Participatory Democracy

There has been much speculation in the media about President Obama using direct participatory democracy an important element of how he and his agency leaders govern.

 

Three recent articles, one in the New York Times one in the Washington Post, and one by the National Journal, outline some of the steps already taken and offer some insights on possible next steps.

 

The first, by New York Times’ Helene Cooper, “The Direct Approach,” where she notes that “President-elect Barack Obama says that he wants to make his administration more responsive to the American people. To that end, his aides are introducing a host of YouTube and other efforts aimed at bypassing the media and communicating directly with voters.”  The article notes that the Bush Administration piloted some “by-pass the press” approaches, such as blogs in the State Department, and that the Obama transition is testing ways to allow direct citizen questions.

 

The second, by Washington Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas, “e-Hail to the Chief,” focuses on the use of the web in governing (only the Washington Post can publish an article on governing and place it in its “Style” section of the paper!).  In an interview with an active on-line Obama supporter, Vargas was told:  “Well, people are still fired up and ready to go. . . . What’s next?”  With this kind of expectation, Vargas notes there might be a rough transition from the campaign’s my.barackobama.com, to the transition’s change.gov, to whitehouse.gov:  “online social networking is designed to foster a community. For that approach to be effective, WhiteHouse.gov can’t just push information out — it has to pull content in, too. And once it does so, the administration will have to decide whether, when and how to incorporate those voices into its decision-making process.”

 

There are experiments by the transition’s change.gov, encouraging comments on healthcare reform (with over 3,500 received), encouraging the submission of questions (with over 20,000 participants), and the outreach by the campaign’s my.barackobama.com encouraging its 13 million members to participate in self-organized house meetings and report back – with more than 4,200 meetings held in 2,000 communities.

 

The third, by National Journal’s David Herbert, “Obama Voters Fired Up, Ready to Go (Online),” summarizes a new report out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project on post-election voter engagement.  In it, he says: “The report also found that not only are Democrats more politically active online than Republicans, but they expect more outreach from their candidates. Among those who use social networking sites, 37 percent of Obama voters expect to be contacted through those sites by the president-elect. . . “

 

There have been similar articles in other forums, such as TechPresident, that have also offered their insights.  More will follow, I’m sure, in coming weeks. The real test will be:  what happens after January 20^th when the Change.gov innovators have to begin following federal government rules?

Taking Some Time

I took some time today to be a tourist in DC.  I visited the Washington version of the “Big Dig,” the recently-opened Capitol Visitors Center.  Years and hundreds of millions of dollars overdue, it turned out to be a great addition to the DC tourist circuit.  In fact, I had to stand in line outside for over 20 minutes just to get in.  And for a long-time DC area resident, I got to see some new views of the Capitol, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress – the entrance to the Visitors Center is below ground so the approach offered some new, dramatic angles.  Next time I’m taking a camera!

 

I also took some time to walk around the other side of the Capitol to see the ongoing construction of the platform for the Inauguration. That’s likely the closest I’ll ever get to the real thing!

 

Meanwhile, the media is counting down the time.  With three weeks until the inauguration, MSNBC’s story, Crises Mount for Obama Transition Team, catalogues the challenges facing the incoming Obama Administration.  What else could fall apart in the next three weeks!?

Transition: Pulse Check

John Kamensky, Senior Fellow

An article in yesterday’s Government Executive by Alyssa Rosenberg, “High-Stakes Transition Could Serve as a Model,” provides a good overview of what’s gone on so far and why doing thing right are so important: “The challenges of homeland security, the economic crisis, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are so great that the Bush administration ramped up early for the transition, with more aggressive and comprehensive planning than ever before. And good government groups have worked to avoid overlap and to maximize their impact by uniting around a common agenda and coordinating their push for the swift confirmation and education of new political appointees.”

The next big hurdle will be the confirmation process.  A piece  by Federal News Radio, “Faster, Faster: Speeding the Confirmation Process,” by Max Cacas, explores some of the hurdles with past appointees and Senators involved in the confirmation process. The finger-pointing in the delays go both ways.  However, according to Cacas, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) “feels that a standard form for nominees personal information that could be shared between the executive branch, the FBI and the Senate could also help speed the confirmation process.”

