Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

The Leader’s Guide to Transformation

January 29th

IBM’s Center for the Business of Government this week published my Leader”s Guide to Transformation.  In doing so the Center demonstrated the value of communicating in multiple media simultaneously.  They also included the discussion of transformation in their blog and an article about the Leader’s Guide in their magazine.  On February 2nd there will be a discussion of the guide on their radio show.

For me personally the most interesting thing that is likely to emerge from this prodigious output will be to see whether the subject engages the interest of an audience.  What often happens in cases like this one is that high visibility initiatives (Transformation of the Army, Transformation of the USPS) consume all of the oxygen in a debate.  When the smart people call them a cliche they become a dead zone of discussion and even if there is nothing to replace them conceptually they become a subject to be avoided.   Here, in interview after interview I talked to the leaders of initiatives who told me that they had no “new” word, that the concept of transformation was an important one to them.  So the question becomes: even if it isn’t news is it valuable to seek to learn what did the leaders of effective transformation efforts find to be most important?

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The Transformational Leader’s Playbook

August 12th

In the beginning, the opportunity to write a study on transformational leadership – interviewing leaders from agencies across the federal government seemed to be such a straightforward thing that I vastly underestimated the value that might becreated by being able to draw togetherthe views of senior officials at this point in time.

First, there is the point in time. There has been no comparable time in the past 44 years of government. In January of 1969 Lyndon Johnson, the father of the Great Society left office but by many measures the age of “big” government had not even arrived.

A combination of technology (because we can), natural resource and economic crisis (Arab oil embargo) and political and constitutional crisis (Watergate & Ralph Nader) would conspire to make the government much larger than the Great Society Planners had ever contemplated.

By most estimates, however, we have now met a time of constraints in which the bills for global leadership, resource dependence and our lifestyle are coming due. Government will have to “right size”. There will be federal managers who have to drastically cut their programs but they aren’t going to have constituent groups coming in and showing them how they can do more with less.

Many will know where they need to go. But they will need a pathway to get there.

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The Uses of History

August 4th

As noted in an earlier post, in 2011, the U.S. Postal Service faces certain bankruptcy if the Congress does not act to modify the retiree health benefits payment required by the 2006 postal reform law.  Some might find it perverse to imagine that a strategic plan of more than a decade ago could be seen as a positive contribution when there a crisis today.

Yet a review of the 1997 strategic plan shows interestingly that the problems that are creating the crisis today were anticipated years ago.  The plans forecast that mail volume would decline and there was an imperative to rethink the nature of the mission of the agency and the means with which it delivers service.

In the introduction to the 1997 five-year strategic plan the Postal Service presented a vision of the future the follows.

As certain and clear as this path is, the future is not. Ten years from now, this same environment may be transformed by technologies in their infancies today. Ten years from now, the United States Postal Service mission responsibilities may be met only by a new understanding of universal service, access, and how best to deliver them. A decade from today, the Postal Service may have embraced technologies and systems as dramatically different as jet airplanes and robotic package sorters would have seemed to the 19th-century letter carrier.

Because this five-year plan is a living document, conceived to be flexible and adaptive to such environmental shifts, these challenges and external factors will be examined, weighed and — where appropriate — addressed in the years ahead. Ultimately, the philosophy underlying this plan, these goals, and their strategies is to create unique customer value as the Postal Service grows, improves and strengthens its financial foundation. This is a philosophy that embraces change. Because, in change, there will be opportunity for the United States Postal Service to serve its customers better.

Ultimately, government leaders and for that matter, leaders in every sector, are necessarily limited in their capacity to reshape markets, to alter macro economic trends or to change the nature of their agency missions.  Leaders cannot anticipate that their actions will be judged failures if their plans are undercut by massive societal and market shifts.

In coming years there will’s most certainly be frustration with the need to realign government service and to downsize its presence.  Yet, seeing in a larger context, the requirement to publish a formal strategic plan offers an opportunity for proactive leaders to create markers, waypoints on a journey long journey of continuous improvement.

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UK’s Watergate

July 19th

The Parliamentary Hearing into the actions of News Corp broke new ground and the whole matter has opened a new requirement for business analysts everywhere.

First, the questioning of Rupert Murdoch and his son on live international television was an extraordinary spectacle worthy of, say…Rupert Murdoch.

The opportunity to inquire into the most intimate details of corporate governance of one of the most powerful men in the world is extraordinary theater.

And, in this case, there was an element of human drama that would have been difficult to miss.  Here was Murdoch being asked “what did you know and when did you know it?”  He was given the choice that always dominates discussions like this one – what did you know about this scandal?  What steps did you take?  Obviously, the witness cannot say that he was fully informed and took actions to make things better for his company.  Now that the dam has broken and there is a formal, legal inquiry, any actions taken that were protective have the taint of being conspiratorial.

