The Wall Street Journal - 31.10.2019

A16| Thursday, October 31, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Good Strategic Planning Can Be Productive

Wyatt Wells throws the baby out

with the bath water in “Why ‘Strate-

gic Plans’ Are Rarely Strategic—or

Effective” (op-ed, Oct. 26). While he

cites anecdotes to support his the-

sis, he neglects to mention that stra-

tegic planning, when done well, in-

volves establishing a robust fact

base, conducting rigorous analysis,

surfacing the most intellectually and

emotionally challenging questions

for the organization, addressing

those questions with genuine

thought, integrity and collaboration,

and communicating effectively

across the organization throughout

the process of developing and imple-

menting the plan.

In an age of increasing misinfor-

mation and mistrust, and decreasing

attention spans, the antidote to Mr.

Wells’s anecdotes is exactly the kind

of deeper, more genuine thought and

engagement that great strategic

planning entails, not hopeful abdica-

tion to the instincts of a leader.

JOYJITSAHACHOUDHURY

Strategy Consultant

Short Hills, N.J.

When I became vice president for

strategic planning at a small for-

profit privately held company I

strove to be one of the exceptions to

Prof. Wells’s description of fraudu-

lent strategic planners. The solution

was quite simple. A “strategic plan”

was defined to comprise a quantita-

tive and measurable set of goals at

specific times and quantitative and

measurable actions to achieve those

goals. There was no allowance of

words such as “enhance,” which

carry no quantitative or measurable

aspects, to avoid specificity, as Prof.

Wells quite rightly criticizes. The

most egregious plans in my experi-

ence are associated with committees

of the U.S. government whose re-

ports are immediately trashed or, at

best, filed and never looked at

again.

JOHNRIGANATI

Skillma, N.J.

The value of planning is in the

process, conversations and under-

standings that unfold in the “doing.”

Planning is at its root teleological.

Well-structured planning exercises

involve an honest assessment of the

current state and a realistic ap-

praisal of what is possible given as-

sets, resources, competitive environ-

ment, etc. This enables the organi-

zation to build a unified vision of

where it wishes to go.

“Plans are worthless but planning

is everything” (Dwight Eisenhower).

“He who does not look ahead re-

mains behind” (Spanish proverb).

CHRISTOPHERCLARK

Houston

My experience at two firms

taught me that a certain amount of

planning is good, but that the key to

success is the effective implementa-

tion of the plan.

JOHND.GRUBBS,P.E.

Houston

Prof. Wells fails to point to the

cacophony from the most egregious

of strategic planners, our Demo-

cratic candidates for president. All

candidates “have a plan,” will bring

“fundamental change” and probably

save our immortal souls in the pro-

cess. It is the essence of socialism

that the government control and

plan all activity in the nation, yet

the professor leaves out the most

dangerous type of strategic plan-

ner—strategic planners with the

power of the state behind them. Call

it a strategic plan, a central plan, a

five-year plan, a Great Leap For-

ward—it consistently ends badly for

the lowly citizens. If the strategic

plan of a university or corporation

fails, it doesn’t bring down the

whole nation.

JOEBOCCUZZI

Stamford, Conn.

I’ve been working as a strategist

with Fortune 1000 companies for 30

years, and wrote a book on the sub-

ject. Prof. Wells’s piece, though ac-

curate, misses the crux of the mat-

ter. Planning is bottom-up, strategy

is top-down. The phrase is an oxy-

moron. Planning kills strategy.

ALANWEISS,PH.D.

President

Summit Consulting Group, Inc.

East Greenwich, R.I.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters intended for publication should

be addressed to: The Editor, 1211 Avenue

of the Americas, New York, NY 10036,

or emailed to [email protected]. Please

include your city and state. All letters

are subject to editing, and unpublished

letters can be neither acknowledged nor

returned.

“Eye of newt and

a little cannabis for flavor.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Charters: A Drain on Classic Public Schools

Your Oct. 19 editorial “Florida’s

Reform Momentum” was accompa-

nied by Megan Keller’s same-day

“Detroit Is Making a Comeback. Can

Its Schools?” (Cross Country), re-

counting how Detroit’s public

schools are moving in the “right di-

rection”...evenas“therestof

Michigan slides.” One of the main

reasons for Michigan’s slippage is

the state’s embrace of dumb ideas

cleverly labeled as “school choice.” A

more apt choice of words for what is

happening in Michigan, as well as

Florida, would be a wasteful cash

give-away of tax dollars to unac-

countable privately run schools.

Florida is one-upping the Great

Lakes State when it comes to bad ed-

ucation policy. Florida Gov. Ron De-

Santis has signed a plan that instead

of adding “momentum,” will drain an

additional $1 billion from the already

underfunded public schools that are

responsible for educating 90% of

Florida’s children. The end result

will not be a better education sys-

tem, but rather a fractured, redun-

dant system that rewards tax dollars

to private entities with little over-

sight, in violation of the state consti-

tution.

Gov. DeSantis’s raid on the state

treasury will be fought in the courts

and also in the court of public opin-

ion. The Florida Education Associa-

tion has scheduled more than 50

events over the next five weeks to

explain all that is at stake to parents

and taxpayers, and to ask Floridians

to properly “fund our future.”

