Good afternoon and
thank you for your kind introduction, Bob and thank you for
your exceptional leadership of the Academy during your tenure
as President. You've established a great legacy of excellence
while advancing the standing of the Academy by applying our
applied and academic capabilities to so many important public
management challenges we face at the national, state, and
local level. Thank you for your great service and all best
wishes for the new challenges that lie ahead at the ICMA.
I am very mindful
of the unprecedented move of the annual Webb lecture to this
hour, but hopeful our colleagues appreciate the unusual circumstances
of the shuttle launch schedule for the flight of STS- 113,
space shuttle Endeavour this evening. Indeed, James Webb would
fully concur in the priority to never intrude on the safe
operational conduct of the shuttle launch procedures. He would
also likely concur in my adherence to the Rogers Commission
legacy of clear accountability and presence at such events.
The Challenger tragedy was searing experience that has forever
changed the way NASA conducts operations, and I am always
mindful of that important legacy. I am grateful for the indulgence
of the Fellows of the Academy for this courtesy.
It's a distinct honor
to be with you this afternoon although I must admit that the
thought of following my good friend, Fellow of the Academy,
and also a former Secretary of the Navy, so we really stick
together-Richard Danzig-to deliver the Webb lecture after
his unforgettable speech and delivering a talk in the annual
lecture series named after my most distinguished predecessor
at NASA, James Webb would give any sensible person pause.
For all these reasons and the honor of addressing my colleagues
as Fellows of the Academy, I am very grateful for the privilege.
The Theory of Everything
Given the remarkable
legacy of James Webb and his performance as an exemplar in
the field of public administration, I am compelled to frame
my comments this afternoon around the principles of public
management and our responsibilities as public servants-but
within the context of exploration and discovery, a decided
bias of James Webb.
I've structured this
talk around a remarkable work entitled "The Theory of
Everything" by the brilliant British professor and theoretical
physicist, Stephen Hawking. It contains a series of seven
lectures that lay out the history and structure of the universe.
It is a book that is quite literally for anyone who has ever
looked into the deep night sky and wondered how everything
came to be and how it operates together-and I must confess,
as NASA administrator I ponder this much more than I ever
did prior to this capacity -and given James Webb's rich experience
on Capitol Hill, the White House Bureau of the Budget, the
State Department, and private industry, I suspect he found
these inquires much more pressing during his distinguished
tenure at NASA as well.
A dominant characteristic
of the Webb view is to consider variables in the context of
a system and how organizations should be structured to focus
and manage systems. The seven Hawking lectures actually form
a very reasonable structure to examine the Webb principles
of organization-and as a Maxwell trained public administrator,
Dwight Waldo's organization theory. If you think about it,
the universe itself is a very, very large organization. And
just as we seek ways to understand and shape our far smaller
organizations here on earth, Stephen Hawking has tried to
lay out clearly and concisely the principles that drive the
far greater universe in which we operate.
So I'd like to use
his structure to offer some ideas on how large organizations
operate and what principles make them coherent. I'll offer
several ideas that taken together might form the basis of
a very rough "theory of everything" for administrators
of larger organizations.
Ideas About the Beginning
of the Universe
Let me begin, as
Hawking does, with some general comments on large organizations-that
he terms, "Ideas About the Beginnings of the Universe."
In this lecture, he speaks about the beginning of the environment
in which we operate…a universe that stretches from earth
to the solar system and far beyond…to the most distant
galaxies...and on to the entire cosmos...proceeding, I suppose,
to the mind of God-pretty enormous canvas upon which to paint.
Fortunately for those of us back here running public organizations,
the ideas are quite applicable to any large entity. At the
beginning, you need to do several key things:
- Have a vision: In NASA our simple but
comprehensive vision is to improve life here, to extend
life to there, and to find life beyond.
- Create a sense of what is important:
All the vision in the world will avail very little if colleagues
do not feel a need to fulfill it.
