Dartblog

The most common error that I see in the evaluation of people is the confusion of niceness and competence. “He’s such a wonderful doctor” opines a friend who possesses not the slightest bit of information regarding her MD’s training or past clinical success. “He has been a very effective administrator,” a faculty member recently said to me, “he is always great in returning my calls.” Jim Wright dined out on his grandfatherly manner for decades: white hair, height, and a soft baritone that seemed to say ‘I care about you’, when in fact the good ship Dartmouth was dead in the water.

Ask yourself, the next time that you voice a positive opinion about someone, whether you really have done your research into that person’s achievements - or lack thereof. In business, the phrase “professional interviewer” brings grimaces to the faces of everyone but the most perspicacious executives. Almost all of us have been bamboozled by the smooth-talking recruit who promises the world in such convincing tones that one can’t help but offer a job. Let me tell you, the swoon does not last.

Unlike your traditional academic, President Kim has gotten his hands dirty. He has faced up to WHO bureaucrats, Peruvian health administrators, drug company executives, and Russian generals, and he seems to have gotten them to do good things. That’s not a half-bad background for confronting the challenge of re-animating a small school in the woods of New Hampshire. In looking at Kim’s real achievements, I know that I am not falling for smooth salesmanship (though he has plenty of that, too).

But can Kim distinguish a forceful administrator from an academic re-tread ? I don’t see a lot of hiring and firing in his background, so I will wait to be convinced on that point. To date, he is having difficulty choosing administrators: it seems that after a time he can discern a lack of shared competence, but at other moments he is swayed by the caroling of sycophancy. Experience will toughen him up.