Getting Things Done

Gina Raimondo: First of an Occasional Series

In the coming months, this series will feature people of notable accomplishment. The focus is on how they manage to get hard things done, rather than just what those were.

My objective is to decipher the qualities of personality and character that overcome obstacles of logistics, competing interests and constituencies, media criticism and funding to reach their goals.

These successes do not generally come with fame and fortune. In fact, they are especially impressive because the rewards are not as tangible as celebrity or money.

One quality I have identified is “oblivious confidence,” an inherent sense that achievement is possible — and that arrogance and bullying are not the same traits as self-confidence, in fact quite the opposite. I have a list of people I’d like to write about who have agreed to let me do so. They are all busy, so it takes time to connect.

Gina Raimondo, whom I interviewed on her last day as secretary of commerce in the Biden administration, is the first in this series.

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Gina Raimondo has a resume that qualifies her as one of the elites that in our era are considered out of touch with the needs of real people. Harvard BA. Yale JD. Rhodes scholarship. Governor of Rhode Island. Secretary of commerce.

But Raimondo’s story shows the fallacy of assumptions. She comes from a working-class, Roman Catholic, Italian-American family in Rhode Island, and her accrued status was unquestionably earned through determination, smarts, and an inherent belief in herself.

There is also this physical reality. In a crowded room of big shots and large egos, Raimondo would not stand out. She is reported to be five-foot-two. At fifty-three she has a style that is energized and youthful. Her manner of presentation — by her own account — is not bombastic. So the impact of what she says comes from its contents and not her swagger.

After her education and years in venture capital, Raimondo ran for and was elected to the position of Rhode Island general treasurer, where she confronted the state’s badly performing public employee pension system — and which meant trimming benefits to recipients until the reorganized investment policies showed a sustainable return. To be an elected Democrat taking on state and local employees guaranteed pushback, and there was.

Once the inevitable controversy and lawsuits were dealt with, Rhode Island’s Retirement Security Act was enacted with bipartisan support and went into effect in June 2015, after she had been elected governor in a three-way race, with 41 percent of the vote.

I first encountered Raimondo in 2018 on Stephen Dubner’s “Freakonomics Radio” program in an interview called “How to Be a Modern Democrat — and Win.” I arranged to visit her in Providence to pitch an idea for a book about the role of a governor as CEO of a state. She was too busy to write it — and the book idea of comparing management of a state and a business is still out there.

Raimondo’s name came up during the 2020 Biden campaign for one administration job or another, which turned out to be secretary of commerce, the position she held for the full four-year term. Here is a succinct summary of her work, which appeared in an Associated Press profile:

“She has been integral to efforts to reshape the U.S. economy. She managed infrastructure money to eventually connect everyone to the internet, approved the funding of new factories and research sites for advanced computer chips and set up the government’s ground rules for developing artificial intelligence.”

And in an age when the potential for criticism is charged by polarized politics and free-for-all social media, nearly as I can attest, Raimondo emerged with a reputation for effectiveness — and personally unscathed.

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Asking someone to explain themselves can be an invitation to earnestness. And I heard expressions of “faith,” “self-discipline,” the ability to “focus, obsessively” on the task at hand. But how, I wanted to know, did she handle the frustrations of political obstacles when policies she supported were being stalled or even dismantled?

That’s when I got a sense of her feisty determination. “When I hear people say, ‘You know I agree with you,’ but I need to ….”

“What kind of coward are you?” is Raimondo’s standard riposte.

Because Raimondo’s commitment has always been focused on the issue at hand and not her personal glory, she was able to maintain composure with opponents who would have been glad to make her angry. Whatever bureaucratic cut and thrust there doubtless has been, the Department of Commerce has been the source of none of the leaks that in Washington are the preferred means of revenge or retaliation (or at least none that my assiduous search online could find).

Another characteristic that Raimondo cited is personal organization. This approach was most notably framed in a now-famous 2014 commencement speech at the University of Texas by Admiral William McRaven that became known by its title and later a major bestselling book called Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World.

McRaven’s exhortation was that the way you start your day — by making your bed rather than leaving it in disarray — is a metaphor for fulfilling a broader plan.

When I asked Raimondo if she was familiar with McRaven’s concept, I didn’t have to explain.

“One hundred percent,” she replied.

I recently read that Raimondo, who married Andrew Moffit in 2001 and has two children, intended to stay in Washington until June, when her son will finish high school. To my question about parenting as a leadership tool, she deflected. Raimondo does not promote her family as a political asset.

Combining public visibility with personal privacy is another aspect of being effective in Raimondo’s case. She has certainly gotten her share of recognition as a powerful woman — in the Time Magazine 100, for instance. But I’m guessing that except in Rhode Island and Democratic Party circles she is not famous.

I can’t say I know Gina Raimondo beyond our encounters in Providence or by phone — but from a distance and after making my rounds of reporting, she certainly has been getting it done.