Do executive candidates find highly successful, trains-run-on-time, happy companies more alluring? Or do they prefer to take over a basket case, where they could ride in on a white horse and slay the dragons and fix the problems and take the stock options from 3-cents to untold tens of thousands?
To be sure, there are “emergency CEO” types who are brought in on a short-term basis, often at the call from cranky venture capital types, to pretty-up a balance sheet or bring things back to “normal.”
On the face of it, those who take over the miserable enterprises would seem positioned for the more entertaining time. The bar is set sufficiently low and the unspoken truth is, “How much worse could you do than the guy who preceded you?” On the other hand, taking over a spiffy, happy place would free up more time for golf – and the shareholder meetings wouldn’t be so grim.
There’s no perfect answer; different personalities, different opportunities, offer up different options – and different results. Part of the allure of the nightmare executive slots is that you might well be free to try out new, “innovative,” semi-nutty ideas, again, working on the theory of “How much worse can it get?”
Even in the public sector, which thrives on a stable tax base and docile voters and the like, some prefer the opportunity to shake things up and experiment with governing that has never been seen before.
The guerilla war at work in various jurisdictions over public employee benefits and bargaining rights – a matter long-thought protected from tinkering – has been prompted by political go-getters in the depths of a fiscal crisis that allows them the flexibility to muck around a bit.
The most interesting experiment that might be launched in Massachusetts (a somewhat docile place when it comes to government revolution, except for that messy business with the old Boston Tea Party) might be the miserable little school systems of Holyoke and Fall River.
Getting A Head Start
To the surprise of perhaps no one at all, Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester got all huffy and suggested that the French Foreign Legion might be sent in to take over the public school systems of Holyoke and Fall River, if things don’t improve magically in the next year. Holyoke and Fall River: Factory towns with no factory jobs; a dwindling population of middle-class folks to spiff up the test scores; and a tax base that doesn’t lend itself to grandiose new ideas. What is going to change in the next year?
Can they bring in one of those supposedly magical school-turnaround gurus? The suspicion is, those folks aren’t nearly as good as their press clippings – and even they don’t perform magic in a year.
No, this would be an opportunity for the commonwealth to be the emergency CEO; to use Holyoke and Fall River as two small, discrete school-voucher experiments that hand the families a voucher to attend any school not run by Wiccans: “God bless you and goodbye, public school kids of Fall River and Holyoke. We’ll try to spiff things up a bit at the old homestead, but if you’re bitter, or ready for opportunities that don’t depend on your local address, here’s a ticket to the public, private or religious school of your choice.”
Yes, yes, the teachers’ unions will march in the streets and lawsuits will slow things down. But remember, we’re talking about Holyoke and Fall River. Who will make the case that the kids would be worse off, without an opportunity to escape – plus the benefit of putting pressure on the public schools to improve? Drive up the street a bit to the Harvard University economics department, which has been cranking out research for years on the nominal and remarkable benefits that often come from “school choice.”
Whose “fault” is it that the Holyoke and Fall River schools aren’t up to snuff? That’s a story for another day – a very long story, on a very distant day. In the meantime, offer up a rescue plan for some of the kids, right now. Call it an experiment, borne of desperation, if you prefer. Evaluate the results. Bring in a CEO with a thick skin.
