King Canute Informs the 21st Century by Al Sikes

Folklore has it that the 11th Century King of England once stood on the shore of the River Trent and commanded the tide to stop rising. It didn’t. We know him as King Canute.

The King was drenched by the rising tide but more importantly he was humbled. He, it is said, spoke accordingly saying “Let the world know that the power of Kings is empty and worthless.” Fast forwarding to the 21st Century I suspect hubristic politicians would find some rationalization as to why a tidal flow overtook their commands. They would start by blaming the other Party.

As I type the last of the two political conventions are winding down. President Biden summed up what he had accomplished in a midnight speech. Huh? Yep, the power of a lame duck is especially revealing at low tide.

The former President, Donald Trump, was once a lame duck but now is flapping his wings again. When it came to quacking at the Republican Convention, Trump broke his previous record of a 74 minute acceptance speech—this most recent speech came in at 92 minutes. I couldn’t find a record of King Canute’s speeches, but my guess is they were shorter. Kings command rather than fulminate.

There has been another eye-popping flow. Almost daily we read of another exceedingly wealthy person buying a mega yacht (120 to 200 feet in length) with some even more hubristically ordering a giga yacht—finished they exceed 300 feet.

I have a suggestion, use your millions or billions to take a very close look at the operational health of our government. Yes, operational health. Leave it to the elected to sketch their policy plans.

America needs a competition of ideas on best practices in delivering government services in the 21st Century. A couple of questions. Are we getting economic and service dividends by deploying the latest technology? Is our government actually measuring results? King Canute was willing to order the tide to stop its flow at the river’s edge. Are those in Washington who are responsible for making things work measuring costs against benefits? Promises weighed against reality?

And what about customer or I should say taxpayer experience. Google and Amazon and others leveraged the customer interface. Google made search easy and Amazon did likewise in buying things.

Previously studies of efficiency or efficacy have been offloaded to government commissions. The two Roosevelts were reformers who studied ways and means. President Bill Clinton turned the task of probing for reforms of government to his Vice President, Al Gore. I believe it is time to fund an inquiry using private capital and advanced thinking. Rather than buying a super-sized yacht, buy a super-sized study of where we are in delivering government services and what we can do better and for less. How tax dollars can be stretched.

A former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg who previously, using new media, outpaced legacy media might be a good leader. He is both accomplished in business and local government. In fact this project might sound like something he would invest in. Or maybe Mitt Romney, accomplished in both business and government, can pull together both the organization and its funding. But whoever takes the leadership role should reach out to his/her wealthy peers for both funding and participation. This will not be an inexpensive project.

In general, as institutions get larger, most become very conservative. Management becomes comfortable with operations, and change takes people outside their comfort zone. And often, with large organizations, especially ones that don’t receive day-to-day feedback on sales and margins, new initiatives do not replace old ones—new initiatives are piled on top of old ones. Dated ways of doing things have their constituencies and dysfunctions.

An obvious question: will the government or governments cooperate? If the initiative is broadly based and stays well outside of partisan politics, I suspect elected officials would cooperate. To not do so would be petty. Certainly research should look for best practices regardless of jurisdictional lines.

Bigger yachts, well they will not recede as a temptation. But most of the richest also want to see their country prosper and like the rest of us have undoubtedly been critics of operational inefficiencies and failures. Regardless of whether such an examination is a private or public initiative it is overdue.

Mash Up

It is often hoped that 2 + 2 will equal more than 4. And when complementary assets are combined and well managed that is often the case. But what about the mash up of former President Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr.(RFKJ)?

This latest political combination looks to me like a celebrity marriage. Celebrity marriages rarely last but the ones that do owe their longevity to some level of humility—the spouse who goes along regardless of his/her personal preference. RFKJ should prepare himself to be humiliated. Will his ego allow it?

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.