Joe Mallahan
It’s been a bit of a Nerd run here this morning. Back to our regularly scheduled wonkery.
As we noted in Morning Fizz, some of our readers—particularly supporters of mayoral challenger Mike McGinn—have been crying foul about the Muni League candidate ratings, which ranked Nickels challenger Joe Mallahan as “outstanding” but Mike McGinn only as “good”—two notches below Mallahan’s top “Outstanding” rating. (Nickels got rated “Very Good”—one spot below the top rating.)
The responses that helped Mallahan receive a rating of “outstanding” are a combination of: 1) valid examples of managerial experience; 2) standard-issue Seattle political pablum; 3) harsh attacks on Nickels; and 4) jargon-heavy corporate mumbo jumbo.
1) Mallahan calls himself a “superb manager of large organizations,” giving as an example a product he created at T-Mobile that gave low-income customers access to the same cell-phone rate plans as higher-income ones.
2) Mallahan says he has “a long track record of bringing diverse groups of people together to solve complex problems” by “bringing diverse groups of stakeholders together to build a common vision for long-term improvements.”
3) Mallahan calls Nickels a “bad manager” who “tolerates government abuse” and managerial ineptitude.
And 4) “My typical technique is to convene a small group of experts to innovate a solution, then congregate subject matter experts in every company function to further vet and refine the solution, and finally, to make a bold decision and drive execution of the solution across the enterprise.” Mallahan duplicated that response almost word for word at last night’s CityClub forum.
Personally, I find Mallahan’s responses to the Muni League questionnaire uninspiring, heavy on techno-speak, and less than specific on policy. Does that mean, as several folks in the comments have suggested, that the Muni League unfairly weighted their decision in his favor? Not necessarily.
If Mike McGinn fans think the Muni League should have rated him highly because of his smart environmental positions, they’re misunderstanding how the Muni League works.
The League doesn’t take positions on political issues. Their criteria for judging candidates deliberately sidestep particular policy positions—so that a candidate wouldn’t get extra points, for example, for opposing the mayor’s $4 billion waterfront tunnel, as Mike McGinn does. (McGinn, in fact, mentioned his environmental bona fides at least a dozen times in his own questionnaire, and focused on specific issues like the tunnel, the 2007 ballot measure, green buildings, and expanding transit service.) Instead, the League looks at things like character, life experience, and understanding of what the job entails to judge candidates for public office.
According to League board member Gabe Meyer, the committees that evaluate candidates decide “very much based on the [nonpolitical] criteria. … They follow the process and it doesn’t really matter who does it. You could have two different people with completely different positions on an issue and come to the same result.”
Moreover, the League has always tended to be parsimonious with its “outstanding” ratings. In 2005, just ten candidates out of 111 received “outstanding” ratings; this year, 16 out of 113 did. According to Meyer, any ratings of “outstanding” or “not qualified” go through review by the board, which can also reconsider middling evaluations voluntarily; this year, the board reconsidered “a couple” of evaluations but didn’t overturn any committee recommendations, Meyer says.
Finally, the League’s ratings are based in part on one-on-one interviews and testimonials from people who know the candidate, including some references provided by the candidate and others the candidate evaluators themselves come up with.
Mallahan presents very well in person, and his testimonials may just have been far more positive (or his references more thoroughly coached) than those of his five opponents. “A negative reference goes a really long way,” Meyer says, adding, “Some people just interview very well. Some of the ones who did really poorly may have just punted their interviews.”
Of course, some candidates may do so poorly—or sound so paranoid—on their questionnaires that they don’t stand a chance.
For example, mayoral candidate and viaduct-rebuild fan Elizabeth Campbell, who received a rating of “not qualified,” wrote that she has “documented” that citizens are “being processed” by the “Seattle process”; position 4 candidate Brian Carver boasted about his “relevant experience” working at an auto welding shop and organizing a college mountain bike race; and Thomas Tobin, also a candidate for Position 4, left his questionnaire almost completely blank
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“Character” isn’t political?
