To: Mr. Donald Trump
Dear Sir:
I didn’t vote for you, and like many others, I was surprised by your electoral victory. But now that you’re about to become my president, I hope you’ll succeed. I’ll be the first to agree that Washington has its swamp-like characteristics that could use some cleaning up. And America’s place in the world certainly needs repair. Godspeed on all that, for sure.
But I’m not writing you today about policy. This note is about becoming a more effective leader as president. I’ll cut to the chase: you’re going to need to get really good at learning on the job.
I know you’re having all sorts of advice thrown at you, but trust me: this bit of coaching is about as important as anything else you’ll hear.
Learn Or Fail
Why? Well let’s be blunt: your success as this nation’s chief executive is not guaranteed. There’s a real risk you could fail. Since November 8, maybe you’ve been dreaming about becoming another Lincoln or FDR. Maybe, maybe; but I can also imagine tomorrow’s textbooks could end up ranking you with James Buchanan or Warren G. Harding. Nobody even remotely civic-minded today wants that for you.
I know what you’re thinking: “If I weren’t already good at learning in real time, and everything else about being a leader, how do you think I made myself a billionaire and then got elected president?”
Common Protests Of Successful Leaders
Other successful leaders often protest the same: “There’s nothing I have to learn in my next gig because I already know how to win.”
But this new job is unlike anything you’ve ever done, and one way or another, every recent president has always confessed the same thing– nothing they did before ever completely prepared them for this ultimate elected office. The successful ones all learned and improved as they did the work—and the lessons they learned were often painful. The best presidents grew in their jobs, intentionally reflecting and acting to make themselves better leaders, month after month.
Look, in terms of your readiness to learn on this job, I see plenty of red flags. By various reports, you have a pretty big ego, don’t like to admit to any failure, and you tend to “go with your gut” instead of doing a lot of detailed planning and analysis. Not a great recipe for continuous improvement and consistent performance breakthroughs.
Yeah, you can get by with winging it, and a lot of the time, just barging your way through. And obviously you have your victories to show thus far. But even just speaking as a gambling man, I might ask: why not hedge your bets a little more for this next mega-big roll of the dice?
Mr. Donald Trump, just imagine if you amazed the world, by every month by getting smarter and better as President…
Abandon The Myths About On The Job Learning
OK, so what do I propose concretely, to help you get better at learning on the job?
Well, you can get started by abandoning four classic myths. These are the dangerously seductive beliefs that bring down many proud leaders like you whenever they take up a big new position.
1.“If you’ve already been successful in something, you’ll be successful in anything.” Success builds confidence, and fuels your willingness to take on new challenges. And doubtless much of what you’ve accomplished and know about building hotels, condos and golf courses will carry over to big plans you’ve been talking about. Like renewing our nation’s infrastructure; and doubtless the famous wall with Mexico. But it’s doubtful whether it can help you with reforming Obama Care, shoring up our national security, charting our strategy with China. You gotta understand a whole lot of different stuff to do that.
Oddly enough, the success you’ve had in business may not just be irrelevant to such challenges; it might also cloud your judgment about finding good solutions. One of the treacherous aspects of past achievement is that it teaches leaders to see patterns that might seem suitable for lots of other situations–but that really aren’t. Sometimes those patterns apply, and sometimes they don’t. And when you wrongly compare past apples to new oranges, the results can be, as you’re fond of saying, “a total catastrophe.”
Successful CEOs stumble this way frequently. Rick Thoman failed miserably as the freshly appointed CEO of Xerox in 2000, when he tried to apply his experience from a celebrated IBM turnaround to the deeper culture and more complex power dynamics of the copier company. Apple’s retail store wunderkind Ron Johnson brought JC Penney to its financial knees in 2012 when, as its new CEO, he wrongly tried to apply the pricing and brand strategy of the computer company to the low-cost chain.
And remember—both those guys were confidently transferring lessons across what was still one business to another. Presidents have to move laterally a lot more broadly, from arena to arena, frequently and quickly, each more different than the next.
