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I avoid politics as a topic here, but sometimes politicians provide great lessons for the business world, like when the Democratic National Committee had an utter Twitter fiasco that could have been easily avoided. Or there was the question that Donald Trump brought up of whether unpredictability is useful as a negotiation tactic.

After this past week's turmoil in the White House, it's time to look at the issue of managing people. Trump has provided object lessons of what you should never do. Here are some of the classic mistakes.

In running an organization, you want people to work together. If they don't, it negatively affects efficiency and may even make achieving goals impossible. A classic example is at Sears. For many years the retailer was a powerhouse. Then Eddie Lampert came on the scene as a major investor, became CEO, and turned a single company into dozens of separate businesses. Each had its own president, CMO, and board. The individual units had to compete for central services and the individual presidents would try to boost their profits at the expense of other divisions. The move was eventually seen as one of the strategic choices that drove the continuing fall of Sears.

Lampert set the ball in motion. Trump's error was more in not addressing the backstabbing for which his administration quickly became famous. Perhaps the replacement of Reince Priebus with John Kelly will put someone into place who can corral the wayward factions. But such an atmosphere doesn't come and go with a single person. If it had permission before from the man at the top, it could again.

Speaking of Priebus, or even Sean Spicer, his treatment shows how a chief executive should never act. Calling an employee weak or otherwise disparaging people working for you is an utter mistake. If someone bothers you that much, you fire them. You don't talk about them.

Trump also has repeatedly undermined people working for him by agreeing on one course of action privately and then reversing course in public, leaving the staff member looking like a fool. The head of an organization is there to set strategy, yes, but also to enable everyone below on the organizational chart to achieve their goals.

But perhaps the worst step, one I've seen CEOs take time and again, is to mistake what should be most important. The institution and its goals should be. It stands above the chief executive just as the CEO is at the top of the organizational chart. The whole point of everyone being there is to achieve a set of goals that enables the overall strategy.

But, Trump puts ultimate value on one-way personal loyalty. Everyone else must put him first, although he's shown that he will not reciprocate. That makes it impossible to hear necessary criticisms or to examine actions in relation to the institution's goals.

This last point might be different if you looked at Trump in relation to his own company, which is basically an extension of his personal brand. But when you're at an entity that has its own existence, you need to keep your demands and ego and personal feelings in check.

Continued here:
Donald Trump Is Now the Poster Boy for Terrible Management Skills - Inc.com

President Donald Trump on Saturday expressed frustration with China over its inability to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions, suggesting his effort to strategically cultivate his Chinese counterpart was nearing its end amid Pyongyang's continued defiance.

On Friday, North Korea fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile that experts say has the potential to reach the U.S. mainland. The test sparked condemnation from South Korea, America and Japan, but no consensus on how to check the hermetic Communist nation's ambitions.

However, Trump lashed out at China for being unable to rein in North Korea, as both countries exchange billions per year in trade across the border that separates them. In a series of posts on Twitter, the president accused China of doing "nothing for us with North Korea, just talk."

Amplifying the president's displeasure, Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations insisted there would be no emergency session of the U.N. Security Council. In a statement posted on Twitter Sunday, Haley said the time for continued multilateral discussions about the crisis was "over."

In the wake of North Korea's IBCM launch, Haley declared "there was no point in having an emergency session if it produces nothing of consequence. North Korea is already subject to numerous Security Council resolutions that they violate with impunity," she said, which has not produced a change in the regime's behavior.

"The time for talk is over," Haley stated, adding that an emergency meeting was "worse than nothing, because it sends the message to the North Korean dictator that the international community is unwilling to seriously challenge him. The danger the North Korean regime poses to international peace is now clear to all."

The U.S's pressure on China represent a stark departure from Trump's constructive tone toward the country, as he sought cooperation on sensitive issues such as trade and foreign relations. The president has made overtures toward Chinese President Xi Jinping, in order to convince him to exert influence over Pyongyang.

In April, a summit between the two leaders resulted in Trump and Xi agreeing to cooperate on a range of issues, with Trump declaring the bilateral meeting a "tremendous" success. Most notably, the president pointedly declined to label China a currency manipulator, despite having vowed to do so on the campaign trail last year.