. . . .I’ll be taking a few days off, so have a happy transition to the holiday season!

Leadership Advice

The Obama team’s appointments are coming at a record pace, notes the Wall Street Journal.  For those being appointed, there is lots of policy advice.  But there’s also some useful leadership advice from those who have been in these kinds of roles before.  I’d like to highlight a couple.

First, the outgoing EPA deputy administrator, Marcus Peacock, offered some sage advice, in a letter several weeks ago to the readers of Federal Time: Memo to Future Deputies. He gives 10 pointers to his successors:

1. Be your agency’s chief operating officer. No one else has the scope of authority to do this job.
2. Listen. Within the first 15 days, interview 10 to 20 people who know the agency well.
3. Plan. Take what you learned from the interviews to your boss.
4. Learn.
5. Get help. Establish a team that can help you interpret the performance data.
6. Manage. Regularly meet with the head of every major office.
7. Motivate. Link awards, promotions, pay increases, bonuses and other recognition to the agency’s performance.
8. Show the world. Publicly release performance data; accountability is your friend.
9. Be honest. In Washington, reputation is the coin of the realm.
10. Have a blast.

The second is offered by author David Osborne and his PSG colleagues.  In an essay titled “Seven Signs of a Game Changing Leader,” they identify those signs as:

1. Someone willing to challenge the organization with “unreasonable” or “impractical” goals.  
2. Someone ready to invest her/his first dollars in change.  . 
3. Someone willing to invest her/his best people in change. 
4. Someone willing to get personally involved with the change. 
5. Someone with a vision or a blueprint for change. 
6. Someone willing to take extinguishers away and let fires of change burn. 
7. Someone who validates what was good about the past. 

There’ll be lots of advice to new leaders in coming months, but these are clearly worth thinking about!

Transition: IBM Center Special Magazine Issue

Last week I visited with a friend at lunch and had a strange experience!  I’d brought a copy of the IBM Center’s latest magazine to share and left on the table during lunch.  A complete stranger came up and said “Oh, can I get a copy of that magazine?  I really need it!” Then someone a table over said, “Can I get a copy too!?”  This issue has a special section on the transition, which was what was attracting interest.

Well, in case you too are interested, here are the hotlinks to those articles:

Helping the Next Administration Succeed in Washington, by Jonathan Breul.  Management matters, says Breul:  “The transition from campaign to governing requires that presidential policies be transformed from rhetoric into an actionable agenda and then into concrete results. Neither good policies nor sound investments are likely to work, let along succeed, if undermined by poor implementation.”  He goes on to observe that this is difficult both because of the size of the federal government as well as the fact that so much of what goes on must be delegated to others.  He says that having good oversight and controls in place is important, but that a leadership interest in management, and not just policy, is important.

Eight Essential Tools for Achieving Your Goals:  Insights for the New Administration, by Mark Abramson, Breul, John Kamensky, and Martin Wagner.  This essay summarizes the book they co-authored, “The Operator’s Manual for the New Administration.”  They outline the eight tools leaders have at their disposal in every government agency to use to achieve their goals:  leadership, performance, people, money, contracting, technology, innovation, and collaboration.  The book has chapters on each. 

Hubris or Wise Policy?  Early Planning for a Presidential Transition, by Martha Joynt Kumar.  Based on years of study, professor Kumar says presidential candidates need to be prepared to select and vet some 100 top administration officials, staff up their White House, be ready in the first week to issue a dozen executive orders reflecting their social priorities and withdraw ones issued by their predecessors, have ready a speech to Congress on a major policy issue, and decide their budget priorities. Early planning makes all of the difference to the quality of the start a president has once he takes office.  Based on the progress of the Obama transition, it looks like they’ve taken her advice!