FEDRICKINGRAM

President

Florida Education Association

Tallahassee, Fla.

Quids, Pros and Quos and

The Trump Impeachment

Regarding Barton Swaim’s “Blow-

ing the Whistle About a Quid and a

Quo” (op-ed, Oct. 25): The etymology

of “cherry picking” refers to a crane

with a bucket to select the very best

in a selfish manner. The George W.

Bush administration was accused of

picking only information that sup-

ported the invasion of Iraq while ig-

noring (and hiding) evidence to the

contrary.

In the case of the Mueller report,

no one was talking about “collusion”

except for President Trump. The re-

port itself investigated conspiracy, a

legal term, and found none.

As for the “quid pro quo” of the

Trump administration holding up

hundreds of millions of dollars in aid

to Ukraine to force it to investigate

one of the president’s election oppo-

nents, Ellen Weintraub, chair of the

Federal Election Commission, empha-

sized on June 13: “It is illegal for any

person to solicit, accept, or receive

anything of value from a foreign na-

tional in connection with a U.S. elec-

tion.” So yes, doing so would be an

act of grave moral turpitude.

LUISZERVIGON

New Orleans

Pepper ...

And Salt

Don’t Pack the High Court,

But Have a Retirement Age

Your editorial “Mayor Pete’s Su-

preme Pivot” (Oct. 25) reminds vot-

ers of South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete

Buttigieg’s radical approach to our

third branch of government. Presi-

dent Franklin D. Roosevelt’s failed

court-packing attempt, and the polit-

ical mischief which it was symptom-

atic of, has apparently now been for-

gotten and recycled, as fear among

progressive voters increases as Asso-

ciate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

battles health-related issues during

the Court’s new term.

Court-packing by increasing court

size is a constitutionally flawed ap-

proach. By contrast, a realistic re-

tirement age (80, 85?) would be a

more appropriate, and ideologically

neutral, approach to the decline

which the aging process inevitably

brings.

Politicians should, as Chief Justice

John Roberts has wisely admonished,

eschew interjecting politics into our

highest court.

ROGERBENNETADLER

Brooklyn, N.Y.

The ABA Strikes Again

H

ow can a judicial nominee who has ed-
ited the Harvard Law Review, clerked
for a top circuit judge, litigated exten-
sively at the district and appel-
late levels and served as Solici-
tor General of two states be
deemed “unqualified” for the
bench?
Only if the group making the
judgment is the liberal lawyers’
guild known as the American Bar Association,
and the nominee in question is a Republican—
and, worse, an evangelical Christian and gun hob-
byist from the Mountain West. The ABA’s two-
page assessment for Lawrence VanDyke, a
nominee for the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Ap-
peals, dropped Tuesday. It’s a mess of anonymous
personal attacks and innuendo, including that Mr.
VanDyke is “arrogant, lazy” and “an ideologue”
who “does not have an open mind.”
Some of the sniping seems to have come from
personal or political rivals from Mr. VanDyke’s
time at the Montana Department of Justice, but
the ABA keeps its interviews confidential so nei-
ther Senators nor the public can know who
made what claims and on what basis. After the
document was released, Mr. VanDyke’s former
colleagues started coming forward to strongly
dispute its characterization.
One striking passage in the ABA document

says Mr. VanDyke “would not say affirmatively

that he would be fair to any litigant before him,

notably members of the LGBTQ community.” At

his Wednesday Judiciary Com-

mittee hearing, Mr. VanDyke

denied under oath that he had

said this. It turns out that the

lawyer who led Mr. VanDyke’s

interview donated to his rival

when he ran for Montana Su-

preme Court in 2014.

Mr. VanDyke was remarkably good-natured at

the hearing given what had been dropped on his

head, though he did get emotional answering the

accusation he would be unfair to sexual minorities.

“I did not say that,” he said. “I do not believe that.

It is a fundamental belief of mine that all people

are created in the image of God and they should

all be treated with dignity and respect.”

The ABA’s character assassination was so

brazen that even Sheldon Whitehouse—last seen

threatening the U.S. Supreme Court over a gun

case—suggested that the committee bring in the

ABA for more information. That’s not enough.

The ABA has been trashing conservative nomi-

nees for decades, leveraging the false perception

that it is a nonpartisan professional group. It is

free to oppose candidates for ideological rea-

sons, but it ought to be stripped of its privileged

role in the confirmation process.

The lawyers’ guild tries

to defeat another

conservative nominee.

Adios, Bias Response Team

G

ood news is hard to find on American
campuses these days, so we’re even
happier than usual to report a victory
for free speech at the Univer-
sity of Michigan. The school
administration has agreed un-
der legal duress to disband its
speech police and reform its
student code.
The retreat came after a
successful legal challenge last month to Michi-
gan’s Bias Response Team by Speech First, a
nonprofit focusing on campus speech. The uni-
versity’s bureaucratic bias cops had the power
to investigate students accused of speech
deemed offensive merely by the “feelings” of
those offended. Like most people these days,
we’re offended by someone’s speech nearly ev-
ery day.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that
the Bias Response Team “acts by way of implicit
threat of punishment and intimidation to quell
speech.” The school tried to modify its defini-
tions of bullying and harassment to head off a
legal defeat, but the Sixth Circuit said the tim-
ing “raises suspicions that its cessation is not

genuine” and remanded the case to a district

court where the school settled Monday.