If it’s true the Muni League evaluates candidates based on their understanding of candidates’ “qualifications” independent of political positions, why should their endorsements matter at all?
Between a “good” candidate with policies I support and an “outstanding” candidate with policies I oppose, I would unhesitatingly choose the former. Only a fool to vote for the latter.
guess i’ll ask the same question here — when are you going to let folks know that one of your staff members serves on the muni league board?
ECB – Thanks for looking into this issue. In a nutshell – Mallahan’s a good manager. That’s nice. I’m voting for a Mayor, not a manager (I’m not voting to elect the Director of SDOT – a managerial position). @2 has it right, it’s about policies and positions, not managerial experience.
Not sure how the headline is justified by the mumbo-jumbo corporate speak of Mallahan’s responses. He’d make an “outstanding” midlevel manager, I guess.
For some reason, these answers remind me of my favorite book title of all time: Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership
Innovate *that*.
“Regular Voter” beats us to the punch. What IS the point of the Muni League ratings?
Ditto Regular Voter! If the Muni League ratings aren’t based on which candidate has the best vision for the City, or which candidate has demonstrated how he/she can actually carry those visions to fruition, it seems that it’s only about which candidate has the best managerial-speak. Something the muni league might want to ideate about for the next go-round…
Hmm, tetra @3 sniffed out a factoid!
http://www.munileague.org/about-us/board
Cynara Lilly, the “bad cop” of Publicola, is on the Muni League board! Shenanigans! Devilry aboundeth!
…oh and your #4 example of Mallahan’s responses should be reason enough to lower the guy a peg. Couldn’t he just have said, “I solve problems by getting other people to think things up and then I tell other people to get them done.”?
… as opposed to jargon-heavy ultra-liberal Seattle transit/enviro mumbo jumbo.
In Jim Brunner’s profil on Mallahan the other day in the Times, Mallahan claimed to be in the top 40 executive in T-Mobile, but that he didn’t know about the anti-union memos they were circulating and that he couldn’t do anything – not even on the margins – to change things.
Doesn’t sound like a very impressive manager to me. My bet: he’s lying.
@7 “Ideate” hehe…get’s me everytime. my favorite is to ideate synergies in operational performance.
@9 Uhhh … that’s what a manager is supposed to do.
Mallahan said he’d fire Crunican, the head of the division that screwed up the snow, has 12 discrmiantion complaints and had to have outside lawyers review it all for a cost of $1.5 million…all resulting in NO REPSONSIVE ACTION being taken.
The other candidates are weak on this.
There comes a time when yes you fire people and clean house. It’s time in that department. IT’s not enough to fire the mayor, you have to go deeper, you have to actually manage the city and yes that includes firing people who can’t get the job done.
The other candidates don’t seem to have the backbone to do this.
The Munileague doesn’t always play fair. Port Candidate Tom Albro was the former director of the Munileague, a small non-profit, and surprise (!) Albro got the Munileague’s highest rating, higher than his opponent, Max Vekich a former 4-term state house member.
Why didn’t Max Vekich get a higher rating? Vekich doesn’t have experience, doesn’t understand the issues? No, Vekich was a state representative in Olympia for 8 years and was the accomplished chairman of the Ag and other committees. Vekich helped pass some of our state’s most important legislation – The Growth Management Act, Truth in Labeling, and farm worker protection legislation. Vekich knows port operations from 20 years of firsthand experience working at the ports of Tacoma and Seattle.
Yet a small businessman with no political or oversight experience gets an outstanding rating from his own organization. I don’t think that’s fair play.
@11 Re-read the Jim Brunner Times article. Mallahan didn’t make the Top 40 claim, the claim was unattributed. T-Mobile USA conservatively has about 30,000 employees – top 40 would put him in the top 0.13%. Hardly a middle manager.
Brunner called many current and former T-Mobile employees for this story. He called me twice.
And for the record top 20 is probably more accurate. Mallahan is an exceptional, visionary, innovative senior level executive. My experience is first hand.
