Obama is Reset -- Are You?

Like FDR, Barack Obama is a Reset President. His muscular involvement in GM is only the latest example of his view that the current turmoil is not some bump in the road, but a seismic shift. Things will never be the same--for him or for us.

Obama is way ahead of most of us, but we all face the same choice: Will you hunker down until the storm blows over and then try to restore? Or will you adapt and Reset now, and start from a new beginning?

Hunkering down means cutting costs, instituting more control, conserving and protecting resources--waiting it out. We get e-mails every day from people and organizations that are pulling back everywhere possible.

Resetting means bringing closure to the past, deciding what of all that you value is worth preserving, then using the turbulence as an opportunity to change the rules of the game and invent the future. Reset is operating as if nothing is certain except uncertainty.

Barack Obama was a Reset candidate who ran a campaign that was bottom up rather than top down and promised to be a Reset President if he made it to the White House. We should not be surprised by these first two months.

Here's what Reset looks like for the administration: On the substance side, he has refused to postpone his key domestic priorities--education, energy and health care--in favor of the immediate need to jumpstart the economy; he has jettisoned prevailing economic wisdom by moving closer to nationalization of the financial and auto industries; he's started all over again on climate change; he's overhauled the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and appears to be reaching out to Russia, Syria and the Taliban. Rather than offering a detailed health care plan for everyone to attack, he has removed himself from the debate by forcing Congress to struggle with the tough value choices and take ownership of the outcome--whatever it may be.

On the style side, Obama has confessed error, talked about running experiments rather than proposing solutions, and acknowledged making mid-course corrections. And he has been unusually transparent throughout, floating ideas himself rather than under the cover of anonymity, and continually challenging our image of the President as "the Decider." He seems to take almost nothing personally.

These are all Reset ideas and practices.

But Reset is risky and uncomfortable, and the Obama is playing a high-stakes game, both on substance and style. If economic recovery does not begin soon, Obama risks failing both in the short term and the long term. If it's not substantial enough, he will have to propose raising taxes on the middle class to pay for his domestic initiatives. And if that doesn't work, he will be in danger of a one-term presidency, like that of Lyndon B. Johnson, who did not want to sacrifice his domestic agenda for the defining issue of the day, the Vietnam War. (Unlike Obama, LBJ compounded the problem by lying both about the progress of the War and about the riskiness of what he was trying to do.)

The late Senator Pat Moynihan famously said that "the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Obama is doing the political Reset. The cultural Reset is left to the rest of us.

Most humans deal poorly with uncertainty. We look to our senior authorities, whether the President, the Governor, the CEO, the Executive Director, or Mom and Dad to create stability, security and clarity for us. That's what we want from those in charge: direction, protection, and order. We are hard-wired from the day we are born to depend on authority to provide those services. And as long as they do, we reward them with whatever is the coin of the realm: loyalty, love, votes, money, and more responsibility.

But in these times, depending on authority to do it all for us is a prescription for failure. None of them--and none of us--has ever been here before. The experts we relied upon got us here, after all. No one honestly can know how to solve these problems for us, no one in charge can do anything more than make a best guess and experiment. The problem is not that times are changing. The problem is that nobody knows how to operate in the midst of complex, rapid change when the future is so uncertain. Obama, by being both realistic about the difficulties and the risks and optimistic about the future, is trying to enable us to cope with that reality at a rate we can absorb.

Obama embodies Reset for a President, but he's not the only one facing uncertainty. What does Reset look like for you, professionally and personally? Like health care reform, Reset is still under development, but a few defining characteristics are apparent already:

1. Looking Over the Horizon Thinking long term even in the midst of short-term crisis; investing money now to save or make money later. Examples: buy a hybrid car, spend whatever it takes to retain the best people in your organization.
2. Giving up Some Autonomy Permeating traditional boundaries by delegating responsibility and building new partnerships. Nurturing your networks, rekindling relationships, collaborating and sharing your ideas with anyone who will work on them. Example: join Facebook and Twitter
3. Running Experiments Trying something new, maybe multiple initiatives, rather than championing "solutions". Learning and making mid-course corrections. Examples: introduce a new product or service, start the day earlier.
4. Acting publicly on your values Deciding what is really most important and then closing the gap between what you say you believe and what you actually do. Example: put a stake in the ground by giving all your charitable contributions to one or two organizations rather than spreading them around, spend more time with friends.