- Set goals; then set stretch goals: While
you must have sensible and achievable goals, but also goals
that are a stretch to overcome persistent obstacles - things
that the means of actually achieving may not be fully known,
but goals that create a sense of shared enthusiasm for great
achievement. Perhaps the most famous stretch goal in American
history was President John F Kennedy's charge to go to the
moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard, to
paraphrase. This was a clear, understandable, incredibly
challenging objective, but the true purpose was to demonstrate
our technology prowess to those on the other side of the
Earth who, in the words of their leadership, sought to bury
us. These were frightening times, and the stretch goal provided
a focal point. Today, without the pressure of looming superpower
confrontation as it was then, our stretch goal is to conquer
the technical obstacles that prohibit us from going anywhere
in space exploration-quantum improvements in propulsion,
power generation and methods to assure human endurance are
our enablers to achieve any exploration objective in the
future-and they must be achieved if we want to go anywhere.
Indeed, as James
Webb observed so eloquently, "large scale endeavors are
undertaken as a result of a significant change in the environment-social,
political, technological, military-that raises a new urgent
need or presents a new opportunity. We are in pursuit of the
new opportunities.
- Get to the key nodes early. This
is critically important, and let me illustrate with an example
from my initial experiences at NASA. In my first month or
so, I visited all of our centers and came away tremendously
impressed with the talent and creative energy that can be
found throughout this storied institution. Many departments
were striving to innovate new techniques to improve the
products within our organization. But, my initial tour identified
four areas within NASA, which required further attention
to bring their effectiveness back to the historic levels
associated with this administration.
- First, we needed an outstanding
leadership team to help guide the agency's work and to help
us work effectively with our partner agencies and with external
constituencies. Building the right team is crucial.
- Second, we needed to take steps
either through existing management authorities or through
legislation, to adapt rules, regulations and procedures
to achieve specific objectives. Sometimes you need to go
outside an organization for assistance.
- Third, simply put, we needed to
get our financial house in order. This is critically important
to establish credibility- to do and mean what you say. You
have to respect the bottom line - and financial accountability
is a path to achieving organization credibility.
- Our final need was to provide some
long term focus for our work; a vision that would help guide
our efforts to push enabling technological developments
today, so that we can achieve dramatic feats of exploration
and scientific discovery tomorrow. We developed the short
but focused vision I mentioned earlier. Everyone must know
the vision and the mission.
Having talked about
the importance of beginnings, let me move on to the next point
Stephen Hawking makes.
The Expanding Universe
In his second lecture,
Hawking talks about something that both the universe and virtually
all public organizations have in common: "The Expanding
Universe." One of the most common challenges for an administrator
to deal with is that of expansion. Most public organizations
evolve to expansion because each new effort is viewed as additive
rather than a substitute for older efforts. This is a familiar
public organization phenomenon, but in most cases the consequence
is a diffusion of focus and muddles the sense of priorities.
Again, James Webb concluded "endeavors do not generally
require new organizational or administrative forms, but the
more effective utilization of existing forms."
Granted, there are
times and scenarios in which an organization will expand-but
the key is such expansion should be carefully planned and
intelligently challenged to assure focus, selectivity and
clear choice. Looking back on the history of NASA, there are
certainly periods of expansion in which the enthusiasm outstripped
the planning; and we've paid for that in subsequent periods
of retrenchment. A public administrator must undertake a sort
of "guarding function" to assure accomplishment
of purpose and concentration of priority. At times expansion
may seem as inexorable as the expansion of our universe, and
so it is in this is an area that public administrators are
truly challenged to demonstrate their worth.
Black Holes and What
To Do About Them
Professor Hawking
then goes on to provide two lectures that are perhaps the
most appropriate to this discussion of the administration
of public organizations: the cheerily-named "Black Holes;"
and the slightly more hopefully titled, "Black Holes
Ain't so Black." In the context of our discussions, a
Black Hole in a public organization is one in which all energy
collapses upon itself and from which few ideas or talented
people emerge. Sadly, we can all identify some very Black
Holes indeed. And just like in the larger universe of Professor
Hawking, most Black Holes used to be big, glorious suns that
collapsed about themselves-formerly important parts of an
organization that have outlived a useful function or for which
the needs changed and organization failed to adapt. Every
administrator needs to:
- Be able to ident~5' the Black Holes:
This is not easy because there is often disagreement over
which elements of the organization fit the description.
