Quality and Political Parties

Uncle Sam asking people to vote

We demand quality in every aspect of life, from the food we eat to the cars we drive. We demand quality in government as well. But quality in government is not the same as quality in politics. What do we want in politics, and in political parties, and how do we get it?

By Mark Harris

Introduction

Quality is the ultimate reason for existence in any organization. It doesn’t matter how many patients a hospital sees, how many widgets a manufacturer makes, or how many planes an airline owns if the patients get sicker, the widgets break, and the planes can’t fly. Doing one task well will get a man a job. Doing 1,000 tasks poorly will not.

Politics is one area in which we probably don’t think enough about quality. What is a quality candidate? What are quality elections? What is the best process to choose between candidates? What should a high-quality campaign look like? Who decides? This article will delve into quality and politics, in the hopes of increasing the quality of our political system.

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The Balanced Scorecard and the Republican National Committee

19th century picture of young Abraham Lincoln

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has struggled to capitalize on some big advantages in the elections of 2018, 2020, and 2022. The Balanced Scorecard is a widely used tool to help businesses, non-profits, and governmental organizations achieve their goals. Perhaps by looking again at their operations, the RNC can prevail in 2024.

By Mark Harris

Introduction

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a proven tool for organizational evaluation, strategy, and improvement. Typically, it includes factors such as “financial,” “customer,” “internal processes,” and “learning and growth.” According to Blocher et al., 2021, BSC financial goals include increasing profitability, growing revenue, and reducing costs. BSC customer satisfaction goals address improving the profitability of each customer, raising customer satisfaction, and reducing the time required to fulfill a customer’s desire. Internal process goals would be improving quality and productivity. Finally, learning and growth goals should focus on developing employees, using technology more effectively, and communicating strategy better to all stakeholders.

The BSC was developed in the 1990s, and since then has been adopted by thousands of organizations in a wide variety of fields. The BSC has found a home in the public sector, as I used it in the US Army Medical Department for over 20 years. Miller, 2017 wrote that the public sector, especially when reelection depends on organizational performance, has widely adopted performance measures such as the BSC. Private sector companies of all sizes have capitalized on the BSC, and it has proven itself valuable in non-profit organizations as well.  I worked in the past with the Republican National Committee (RNC), so this work will discuss how the BSC might look in the context of the RNC.

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Abortion – The Great Divide

Abortion is the largest issue dividing America, the world. The US Supreme Court is considering the biggest change since Roe. What to know?

By Mark D, Harris

American politics is as divided as it has been since 1856, when, in a premeditated assault, South Carolina Democratic Representative Preston Brooks beat Massachusetts Republican Senator Charles Sumner with his oak walking stick. Brooks was arrested but soon reelected, and after a prolonged recovery, Sumner also made his way back to the Senate. The issue then was slavery, and the issue now is abortion.

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Calendars, Cultures, and Politics

People follow calendars, but they also create and use them to advance their personal and political agendas.

The two primary parameters that shape human thinking, regardless of culture, antiquity, or language, are space and time…spacetime for the physicists among us. It is difficult to understand any communication without a common understanding of these parameters. Such simple phrases as “See you tomorrow” require both parties to have a similar understanding of “tomorrow”.

In the absolute sense, time is dictated by the rhythms of nature as determined by the Creator. In the past it was viewed as the distance in history (as opposed to geography) between events. In that mindset, the idea of saving time was ludicrous. Time progressed at its own rate and rhythm and man could do nothing to change those realities. Ancients wanted tasks to be quick and efficient just like moderns do, and for many of the same reasons, to maximize the duration of pleasant experiences and minimize that of unpleasant ones. However, in the ancient mind time was not like money, which could be stored. It had to be used.

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