With no consensus among major world powers on how to halt the aggressions, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has grown increasingly brazen in his threats. On Friday, he claimed his country had the capacity to strike the entire continental U.S. North Korea has tested at least a dozen rockets in 2017 alone.

See the original post:
US lashes out at China over North Korea's provocations, declaring the time for talk is 'over' - CNBC

President Trumps former campaign manager said Sunday that retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, the incoming White House chief of staff, would do well to avoid trying to change Mr. Trump through his new role.

The thing that Gen. Kelly should do is not try to change Donald Trump, Corey Lewandowski said on NBCs Meet the Press.

You have to let Trump be Trump, Mr. Lewandowski said. That is what has made him successful over the last 30 years. That is what the American people voted for. And anybody who thinks theyre going to change Donald Trump doesnt know Donald Trump.

In an abrupt shake-up, Mr. Trump announced late last week that Mr. Kelly would be replacing outgoing chief of staff Reince Priebus, who reportedly clashed with new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

I think Gen. Kelly is going to restore order to the staff. His title is chief of staff, not chief of the president, Mr. Lewandowski said.

Mr. Lewandowski said he would expect Mr. Kelly to bring the kind of discipline to the staff to make sure that leaks stop, that the presidents agenda is made the top priority, and that there will be no more backbiting and stabbing each other in the back.

Original post:
Corey Lewandowski: John Kelly should not try to 'change Donald Trump' - Washington Times

Talk radio host Michael Savage points out that President Trump has an interesting mix of political and cultural forces which help shape his personal ideology a mix that includes family influences, an urbane and metropolitan background, and other factors. How do voters judge him?

On the one hand, they think that Trumps a conservative. On the other, they think hes not a conservative. They dont know what to make of him. That is a problem for him. He needs to clearly define his policies, Mr. Savage noted in a newsletter to his national radio flock published Sunday.

I think he needs to sit down with a 10-point agenda. Make it the Ten Commandments of Trump. Just make it simple. Thats how God did it. God could have written a thousand commandments, and people wouldnt remember any of them, the host added.

CHAOS BECOMES THE OPERATIVE WORD OF THE DAY

The latest press narrative against President Trump and his administration is to suggest that there is chaos in the White House. This hostile narrative is so strong and well organized that even the Democratic National Committee cited the phenomenon, identifying 11 news organizations which pushed dramatic chaos headlines. The White House is in chaos. The GOP is in chaos. Maybe chaos is in chaos too. Its all strategic.

Word of the week: Chaos, the committee said in an outreach to Democratic voters, adding that condemnation of the president for one reason or another was also a preferred term.

But that is not how White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sees things. In a conversation with Fox News Sunday, she pointed out that the media conveniently has ignored such good news as the soaring stock market, or that levels of illegal immigration are dwindling with Mr. Trump at the helm. Its the dramatic tales of chaos, condemnation or untoward behavior in the Trump administration that take precedence instead.

This president should be respected and regarded as somebody who was always welcomed a diversity of viewpoints, ideas, individual backgrounds. And he will continue to do that, Ms. Conway said, dismissing the fact that Mr. Trump prefers a bunch of yes-men and women on his staff.

That is just not true. What he wants is to receive all of the input and ideas, she continued.

I appreciate the fact that the president surrounds himself with strong personalities. I mean, one of the dumbest criticisms I hear, particularly on TV from people who have never worked in a White House, let alone this White House its this idea that the president has nobody around him to tell him no, to disagree with him. That is simply not true. He invites disagreement and dissension. He also invites polite discussion, research and data and he weighs all the consequences and hes always willing to learn, Ms. Conway noted.

REINCE HAS A SAY

Outgoing White House chief-of-staff Reince Priebus had a gracious thing or two to say about President Trump, pointing out that the president has already appointed 27 federal judges, and signed 42 bills into law since taking office.

I could tick of for an entire 10, 20 minutes the facts of whats hes accomplished and the amazing amount of work hes done, Mr. Priebus told Breitbart News on Saturday on SiriusXM. The amount of bills hes signed is more than any president in the last 50 years.

EIGHT HOURS PLUS

Lawmakers might struggle with a persistent do-nothing image. But somebody in the nations capital is working. A lot.