What Do (and What Should) Federal Officials Do During a Presidential Transition?, by Bruce McConnell.  This article focuses on the actions of federal officials in four separate phases of the transition: pre-election, post-election, post-inauguration, and post-arrival (of incoming political officials). It differentiates between three types of officials: political officials connected with the outgoing administration, incoming political officials, and senior career civil servants. Finally, it provides some tips for making the transition a success for all concerned.

An Apollo Project for Climate Change/Energy?  History’s Lessons for Future Success, by Henry Lambright. If President Obama wants to launch a massive effort to respond to the nation’s climate change/energy challenges, he can hearken back to large-scale government efforts in the past such as the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Project.  Dr. Lambright’s study of these past efforts offers five success factors for such large-scale efforts:  (1) a consensus-building catalyst for action, (2) a clear and urgent goal, (3) a powerful implementing agency, (4) sustained political will, and (5) exceptional administrative leadership. 

Hope you enjoy your holiday reading!

Working in the White House

by Brad Patterson

Today, President-Elect Obama will largely wrap up his cabinet nominations.  He’ll likely start filling out his White House staff next.  This will number around 900 or so folks.  What do they do and how do they work together? 

There’s a great new book out by Brad Patterson, “To Serve the President: Continuity and Innovation in the White House Staff,” that should be the bible of every new White House staffer (and any Administration appointee who is trying to figure out how the White House works).  It should be part of every orientation given to new White House staffers.

Patterson’s book is full of facts and good advice.  He started working in the White House under President Eisenhower, so he brings a seasoned perspective.

Did you know there are 135 different offices in the White House that serve as the primary support units for the President?  Of these, 95 are policy units.  The newest, created by President Bush, include the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the Office of the USA Freedom Corps, and the Office of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.  The other 40 units are comprised of nonpolitical professionals and constitute three-quarters of the White House staff.  These include grounds-keepers, the visitors center, records management, photographers, military support, and the mail room.  In total, nearly 6,600 staff work for the White House.  By Patterson’s definition, this does not include staff in the seven statutory offices that are part of the overall Executive Office of the President, such as the Office of Management and Budget or the Office of the US Trade Representative. 

Patterson’s book details what each of the 135 different offices do and provides some historical context of how they evolved.

Patterson says his goals were to “provide the president-elect with an accurate picture of the contemporary White House,” and to “paint a factual, nonpartisan picture of the White House at work.”  He concludes: “Before launching any innovations, future White House managers need to know what it is they are reforming.”  His book serves as the definitive baseline of understanding.

Advancing Technology: Industry Recommendations

The Industry Advisory Council (IAC), which is committed to improving communication between industry and government in the technology world, has shared a set of reports and recommendations with the Obama transition team, according to a story by Federal Computer Week’s Matthew Weigelt, “IAC Tells Transition Team About IT in Government.”

 

IAC formed a Transition Study Group, co-led by Mark Foreman and Roger Baker, some months ago to draft issue papers on various IT topics.  It presented four of these papers to the transition team last week. IAC said it will provide all of its papers to Obama’s transition team in the next couple of weeks.

 

Following are links to the four papers, and a brief summary of each:

 Returning Innovation to the Federal Government with Information Technology.  This is the lead paper.  It claims that government is 10 to 15 years behind the private sector in using the latest technologies and processes to improve operations and observes that the federal government’s annual investment of $100 billion in technology is “plagued by bade management, poor planning, and a failure to use best practices,” and that it rewards caution, not risk.  It recommends creating a new “Government Innovation Agency” to serve as an incubator for new ideas via centers of excellence, a repository for best practices, and a reviewer for innovation in every IT project.  The paper also recommends that each agency create two porfolios of IT investment:  one to run the agency and the other to introduce changes to the agency.

 

Using Federal Information Technology as a Strategic Weapon to Strengthen the Economy and Drive Change for America.  This paper recommends a “strategic view of IT spending across the government.”  It claims “More funding is not the issue” but rather a better use of current investments.  It notes “The federal government is a major force in the growth of the IT industry,” but “government is reducing its investment in R&D programs” and its new acquisitions are backward-looking and reflect existing environments.  It says “investment in out-of-date technology constrains the economic contribution of the IT industry.”  It recommends a new senior IT leader “responsible for creating and executing a national investment strategy to spur private sector competitiveness and innovation” with the authority to “work proactively with industry, influence agencies’ spending, and [have] the ability to compel agencies to coordinate for broader benefit.”

