Mitt Romney as Turnaround Specialist in Chief

Mitt Romney signs a deal with Domino's Pizza in 1998. Photo credit: AP

Boston’s WBUR recently posted a compelling article about Mitt Romney’s work at Bain which included comments from some of his colleagues that worked with Mitt and saw what he did as a “turnaround” expert.  The comments speak volumes to the leadership capacity, expertise, work ethic, data-driven drive, and can-and-must-do attitude that is so sorely needed in our nation’s highest office right now.  Let’s hear from them in the following excerpts (emphasis is mine):

BOSTON — Too much debt. Too much money being spent paying interest on that debt. Unsustainable.

It may sound like the national budget today, but the crisis was Bain & Company in the early 1990s. The Boston consulting firm was in deep trouble. Workers and clients were starting to jump ship. Mitt Romney was called in to save the day.

“There’s nobody that I can conceive of who could have come into that fractious situation, and pull that together,” said Clay Christensen, a former Romney colleague who’s now a professor at Harvard Business School.

As interim CEO of Bain & Company, Romney negotiated with banks to buy time. He convinced employees and clients to stay on. And most spectacularly, he won $130 million in concessions from the founding partners, including Bill Bain, the very man who brought in Romney to fix the mess. Christensen says it was Romney’s crowning business achievement.

“I know Nancy Pelosi very well and I know a number of the Republican leaders,” Christensen said. “Pulling those guys together is a lot easier than pulling Bain together.”

America is desperate for competent leadership in Washington D.C. right now.  The country is fractured along a seemingly impassable divide between politicians on both sides of the aisle that are unwilling to negotiate their ideals, and Americans are long tired of the broken government.  Meanwhile debt is spiraling out of control and the economy remains in shambles.  Here, above, we have a Harvard Professor and former colleague of Romney’s giving us a picture of what Mitt Romney brings to the table; namely: leadership.

We need someone who can lead America to a better future.  Gov. Romney has shown time and time again that he can and will walk into a bleak situation, bring people together, and turn things around.  And if Professor Christensen is correct in that pulling the guys at Bain together was much tougher than it would be to pull the politicians in Washington together, then we know Gov. Romney can get the job done and we know who our vote should go towards.  Continuing:

It was a remarkable political feat, considering that Romney built his career not on bringing people together, but rather on bringing companies in line. In 1984, Romney was chosen to run a spinoff venture of Bain’s consulting business — not because he was a consensus builder, but because he was a tireless pragmatic.

“Mitt’s a guy who goes and goes and goes all day long,” said Geoffrey Rehnert, who worked with Romney from the very start at Bain Capital, Bain & Company’s then-new private equity firm.

“I’ve never worked harder in my life,” Rehnert remembered. “I think the first four years at Bain Capital, I took one week of vacation. Not one week per year, one week in a four-year period.”

On the surface, Romney’s team did what other management consultants did. They’d look at a company, go through its books, find out everything they could about it and its industry. They’d even count cars in the parking lot of competitors to figure out how many people worked there. Rehnert says Romney was ruthlessly data-driven.

“Dive into the detail,” Rehnert remembered of Romney’s capability, “to the point of building models, reading legal documents, drawing slides, taking notes, and then he could zoom right back up to 50,000 feet and look down and see the big picture.”

And then decide what to do. What made Romney a millionaire hundreds of times over was the fact that Bain Capital owned these companies. The venture wasn’t simply a consulting firm that wrote a report with a list of recommendations, hoping the client company would follow through. It made the company follow through.

“He’s a very self-confident problem-solver and deal-maker, too,” said Walter Kiechel, who wrote a book on management consulting, “The Lords of Strategy.”…

And there we have additional qualities of leadership that America needs.  Given that congress decided to head home for Thanksgiving without a resolution to the super-committee’s debacle and the President was absent during that process in Hawaii with the first lady, Gov. Romney’s work ethic would be a refreshing change for Americans.  One would justifiably predict that Gov. Romney would bring a new tone, work ethic, data-driven style, and pragmatism to Washington that we haven’t seen for all too long.  The article concludes by hearing straight from Mitt Romney, so let’s hear it:

“In business, you have no choice,” Romney said at a recent stop in Exeter, N.H. “You must be fiscally responsible. If you don’t balance your budget, you go bankrupt.”

