The chief of staff for Michigan’s governor tried to warn people

The chief of staff for Michigan’s governor tried to warn people about the looming crisis in the Flint water, but without effect. What lessons can corporate chiefs of staff apply from this government example?

https://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/how_snyders_chief_of_staff_wre.html

Questions to consider:

  1. What could Mr. Muchmore have done differently to affect change in this situation? If he went outside his organization to find people who could put pressure on the relevant administration officials, including his own executive, to achieve the desired change, is he being disloyal or a good steward of the chief of staff office?
  2. While many corporate executives don’t have 76 “priority projects,” many are visionaries and involved in multiple business dealings. What, if any, role does the chief of staff play in helping them focus and prioritize? Assuming that governmental priorities can be set, in part, by the executive’s campaign promises, are corporate executives’ projects and priorities even comparable?
  3. Where does the chief of staff’s responsibility and the principal executive’s responsibility begin, end, and overlap? See Season 6, episode 22 of television’s The West Wing for the conversation between two chiefs of staff about their executives being “his own man?”
  4.  Did Mr. Snyder’s ambition for change to happen in dog years overwhelm Mr. Muchmore’s ability to make realistic change?

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