So what could he say?  He could say that he was a bad manager.  Or he could say that he was foolish or stupid.  Or he could say that he did not know.

But if he didn’t know and if he was a competent manager, then his son must have known.   So there was a human drama of potentially throwing his son under the bus.  Of course, his son was the Chief Executive and perhaps should have taken steps long ago.

Finally, there should be little question that this is not a “UK” problem as much as the Murdocks might have wished that it were.  US law – foreign corrupt practices and licensing before the FCC – make this inquiry a US inquiry as well.

The new ground?  In their answers the Murdochs referred frequently to their reform of the corporate governance committee.   Clearly it would have been better to have had a Management and Standards Committee that reported to the independent directors.   The corporate governance process would have been better protected and that decision may turn out to have been a multibillion dollar decision.

In the end, it’s hard to predict how extensive the damage will turn out to be.  Business analysts everywhere will have to be even better at being able to assess events and processes like this one.

New ground at a minimum, indeed.

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Government, Politics
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Public Sector Takeover? We Need a New Powell Doctrine

April 11th

Professor Jim Heskett asks When Should the Public Sector Take Over in the Event of a Meltdown? in the newest edition of Working Knowledge.

There’s a need for a new doctrine such as the one that Former Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to define to answer the question when to intervene – remember that “if you break it you own it”.

There is strong value in the HBS “analysis-decision-reflection” framework for questions such as those of Professor Heskett – when should the public sector takeover strategy be used in the case of a meltdown? There are, as has been noted in the discussion that Professor Heskett’s question triggered, significant questions of public sector values as well as public sector competence.

The question of the public’s right to know is a good example of the issues underlying this concern. In Japan there has been strenuous debate following the near meltdown at the Fukashima plant about the right of the public to know about the risks and the state of the crisis. Here the comparison of last year’s BP oil spill is instructive. In 2010 when BP was finally forced to make the video from the undersea camera available on-line, expert estimates of the extent of the damage of the oil flowing into the sea jumped by tenfold in 24 hours in comparison with previous assessments that were limited to company data after it was screened. Disclosure would seem to be one area where there are strong public sector values at stake.

But takeover? Even assuming that the issue of competence could be resolved, that some form of expert conservatorship could be established (as for example, in the case of Fannie Mae in 2008) there are two questions that will require analysis in every meltdown case: What’s the cause of the problem? And what are the public interests at stake?

The day may come when some will argue that there should be a takeover of the money losing Postal Service for example. (See RReisner, “When a Turnaround Stalls”, HBR 2002.) After all, it will be argued, the post office is losing billions each year.

But in fact, analysis will show that the Postal Service would have broken even so far this year if it had not had to “pre pay” the health care costs of its retirees, a special multibillion dollar provision added to postal reform in 2006.

So is the Postal Service a dinosaur of the information age that could meltdown? Should there be a public takeover? You have to first analyze what’s the problem?

In the short term the postal service is losing billions so that Congress can sustain its pay/go rules. This is an accounting problem having to do with federal cash cow status.

But the long term? Is there a need to move paper and packages? Through a public infrastructure? For how long? What’s the 2030 forecast? How can revenue exceed costs? What should the Postal Service be permitted to do to make money? What should it be free to do to cut costs?

Before the rhetoric that the Postal Service is “not too big to fail” starts and someone decides that creating a postal meltdown is a good idea, its useful to analyze the causes of crisis and decide whether there is a public interest at stake.

The public sector does some things very well, but not everything. Public takeovers are like invading Libya. We want to be very careful to understand where the problem is coming from, what can be done about it, and to continuously improve the performance of interventions before we try them.

We have vast social and economic systems like the Postal Service and Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security that will have to be realigned in coming years. There may have to be a threatened meltdown before the political consensus will support action. But public takeover? Even by a competent designated management team, we should be clear on causes and remedies, very clear, before we move there.

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Strategic Planning in the Public Sector

February 4th

Senator Mark Warner (D, VA) calls a new law for which he can claim some responsibility, the “biggest little bill that nobody has ever of.” With relatively little fanfare the GPRA (Government Performance and Results Act) Modernization Act of 2010 was signed into law in early January. Senator Warner (who was there to vote for health reform and financial services reform) believes that GPRA Modernization may be the most significant act of the 111th Congress.

