If you accept the premise that President George W. Bush is the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the United States of America, then Congress has many of the same functions and responsibilities as a corporate Board of Directors. They have failed in that responsibility as clearly as the Boards of Enron and WorldCom did last year.
The start of a US-led war against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein indicates a failure of diplomacy. It also indicates a failure of the US Congress to effectively guide President George W. Bush in his capacity as CEO of the US. It's a case of corporate governance failure within the same government that is trying to fix corporate governance failures within American business.
What would, or should, your reaction be as a member of the Board of Directors if the CEO came before the board and said he intends to divert a major portion of the company's resources to a major strategic initiative, but can't or won't tell the Board what resources, how many, and for how long? How would, or should, you react if he could only describe this new strategic initiative and its goals in the broadest of terms? We would expect a competent Board to tell the CEO that they could not approve such a significant risk to the corporate survival without better justification. Yet the US Congress has allowed President Bush to do exactly that.
CEO Bush has told Congress, and the American people, that he can't tell them how long he will need the resources. He can't give them an estimated budget for the project. He can't give them a timeline. Only when it is done can he tell them how long it took and what it cost. However, he assures them that it will all be worth it because of the strategic goal it will accomplish. That is unacceptable in Business. It should be equally unacceptable in our government. The US Constitution gives the Congress, not the President, the power to declare war. Congress abrogated that authority in this case and the President has been allowed to move ahead without appropriate justification of the cost and benefits.
In case you wondered, I am a Vietnam War veteran. I love my country. I have traveled overseas extensively and I believe the US is the best country in the world in which to live. If I didn't care, I wouldn't take the time to raise this issue. I don't disagree with the need to use force to disarm someone who has demonstrated a willingness to use weapons of mass destruction on innocent people, but I don't believe that our CEO (President) has sufficiently clearly laid out the goals of this strategic initiative, nor that he has properly justified the costs (dollars and lives) needed to achieve it.
It is time for Congress to rise to its responsibility as the USA's Board of Directors. They have given the CEO the approval to move forward and that cannot be rescinded at this point. However, they can press for clear goals and then hold him to those. They need to do that immediately or they will have to answer to the stockholders (voters) of this country.
In the end, our CEO must be held accountable. Did he achieve his strategic objective? Was it worth the cost? If so, he should be rewarded, not with a raise or bonus like a business CEO might expect, but by re-election to a second term. If not, his employment in this job should be terminated (not be re-elected).
You can share your views on this topic with your peers on our Management Forum.
~John Reh
Management Guide
Other Management Feature Articles
| 