It doesn’t take much to hear the corporation turnaround specialist.

“There are some who say, ‘When you talk about cutting a program, you’re showing that you’re heartless,’ ” Romney told the audience. “I think we have to say no, no, you have to understand: we have a moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in. We have a moral responsibility to keep America the strongest nation on Earth.”

Romney’s critics say politics is different from private equity. They say running a country is not like running a company. But Romney thinks it shouldn’t be so different — that that nation’s problems can be solved pragmatically, by starting with the data.

To him, the U.S. government is not unlike a company that has lost its focus, a company that has lost track of where its money is going.

Mitt Romney would like the chance to turn it around.

Indeed.  Businesses have no choice but to balance their budget and turn things around.  In 2012, America will be given the choice to do so or not.  The government has lost focus and lost track where its money is going.  America needs a turnaround.  Let’s give this proven turnaround specialist the chance to do it.

Mitt Romney Video – The Right Answer

With our economy in shambles and a President who has thus far, after three years, still been unable to make any significant positive change to our economy, it is time for us to elect a new President who understands the economy and who has the credentials and experience to get us back on track.  The right answer is Mitt Romney.  Below is a recent video from the campaign that highlights that very message.  Enjoy and share with many.

“I spent my life in the private sector. I’ve competed with companies around the world. I’ve learned something about how it is that economies grow. We’re not going to balance the budget just by pretending that all they have to do is take out the waste. We’re going to have to cut spending.”

Mitt Romney Campaign Rally Speech in Troy, Michigan

Its been a busy and successful week for Romney and his campaign in Michigan, self included!  So I thought I would share a few notes before I get to my Saturday community service and football.  First, the debate performance by Gov. Romney was once again stellar.  As for the other contenders, Speaker Gingrich ripped it up again, and the others, well, not so much.  The debates are a great venue to see how our candidates perform under pressure and under a time crunch.  America should expect quick thinking and high performance under pressure from our nation’s highest leader, and it was clear once again that Mitt Romney is one who can deliver on that expectation.  I will spare dissecting the debate since anyone can watch the debate in full here.  So instead, on to the campaign rally in Troy.

Mitt Romney delivers speech to supporters in Troy, Michigan, Nov 10th, 2011. Photo credit: http://www.mittromney.com

Supporters, media and the Troy marching band greeted Mitt and Ann at the Polish American Cultural Center in Troy, Michigan.  There are several news articles and photos from the event you can check out, but I sadly forgot my own camera.  However, since I was there I can share with you some of the speech that is not being reported in the copy-and-paste media circles.  I transcribed most of it for your reading as it is a very good speech tailored for a Michigan audience that I think Michiganders will appreciate.  Bolded emphasis is mine.

Ronna Romney McDaniel, Mitt’s niece, was the first to welcome the audience.  Her son “Nash” (yes, named after the car), tells people at school how his uncle is going to be President some day.  She also rallied the crowd at the idea of sending a Michigander to the White House!

Next was Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.  “Is everyone on duty here!?”

On stage with Ann, Mitt commented that “This is a campaign less about us, frankly, and more about you, and about the kind of America you’re going to receive…for us this is a time where we can spend time to make sure that we have an America that is strong and vibrant for you, that you can have an America that’s even more prosperous, and more secure than the America that we’ve enjoyed, and that’s really quite a high bar, and that’s what this campaign is about.”

