The issues covered under governing include the use of the government agencies and departments, staffing and decision making. Though it is difficult to compare the incumbent with someone who has not been in the position. I believe a comparison of the past several presidents will provide some insights.
Transition: Use of Government Agencies and Departments
Between the election of a new president and their inauguration, there is a “transition period” where the outgoing president’s team assists the new president and his team in understanding what they will need and what the various departments, and agencies control. Michael Lewis in his book The Fifth Risk describes the need for every administration to ‘understand how the government protects the lives of its citizens.’ This responsibility is not solely in the hands of the Department of Defense or Department of State . In fact, did you know that the Department of Energy (DOE) oversees the storage of all weapons-grade nuclear waste? DOE is also responsible for the electrical grid. The electrical grid is part of our infrastructure that is at risk to foreign interference. Oversight of this department is not just about oil and gas.
Each Department and Agency prepared a briefing for the Transition Team. Lewis in his book describes how the briefings for many either never happened or were so abbreviated that very little information was discussed and how experts were never contacted. Though the new administration may have thought it did not matter what was going on in the old administration because they were going to change everything, it was naïve to think decisions could be made on funding, staffing and policies without fully understanding the responsibilities of each entity.
It is difficult to say how much this lack of knowledge contributed to the high turnover in this administration, but it is difficult to select the right person for a job if you do not know the responsibilities of the job.
Staffing
Over the past four years we have observed the most turnover in an administration in recent history. The Brookings Institute, building on data collected by the National Journal in their Decision Makers’ Edition, has mapped out the turnover in recent administrations for comparison. Based on their analysis the Trump administration has turned over 91 percent of the positions included in their “A Team”, defined as those advisors that surround the president not including cabinet members. The A Team includes positions such as the Chief of Staff, Communications Director, and Press Secretary to name a few. The size of each president’s A Team varies. The chart below has the number of positions in each individual president’s A Team in parentheses next to their name. The analysis accounts for only one departure per position. However, the study also found that in the Trump administration 39 percent of the A Team positions experienced “serial departures”, the three positions mentioned above are some of these we have seen four Chiefs of Staff, six Communications Directors and four Press Secretaries so far.
As you can see above, there was very high turnover in the first year of President Trump’s term that was close to three times the rate of departures in the prior four administrations. He continued to outpace the others in the second year before settling down in the third and fourth years (though year four is not yet complete).
The Trump Administration also experiences significant turnover in cabinet positions. The analysis for this turnover included all turnover including multiple changes per position.
High turnover in positions where you select the candidate can signal a variety of problems including issues with hiring, matching position with skills, management issues and the job market. People selected by the President to serve in his administration are typically not impacted by the outside job market. They are there because they want to be there, either because they want to work for the President, or they want to have an impact on the country’s policies and progress.
Summary
I have presented the facts above based on data from respected institutions. Based on my experiences, in the business world and my time in government, I conclude that the high turnover early in the administration’s first term were a result of poor hiring practices and a management style that did not value the contribution/opinions of those hired.