The traditional eight-hour workday may soon be the exception rather than the rule, and Washington, D.C. is paving the way for change, says some new research from CareerBuilder, which operates multiple job recruitment sites in the U.S. and abroad.

Seventy-three percent of workers in the nations capital think the traditional 9 to 5 work day is a thing of the past. This compares to 68 percent in both Boston and Los Angeles, and 66 percent in New York, the organization notes.

And in other cities, 60 percent of Chicago workers say 9-5 days are a thing of the past, along with workers in Dallas (62 percent), Houston (58 percent), Miami and Philadelphia both at 55 percent.

Many companies fear that without a set schedule, employees will be distracted, not as engaged and less productive, but the opposite is often true. A trusting work environment breeds more-loyal employees and increases efficiency as long as theres structure around it, advises Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder.

CNN ADDRESSES WHY TRUMP WON

Programming of note for Monday: CNN will air a special report at 10 p.m. ET simply titled Why Trump Won, hosted by Fareed Zakaria, who promises to explore the cultural factors involved in President Trumps historic 2016 victory.

The program offer the details on how Mr. Trump has worked toward closing the ultimate deal winning the White House for decades, CNN explains in advance notes. Zakaria reports on families falling apart: depression, drugs, desperation, and finally resentment taking root in some American communities, supplanting what had been flourishing middle class optimism.

Some of the fare is bound to annoy Mr. Trumps bedrock supporters. An interview with David Betras, chairman of Mahoning County Democratic Party in Ohio, reveals that the official is frustrated that a man who uses gold-plated toilets had such appeal to middle Americas voting public.

But Betras feels Hillary Clinton and the Democrats lost as definitively as Donald Trump won in 2016, CNN continues, noting that New York Times columnist David Brooks, Trump ghost writer Tony Schwartz and statistician and author Nate Silver are also among those who will weigh in.

POLL DU JOUR

71 percent of U.S. college and university business officers agree that higher education is in the midst of a financial crisis.

71 percent say their institutions would seek to increase overall enrollment.

64 percent agree that new sources of spending in the coming year will have to come from reallocation.

56 percent are confident their own institution would be financially stable in five years.

44 percent will try to reduce administrative positions at their campus.

23 percent say they are trying to curb tuitions discounts at their school.

Source: An Inside Higher Ed survey of 409 chief business officers from U.S. public and private colleges and universities conducted May 2-June 11 and released Friday.

Polite applause, petty annoyances to jharper@washingtontimes.com

Read the original post:
Michael Savage recommends 'The Ten Commandments of Trump' - Washington Times

Seven years ago, the President of the United States and his communications director lobbied to appear in an anti-capitalist Oliver Stone movie starring Shia LaBeouf.

Only one of them made it into the final cut.

The film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleepsa sequel to the 1987 originalfollows a reformed Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) who, after serving eight years in prison for securities fraud, attempts to warn banking bigwigs of the impending financial crisis. When his pleas fall on deaf ears, the douchebag-Cassandra opts to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan) and help her fianc (LaBeouf) exact revenge on a cutthroat investment banker in the Gekko mold, Bretton James (Josh Brolin).

Unfortunately, in addition to the heaps of obnoxious pre-release press on the projectincluding LaBeoufs outlandish claim that he turned $20,000 into $300,000 in two and a half months day trading and was prepping for the Series 7 examthe film failed to match the originals enticing mlange of perverse luxury and corporate cynicism, with its plot marred by CNN-mimicking split-screens, distracting celebrity cameos, and an eyeroll-inducing denouement.

One of the more organic cameos in Stones film comes courtesy of Anthony Scaramucci, whom President Trump recently installed as White House communications director. Back then, before he accused Trumps senior strategist Steve Bannon of indulging in autofellatio, the tough-talkin Long Island native was best known as the founder of SkyBridge Capital, an investment firm managing billions in assets, as well as the Wall Street guy who posed a question to President Obama at a CNBC town halland was subsequently eviscerated for it by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show (just three days prior to Money Never Sleeps theatrical premiere).

Scaramucci, who goes by the nickname The Mooch, pops up briefly in two interstitial scenes of Money Never Sleeps as an unnamed short seller working for Churchill Schwartz, the investment firm run by Brolins villain.

