Monday, January 21, 2008
Barack Obama's messy desk
Is it possible to be a great leader and have a messy desk? This is apparently now a topic of some controversy:
I agree with Mike that Obama's candor about his greatest weakness--"I ask my staff never to hand me paper until two seconds before I need it, because I will lose it"--verged on being too cavalier.... Obama probably saved himself with a deft (and funny) follow-up about how Bush "was very efficient. He was on time all the time and, you know ... I'm sure he never lost a paper"
For my part, this is my new favorite thing about Barack Obama. As a fairly successful person with scads of executive experience and a famously messy desk, I have always been mystified by clean desk types who claim some sort of moral superiority for their paper management skills and still make poor decisions uninformed by wisdom, judgment, or humility. In Mrs. TigerHawk's formulation, if a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what's an empty desk the sign of?
Anyway, this is particularly silly when speaking of the President of the United States, who (history sadly teaches) never has the only copy of anything. Megan McArdle gets it exactly right:
Honestly, are we reduced to arguing about whether a messy desk will make Obama a bad president? I've worked in a variety of organizations over the years, and I've witnessed just about zero correlation between the neatness of one's office, and one's managerial efficiency. The President has plenty of aides to keep his damn desk neat.
Not that there is anything wrong with a neat desk.
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Jan 21, 08:44:00 AM:
I'm going with Megan here. There is no correlation. I would say that if an executive has a messy desk, chances are he/she has a bad assistant, or one that's not allowed to clean it up.
In the paperless world, or more aptly, electronic world, why does one need so much paper? For my own messy life, it's because I am multi-tasking, and am slow to make time to shred or toss drafts of stuff I no longer need. And, I'm notoriously bad about keeping lists of stuff to do, so I leave the paper for my reminder.
As for scads of executive experience ... do we have any evidence that either Hill or Barack bring this to the table?
By , at
Mon Jan 21, 10:47:00 AM:
They say that a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind. That may be true. However, if it is true what is an empty desk a sign of?
By 
Eric, at
Mon Jan 21, 11:49:00 AM:
I tend to think an ordered desk reflects a more ordered and methodical, but also more rigid and linear - unimaginative, mind.
I tend to think of a messy desk as a sign of an intuitive thinker who can take a mass of seemingly unrelated data and take imaginative leaps with that data to understand the big picture.
By , at
Mon Jan 21, 02:28:00 PM:
Eric,
I have a messy desk, and while you're rationalization sounds flattering, I don't know if you can say it's true in all cases.
For me, it's just because I'm pretty busy; not that imaginative. I admire people who are more organized.
Barack seems, at least, to be capable of some self-deprecating humor, which reflects both genuine self-confidence and also a dose of humility. I disagree with most of his political opinions, but he seems like a decent and fair minded man. We could do a lot worse.
By kreiz1, at
Mon Jan 21, 04:48:00 PM:
Nice to know that you suffer from the same malady, Hawk. In fact, my loyal secretary gave me a plaque that reads "organized people are just too lazy to look for things".
It's always been a problem for me- one that I've tried to consciously overcome without success. Now I just accept it. Never understood how organized people do it. Argh.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Mon Jan 21, 06:04:00 PM:
It's just a difference in information storage. Those with messy desks tend to organize things more spatially and visually.
I would assume that Obama came in contact with people different than himself while at Harvard. I would be surprised if there weren't a messy desk or two among the students and faculty whose thinking he admired. Did he just not notice, or did he keep his prejudice in spite of the contrary evidence?
By , at
Tue Jan 22, 04:38:00 PM:
The issue is really one of defining the expectations for the job. Jimmy Carter tried to micromanage everything with a resulting disaster. Reagan was more the broad brush guy with the vision of where he wanted to go, and he got us there. My gripe with GWB isn't with his "I'm a decider" management style, he just makes crappy decisions and then refuses to rethink them when circumstances change. I see Obama as a guy with a broader vision and the strenght of conviction, while HRC is simply the female-pandering, triangulating, weepy-eyed version of Bill
By , at
Fri Jan 25, 12:19:00 AM:
OBAMA is too liberal we dont need him in the whitehouse