The university agreed never to revive its old

definitions of bullying and ha-

rassment. Administrators had

scrapped the Bias Response

Team earlier this year and re-

placed it with a Campus Cli-

mate Support team that is in-

tended to “support students,

faculty or staff” but is “not a disciplinary body,

cannot impose discipline,” and can’t compel stu-

dents to meet with them.

Under the settlement, the university agreed

never to reinstate the Bias Response Team,

while the plaintiffs reserve “our right to chal-

lenge the Campus Climate Support staff, should

that program turn out to be no different than

the Bias Response Team in practice,” says

Speech First president Nicki Neily.

The settlement should resonate far beyond

Michigan because more than 200 schools have

similar bias police. Those schools would be wise

to drop these practices before they end up in

court trying to defend their own indefensible

violations of the First Amendment.

Michigan concedes that

its speech police are

legally indefensible.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

OPINION

Adam Smith’s Revenge

T

he great counterfactual of the Trump
Presidency is how much faster the econ-
omy would be growing without the
damage of his trade protec-
tionism. Wednesday’s report
of lackluster 1.9% growth in
the third quarter shows again
that you can’t escape Adam
Smith’s revenge for indulging
in bad economic policy for po-
litical goals.
The economy continued to grow despite
overwrought recession fears as consumer
spending provided nearly all of the growth in
GDP. This is the second quarter in a row when
the mighty consumer had to offset falling busi-
ness investment to produce positive growth.
Government spending kicked in a modest 0.35-
point of the 1.9% growth, offsetting declines in
net exports (minus-0.08) and gross private in-
vestment (minus-0.27).
The investment slump looks even more stark
in the nearby chart on overall nonresidential in-
vestment by quarter. The last two quarters have
been negative after nearly two years of healthy
gains that revived with the Trump Presidency
and the recharging of
business animal spir-
its. Democratic econo-
mists argue that the
Trump policy mix of
tax reform and deregu-
lation made no differ-
ence to investment
and growth.
But as the chart
shows, nonresidential
private investment
took a dive in 2015 and
2016 as the economy
barely dodged a reces-
sion. Investment accel-
erated as the new pol-
icy mix began along
with a more pro-busi-
ness political climate. Dan Clifton of Strategas
Research Partners estimates that U.S. compa-
nies have repatriated nearly $1 trillion from
overseas since tax reform passed, contributing
to a variety of business purposes.
GDP growth accelerated to 3% for a time
along with investment, but then came Mr.
Trump’s trade interventions. More than the
damage from tariffs, business confidence fell
amid the uncertainty of what Mr. Trump might
do next. This has led to slower growth that is
reflected in roughly 2% GDP growth in the last
two quarters. The economy is now down again
to the slow Obama growth plane.
President Trump and some in the White
House blame the Federal Reserve and Europe
for this slump, but neither explanation holds up.

Europe hasn’t grown fast for decades and its

2017 growth bump was helped by faster U.S.

growth. The Fed in our view made a mistake in

raising rates a quarter point

last December, but businesses

did not starve for money even

before the Fed began cutting

rates again this summer.

The strong evidence is that

trade policy is the main

growth culprit. U.S. manufacturing has

slumped, which is related to slowing exports.

Slower growth in China from the trade war has

reduced the exports of U.S. farm, industrial and

construction equipment. The third-quarter de-

cline in spending for information processing

equipment, much of which is exported, was the

largest in seven years.

A study by Federal Reserve economists this

year looked at two waves of trade policy

“shock,” first in 2018 and then in the first half

of 2019, and estimated the impact reduced GDP

growth by about one percentage point. In the

National Association for Business Economics

October survey, 53% cited trade policy as the

key downside economic risk through 2020.

On Wednesday the

Fed continued trying

to counter that risk by

cutting the fed-funds

rate for the third time

this year to between

1.5% and 1.75%. With

inflation at about 1.7%,

this means the Fed is

underwriting negative

real interest rates even

with the economy

growing 2% and the

jobless rate at an his-

toric low of 3.5%. This

is not tight policy.

Chairman Jay Pow-

ell said at his news

conference that the

rate cuts are already showing up in a stronger

housing market. And housing in the third quar-

ter contributed to GDP growth for the first

time in seven quarters. The problem is that

housing is a form of consumption and doesn’t

drive the productivity gains and higher wages

that other business investment does. The Fed

will have to watch not to repeat the excesses

in housing and other assets of the 2000s that

eventually came to grief.

The larger point is that monetary policy

can’t make up for bad macroeconomic deci-

sions. Zero rates couldn’t lift the economy

above 2% in the Obama years when willy-nilly

regulation and high tax rates undermined busi-

ness confidence and investment. Negative rates

are no panacea for trade shocks either.

Trade damage takes the

economy down to

Obama growth levels.