When looking to build out your team, how do you determine cultural fit? Given the need for government to hire candidates who align with the long-term objectives of an agency, one framework to use is missionary vs. mercenary.
We tend to hire those who look, act, think, and sound like ourselves – often without even knowing it. We just inexplicably feel better about those who remind us of us. We mistakenly call it “hiring for fit.” But it really is our egocentric bias.
Government and industry leaders must be cognizant of the prevalence of decision-making heuristics and the potential downside of relying on them.
Often, moonshot type endeavors are not and cannot be financed privately – either due to sheer complexity, extended time horizons for attainment, or the sheer magnitude of financial investment needed. These types of projects instead require government involvement.
Big government IT is broken and (slowly) dying. Too many projects cost too much and don’t actually deliver for the American people. In the face of greater budgetary pressure and higher citizen expectations, government buyers, program staff, and IT managers must change their approach.
Understanding the underlying “shape” of the data must be a first step for any policymaker, government leader, or executive. When it comes to crafting new laws that potentially impact millions, a little basic math goes a long way.
Government leaders and policymakers need to add analogical thinking to their innovation quiver. At the core of analogical thinking is the ability to solve problems outside-in instead of inside-out.
Leaders in government and industry must be thoughtful and circumspect as we race to the future. We must consider not only the implications of replacing humans with machines, but also the fallout of treating humans as machines along the way.
The general rule of great delegators is to push decision-making authority to the lowest level possible within an organization. Reason being, that is where the best information lives to inform that decision. However, real life is not so simple.
Trust in government is at an all-time low. Instead of large scale structural fixes, government should deploy IT solutions to build trust among the citizenry.