Trump the Businessman?

I have never been a fan of Donald Trump -- which is not to say that I took no pleasure in the shocked looks on the faces of Hillary Clinton's overconfident supporters on election night.  Trump has spent his whole life in the spotlight, and no one with that kind of record can be called a "conservative", at least as that term was understood in the 1980's; he has more in common with Hugh Hefner than with Ronald Reagan.  I did however accept the claim that Trump was an experienced businessman.  Two observations now make me doubt that very much.

The first observation is of Trump's appointees, or at least the ones with whom he regularly works on important decisions.  A large business will require many specialized skills, and its CEO cannot be expected to master them all.  That is not his job.  He should, however, be able to assemble a team of capable subordinates who work together to achieve the corporation's goals and implement his vision.

For a good example, consider Walt Disney and the creation of Disneyland, or even any of its more important early rides, such as the Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean.  The dream and the final say both belonged to Mr. Disney, but he managed to get a number of inspired imagineers to buy into that dream.  The difference between getting talented subordinates to buy in vs merely hiring yes-men cannot be overstated.  A yes-man will not creatively challenge his boss:

• because he was selected for personal loyalty rather than ability, he may lack the necessary expertise to flesh out alternative possibilities;
• it is not necessary even to understand the boss's vision to be a yes-man (though a boss who prefers yes-men may well lack anything coherent enough to be called a vision); and
• the yes-man is motivated by his boss's praise (and by fear of his boss's criticism), not by the success of the project.

Walt Disney did this the right way, and the results speak for themselves.  Can anyone actually claim Donald Trump has chosen his subordinates wisely?  The resignations, the infighting, and the harsh language Trump has unleashed on people he personally selected indeed speak for themselves.  If Trump were a real captain of industry, how could he assemble such a poor staff, and why would he go to such lengths to undermine that staff?

The second observation crystallized a few days ago in the context of recent comments Trump has made about NAFTA negotiations:  he sees trade deals, and apparently most international affairs in general, as zero-sum games, in which one side wins only what the other loses.

Zero sum games can occur in business, of course, as well as in sports and electoral politics, but the particular characteristic of business is that it should produce wealth, making it possible for both sides to win.  In fact, it is not unusual for the success of one's "competition" to be extremely important for one's own success.  For example ...

• It may be that the competition helps increase demand for one's product.  Take Busch Gardens for example.  They would be horrified if they were to hear that the Magic Kingdom were going out of business, even though Walt Disney World is a "competitor".  That's because many people come to central Florida just for Walt Disney World, but while in the area swing by Busch Gardens for a day or two.  Fewer people visiting the Magic Kingdom would mean fewer people visiting Busch Gardens.
• Without competition, a business's suppliers might not be able to continue operations.  Let's say I'm a farmer.  Other farmers might be "competition", but John Deere would not be able to keep making tractors if I were their only customer.

Again, these things should be obvious to any businessman. 

"But," you might object, "international diplomacy is not business per se, and the examples you gave don't exactly apply to the United States."  Fair enough, then, so here are cases at the international level:

• a prosperous Mexico would be better able to afford American goods, and 
• there would be no need (nor desire) to "build a wall" to keep prosperous Mexicans out of the United States.

The case is even more dramatic with regards to Cuba.  The USA has spent decades trying to crush Cuba, even after the fall of Communism in Europe, but the only threat Cuba poses to America is another Mariel Boatlift should Cuba actually collapse politically or economically.  We would have a much better chance of transforming Cuba -- a small, nearby nation with much the same cultural background as ours -- through constructive engagement than we have with China, yet we treat Cuba as though it were the existential threat, not the nuclear-armed, incipient superpower.

It is worth repeating that not every interaction can be made into a win-win situation; it would be naive and dangerous to assume it could.  Yet it is even more naive and dangerous to assume that if our adversaries are losing, we must be winning.  Saddam Hussein definitely lost the "second Gulf war"; but did the United States really win?  A vacuum was created that allowed ISIS to form, and the whole area is still a mess with a very uncertain future.  Has this made America safer, or more respected, or more prosperous?  There is nothing particularly unusual about this example, either; punitive actions based on zero-sum reasoning seem to be counterproductive more often than not.

Sadly, Trump seems to base his whole foreign policy -- to the extent it has any consistent basis -- on the idea that for every loser there is a winner, and vice versa, so other countries must lose so that America can win.  This is not how a real businessman should think.

If Trump was not really the businessman he is portrayed as having been, what was he, exactly?  My guess is that he was like an NFL owner.  The players make the plays that fans come to see; the coaches call the plays; the general manager hires the coaches; the owner ... hires the GM, gives the team some of its general direction, but mostly just sits in his luxury booth and enjoys a feeling of power.  It is helpful if an owner knows the rules of the game, and even more helpful if he knows how to manage subordinates, but neither of these is really essential as long as he allows the GM to make the important decisions while he remains a kind of figurehead.  This leaves the owner with lots of free time to pursue other interests, like hosting a reality TV show or running for office.