A karass, from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, is a set of people hidden around the planet to accomplish a goal together. When I served in the federal government, the term was a nod to our late White House colleague Jake Brewer. Jake was killed in a bicycling accident while serving in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where the Post-It on his monitor served to continue to inspire us: “Cultivate the Karass.”
Too often in government, we blame people around us for blocking progress or getting in our way: slowing down decisions, denying approvals, reallocating funding. But what if instead, you look around for the people hidden in your organization who are there to help you?
Here are five ways to cultivate your karass:
Make a New Friend at Work
When I first joined the federal government as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education, I was encouraged to “get lunch” with my new colleagues. This advice was so hard for me, and instead I spent way too long eating alone, sure that no one would be interested in meeting me.
Today, one-on-ones (whether literal lunch or a virtual coffee) are a core part of life. Grab a coffee, a meal, or even a mocktail with a colleague you don’t know. Learn more about them as a person, their role and team within the organization, what their professional aspirations are, and where they’re struggling.
You might not be able to offer anything beyond a friendly ear — and that’s OK! But you never know when your karass-building will lead you to meet someone else who you might connect back to as a resource or fellow problem solver.
Ask for Advice in Unexpected Places
One of my favorite karass-building stories is from when I was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. I had a chance to redirect significant cost savings from an expiring contract into a pilot demonstration project of a digital “one-stop shop” for veterans that I aspired to build — but only if I could move about a thousand articles off the old website before the contract ended. There were not enough hours in the day for me to do this by myself, but the building’s security guards were interested in learning some basic coding and offered to help. With their assistance, I beat the deadline and was able to start the new VA.gov — which has since won awards like the 2019 Sammy.
The best karass is a diverse group with representatives from every part of the organization. This includes secretarial, janitorial, legal, and even external team members like vendors or contractors. This variety helps you to develop a 360-degree picture of how your organization really operates.
Create a Group Identity
A fun name or symbol can help your karass feel like a team. When on a book tour recently, my co-author met a finance manager who loved to bake bread; he called his karass gatherings “bread and budget.” The symbol for the United States Digital Services teams, a karass spanning multiple agencies, is still “crab claws.”
A vital part of our Veterans Affairs karass was the technical procurement team in New Jersey, despite our team being located in DC. Whenever we needed a contract, we took the uncommon step of driving to New Jersey to work together in person. In the course of doing so, many of us ended up with a coffee mug from the local coffee shop (Rook Coffee). Having this mug on your desk was a symbol that you were part of the procurement karass — but it was a symbol anyone could get by visiting New Jersey.
Get the Gang Back Together
At the VA, my karass was the Grilled Cheese Club. We met monthly over grilled cheese sandwiches to demo our work, share our latest ideas and hypotheses, and gain feedback from many corners of the agency: procurement, human resources, finance, security, and more. This regular meet-up strengthened group relationships, encouraged curious newcomers, and gave us a much richer body of feedback than we could get anywhere else. Even better, everyone in the club could be an informed voice for our efforts when “official” team members weren’t in the room. For example, if someone made an offhand complaint that I wasn’t following the rules, there was a good chance a Grilled Cheese Club member was around to confirm they’d recently seen us working on all the required approval paperwork.
Don’t Wait
A karass is built of genuine relationships, not opportunistic ones. Don’t wait to make friends across the aisle (or across the building) until after you need their help, or a karass approach won’t work. Build genuine friendships and make (and follow through on) genuine offers of help to others. As these relationships deepen, you’ll form a formidable force in the face of your next shared challenge.
Marina Nitze, co-author of Hack Your Bureaucracy, is currently a partner at Layer Aleph, a crisis engineering firm that specializes in restoring complex software systems to service. Marina is also a fellow at New America’s New Practice Lab, where she works on improving America’s foster care system through the Resource Family Working Group and Child Welfare Playbook. Marina was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, after serving as a Senior Advisor on technology in the Obama White House and as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education.
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