As such, it is imperative to select metrics that can inform
the debate, rather than relying on wire-diagrams or well-packaged
but low-substance briefings to determine the value of organization
elements. This is also an area in which honest, unvarnished
feedback from trusted advisors in the organization can be
invaluable.
- Inject Energy Into them: Once you've
identified a true Black Hole, it must be fixed its collapse
accelerated. The first choice is generally to fix it, and
the best way to do so is to inject energy and talented people
into it.
- Send your best people ... and they
will usually welcome the challenge if they are really the
best, and will create a relevant agenda to reverse the otherwise
natural phenomenon of Black Hole implosion.
- Send important and relevant tasks
... if you let a Black Hole simply exist in the organization,
the rest of the organization draws a message from that.
The imperative to produce must require that challenges be
tasked.
- If they don't perform at that
point, kill them. In the reaches of deep space we don't
yet have the ability to deconstruct Black Holes, but here
on earth in the world of our public organizations, we can
and should identify such energy-loss swamps and drain them
one way or another. At times a tough call, but they must
be made and don't look back.
The Fate of the Universe
Professor Hawking
then goes on to his next lecture, "The Fate of the Universe,"
which deals essentially with change. Nothing is more important
for the leader and manager of a large bureaucracy.
- Know the difference between transformation
and innovation: Transformation occurs very seldom and changes
everything; Innovation should be occurring constantly and
"fairs in the curve" between major Transformations.
To use an example from the cosmos, transformation is the
creation of a new Sun bursting into being, changing the
solar system around it; Innovation is a reflection of the
gradual shifts in time and space occasioned by the relentless
movement outward of the cosmos.
- Both Transformation and Innovation
are critically important in our earthbound public organizations
- together, they constitute the essential lifeblood of an
organization
Let me further illustrate
this by talking about former Chief of Naval Operations, Elmo
Zumwalt. Admiral Zumwalt envisioned and led the way within
the Navy to an all volunteer force that truly attracts the
best and the brightest. This 1970's immediate post-Viet Nam
plan to crew the world's most powerful military force by all
volunteers was truly revolutionary, and controversial.
There is a great
deal about "transformation" in the Department of
Defense today, but I would submit the greatest transformation
in the past half-century for the Department was the shift
to an all-volunteer force. It changed the culture, the organization
- it changed everything.
By changing the conscription
mindset of the Navy that the solution to any problem was to
throw lots of people at it, Elmo Zumwalt created the basis
to recruit and retain the kind of intelligent, technology
oriented sailors desperately needed for a modern fleet.
In addition to the
big transformation he executed, Zumwalt was also a constant
innovator...tinkering with the organization, producing steady,
gradual improvement which built upon fundamental transformations.
James Webb observed "organizing, administering, reorganizing
and administering the reorganized structure provide the key
to the effectiveness and usefulness of such (large scale)
endeavors."
Zumwalt was able
to harness both Transformation and Innovation at the right
times during his leadership of a very complex organizations-but
not without a price. His tenure, nearly three decades ago,
is still the topic of great debate within the naval service
even as the great transformation has become an accepted norm
of operations.
The Direction of
Time
In the sixth lecture,
Professor Hawking discusses, "The Direction of Time."
In public organizations time has distinct qualities all its
own. Nothing is harder to control than the pace of change.
This really is the "direction of time." As the National
Academy of Public Administration, many of us are faced with
the challenges of implementing transformation and innovation
- the essential components of change - in large public organizations.
NASA will constantly
challenge the status quo and seek new breakthroughs - it is
at the core of the reason for its founding 44 years ago. If
we continue to develop groundbreaking technologies and use
these transformational tools to enable exploration to new
and exciting places in space and development of aerospace
technologies to achieve these dreams, public interest will
continue to remain strong.
