Books Read, Bob Woodward, State of Denial

This is a book about the invasion of Iraq and what went wrong. I was especially interested in the processes of how the decisions were made.

One major theme was the failure of the leaders to understand the importance of keeping the existing social and political infrastructure, in spite of warnings by U.S. officials actually in Iraq who understood the culture. For example, the army was disbanded “to the third level”, thus creating a lack of leadership as well as a large number of military personnel who then turned against the U.S. (The U.S. officials in charge recommended only the first level, which would have retained the fabric of the military.) The same thing happened with government workers etc.

In regard to City Management, I think this indicates the importance of not blindly coming into a City and making mass changes without really trying to understand the local social, culture and political environment. I have see City Managers attempt to make wholesale changes when a few key changes would have maintained a structure.

Another theme was the failure to give the leadership the “bad news”. Incidents are noted where the “bad news” was not given to the leadership, or questions about techniques and policies were not presented. One thing I tell everyone I hire is I like to hear the good news, but I have to hear the bad news, and one basic concept I have is I have to hear the bad news.

A related item was a situation describing that neither (in this case) Rumsfield or Powell would comment on the others presentation. The author noted that this deprived the President of the views of each on the other persons presentations. It was also noted that the President could have pressed the discussion, but didn’t. This is one area I really try to emphasize-getting personnel to comment on how they really feel-not just what they think I want to hear.

As noted in the title “denial” is a major theme running through this book and especially the consequences of denial and wishful thinking. I have seen the adverse consequences of denial and wishful thinking in my local government career, and I think it is one of the major problems in local government (and apparently all levels of government).

One section especially interesting to me was a description of how the persons providing the President with his Daily Briefings watched his reactions. If he appeared interested in an item, future briefings would emphasize those items. In at least one case, the President complained about why is briefings had so much information about a specific matter and he was advised he had asked a question to clarify a situation and the staff assumed he was interested. He replied “That’s why they keep telling me about the SOB in Mosambique”.

I think this emphasizes the point that a Manager has to get information from many places, and you need to continually caution staff to NOT assume what you want to know, but provide all the information.

Another area notes that Saddam didn’t have “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD), but he wanted various groups in his country to think he did (not necessarily the U.S.) for his owner power. The U.S. acted on this false information. Again, I think it emphasizes the need to look for the “real” situation, not assume.

At one area the Chief of Staff is discussing the President appointing a new Chief of Staff. He notes that there are three different types of styles that a Chief of Staff can have, and they all may be best at any time.

-Micromanager who has tight control, absolutely controls access to the Presidnet

-Prime Minister Type who is a “deal cutter, negotiator and policy person who can handle Congress, the media and the world”.

-Facilitator who does what the President wants, keep the cabinet and staff focused on the Presidents agenda.

While it is not an exact comparison by any means, I think that City Manager styles cann somewhat be categorized into similar roles. However, sometimes, if the City Manager is comfortable with it, the Manager may need to change roles to fit the style of the Mayor and/or Commissioners.

Another area that caught my interest was the comment about how President Bush doesn’t necessarily make a decision, but there is a “series of big and little steps” that build up a momentum and suddenly converge into a major decision. I try (with varying success) to be aware of this trap of making the little decisions because they are easy and suddenly a big decision has been made.

After reading this, I am going to try to become more aware of how my incremental “small” decisions can suddenly become a major decision.