also noted that ‘running the White House required a more commanding approach.’”  ___ E. A policy adviser “described that initial period as ‘just chaotic. There wasn’t anybody in charge.’ [A media consultant] had a similar view, but also noted [the chief of staff’s] lack of a coherent process. As [he] put it, [the president’s] ‘first White House staff, and the way they constantly went around [the chief of staff]—it was destructive.’ As a result, ‘everybody was freelancing, everybody was promoting themselves, everybody was looking out for themselves.’ [Another person] recalled that things were so bad that ‘There was a piece in I believe the New York Times that basically said this would be a failed presidency. You know, ten days into [the president’s] first term.’”  REMINDER FROM PART 1: In a fascinating three-page appendix, the author includes “The Infighting Scorecard” chart—listing a “trio” of the “three leading causes of staff infighting common to the modern presidency and most organizations,” he says. The chart lists the presidents on the left and these categories across the top:    • Ideological Discord (low to high)    • Process (tight to loose)    • Tolerance for Infighting (low to high) ___F. “On the three-part test of ideology, process, and presidential tolerance, [this president] and his team score poorly. The central battle of the administration, the one between [the secretary of state and the National Security Adviser], took place between two antagonists with well-known ideological disagreements over foreign policy. The process challenge was worsened by the lack of a chief of staff to mediate disputes in the administration’s early days, followed by the appointment of a self-admitted ineffective chief of staff…”  ___G. This president’s trusted campaign staffer went to work at the White House—where there was a strong culture of congeniality and no leaking. But “…he was more prone to violate some of the rules [i.e. no leaking] he so carefully adhered to during the campaign. In one telling instance during the transition, [he] was approving press releases and noted the announcement of a new White House communications director, the very job he wanted and expected. He was unhappy both with the decision and the way he found out about it: ‘Not only did I not get it, but this was the professional equivalent of being broken up with via a Post-it note. This was messed up.’”  ___ H. The First Lady’s influence in the White House was often profound—especially for this president, who joked at the Gridiron Dinner, “[My wife and my chief of staff] tried to patch things up the other day. They met privately over lunch—just the two of them and their food tasters.”  ANSWERS. Click here for the answers (and the prizes!), posted on my Book Bucket webpage.   I hope these teasers will inspire you to read the book. As I mentioned in my Part 1 review, these mini-case studies in leadership, administration, team-building, and team-denigrating are must-read. Politics aside, CEOs and senior leaders would do well to study the good and the bad—and look in the mirror often. Why my mirror metaphor? Richard “Dick” Darman, director of the OMB under Bush 41, gets roughed up in this book—and it appears with good reason. “His bragging about how he had forsaken private sector opportunities for public service led one unimpressed participant to joke that he was pulling his ‘St. Dick’ act.” I found that insightful—recalling that dozens of nonprofit CEOs over the years have gone out of their way to remind me that they had successful (i.e. well-paying) careers first in the marketplace.  ONE MORE THING…that I’ve never noticed in writing more than 450 book reviews: Tevi Troy’s word choices are perfect and precise. I always read with pen in hand and so I began circling the rich and memorable vocabulary that punctuates his points. Examples: politesse, priggish, propinquity, sobriquet, sycophancy, and declension. (On declension, “Winston Churchill himself once famously mocked [U.S. Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles: ‘Dull, Duller, Dulles…’”) While feasting on this book and the descriptive word choices, I had ongoing conversations with my new Echo Show (my favorite Christmas gift). “Alexa! Definition for ‘malleability.’” Her answer: “capable of being shaped, as by hammering or pressing”—the perfect definition for the sharp-elbowed culture of White House relationships! (Read this!) More gleanings from the author’s government glossary: schadenfreude, symbiosis, interlopers, internecine, obsequiousness, puerile, stratagems, putatively, and spelunking. (LOL! One Ford senior advisor went around the chief of staff directly to the Oval Office for “inbox spelunking!”) And this: leakers would “use an absurdly big word, a word from the hoary depths of the dictionary, like ‘inchoate’…” and thus the leak would be blamed on a staffer who pridefully used such words!  As you watch the Biden/Harris administration in action (and wonder who leaked what), remember this wisdom from Ecclesiastes: “There’s nothing new on this earth. Year after year it’s the same old thing. Does someone call out, ‘Hey, this is new’? Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.” To order from Amazon, click on the title for Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, by Tevi Troy. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (9 hours).   YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Author Tevi Troy noted that many White House staffs engaged in “process fouls,” defined as “not going through normal channels, not inviting the right people to meetings, not sticking to your lane, and the like.” Any process fouls in your organization recently? 2) Fight House notes that “Andy Card used to tell staffers that ‘George W. Bush is the most disciplined person I know.’ This discipline, Card would explain, extended to his exercise, his religious worship, and his management of the White House staff.” Who’s the most disciplined leader you know? Why?    George Shultz’s Pop Quiz for Ambassadors! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  Maybe…we should add another name to the core competency of the Drucker Bucket? “We don’t just give lip service to management—we are disciplined students of great leadership and management thinkers like Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard and others [like George Shultz].”  The U.S. statesman George Shultz died on Feb. 6 at age 100. Media tributes have abounded, rightfully, including a column from Fight House author Tevi Troy who noted that Shultz was “one of only two Americans (along with Elliott Richardson) to hold four cabinet-level positions—serving as Secretary of State, Treasury, and Labor, as well as director of the Office of Management and Budget.”  Troy adds, “By legend, he maintained a one-page resume, leading to the ‘George Shultz Resume Rule,’ which I often share with job-seekers: ‘George Shultz had a one-page resume. If he did it on one page, so can you.’” His tribute also shared this: “The State Department was also the source of the most legendary George Shultz story. Shultz would call all newly minted advisers up to his office before sending them off on their new postings. He would walk the ambassadors over to the globe he had in his office, and tell them, ‘I'm going to spin the globe and I want you to put your hand on your country.’ After each ambassador earnestly pointed to the country to which he or she was headed, Shultz would correct them, explaining that their country was the United States of America.”                      JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. If clients and donors think of your branding as “Dull, Duller, or Dullest,” you’re overdue for a refresh. Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).  MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:  Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations IMPORTANT NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.   BOARD MEMBER SLIPPAGE Max De Pree warned about “impending deterioration” and “the interception of entropy.” Read John’s 2014 blogpost for ECFA, “Board Meeting Rules of Thumb: Subtle Signs of Slippage.” Click here.

Fight House: Rivalries in the White House (Part 1 of 2)

 

Issue No. 461 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Jan. 21, 2021) highlights a page-turning book that Joe Biden should read—chronicling rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump.  And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2020 Book(s)-of-the-Year and Top-10 picks. “Washington has a ladder that goes up and down, and those you kick beneath you on the ladder might—will—kick back harder when they are on an upper rung.”   The Infighting Scorecard (Part 1) Let’s hope Joe Biden’s first White House staff meeting this week didn’t replicate the chaos of President Carter’s crew. According to Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, “On the very first day of the Carter administration, the staff had no idea who should run meetings.” With no designated chief of staff (per Jimmy Carter’s preference), the power plays were palpable—but no leader emerged. A staffer asked Hamilton Jordan (who ran the Carter campaign), “Should we have a staff meeting every day?” Jordan’s response, “We’ll have a meeting when there’s something to meet about.” Whoa! Tevi Troy, bestselling author and former White House advisor, wrote this page-turner a year ago—and I couldn’t put it down. But caution: this book’s main characters will disappoint you (red or blue). The author says there is “nothing new under the sun” and “infighting has been constant in every presidential administration since George Washington.” Ditto the Trump White House—nothing new.  Thus “Fight House,” unfortunately for the American people, is more descriptive than “White House.” Think dysfunction, chaos, confusion, and rivalries. It’s sad, really—but very juicy reading! These mini-case studies in leadership, administration, team-building, and team-denigrating are so insightful, I’m splitting my review into two issues. PART 1 OF 2: PRESIDENTS TRUMAN TO NIXON “The president needs help” was the four-word summary from the Committee on Administrative Management, convened by Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945). They suggested that Congress fund six “executive assistant” positions. The criteria: people “possessed of high competence” who had a “passion for anonymity.” No leaking? How’d that work out? So Congress established the Executive Office of the President in 1939. Shocking, but true—that staff of six has mushroomed to more than 1,600 people today, according to the author. Yikes. Here’s a taste of staff rivalries over the decades: HARRY TRUMAN (1945-1953). Truman employed