But such change is
expensive, and the variable that tends to determine the level
of expense is time. In other words, if you want significant
change essentially immediately -- think back to the stretch
goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade
in the 1960s-change is very expensive. For this reason, the
public is skeptical of expensive high-speed change, absent
an imperative. The longer term health of the organization
depends on constant innovation to be best positioned for the
introduction of transformation.
An effective public
administrator is one who will think carefully about the trade-off
in time when determining the required pace of change. There
are no simple rules of thumb here -- this is really about
good old-fashioned analysis, and finding the right "direction
of time" is a critical skill for an administrator.
Finally, as you wrestle
with the pace of change, remember that Transformation is based
on people first, ideas second, and resources third - although
all three are necessary.
The Theory of Everything
Professor Hawking
closes in his seventh lecture with "The Theory of Everything."
Let me attempt to give a few ideas that apply equally to the
universe at large and most huge public organizations:
- Be deliberate and resolute - don't
permit thoughtless expansion of your universe.
- Use or collapse the Black Holes
-- you cannot allow their example to poison the cosmos of
your organization.
- Focus on Execution. We've talked
a great deal about vision and planning today, which are
critical; but all the long range thinking in the world won't
put an Endeavour into space tonight without the expertise
to make the plan a reality. Find and cherish those in the
organization who can stand and deliver on the results.
- Bestow the Gift of Time. We should
all find time to get away and think through the issues and
challenges we face. Often, most helpful are challenging
conversations with those who are not always pre-disposed
to support you or your organization. Human nature doesn't
tell us to gravitate in such directions, so one has to think
to make the time to engage these views. And maybe hardest
for some of us, get away from the organization for periods
of time. In addition to the therapy, it shows others that
there are no indispensable individuals in your organization.
- Demand financial Literacy. The
senior leadership team should be able to articulate the
basics of the financial plan driving your organization.
While public institutions don't have a profit/loss bottom
line, we are accountable to the public to ensure financial
competence. Without financial literacy at the top of the
organization and fairly well through it, the credibility
of the organization will suffer and it's very tough to restore
once lost.
- Sometimes a little uncertainty
is a good thing. While this may sound inconsistent, that
sense of the uncertain can help maintain an edge-James Webb
found "an element of disequilibrium is essential if
the system is to be maneuverable, stay under control and
have a chance to reach its goal."
- Lastly and most importantly, personal
leadership always matters deeply. No matter how big the
organization, the ability of senior leadership to personally
and effectively communicate a sense of purpose and vision
is critical.
Conclusion
In putting all of
this together, it must be pretty clear that I was regularly
reminded of James Webb, the second NASA administrator. Webb
was not widely known to the general pubic
but was, within the inner circles of power in DC, a "Washington
legend." But to the Fellows of National Academy of Public
Administration, he was a critical contributor to the strength
of the Academy and is an exemplar of our profession as public
administrators. He gave life to the oft-repeated aphorism
that leadership and bureaucracy are mutually exclusive terms.
The ultimate genius
of James Webb was that he understood the relationship of power
to administration in Washington. Few understand this crucial
relationship. He built and exercised a significant base of
bureaucratic power, but he wielded it in productive, fair,
and honest ways. He once observed "power is good or evil
according to the vision that it serves."
It was said of James
Webb by a senior government executive of his era that, "...he
has the knack of getting large numbers of people moving in
the same direction, although I'm damned if I can understand
how he does it." I think that is a great thought upon
which to close our this talk. If our profession as public
administrators can each help get "large numbers of people
moving," largely in the right direction and roughly together,
we'll have done our job.
To the Fellows and
new inductees to the Academy, thank you for your contributions
to provide the broad framework within which government works.
Indeed, our work connects power with administration in the
democratic context of our country, and by doing so creates
useful service to the people of the United States. I submit
this is a high calling indeed.
Thank you very much.
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