People Strategy: Lincoln and His Competition
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Lincoln started the campaign for the presidency in 1859 unknown nationally. His competitors for the position gave him no credence. Seward went to Europe for the eight months of the campaign assuming he had already clinched the nomination. Chase couldn't align his own state senate behind his bid for the presidency (they did the electing of Senate members in those days). And Bates said he didn't really want the job.
Lincoln wanted it. Invited to speak in New York, he stunned the crowd with his oration. Then he went on to speaking engagements throughout the northeast.
Those speeches, and the fumbling of his competition, enabled Lincoln's election. Arriving in Washington, Lincoln, toured and talked in ways that were new to the town. He visited the hill and was greeted respectfully. Early on, he invited Seward to join his cabinet at State. Ultimately, he brought in Chase, along with Bates and Cameron, all unexpected appointments (Goodwin 317).
Seward made the assumption, as did most of the other members of the Lincoln administration, that Lincoln was incompetent. He assumed that he would dominate the cabinet and the government as an American prime minister. He realized early on the error of his ways and came to greatly respect Lincoln as leader (Goodwin, xvi). The others followed in their grudging respect.
In and of itself, the Goodwin story about Lincoln is a good one. It gets better when you compare it to the political situation today. It ends up that Barack Obama "admires" (Klein, 27) Lincoln as much as Seward ended up admiring him. In fact, Obama quotes Lincoln and is "intrigued" (Klein, 27) by the way Lincoln engaged his opponents.
The fun of all this leads us to a discussion about whether Obama might include Hillary Clinton in his cabinet if he is elected. Klein, thinking a little more realistically, perhaps, suggests that Obama should include Robert Gates, current Secretary of Defense, in his cabinet (Klein, 27). It'll be interesting to see if Obama ends up "walking his talk".
And McCain, what about him? Romney is now supporting the McCain campaign. In fact, McCain says Romney is doing a better job representing him than he did representing himself (Cooper).
Now we have two-way fun. When/if Obama or McCain is elected, we get to watch who they include in their government. It ought to be interesting.
One last comment: I haven't seen Jack Welch chime in on all this yet, but I'll bet he has an opinion. My bet is it matches Lincoln's: find the best folks you can for your company and figure out how to constructively engage them in your company's success.
References
Cooper, Michael and Michael Luo. Once Bitter Rivals, McCain and Romney Make Up. New York Times. 17 July 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/politics/19romney.html?scp=1&sq=once%20bitter%20rivals,%20mccain%20and%20romney&st=cse
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals. The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Simon & Schuster. 2005.
Klein, Joe. In with the Old. Obama says he wants to hire a Team of Rivals for his Cabinet. He should start by keeping Robert Gates. Time. 30 June 2008. 27. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1815849,00.html