In both of the scenes, presented in split-screen, Scaramucci is talking to clients by phone, and in the later one, at around the films 40-minute mark, he even appears to channel his new boss, using one of Trumps favorite made-up words.

Churchill Schwartz has a yuge position in this thing and I want to get you in that stock, he says.

The Moochs brief cameos, which amount to less than fifteen total seconds of screen time, didnt come cheap. According to sources close to the production, in exchange for the cameosand the SkyBridge Capital logo being displayed prominently during a charity gala sequence in the filmScaramucci ponied up around $100,000. Former president George W. Bush didnt nickname him Gucci Scaramucci for nothing.

That, of course, is more screen time than Donald Trump received.

The Donald, then a real estate magnate turned reality television host, was fresh off the third installment of Celebrity Apprenticea show where C- and D-listers such as Gary Busey and Tom Green (remember him?) competed in tasks like who can raise the most money auctioning off bling from Ivanka Trumps upscale jewelry line. During the previous season of the show, Trump infamously sexually harassed contestant Brande Roderick on national television, musing, It must be a pretty pictureyou dropping to your knees.

In the deleted scene, Trump (playing himself) runs into Gekko at a barbershop in London (though eagle-eyed viewers will recognize it as Tommy Guns Salon on the Lower East Side of Manhattan). It came toward the end of the film, with Gekko back on top again running a successful hedge fund.

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Hey, is this the one and only Gordon Gekko? offers a very stiff Trump, to which the conman replies, Hey, Donald! What are you talking about? Youre the one-and-only! The two, apparently old friends, make small talk, with Trump repeatedly referring to Gekko as Gordo. Near the end of the one-minute scene, Trump even pokes fun at his inventive hairstyle, telling Gekko, Has anyone ever told you that youd look greatreally greatin a combover?

Its a better performance than his pouty, Razzie-winning turn in the dreadful 80s rom-com Ghosts Cant Do It, but not by much. And though it didnt make the final cut of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the Trump-Gekko scene did wind up in the films DVD extras.

According to Stone, Trump was good but came with two pages of prerequisites for his scene. The list of demands, which were obtained by Newsweek, read as follows:

The preferred camera angle is Mr. Trump sitting front face to camera slightly favoring his right side, while avoiding left hair part and back and sides of hair and head. Camera eye level or above. If any angle shots need to be taken, please only use Mr. Trumps 3/4 right side angle shot, while still avoiding the back and sides of hair/head. Lighting, warm golden lighting (no red tones please). Can you please include an eye light (if shooting in high definition, eye light needs to be even more powerful). Also, we had more success with being front lit and avoiding strong lighting behind top of hair/head). The result is golden blond hair, warm golden (even tone) tan skin and a more defined jaw-line. A great reference for Mr. Trumps look is always the boardroom scenes in Celebrity Apprentice. Can you please provide a monitor for Mr. Trump to see the shot before he starts.

Furthermore, the New York Daily News reported that those involved with Trumps barbershop scene had to sign a contract stating that they would not touch his cotton candy hair.

They made everyone sign this contract that you couldnt touch his hair, an insider told the Daily News. The two hairdressers and the production team had to sign this contract.

Not everyone was happy about Trumps diva-like demands. It was absolutely absurd, the films producer, Eric Kopeloff, told Newsweek. You can look and see the movies Ive made. [Ive worked with] all these movie actors. Never, ever, have I seen anything like this. Not from the biggest movie stars in the world.

Oliver Stone, the films director, was more diplomatic, telling The Hollywood Reporter that Trump was stunning as an actor.

You know, we did take one with Michael and [Trump] talking in a barbershop. And he jumped up after the take and he said, Wasnt that great? You know, he kept doing it. And we kept going because I was deepening the scene as we went. And he didnt understand nine takes. Hed just done eight, nine takes, hed never understand it. But every scene, hed just jump up. He was the same way every time. He didnt change. But I knew that, recalled Stone.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker added that he decided to cut out Trump because it was a writing issue in terms ofit was too late and too little for where we were, at that point in the movie. And I wasnt thinking about his future presidency or anything like that. I was just dealing with an editing issue.

Would that it were so simple.

More here:
How Anthony Scaramucci Made It Into 'Wall Street 2'And Donald Trump Got Cut - Daily Beast