“I love being in Michigan!  You know I come back to Michigan and the trees are the right height, the grass is the right color this time of year…it just feels right.  When Dad ran for Governor in 1962 I went in a little Ford van…and we went from county fair to county fair…I think that year we visited all 83 Michigan counties…and what a thrill to go across the state.  I love the lake, I love the Great Lakes!.. There’s something special about lakes where you don’t get salt on you after you’ve been swimming, and there’s no seaweed, [audience member yelled out ‘sharks!’], and you don’t have to worry about things eating you in the water…. So its great to be in Michigan again.  We love this state.  We love the people of this state…The thing that I love most about this state is the fact that I married the most beautiful wonderful person in the world from Michigan”

Next Ann took the mic.  “Its great to be home.  Mitt & I have shared history here.  I have family here…I love just putting up my hand and showing this is where my cottage was…Michigan was really great for us last cycle around…thank you Michigan…how grateful we are…for me and my family and all you that are here that are worried about America and are worried about the future of America…I believe in this country so completely, and recognize that America has a purpose in this world and we need to maintain that, and that’s why we’re doing this again.”

Mitt took the stage again.  “How many of you remember George Romney?..My Dad came here early in his career…He came to Michigan to get a job with the trade association, the Automobile Manufacturers Association.  That was not working with any one company, instead it was working with all the companies…shortly after taking the job to work with them, the World War broke out and my Dad was tasked with being responsible with for helping coordinate the production of the various factories in Michigan to start building aircraft.  They turned auto companies into airplane companies and they did it in a year!  That’s an extraordinary thing.  Dad then, after the war, was offered an opportunity to go over to take the reigns of a company called Studebaker-Packard.  But he was also given the chance to go to a place called Nash-Kelvinator.   That later became American Motors where they made Ramblers and then Jeeps and my Dad decided to go to the smaller company, the one that was in trouble, Nash-Kelvinator, because he thought it would have more opportunity.  I remember asking him one day, ‘Dad, we make the best cars right?’…’Yeah’…’Um, then how come they sell so few?’ [audience laughs]…’and how in the world can you in this little company called American Motors compete with General Motors’ with the 60% of the market General Motors had.  I think American Motors had like 5% or 4% or something like that.  And his answer was this, he said, ‘Mitt, there’s nothing as vulnerable as entrenched success‘.  Business, countries that become too complacent, too used to their success can sometimes fall asleep at the switch…its happened to countries around the world, it happened to businesses.

“Now we as nation have been so strong for so long that some in our nation have thought that we could just add more and more burdens on the American people and American industry and it would just be fine because this country is so strong.  But they forget that we’re in a global competition, and that we face real challenges in the world, and that we can’t just sit back and assume that everything’s just fine.  This President came in at a time when American was in crisis…

“I drove through parts of Detroit this morning.  I was over in Grosse Pointe.  It breaks my heart, I have to tell I you, to see the city the way I see it now.  I remember Detroit as the pride of the nation, great jobs!  Back in the 1950s Michigan had the highest income per person of any state in America.  What a state this has been!  We had technology, the innovation.  Ann’s Dad, he came here to work for the auto industry.   His schooling was at the General Motors Institute of Technology.  So I see what’s happening and it just tears at my heart, because I know what this city can be, and was, because I saw it then.  And I know what this country is headed towards if we take the policies that we’ve seen for the past three years and continue them time and time again…and don’t want to see the nation follow down the path that Detroit has gone down, but the same policies that you’re seeing that were so misapplied here in Detroit could well take this country in that kind of direction.

“I watched our President come in at a time of crisis.  And you know he had no experience.  He’d never run anything in his life.  He’d never worked in the private sector.  And he came in and put in place a whole series of policies…and almost everything he did made it harder for this economy to turn around, in part because he didn’t know how to run an economy.  I think to create jobs it helps to have had a job.  You look up a list of things he did and ask yourself, ‘Did this help get our economy going?”  Did threatening to raise taxes on businesses help get this economy going? [Audience responds ‘No!’].  Did Obamacare with a massive federal takeover of health care, did that help get the economy going? [Audience shouts ‘No!’]  Did Dodd-Frank with all sorts of financial regulations help get banks to get more loans? [Audience shouts ‘No!’]  How about the threat of cap and trade, saying we’re going to raise the cost of energy, did that encourage people to invest in America? [Audience shouts’No!’]   And then deficits, let’s see, about $1.6 trillion $1.5 trillion in the first year, $1.2 or $1.3 trillion this year.  Do you think people are more interested in investing in the future in America because of those deficits? [Audience  shouts ‘No!’] …I think you guys are right!  The things he did, almost without exception, made it harder for this economy to turn around.