a “spokes-on-the-wheel” staff structure (“in which aides reported to a centralized hub in the form of the president himself”—no chief of staff). Truman was a listener more than a reader—he preferred oral briefings, not memos. The rivalries between the cabinet secretaries and the White House staff were just warming up—yet Truman rarely addressed conflict. News Flash! I’m guessing that more than a few Joe Biden staffers began writing their White House memoirs this week! The memoir wars in Fight House is a repeating theme—and Tevi Troy’s research is vast. The 34 pages of endnotes and book references may bust my book budget. For example: Clark Clifford, Truman’s special counsel, battled with General George Marshall (Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State). Clifford’s memoir: “Not only did he never speak to me again after that meeting, but, according to his official biographer, he never again mentioned my name.” DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1953-1961). “If Truman liked order, his successor Dwight Eisenhower loved it. The mercurial Truman saw order as professionally necessary. Eisenhower saw it as a way of life.” Ike on Truman: “…he didn’t know any more about government than a dog knows about religion.”  One of the first presidents to have a chief of staff, Ike “also believed in cabinet government and gave his department heads leeway to run things as they saw fit.” Troy notes that by increasing the White House staff from 32 to 50 it exacerbated conflict and rivalries. A larger staff created more temptation “to run the departments from the White House.” In a fascinating three-page appendix, the author includes “The Infighting Scorecard” chart—listing a “trio” of the “three leading causes of staff infighting common to the modern presidency and most organizations,” he says. (Assignment: create a scorecard for your organization!) The chart lists the presidents on the left and these categories across the top:    • Ideological Discord (low to high)    • Process (tight to loose)    • Tolerance for Infighting (low to high)    • Result Ike’s scores? Where Truman preferred a “relatively non-contentious environment,” Eisenhower “preferred not to see conflict, but was willing to set some up to get better results.” (Tune in to my Part 2 issue and you might be surprised how Obama and Trump fared on the scorecard.) For more on Eisenhower, click here to order How Ike Led.   JOHN F. KENNEDY (1961-1963). Tevi Troy notes that the “modern celebrity culture began to influence the world of politics” during JFK’s term. The chapter’s LOL subtitle: “Passion for Anonymity on the White House Staff? Not So Much.” He says that the best-known feud was between VP Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General “Bobby” Kennedy (JFK’s brother). The “drama and fury” would “make for an excellent Netflix series,” Troy writes. Attn: Kamala Harris! The vice president position “to outsiders, is a position of great prestige, but to a power player like Johnson, the former Senate majority leader, it was a comedown.” Johnson was miserable as VP. “I detested every minute of it,” said LBJ who had a phone installed in his office for direct calls from the White House, “but the phone rarely rang.”  The shocking nicknames that the Kennedy team used for LBJ were beyond the pale. The author’s five-page appendix of “White House Nicknames” is eye-opening: “Professor Leaky,” “Director of the Sanitation Department,” “ABC News Commentraitor,” and more. The LBJ/Bobby Kennedy “dynamic shifted again after Kennedy’s assassination, and Bobby ended up serving unhappily under the thumb of the man he tormented.” The lesson to all future White House staffers: “…tread carefully. Washington has a ladder that goes up and down, and those you kick beneath you on the ladder might—will—kick back harder when they are on an upper rung.” LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1963-1969). Troy reveals that rivalries in the LBJ era were “president-focused rather than staff-focused. Rivalries were not based on who had access to the president as much as who the president targeted.” Often an active participant in staff conflicts, Johnson’s bullying style exacerbated the drama. Where Ike and JFK each had two secretaries, Johnson needed five to keep up with his herculean output. He worked two shifts every day (6 a.m. to midnight, with an afternoon nap). LBJ: “An eight-hour man ain’t worth a damn to me.” Press Secretary George Reedy termed the White House “an indoor stadium hosting a perpetual track meet.” “All of this berating and mood swinging came from Johnson’s own sense of inadequacy.” He hated leaks. (Read my review of Robert Novak’s 662-page memoir, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington.) “Johnson even suggested building a wall between the West Wing and the Old Executive Office Building to separate reporters from staff physically.” What’s your style: reader or listener? LBJ’s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara “was famously impatient, eschewing oral briefings.” Why? “Because I can read faster than they can talk.” The author weaves insightful commentary on leadership styles and a leader’s tolerance for conflicting views—“a recurring problem in White House management.” Without a forum for dissenting views at least three things will happen: leaking, behind-the-back