Clinton Cabinet Told Life Stories at Camp David

WASHINGTON — Last Saturday night at Camp David, President Clinton gathered his Cabinet and top aides for a group exercise in what experts call “human resource development” conducted by two professional “facilitators.”

The point was to tell each other about some major fact or experience in their lives not on their resumes. Sharing such experiences, they were told, helps build sharing relationships necessary to foster trust among new teams.

Clinton reportedly plunged in with a story about his early childhood. “He talked about how he was a fat kid when he was 5 and 6 and how the other kids taunted him,” one source said.

Human resource development, or organizational development, is common in business and industry--but not generally in the White House or politics. One Clinton official said Thursday: “Don’t try to make this sound weird, like we had some kind of encounter group therapy up there. . . . It was just people talking about themselves.”