The first GPRA (the law that’s being modernized) has a unique history. A Republican Administration (George H. W. Bush) worked with a Democratic Congress to pass a law that would require every federal agency to develop a strategic plan and annual performance plans. But there are laws and then there are laws. It was when Democrats took the White House (Bill Clinton) and launched a National Performance Review to create, as Al Gore used to say, “a government that works better and costs less,” that the performance reporting began to pick up steam. But in one of Washington’s ironies, it was when a Republican Congress seized upon the law to drive change in the (now Democratic) Executive Branch that the law took on meaning.

But that was then. Time has eroded the first enthusiasms, given the second Bush Administration (George W. Bush) the chance to create a performance scorecard and program evaluation system, and introduced new technology. The new technology in particular and the social media offer the government new opportunities to manage performance and drive innovation. So there is value in modernizing the planning and management process.

Sen. Warner believes that what will be most critical to making the new law work will be to improve the government’s collaboration skills. The new law needs to be implemented in a manner that will encourage government managers to adopt the best practices of others who have found ways to improve performance

The modernized law makes a number of changes that have long been needed (or at least codifies the directive to make the chances). Duplicative reports are to be eliminated for example. And the law directs agencies to do some things that most people would think were so logical that they would have expected that the government be already required to do them already. Strategic Plans, for example, must be aligned with the Annual Performance Plans and plans must be aligned with the Administration in charge.

What is perhaps even more significant, the modernized GPRA will create a number of mechanisms that are likely to dramatically encourage the practice of performance management. Each Agency will (1) have a Chief Performance Officer, (2) reports will explain why performance goals haven’t been met if there are shortfalls and there will have to be a performance improvement plan. In cases where goals are not met two years in a row, there must be a report to Congress. (3) There will be public web sites that are likely to dramatically expand the scope of the review and (4) a government-wide performance report will designate a small number of high level goals. Creating accountability, a governance process, public access and focus may still not be enough to dramatically change the practice of strategic planning and execution. But there’s no disputing the fact that these are all moves in the right direction, or as they might say in Washington “they’re directionally correct.”

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The Voice of the People

January 12th

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other 19 people was so horrific on so many levels that it became absolutely absorbing. The Safeway parking lot in Tucson where the shooting took place looked so familiar. This was a place that could be found in almost any suburb in America. This was an assassination attempt of the people’s representative on the town common.

Beginning with the media savvy local Police Chief through Sarah Palin’s 8 minute video posted at midnight Alaska time, the reporting has debated whether Arizona was somehow worse than other places. Assorted details of the shooting showed that it was in fact somewhat easier for the shooter to buy the weapon and the ammunition in Arizona than it would have been to have been in a comparable suburb in Montgomery County Maryland. But disturbed people can get guns everywhere.

On Thursday Rep. Giffords read the First Amendment on the House Floor. The post Tea Party election of 2010 encouraged the new Republican Congress to begin the new 112th Congress by reading the Constitution. Ironically, the event would likely have been a non-event were it not for a 3rd term moderate Democratic Congresswoman who read the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievance.

Of all of the members to have been given the privilege of reading that particular sentence in light of Saturday’s events, the video of her on the House floor talking about freedom of speech was startling.

That someone would seek to assassinate a Member of Congress standing in a shopping center talking to her constituents was an assault on the core of democratic society. American should be deeply offended by that alone. The question of whether partisan rhetoric may have contributed to the event seems secondary to the deep wound that the shooting may have inflicted.

Not unlike the way in which the necessary presence of the TSA at every airport has now changed the whole concept freedom in mobility, in the future. even an nine year old who goes to a shopping center to meet her Congresswoman will have the event moderated by an armed government representative.

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Sit At The Table

January 4th

One of the things about the daily Internet conversation that is among it’s greatest contributions is the way that it can increase the number of “ahaa” hits per day.  (Before I am accused of indulgence there should be a spoiler alert: it gets worse.  I admit here that I take time off to read the Just Means news on Corporate Social Responsibility Trends, an admission that may someday cause Sarah Palin to revoke my John Lindsay for Mayor Republican credentials.  There’s absolutely no one chanting, “drill baby drill” at Just Means.)

So it is in the context of an honest diversion to read Just Means on Climate Change that I was introduced to Sheryl Sandberg.  I know, I confess that I am one of the last people on the planet to know that Sheryl Sandberg is the COO of Facebook.  That some people (like Fortune) think she’s one of the most powerful women in the world and that she was the head of on-line sales for Google when Facebook hired her (in her 30’s) to be the adult.  So, now that I have the embarrassing admissions out of the way.  Her TED lecture linked above on the dearth of women leaders is one of the most compelling videos that I have seen.

As I write this, I see that the video is only now being blogged by the Wall Street Journal this afternoon so perhaps I am just watching something that is about to go viral.  But it should.  My personal favorite comment is her statement that if you want to be a leader you need to take as seat at the table.

