Managing With Power

13

The Politics of Information and Analysis

There is little doubt that information, and the certainty that it can provide, is a source of power. It can be used as part of a very important political strategy—getting one’s way through analysis. Perhaps no figure in recent corporate and public life has so exemplified the exercise of power through facts and analysis as Robert McNamara, who was first president of Ford, then secretary of defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and most recently, prior to his retirement, the head of the World Bank. McNamara’s success in rising rapidly through the corporate ranks at Ford came from his mastery of information and analysis:

Henry Ford was new and unsure of himself, particularly in the field of financial ...