In this Reset moment, whether you're sitting in the Oval Office or your home office, a boardroom or your dorm room, the future is yours to invent. You've got two options: figure out what is important to you and act on it, or wait for some else to do the same and react to what's important to them.

Stand deep in your own purpose.

Marty Linsky teaches leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School. He and Alexander Grashow are partners at Cambridge Leadership Associates, where Grashow in the Managing Director, and are co-authors, along with Ron Heifetz, of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, to be published by Harvard Business Press in April. Linsky blogs at Linsky on Leadership.

Comments

[BethS]

Great post. "Reset View" should be a daily article in context with each day's presidenti­al/adminis­tration actions. It would keep all things in perspective.

[strangerinthenight]

Frankly, I'd rather stand by Professors Krugman, Stiglitz, Roubini and Warren when in comes to the economic policies to revive our economy and to transform our political system. Did not the President hailed TRANPARENCY as the hallmark of his Administration ? As long as the Executive Office, Congress and the Senate are joined to the hip with Wall Street, Corporate Giants . . . . . . . this Nation will continue to deteriorate.

On the nation's security, the President''s effort to rebuild Afghanistan is just not going to succeed without contributions of troops by NATO. So far, he has managed to get under the skins of NATO members. Blackmailing Russia and hailing protectionisms will alienated China and G2 members.

Resetting an entire political, economic, financial, sociological, cultural, psychological and multi systemic NATION - it's a multi task impossibility it seems, when all you have are the same mojos making the same old rules guised as "reset" operating and an inexperience President seemingly lost.

Quote " You've got two options: figure out what is important to you and act on it, or wait for some else to do the same and react to what's important to them" .

If your addressing to the rest of us barely surviving, you have no idea what we have to deal with, just to make it through the day. If you have to advise this late of the game to this President, - then we are all in trouble. It's his job - he

[MontanaMack]

I'd like to add my voice to the chorus that has praised your insightful and truly meaningful article, gentlemen. I, not unlike many others, found myself scratching my head with dismay, disappointment and a degree of frustration when President Obama insisted--and rather strongly--that his other agenda items, i.e., health care, the environment, education--were inextricably tied to our near-term economic recovery efforts and long-term sustainable growth. I, not unlike the 24-hour pundits strewn across the cable TV landscape, thought he'd taken his eye off the financial ball. In retrospect, our president was, in my estimation, right to insist on pairing these agenda items to the economic recovery. And apparently, the media has come around also since they have begun to refer to health care reform, strong environmental stewardship and invigorated educational policies as "pillars" of the Obama recovery plan. What many of us seem to have forgotten--and for the most part justifiably so since many of us are struggling to meet next month's mortgage payment--is that Americans have a demonstrable ability to successfully multitask. It is when we become myopic that we fail. Resetting ourselves-­-myself--i­s a difficult task. It's hard. But as you've said in your article, gentlemen, it is necessary if we are to ultimately succeed as individuals, as a community and as citizens.

[Legacy]

Great opportunity to change our minds to the positive, known "as the seed of the equivalent benefit"
We all need a "reset" and change is definitely hard for everyone, we want the safe, even if its' not working.
(Witness Rush & that crew of Guv'nrs that stood up and publicly denied stimulus funds)
Feeding negativity...which is one of the things we need to avoid during this time.

Great article...make it a series....

Have a Great Herbal Day!

http://www.herbsistah.com

[PhilipTaylor]

M&L: Obama Issues to Solve:

1. Each Congress Member receives $3.5 Million/four years (average) from WS and WS related Committees members far more? $5 Billion/ten years from WS to Congress?

2. Not "1" WS Executive (except merger/nat­ionalized) Fired, Fined, Investigated, Prosecuted, or Convicted! Creating worst Crisis since 1929! Misrepresentation of Products/Services and Complex Schemes Skimming-Off $Trillions into Employees' POCKETS!

3. Reverse 1,000 to 1 RULE: Who gets WHAT? Main Street = $1 Wall Street = $1,000
Main Street = Tough Love! Wall Street = $TRILLION LOVE!