“And the one I stopped with there was deficits.  Do you realize if we keep spending a trillion dollars or more a year more than we take in that at some point we’re going to reach Greece, or at some we reach Italy.  I don’t know whether that’s two years, or five years or ten years, but anywhere down the road is unacceptable to me.  We can’t keep spending more money than we take in.  We’ve got to cut federal spending, cap it, and make sure we balance our budget, and I will get that job done!  [Audience cheers].

“Now every four years, you listen to politicians in both parties tell you that they’re committed to balancing the budget, and then they get into office and something very different happens.  Its frustrating.  And I don’t know whether it’s because they spent too long in politics and there’s such a big gap between their promises and their deliverables, but I do know this: I have very specific plan that will balance our budget, I’m going to cut spending, and I’m going to cut about $500 billion a year, I’m going to make sure to get spending as a percentage of the economy from 25 that it is today down to 20, and how do I do that?  Three big ways.

“Number one, I’m going to cut programs.  [Applause].  Now there are some that are easy to cut by the way.  The easiest is Obamacare, I’m going to get rid of Obamacare.  [Loud applause].  But by the way, there some programs I like, and that you like, that I’m going to cut.  And you might say, ‘Why cut programs that you like?’  Well the question goes back to these guys with the uniforms on [pointing at the Troy High School marching band], which is I’m going to ask this, for each program we have in the government, I’m going to ask ‘Is this program so essential, so critical, that its worth borrowing money from the Chinese to pay for it, knowing that we’ll never pay it back in our generation but they [referencing the Troy high schoolers again] will have to pay it back?  Is it that important?’  So for instance, I like the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, Amtrak, and the list goes on and on.  I like these things.  But I’m not willing for me to borrow money from someone else and make them pay for it to have those programs.  I’m going to cut those programs out.

“Now there are programs I think we have to have, but I think they’re better run at the state level than at the federal level…Do you know how many workforce training programs we have at the federal government level?  47 different programs and they report to nine different federal agencies and departments.  I’m going to take all of those, take the money that comes from it, think of the overhead that goes with it, all this overhead…I’m going to take that pot of money and all those programs and I’m going to return that money to the states and tell the states you can craft one program that works for your own people, and we can save all the overhead and all the government bureaucrats that are trying to run it from Washington, and let the people in Michigan to have their own program and job training that trains people for jobs that Michigan needs.  Get programs back in the states.  [Applause].

“And the third thing is I’m going make the government that stays in Washington more efficient, more productive…

“Now finally, I’m asked from time to time, ‘How is it that you think President Obama has made so many mistakes?’  How could it be that what he’s done on the economy has failed on almost every dimension, and in fact right now he’s asking if he can do some more of the same?  He wants to borrow another almost $500 billion for another stimulus.  That first one didn’t work, why do the same thing again?

“I’m convinced that he takes his political inspiration, if you will, from the social democrats of Europe that believes that rather than free people choosing their course in life, that what you want is a government guiding the economy and guiding people’s lives.  That smart people at the capital know better than the American people how to live.  Now I don’t think Europe is working in Europe!  I sure as heck don’t think its going to work in America!  I believe in America.  I believe that we got it right and they got it wrong.  [Audience cheers].

“I hope you recognize the extraordinary brilliance and inspiration of the founders of this country.  They gave us something which was revolutionary.  The idea that instead of the government being sovereign, or the king being the sovereign, that the citizen would be sovereign.  That concept, the idea that every individual was endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.  These ideas changed the world.  They gave us political freedom.  They also gave us something known as economic freedom.  Not just that we choose who would represent us in Lansing and in Washington, but also our right to choose our course in life.  We’re free to do what we want to do with our lives.  We’re given opportunity to reach for our dreams.  And those two freedoms brought people from all over the world here.

