http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...article_MoreIn
President Barack Obama has tongue-lashed business leaders one day and courted them the next. Now, he's looking for their advice.
Mr. Obama last Thursday took time out from the Haiti crisis and health-care negotiations to welcome 50 chief executive officers from an array of companies including soft-drink giant PepsiCo Inc., apparel maker Liz Claiborne Inc. and farm-machinery maker John Deere & Co. to discuss how to make the government run more efficiently. It is the first of what the White House hopes will be a series of such brainstorming sessions.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, one of about 50 CEOs who attended a forum at the White House on Thursday.
."There may be a little bit of a cultural clash here," Mr. Obama said. The resulting discussions, captured on video, bore out the president's prediction.
Administration officials asked: How could the government get employees to go along with its information-technology overhaul? Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, said her company did it by offering "performance bonuses on top of regular bonuses."
That produced pained looks from some of the government officials in the room. Just that morning, Mr. Obama had slammed Wall Street bankers for "obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people."