Yet it’s not as though I haven’t had my own opportunity to learn this lesson.  In 1994, when I was recruited to start e-businesses for the USPS, I found to my surprise that I could be the Post Office’s representative to Al Gore’s National Performance Review just by saying I would go to the White House.

(I should have recognized that this was a clue that, in the end, the USPS was not going to back the play to start electronic businesses even if the culture would help Marvin Runyon hire me.)

No one went to the White House because it was far easier to run an effective network if you stayed out of politics.  Going to the White House only meant becoming a cash cow to the Administration in power and the savvy leaders at the Post Office knew that there was a lot of that already.

Without competition for the invitation I went over to the White House to hear Al Gore talk about the meaning of telecom reform to representatives from places spread across the government.   When I arrived at the Indian Treaty Room in the Executive Office Building I made the mistake of asking the young aide standing in the doorway whether there was assigned seating.  She asked, “Where are you from?” and when told her, she asked that I sit in the seats along the wall because “the table is for the important agencies.”  I thought of myself as representing the largest civilian employer in the world and I was so offended that I walked around to the other side of the room and sat down at the table.

I was feeling pretty feisty until I introduced myself to the person on my right and found that the Librarian of Congress was already there with a seat at the table.

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“Small Government Big Society”

October 18th

The headline that China is testing a new political model in Shenzhen is an attention grabber when it appears in the same newspaper as an article that finds that its reassuring that China is continuing to be the largest purchaser (ahead of Japan) of U.S. Treasuries. In the same month that China was demonstrating that it was only rebalancing its portfolio and not actually reducing its $868 billion in net holdings. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was giving a speech in Shenzhen (near Hong Kong.)

SHENZHEN, China—An experiment with political reform in Shenzhen, the city where China pioneered its economic opening, sheds light on an ideological debate playing out within the Communist Party as it holds an annual meeting in Beijing that will help to chart China’s political future.

Jeremy Page reports for the Wall Street Journal that

After more than six decades of stifling dissent—sometimes by force—the party is also using Shenzhen to test ways of strengthening public oversight of local government to root out corruption that the party itself admits has become the greatest threat to its grip on power.

It is a far cry from Western-style multiparty democracy, but this experiment—branded “small government, big society”—is seen by some leaders as a way to forge a new political model that maintains authoritarian rule while responding to the needs of an increasingly complex society.

The experiment involves free market reforms and government contracting with non-governmental entities to provide social services.  In an era in which China’s emerging economy is also reaffirming its role as our largest creditor new experiments in democracy are worthy topics for following closely.

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Testimony on Capitol HIll

November 5th

Today I testified on revenue generating opportunities and the future of the U.S. Postal Service before the Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that is concerned with the Postal Service.  See Testimony PDF

Overall, my argument was that the Postal Service and the mailing community can become a source of innovation that is an engine for creating new postal revenue through the creation of  public private partnerships.

To make the Postal Service viable will require making mail relevant to future customers.  This will mean connecting hard copy mail with the Internet so that it can play a key role in a multichannel marketplace.

But the new revenue for the public postal service is not going to come from making the USPS into an Internet services provider.  If that was ever an option, its time to say “that was then, this is now.”  Fortunately there are a number key opportunities for the USPS to create new revenue and new mail by creating partnerships with private firms. I describe three broad concepts - Enabling the Last Mile, Extending Democracy’s Reach and Promoting Green Routes.

Some highlights include:

By enabling the last mile I refer to the many opportunities that exist for putting technology in the hands of the Letter Carrier, in other words, on the doorstep of the mailing consumer.  One of the areas of greatest interest to mailers has been wanting to know where their mail is while its on route to its destination.  The USPS has been seen as a black hole compared with FedEx and UPS who have invested billions of dollars to enable their higher end services to “track and trace” and much more.

In addition, I argue that

A second broad theme that Chairman Ruth Goldway in particular has championed has been Vote by Mail.  The Postal Service can do this and provide many other government services as well.

Third, there are opportunities for the Postal Service to again serve the nation by carrying parcels that today cause three and four trucks to travel the same route.  We can reduce carbon emissions by creating Green Postal Routes.

What is needed is to create a pathway that connects the challenged Postal Service of today with a viable business model of the future.  The broad framework should be a public policy framework that encourages public private partnerships as the postal reform law of (’06) and the President’s Commission on the Postal Service (’03) proposed.

The details of new services to customers will depend on the trials and tests and an innovation platform that has yet to be invented.

The coming years could be an exciting time of transformation or they could be a train wreck.  The difference will be whether there is clear public policy guidance that can define the creative balance between what should be public and postal and what should be a public private partnership.

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