Someone who doesn’t bother to vote most of the time has outstanding qualifications to be mayor? Is there a more fundamental duty of citizenship?
Will Mallahan start voting when he is elected?
Yea – my experience first hand is the guy is full of himself and thinks being Mayor would make him feel important, so he wants to buy himself that job. Not very inspiring.
His description of leadership is the typical thing everyone says and does, why does he think he special?
Has anyone found out that now that he has been made ‘aware’ of the problems at T-Mobile (I’m betting he knew) if he will lead the effort to unionize their workers? I mean if he is honest about his outrage and such a good leader?
@8: As I said in my post: Although the board can decide to revisit committee recommendations, they didn’t revisit any in this case. The 75 members of the league’s volunteer evaluation committees make the decisions, not the board. And Cynara recused herself from giving any input on the one race where she works as a part-time campaign staffer for one of the candidates (KC Exec), just as Muni League Chair Brad Meacham did in the mayor’s race (he works for T-Mobile).
I have been interviewed by the Municipal League twice in this election cycle. Every time I tried to discuss policy the interviewers told me they didn’t discuss policy, only personal qualifications.
I’m like WTF, this isn’t fucking student council! This is the public’s business.
In the previous Muni League thread, Josh tried to tell me the Muni League ratings meant something because “people are more engaged now.” He got all over my case because I told him his comments were self-serving rubbish and he didn’t get why I would say they were self-serving.
They’re self-serving, Josh, because people who comment here give a shit about policy, and if the Muni League doesn’t give a shit about policy, why should we give a shit about the Muni League, and why should you? Except to get more hits on your site, maybe, by reporting about a pseudo-event and having us come on here and tell you that no, those ratings don’t mean jack shit, and that the Muni League itself doesn’t mean jack shit.
There are a couple issues here. Does it make sense for an organization to try and determine if a candidate would be a good representative, regardless of the candidate’s positions? Second, does the Municipal League do a good job in that regard? The answer to the first question, in my mind, is absolutely. If you know anyone who has worked in public office, they will say the same thing. They know people who they disagree with all the time, but whose approach to the job is reasonable and professional. They also know folks that they often agree with, who are asinine idiots.
As to whether the Municipal League does a good job or not, that is harder to tell. To me, their biggest strength is to filter out the idiots. To figure out whether a candidate is “Outstanding”, “Very Good”, “Good” or “Qualified” is a much tougher call. That being said, the most interesting thing about the ratings is that the two people who appear to be the most qualified candidates (the mayor and the city councilwoman) both got lower ratings than someone else. I’m not surprised at McGinn’s rating; given his initial actions as a candidate, it could be a lot worse.
Candidates are evaluated on 4 criteria, integrity, character, involvement and knowledge. All of them are taken into consideration and it’s the average of the 4 that determines what the ranking that each member of the candidate evaluation committee gives them, independently. Then those ratings are tallied and the average score is what the candidate receives. The committee reconsiders each candidate’s rating to make sure that this is what they all can support. Those results are then taken to the board. In all the years that I have participated in this process, never, never has the board stepped in and told the evaluation committee that they were wrong. They’ve asked what the reasons were in giving a ‘not qualified’ or ‘outstanding’ rating, but never have any of the committees I’ve served on been told to change a rating or have we been influenced by any board member’s position or relationship. As a matter of fact, the Muni League is extremely cognizant of potential conflicts of interest, and if you know a candidate personally or professionally you are recused from evaluating any candidate in that race. This evaluation process isn’t about politics or policy, it’s about whether or not the candidate is a person of integrity, has a good character, is involved in his/her community so they have connections to listen, learn and know what’s going on in the area they hope to serve and finally do they know what the job is that they are seeking and have they demonstrated an ability to learn, and hopefully fast. It’s about having the tools to do the job. The transferrable job skills to get the work done. I can’t begin to tell you who all sits on the board of the Muni League. The Muni League is a group of volunteers, citizens, your neighbors who are concerned about good governance, that we have great candidates, regardless of party, who can step up and represent us, all of us, communicate with us and capable of making decisions that will represent the will of the people and serve the current and future needs of their municipalities and school districts. I would welcome any of those who have commented on the Muni League process to volunteer for next year’s evaluation committees. You can agree with folks about policy, but if they can’t work with others on their city/county council or school board, then their opinion is for naught. If they don’t know how the process works and what the charter of the city/county is, then their ability to convey their opinions and to effect change gets bogged down and then nothing happens. The assumptions of many commentors demonstrates the lack of knowledge/awareness of the hard work that the Muni League and it’s many community volunteers do each year. Many thanks to all who volunteered this year and spent many, many hours researching, interviewing and discussing all the candidates. And thank you to all the candidates who step up and put themselves under the heat and scrutiny of the public magnifying glass. Regardless of the rating you received, each of you should be commended for being involved, for being part of the solution to whatever problems we face.