4. CORPORATE TAX HAVENS: 11 bailout: AmEx, AIG, BofA, Citigroup, GM, GMAC, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo. More than $227 billion to Caymans/Sw­itzerland! Senat0r 0rrin H@tch said 0il Companies thre@tening move to
Sw!tzer1and if we raise their taxes! Move and tax the HECK out of their IMPORTS/at PUMP! Conservati­on/Alterna­tive Energy reduces OIL Prices!

5. "Socialize­/Nationali­ze" FED!

6. Largest Transfer of Wealth in World History from 99.9% of Main Street Americans to Wall Street by FED/Treasury!

7. R0BBED Americans' Pensions: 40%-100% loses!

8. WS makes between 300-400 times what Main Street people make! Can they justify 1 to 1?

9. Bankers manufactured $700 Trillion in Toxic Paper shutting down The Consumer impacting every car company in the WORLD including the Big 3. Even Japan is having to BAIL OUT TOYOTA!

[paixa3]

I read that you are not very happy about the situation. I do not blame you one bit.

[UNCLEJOE]

President Obama has fallin into the Wall Street trap; He surrounded himself with three former Federal Reseve Chairmen, Paul Volker, Benanke and Greenspan, cloned Wall Street executives like Geithner and Summers, and opted to solve the Financial Collapse Reagan style from the corrupt Banks at the top downward.

The housing Industry is the super structure on which our economy is built; name almost any industry from landscaping, plumbing, plastics, home furnishings, road construction and the banking industry itself depends on a healthy housing industry.

Ask yourself, "What caused the collapse of Our Economy?"
ANSWER: The collapse of the housing industry by Sub Prime Loans expanded to 38% of the Housing Market by Fed Chairman, Allen Greenspan in 2006.

Professor of economics at NYU, Nouriel Roubini's plan for Recovery as he stated on the Charlie Rose interview recently was to bailout the homeowners first with government funds, reduce the face value of homes foreclosed on, refinance those homes at a lower monthly mortgage rate affordable for home owners and extend the length of time of the mortgage; this would give the banks liquidity, remove the TOXIC home loans from bank inventories and stop the down spiralling of home values and boost the economy with banks now having the liquidity from the home owners saved from foreclosure and would losen the bank credit.

Geithner's stimulus plan is the same as Bush's' plan; that stimulus plan died at the get-go in 2008; why should it work in 2009?

[paixa3]

Actually your 38% should be 32% (per the GAO). But, your poste is correct in other respects.

[FrozenNorthObserver]

Pulllease, FDR? The first thing that FDR did was to go after the money changers who brought the nation to it's knees. The first thing Obama did was hire them all. Give me a break.

[Troubledwawa]

Nice article gentlemen...

And thank you for the reminder...

[russhoyle]

This is the most cogent statement I've seen so far of the "reset" philosophy. It acknowledges but stops short of taking its cue from depth and negativity of the crisis, but focuses instead on the figure in whom we have collectively invested the responsibility for leading us out of it: President Obama.

Are Linsky and Grashow saying that a successful reset -- a reordering of our political and economic universe -- is every bit as much a matter of individual responsibility as it is Obama's?

If so, there's an almost Elizabethan elegance and pragmatism to this..

[JaneK13]

A thought-provoking piece. Thank you.

The reset angle is interesting. While Obama attempts the political reset, he may face his biggest challenge from the cultural reset. As you rightly observe, cultural reset is not Obama's to make...cultural reset is up to the rest of us Americans. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

[stubbhead]

Great article guys, thanks!

[stubbhead]

Great article. I am planting a stake in the ground and stating publicly that I like to spread my charitable dollars around and not focus it on one or two.

[mad1nola]

Insightful article. Thanks!

[mtdon]

Reset president names the Head of the NY Fed - who oversaw the debacle on Wall St and did nothing to run the Treasury

Reset President names the guy who wrote the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (creating derivitives which led directly to the mess we are in to the #2 position at the treasury

Reset President hammers the manufacturing companies that actually produce an item of value

Reset President gives all away to the banking industry w/ no oversight

AS to financial policy - the only reset is back to the BUSH ADMIN way of doing business.

This democrat is PISSSED!!!!!!

[alexis d]

Same here. Who's organizing the riots and angry mob on Wall Street? I want a pitchfork, a torch, and a crowd to storm Goldman Sachs with.

[uoiltl]

An excellent article