I once had a boss who used to joke with his underlings as he walked out the door, “Work harder, work longer.” It was his twist on the old adage, “Don’t work harder, work smarter,” which reminds us to be more concerned with results than with process.
Unfortunately, with his speech about national security yesterday, President Obama appears to be taking my old supervisor literally. Focusing on process, Obama says the key to making sure the snafu that allowed the Nigerian Muslim terrorist to nearly blow up Northwest 253 is to work harder and longer on our intelligence gathering and analysis.
So Mr. Obama doesn’t think we need to change our basic approach or the people running it. The formula to begin “connecting the dots” seems to be: same strategy, same people, different results. In other words, “work harder, work longer.”
My boss was kidding. I only wish Mr. Obama were doing the same.
About Stan Guthrie
Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His latest book is God's Story in 66 Verses. He also is author of All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, and A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy. He is co-author of The Sacrament of Evangelism. Besides authoring, writing, and editing books, Stan is a literary agent, bringing together good authors, good books, and good publishers.
Stan writes the monthly Priorities colum for BreakPoint.org. He has appeared on National Public Radio's Tell Me More, WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including The Eric Metaxas Show and Moody Radio's New Day Florida. A licensed minister and an inspirational speaker, he served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?
