Donald the unprepared

There are many reasons one could find Donald Trump grating. You can find people airing their grievances all over the web. But I’m starting to sense that a lot of it gets down to this: Trump’s way of dong things flies in the face of how we are “supposed” to do things.

What do I mean by this? The conventional view of how one tackles a project is that you do research, develop your processes and then apply a lot of elbow grease and get it done. You develop a plan and then follow through with the plan.

I suspect this goes back to the Protestant work ethic that was later codified in business manuals. It’s certainly how I tend to do things and it’s how the previous President, Barack Obama, (remember him?) did things.

Trump clearly doesn’t apply this method. Rather he throws a bunch of “stuff” up in the air and sees what sticks. Very little of what he throws up has much forethought applied; it just seems to be what strikes him at the moment.

During the long election season, I frequently commented on Scott Adams’ assertions about Trump. One of them was that Trump often “A/B tested” his messages. For instance, here, Adams alleged that Trump A/B tested his insulting nicknames for his opponents (e.g. “Crooked Hillary,” “Low Energy Jeb.”)

At other times Adams alleged that Trump kept his policy proposals deliberately vague to allow people to overlay their preferred policy in the details.

In essence Adams argues that Trump is intentionally not a planner or a “details guy.” I think Adams is right, and it’s this lack of interest on Trump’s part in planning, in structure, that bugs people (including me.) It goes against everything we’ve been told. The message of modern life is “develop a plan, work hard at it and you might succeed.” Then this Trump guy comes along, makes it all up on the spot and ends up being President.

Now one has to ask: Is there something to this “make it up as you go” approach? There is the obvious advantage that, in a fast moving, ever-changing world, it’s much easier to change your strategy on the fly if you aren’t wedded to a particular implementation. This is the idea in business books like “Teaching The Elephant to Dance.” And we have seen Trump change his implementation on many things. He was for criminalizing abortion until he wasn’t. He was for a Muslim ban until it was a partial ban. He was for deporting illegals but now he’s for… well, I’m not really sure. As many have commented, he has no firm ideology.

But it also seem that not applying the proper thought and planning can only blow up in your face eventually. And I think that many people’s concern (and mine.)

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