Credit

The President gave another nice speech today where he said all the wonderful things he wanted to do to help the middle class but he couldn’t get anything done because the Republicans in congress would not go along. I was a plant manager at several locations and have some ideas for the president. If I were sent to a plant that was performing below standard and the manager was at odds with the union here is how I would handle it. I would invite the union leadership into the office and explain to them that my job is to go to the home office and get the best benefits for the employees. I would tell them that I will take their ideas and promote them with upper management and every time we got another benefit I would make sure that all of the plant employees knew that we got these benefits because of the union and how they worked hard to get the best for the employees. Everyone in the plant would know that they were getting real value from their union dues. I would be very specific and point out item by item how the union used their influence to get these new benefits. Then I would ask the union leaders to make sure that the plant ran at top efficiency. As plant production increased it would be easier to get more benefits and the employees would see a direct connection between the union and benefits. Now if I were elected as a Democratic President with a Republican congress I would use the same approach. I would meet with the congressional leaders and tell them that every time we reached an agreement on any new program or policy I would let the American people know that this success was because of the hard work of the congress and they were the ones who pushed for these programs and I congratulate them on their accomplishments. I believe it is easy in business to be results oriented and not credit oriented but in politics that is not the case. I believe that if you told a president he could have his program but the credit had to go to the other party he would not go along because in politics party trumps country and who gets the credit is everything.