whispering, and “writing unfavorable memoirs.” And this is tragic. According to sources I researched, one out of every 10 Americans who served in the Vietnam  war (1955-1975) was a casualty. A total of 58,148 were killed and 304,000 were wounded out of 2.7 million who served. Could we have lessened the pain? The author’s last page in the LBJ chapter notes the Johnson vs. Kennedy conflicts. He concludes, “In this very real sense, America’s most unpopular war was shaped by one of American politics’ bitterest rivalries.” RICHARD M. NIXON (1969-1974). Nixon supported a strong cabinet-led government, yet “distrusted the federal bureaucracy and wanted to keep decisions under his and his closest aides’ control. Maybe this is all you need to know: “In the Nixon administration, people ended up in prison.” Yet, “Nixon was also one of the most experienced people ever to become president.” The author labels Nixon the “feud stagemaster.” When the first Biden senior official exits the job “to spend more time with my family,” remember this: “Al Haig recalled that Kissinger was very tough on his staff—he drove away over a third of them in the administration’s first nine months.” In numerous White House administrations, including Nixon’s, the grab for power and prestige is often about office space, size, and proximity to the Oval Office. In the Nixon administration, a wall was built in Bryce Harlow’s first floor West Wing office, removing his private bathroom, so  Henry Kissinger’s adjoining office would be larger. (Page 72 is a must-read. LOL! Fortunately, the author had a full inventory of **** marks!)  Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor, had a private bathroom. Carter’s VP, Walter Mondale, wanted a private bathroom but was denied the perk. Staffer (and Carter’s cousin) Hugh Carter unsuccessfully attempted to drop the perk of White House cars transporting senior staffers around the city. Jody Powell nicknamed him “Cousin Cheap.” One think tanker mocked the suggestion: “Do you want them to hitchhike? Catch a bus?” What—No Memoir? I found one high-integrity person in this Nixon chapter that details the Kissinger-Rogers turf wars. William Rogers, who served as  Attorney General under Ike and Secretary of State under Nixon, submitted a resignation letter “free of recrimination or argument.” The author adds, “Rogers continued to maintain his silence long after leaving government, refusing to write a memoir, as, he rightly observed, it is ‘hard to write interestingly without being critical of people.’” PART 2 OF 2: PRESIDENTS FORD TO TRUMP  Watch for my Part 2 review of this book (President Ford to President Trump) next month, perhaps on President’s Day. Learn why Reagan’s former chief of staff, James Baker, said of then current chief of staff Donald Regan (who hung up on Nancy Reagan), “That’s not just a firing offense. That may be a hanging offense.” To order from Amazon, click on the title for Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, by Tevi Troy. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (9 hours).   YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Donald Trump is now a member of a very exclusive fraternity described in the book, The President’s Club. Former presidents, CEOs, staff, and board members can have positive or negative impact on organizations. Do you have a strategy for keeping your former team members informed and raving fans?  2) Is your staff structure a “spokes-on-the-wheel” approach or do you have a chief of staff? Is it working? Click here to read my review of The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, by Chris Whipple. Warning! Bill Daley got shingles from stress after serving as Obama’s chief of staff.   Biden Gets 100 Days, You Get 90! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  New U.S. President Joe Biden, and his staff, should read my pick for 2010 book-of-the-year: The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, by Michael Watkins. (Read my review.) Watkins writes, “The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself; you get 90.” The first chapter plowed new ground with five propositions on transitioning to a new job. “Too often…the new leader behaves more like a virus…”  The author says there are four kinds of organizations (or departments). Which one did you inherit in your last transition? His acronym, “STARS,” describes the four: Start-up, Turn-Around, Realignment, and Sustaining Success.  A successful CEO of a Turn-Around may fail at a Realignment. How would you label the U.S. during this presidential transition? Here’s one more must-read book on passing the baton: Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, by William Bridges. (Read my review.)                      JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Does your shop have a new leader? Is everyone on the same page—using the same carefully-crafted elevator speech? Need help? Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).  MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:  Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations IMPORTANT NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon. BOARD MEMBER TRANSITIONS Saying goodbye to termed-out board members? Read John’s blog post, “Beware the Emotional Effects of Transitions.” Your board members could be experiencing any one of 23 different emotions!