Michele Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, had an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post on Reforming an Outmoded Government.
Federal agencies typically lack the expertise and experience to transform themselves into more effective and affordable enterprises
- With rising budgets (like the past decade), the focus tends to be on growth, not efficiency
- Need outside help to assess their strengths and weaknesses, identify the most important avenues for change, and design and implement initiatives that will achieve results
- Change is hard and often threatening. One person’s efficiency can break another person’s rice bowl.
Successful U.S. companies have fundamentally transformed how they do business
- Adopted strategies to cope with a more complex, dynamic and uncertain environment
- Delayering to streamline and empower their organizations
- Leveraged IT to enhance performance, agility and competitiveness while reducing cost
- Strategic investments in talent management to improve performance
Read the full piece here.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Change, Collaboration, Leadership Tagged: government, Michele Flournoy 
Three points about reforming outmoded organizations
1. The new model doesn’t look like the old. People looking for sameness are dismayed.
2. The first attempt may not as good as the existing.
3. The new model has the capacity to quickly begin outperforming the old model.