 

The other two papers (and I’m assuming the yet-to-be-released papers) seem to be more technical in nature:

 

Government Federated Identity Management.  This paper advocates the need to “create single globally unique personal identities, independent of any relationship that individual has with a particular government agency or other enterprises.”  It seems to focus on the importance of inter-changeable identity management within the federal government so one agency can recognize employees (or contractors) of another agency.  It advocates a “centralized identity framework, identity management and credential issuance” authority and recommends that this be the Office of Personnel Management, since they already do most background checks on employees and contractors.  The paper gets a bit deep, talking about “Shibboleth architecture,” “UW IdP assertion,”  and “Internet2/MACE Signet and Grouper software toolkits,” so be careful!

 

Identity and Access Management.  From what I can gather, this paper differs from the previous paper in that it seems to advocate creating “a national strategy for identify management” that goes beyond federal employees and contractors.  It says the government must “standardize identity credentialing systems for travel security, immigration control, and employment verification.”  It does note that “The United States has always been resistant to a national identity card,” but that incrementally, different agencies have been developing their own identity cards (passport, e-Verify for employers, security clearances, e-health records, Medicaid, etc.).  The benefits of a national, federated, citizen identity card, though, might allow greater citizen access to benefits and entitlements, better manage emergency responders in disasters, etc.

 

 

Reorganizing Goverment — A Commission?

There have long been calls to restructure or reorganize the federal government.  A number of experts from the National Academy for Public Administration have advocated a restructuring office in the White House or OMB.  Others have called for a new Hoover Commission to reorganize the government.  President-Elect Obama has called for a “line-by-line” review of the government’s programs and budget. 

These recommendations all focus on the federal government’s organizations and programs.  One thesis in addressing the national challenges facing us is that we need to go beyond just the government and look more nationally.

Well, I ran across an interesting piece of pending legislation on national service entitled the “Service America Act.”  It promotes greater youth engagement via service programs and includes the development of a “civic health index.”  It was introduced in September and is co-sponsored by – among others — Senators Reid, Hatch, Obama, Clinton, and McCain.  That’s a stellar crowd!

The act’s goals include efforts to increase public service among youth as well as to “increase civic engagement and participation among individuals of all ages. . . “  

But what caught my eye is a provision that would create a “Commission on Cross-Sector Solutions.” This commission would explore “ways in which the Federal Government interacts with nonprofit organizations, philanthropic organizations, and business to address national and local challenges.”

The legislation states that “The Commission shall conduct a thorough study of all matters relating to ways in which the Federal Government can work more efficiently and effectively with non-profit organizations and philanthropic organizations to assist the organizations described in this subparagraph, and the Federal Government, in achieving better outcomes with regard to addressing pressing national and local challenges, and improving accountability and utilization of resources, and relating to assisting the Federal Government, such organizations, and business in improving their collaboration to achieve such outcomes.”  The commission would have  18 months to report its findings and recommendations.

This looks like an intriguing twist on rethinking how government should engage in addressing national challenges.  I wonder if it’s still a viable proposal given the tumult of recent months?

Preparing Presidential Appointees to Lead

The Obama transition teams are completing their “parachute” visits to agencies to find out what is the lay of the land.  This is largely policy-focused.  Reports are generally favorable about how the outgoing team is being helpful.

 

But the next big step will be preparing new appointees, once in place, to manage their agencies.  The Council for Excellence in Government (CEG) put together a useful history of how presidential appointees and White House staff are brought up to speed.

 

The CEG history notes that:  “eight of the ten U.S. Presidents between 1953 and 2004 -including the last six – organized a variety of projects to prepare their high-level political appointees for the operational challenges of leadership. In 2000, for the first time, Congress recognized the value of ongoing appointee orientation by authorizing this activity under the Presidential Transition Act of 2000 and appropriating funds for its design and implementation.