“We’re in the Polish American Center, what an extraordinary facility this is.  [Audience applause].  You are most, your parents or their parents, we’re brought here because of freedom.  Political freedom.  Economic freedom.  [Audience member says ‘The American Dream’].  The American Dream.  The American Dream is built upon freedom.  Economic and political.  I love America, I love American freedom, I love America’s opportunity, I love our constitution.  I love the fact that states get to compete with each other, and learn from one another…

“When I was a kid, my Mom read to us from a book.  It was called Men to Match my Mountains.  It was stories about men and women who had built this great country.  The title of the book was taken from a poem written by a New Jersey poet.  I read the first four lines, and even I can learn four lines.  [Audience laughter].  It goes like this, it says:

‘Bring me men to match my mountains,

bring me men to match my plains,

men with empires in their purpose,

and new eras in their brains.’

“Empires in their purpose.  When Ann’s Dad went to General Motors Institute of Technology, his idea was he’s start his own company some day.  He had an empire in his purpose.  When your moms and dads came from all over the world to this place they came with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains.  They had a new life, a new civilization…

“I had a chance, just a few months ago in England, I saw some leaders in the country there, the former Prime Minister, current Prime Minister, other leaders.   One of them said, ‘Mitt, if you’re lucky enough to be elected President of the United States, and you go from nation to nation, there will inevitably be people who are critical of America.  But don’t ever forget this: The one thing we all fear the most is a weak America.  American strength is the best ally peace has ever known.’

“We need a strong America.  I will make America strong again, keep America strong and the hope of the Earth, God Bless America, God Bless the people of Michigan, thank you so much!”  [Loud audience applause and cheering].

Romney Unveiling Economic Plans

Michigan & America are set to take another step forward as the most economically-credentialed candidate for President of the United States, Mitt Romney, unveils parts of his plan to repair our economy.  Mitt penned an outline in USA Today which summarized the “stark” contrasts in policy between his plans and those of the President.  Former Governor Romney will present a speech today at 3 p.m. Eastern Time in Las Vegas, Nevada to explain his plan in more detail.

With the unemployment rate having remained above 8% for about 30 months straight despite President Obama’s promise that it would never rise to that level if we followed his lead, Gov Romney’s proposals are a welcome contrast and change in direction for Michigan & the rest of the country.   Here are some of Romney’s key points from his op-ed preview:

• Lower the strain of taxes on individuals & businesses, and implement a “total overhaul of our overly complex and inefficient system of taxation.”
• “Pare back regulation, including eliminating ‘ObamaCare’…direct every gov’t agency to limit annual increases in regulatory costs to zero…impact of any proposed new regulation must be offset by removing another regulation of equivalent cost.”
• Create the “Reagan Economic Zone” of free trade while simultaneously enforcing fair trade w/ countries such as China.
• Promote domestic energy production across a wide range of energy sources.
• Oppose measures by politicians & union leaders which serve their own institutional interests over the rights & prosperity of workers & businesses.
• Implement a streamlined worker retraining program to create the “world’s most competitive workforce.”
• Implement a spending cap & “press for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.”

Mitt’s full article is available here.

His first point about reducing the strain of taxation on individuals & businesses will be especially important to Michigan’s economy.  As a state that takes immense pride in our history and successes in innovative manufacturing, we have the people, facilities & resources required to take full advantage of a national policy that would welcome companies to manufacture in America with open arms.  As Mitt stated in his preview, “our corporate tax rate is among the world’s highest”, so it is no wonder why Michigan & American as whole have lost so many jobs to other countries.  If we become competitive once again in attracting businesses to manufacture here in the United States, the mix of hard workers, existing facilities, and strong resources and supply chains available here in Michigan will immediately gain the attention of business leaders contemplating where to establish new manufacturing operations and will ultimately result in restoring Michigan jobs.

That’s the preview, but don’t forget to look for Mitt on TV or online this afternoon at 3 p.m. E.T. to see what else he has to say about his plan.

Update – In other news, a recent poll shows that Americans are now trusting Mitt Romney to fix the economy more than any other presidential candidate.  The article on Politico is “Mitt Romney Winning the Economic Debate.”

Romney’s economic policy team was also announced today.