Romney Taps Ryan: Is Bolder Always Better?

In his latest column for Forbes online, Drucker Institute Executive Director Rick Wartzman explores presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s choice to make Rep. Paul Ryan his running mate.

“By all accounts,” Wartzman writes, “Romney’s selection of Ryan was a daring gambit, meant to invigorate a campaign that had failed to energize the GOP base or persuade the electorate at large that President Obama should be tossed out of office for mishandling the economy—the theme that Romney has been pounding for weeks. Most polls show Obama ahead in the race.

“And so Romney determined, apparently, that he needed a major shift in his approach. In making this calculation, Nate Silver of the New York Times suggested, the former private-equity executive ‘may have been aided by his background in seeking to turn around distressed companies.’”

But Wartzman goes on to explain that “the most dramatic changes in an organization aren’t necessarily the most effective.”

As Peter Drucker warned: “Far too much reorganization goes on all the time. At the first sign of any trouble . . . the cry goes up for the ‘organization doctors,’ whether outside consultants or inside staff.” Meanwhile, “few organizational arrangements are given enough time to be tested and worked out in practice before another organization study is begun.

“Organizational changes should not be undertaken often and should not be undertaken lightly,” Drucker added. “Reorganization is a form of surgery, and even minor surgery has risks.”