I find it really surprising that Erica didn’t point out Joe Mallahan’s self-professed strength at ‘idea-ation’. His stories about idea-ating made a deep impression on me.
Hey Josh, Erica, why don’t you ideaate a Publicola article about the process for idea-ating Seattle’s future?
Sorry Ross @21, I’d far rather have an “adequate” elected official working FOR the issues I support than an “outstanding” official working AGAINST them! As I said before, only a fool would do the opposite.
Yes, the GOP hornswaggled working class people into vote against their own interests, and we know how dumb that is…don’t we?
There may be a handful of people out there who are truly agnostic about every public issue on the civic agenda; for them, Yes, vote the Muni League slate. But for everybody else, vote to advance your issues!
And for those of you who actually believe the Muni League usually gets it right in their candidate evaluations, I could remind you of their “outstanding” candidates who ended up on McNeil Island, and the “not qualified” candidates who went on to become very effective legislators. But that story would take too long.
The Muni League does a service to the community by evaluating the basic qualities Jerri describes. Is it perfect? No, we are all volunteers. But it’s ignorant to think there was not a sincere effort to provide information to the community. The Muni League is not endorsing and not telling you who to vote for. If you like the person’s policy positions, and they are rated adequate, they should be able to do the job and lilley implement the policies you like, if they get elected. So of course you should not vote for a higher rating if you don’t agree with the policies of the individual. The Muni League tries to offer a pice of the puzzle to help people do the research that it hard to do, especially when there are 6-8 candiates for one position.
But someone thinking that an individual on the the Board could make a differnece just does not know the process and procedures the Muni League uses. They are good. You can learn all about them. You can volunteer next year, if you can leave partisan or policy crtique at the door for the duration of the process. This is different than an endorsement process.
My dilemna. Politics matter. Competence matters. An executive of a jusridiction is managing to create value for the customers and shareholders.
We are the customers and shareholders of a political system where the executive is supposed to follow the lead of the council, or at least be an equal partner. That, by the way, is why I am micro studying the political positions of those running for council. They are the ones that really should set the agenda and pass the laws. It’s up to the executive to fairly and competently implement.
I need political positions (not promises) or at least perspective that I agree with to make my decision, but I am not underestimating the role of the jobs of both Seattle Mayor and King County Executive when it somes to their fundamental responsibilities.
Posturing and favoritism, telling me that worrying how my money is not managed is a sideshow, single issues, and management inexperience will not get my vote for an executive position.
I say this as someone who has worked for large companies and non-profits and know the sever consequences of good management and bad.
Way back in the early 1980′s, the Muni League was generally rating Democrats low, moderate Republicans high, and conservative Republicans unqualified.
So at one of their meetings to explain the workings of their process to candidates, the following exchange took place between a Party hack (Democrat) and the then Muni League director:
Demo Party Hack: So you rate the candidate on their ability to get the job done, regardless of their political beliefs or partisan affiliation?
Muni League: That’s correct.
Demo Party Hack: So, someone who was extremely well-organized, a leader in that they could obviously get people to follow them, to get things done, with a thorough understanding of how government works, that person would likely be rated ‘outstanding’ regardless what they stood for?