And so not surprisingly, presidents are also not immune to applying the wrong lessons learned to the wrong problems. George Bush’s appreciation of democracies around the world offered false hope to him that the invasion of Iraq would spawn a sturdy culture of self-governance among warring Shiite and Sunni tribes. It didn’t turn out that way.
The Dangers of Outsourced Thinking
2. “All you need to do is hire the right experts.” Yeah, of course expertise around you matters—and it looks like you’re working hard to find some knowledgeable people for your cabinet. But beware: when leaders start handing over responsibilities to this or that guru, sometimes they end up micromanaging—and missing the opportunities of taking real advantage of the superior knowledge they were proud to hire.
But even worse, a leader will get intellectually lazy. I know you’re busy but you also can’t just outsource your thinking to a bunch of clever and experienced subordinates in the cabinet or the West Wing. Or to people who just like you. You’re not hiring them for flattery or facts, you’re hiring them for problem-solving. And that always requires analysis, debate and collaborative innovation.
It’s your job to make that happen—which means you’re going to have to learn enough about the critical domains to ask your experts the right questions, and ensure they’re hitting the right issues. And when they disagree with one another, you’ve got to resolve the conflicts and find a way to get them working together once the best answer is identified. To do that, you’ve got to know enough to be confident to understand that answer, and be ready to challenge substantively—or even fire–any expert that’s holding back progress.
A quick example from a great president. At the start of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, with little military experience, relied heavily on General George McClellan to plot and conduct the Union campaign. The results were disastrous. But behind the scenes, Lincoln was working steadily to build up his own understanding of military strategy. Eventually he achieved the confidence to replace McClellan—turning instead to the more determined and savvy Ulysses S. Grant who went on to defeat the Confederacy. The smarter Lincoln became about things military, the more he saw and trusted the genius of Grant.
3. “Homework is for wimps.” It’s often said that your preferred mode of learning is not reading, but instead talking to a lot of different people, with different perspectives. Talking and listening to others is fine, and the more varied your sources the better. But the work of a president is magnitudes of complexity more than you’ve known in your life—you’re not going to be able to get by without also leveraging the economy of the well-presented written word; and also being a lot more intentional and disciplined in tackling what you don’t know.
Here again the story of Lincoln in the early Civil War. As the battles raged, and while he also wrestled to keep the government together in a time of national crisis, the sixteenth president was furiously doing his homework to get smart about conducting a war. He studied books of military doctrine, sought the advice of former generals, created maps and discussed campaign ideas with a stream of different visitors to the White House. And his homework included more than just talking and reading. Lincoln went on personal tours of the battlefields, and over time led the decision-making in key elements of Union strategy, learning from setbacks as well as the gradual successes.
Lincoln entered office as a military novice and completed his first term as an accomplished war president. He had plenty of help from great generals like Grant, but he never stopped building his own capacity to lead the overall cause.
Beware Pride
4. “Humility is for losers.” You’re a proud man and have much to be proud of. However, you don’t seem to like people who attack or even challenge you. You fight back when they do, and it’s made you tough and strong. One can fairly say it’s a big reason you’re now our president-elect.
But your pride may be the biggest barrier to your longer term success. Deep learning can only be achieved by first admitting and understanding your mistakes—which will come, sooner or later, to your presidency. Similarly, no valuable counsel can ever be gained from others unless you are ready to concede they may have something to teach you. It’s not about weakness or acting meek like a a loser. It’s about getting smarter faster, in a world that’s changing more quickly all the time.
A White House Photo-Op To Remember
Last week, when you visited the White House, the nation for a brief moment saw you sitting next to President Obama, the man you had so regularly insulted during the campaign. Both of you smiled, shook hands, and you projected a sense of someone suddenly in awe of the job you had just won. Mr. Obama spoke quietly and courteously to you, and you did the same with him. He seemed to respond to the modesty you showed, like a fellow comrade fighting to protect the Free World.
Those of us watching thought, “Hey, Donald Trump might actually be open to learning in this new job. He’s got his pride and power, but it looks like there might also be a real streak of strategic humility. Whatever else you think of the guy, that might be some good news.”
Mr. Trump, remember that moment, that feeling, that mindset. You’re going to have to call on it many more times in the next four years.
Originally published on Forbes.com