 

“It is important to understand that past orientation efforts differed widely in scope, content, durability and location. There was little carry-over or continuity from one administration to another. But they show that appointee preparation has become a fixture on the agendas of successive administrations. This is an important and positive  development. Appointees, after all, are the women and men entrusted not only with the day-to-day political leadership of the executive  branch but also with the responsibility for the management and performance of government departments and agencies.”

 

What’s covered in the orientations?  There is general agreement that “Half a dozen subject areas were central to all of the programs and were nearly always the focus of speaker and panel presentations. They were: (1) the White House and the President’s executive office - operations, relationships with agencies, and coordination on policy decisions; (2) the budget and OMB; (3) legislative affairs and dealing with the Congress; (4) media relations; (5) the career civil service; and (6) ethics.

 

Other areas were covered in briefing books, live presentations, or both: economic and domestic policy development, managing for results, the National Security Council, interest groups, public trust, Presidential personnel, and the U.S. Constitution.”

 

The advice from past administrations is that such orientations should be supported by the President and be made as “mandatory as possible.”  One approach, used by President Reagan, was that he made himself available after orientation sessions for a handshake and photo with each appointee who attended.  There is no optimal time for delivering the training – before or after confirmation – but many felt that it was best delivered after appointees had been in the job 3-4 months.  It can sometimes be done in several sessions rather than just one.

 

Orientations Underway. Outside groups are already beginning orientations – for career senior executives!  It turns out that as much as two-thirds of current career executives have not experienced a presidential transition.  The National Academy for Public Administration is sponsoring a session today; the Council for Excellence in Government and the Senior Executives Association are sponsoring a seminar on January 6^th. 

 

The Presidential Transition Act of 2000 provides funding for appointee orientations. The incoming Obama Administration will likely make its decisions on who will deliver the training, and when, once it is in office.

Harnessing the Excitement to Serve

One half of the federal workforce is eligible to retire today. The average age of federal employees is over 46 years old – significantly older than the U.S. workforce. For much of the past decade, observers have been lamenting this impending retirement tsunami in government because of the potential loss in talent.

Organizations like the Partnership for Public Service were formed to address this potential crisis – to recruit young people and to streamline government hiring processes to make that happen.  Its most recent report recommends the new president be the “recruiter in chief.”

President-elect Barack Obama seems to have done this. He says he wants to “make government cool again,” and the number of people applying for the roughly 3,300 full-time political jobs available has already exceeded 330,000.  At this point, it would be easier to get into Harvard!

How do you harness this excitement to serve?  The election seems to have triggered a renewed interest in public service.  The real challenge may not be recruiting a new generation in the federal government  but rather how to engage the energy of a wide range of Americans in public service – in government, in non-profits, in their communities.  The Millennial Generation (those born since 1980) seems to get it.  They are seen as the new “civic generation.” The Washington Post this past weekend reported a huge increase in the number of young applicants for Teach for America — 37,000 applications for 5,000 spots.

TIME magazine’s feature piece last year on National Service contributed a great deal of interest, creating a ServiceNation effort culminating in a summit in September promoting the concept.

Interestingly, the Obama campaign site, www.mybarackobama.com , continues beyond the campaign.  Reports suggest that it is trying to create a broader grassroots movement beginning with the existing base of 13 million people who registered.  This weekend, for example, the network is encouraging “meet ups’ in homes across the country on issues facing the nation that participants would be willing to help tackle.  In addition, the presidential transition website, change.gov, has launched efforts to engage citizens on key issues facing the nation, with hundreds of thousands participating by raising questions and voting on issues.   Some question whether this is real or a gimmick, but the notion of engaging citizens, promoting government service, promoting national service, and creating grassroots social networks seems to be gaining traction.

Clearly, the transition effort is going far beyond the typical “create an agenda and identify appointees.”  The transition effort seems to be testing out new ways to govern, as well.