Muni League: Well, hopefully, yes.
Demo Party Hack: So, is it your position then, that the Muni League would have rated Adolf Hitler ‘outstanding’?
In the ensuing uproar, my memory has it that the Demo Party Hack’s Party Chairwoman yanked him out the door of the room by the elbow, the both of them laughing all the way to the bar….
I think Ross @21 asks the right questions.
1. Is there value to rating candidate effectiveness regardless of issues? I think so, because it can serve as a tiebreaker when you’re looking at candidates with roughly the same positions.
For example, looking at the Exec race, as a liberal Seattle Democrat I’m really only considering Dow and Larry since they share my values and issues. They pretty much agree on the issues and both have impressive accomplishments under their belt, so I’m trying to figure out which would be more effective. An effectiveness rating from an organization would at least factor into this calculus for me, along with other sources. (Of course, both were rated “Very good” from Muni, so not much help on that one.) On the other hand, Muni’s rating of Bagshaw as “outstanding” and Bloom as “good” is not going to affect my vote because I agree with Bloom on the issues.
2. Does Muni do a good job? I think they do a decent job as long as it’s taken with a grain of salt. Their process is thorough and probably the right one, and I think they do an excellent job of screening for conflicts. However, I worry that the “candidate investigators” may not represent a diverse array of backgrounds. I don’t know if it is a diverse group or not. Who’s recruiting the volunteers? My guess is the volunteer pool includes a lot of people in the same social circles.
Diversity of background is important even when issues aren’t considered. People from different backgrounds may value different traits in candidates. People of some backgrounds may think a tenacious bulldog-type is a more effective advocate in public office, while others may favor someone who is more a “mediator”.
To “Muni League May Need More Diverstiy”- Yes there is very good diversty on the panels, and there is very healthy discussion in my opinion. I’m not sure the Muni League ratings should be taken with a “grain of salt”, necessarily, but it’s closer than some of the other statements above.
It’s just part of the equation, additional information for the public to have at their disposal. The premise that any one organization could tell you who to vote for negates the philosophy behind our whole system. The idea that there is a “right” person and a “wrong” person to vote for can be determined only by special interest groups. And they endorse specific candidates because the candidate says I’ll make your (the organizations) issue a priority. If that organizations issue is your single priority, you are done! Vote for who they tell you is (fill in the blank; pro choice, pro life, pro bicycle, pro free market, bro business, pro builders etc.) You don’t need to look at any other data, regardless of the capabilities of the individual. That kind of party politics, single issue campaign works sometimes for specifc goals. It also can give us individuals who are completely unqualified to meet the responsibilities in other areas of the office. So if you want to be thoughtful, can step out of partisanship, make a well rounded decision, then you might want to look at information organizations like the Muni League provide.
The Hitler example? It’s a ridiculous extreme, in my opinion would not result in a high rating, but it exemplifies the point of the Muni League rating being only one part of your decision making process. You wold have to look at his policies. If you wanted a maniacal, genocidal, facist here’s a guy who might be effective. BUT it’s a ridiculous extreme example intended to denigrate the volunteer time of some really good people
Joe Mallahan is an empty suit. He throws out a bunch of clichés and is great at pointing out the faults of others.
How does he purpose to pay for everything he says he wants to do? Has he given specifics? If he is so damned concern with fixing this “broken city government” why hasn’t he been more active in city organizations, or even VOTED more times?
Joe sounds like an Outstanding jerk.
Any executive of T-Mobile, the most complained about company in the U.S., has zero electability. See T-Mobile’s report at BBB.org (23,016 complaints in the last 36 months and counting) or contact the Washington Sate Attorney General. I hope the citizens of Seattle aren’t as ignorant as the Municipal League and do a little research. He’s just wasting the money his company has swindled from American consumers & businesses.
guess i'll ask the same question here — when are you going to let folks know that one of your staff members serves on the muni league board?