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D
o any of the following scenarios sound familiar?
—In the midst of a hurricane, communications and organiza- tional breakdowns force a Coast Guard officer to step in and try to coordinate the disaster relief efforts of an alphabet soup of fed- eral, state, and local agencies. The National Guard, a host of non- governmental agencies like the Red Cross, and even citizen volunteers are all trying to do what is right but according to their own and often conflicting rules of engagement. And the only ones the officer actually commands are the relatively few uniformed “Coasties” who report directly to her. —The Defense Department designates a senior federal execu- tive as its official representative to an interagency task force charged with helping find work for thousands of veterans dis- charged at the end of more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He finds himself at the table with departments as di- verse as Labor, Veterans Affairs, Education, and even the Small Business Administration, and he realizes that they do not even speak the same bureaucratic dialects, let alone see the challenge the same way.
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The Enterprise
Leadership Challenge
JACKSON NICKERSON AND RONALD SANDERS
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—A CIA station chief somewhere in the Middle East looks at a critical piece of intelligence just handed to her by one of her case officers. It includes an obscure reference to an individual just re- turning from the United States on a tourist visa, and she needs to know exactly what he did (and whom he visited) while in Detroit. Distant in both geography and authority, she finds herself quickly needing to mobilize FBI agents in the Midwest to investigate. —During a routine plant inspection, an Agriculture Department inspector finds a tainted piece of meat and evidence that it may be part of a larger shipment imported from the Far East several weeks ago. The rest of the shipment already is en route to processing plants and grocery stores all over the southeastern United States. Furthermore, indications suggest there is more meat from the sup- plier due to arrive in port in a few days. Investigating the current shipment requires a rapid response from not only several units within the Department of Agriculture but also from Customs and Border Protection agents at the port. His last experience with Cus- toms and Border Protection was anything but rapid, requiring sev- eral hours on the phone. These vignettes represent a growing reality in today’s federal government. More and more of the challenges that government leaders face—from the drama of disaster to matters of meat inspection—extend beyond their narrowly authorized and special- ized missions. In today’s rapidly changing and chaotic world, the problems that government must address are increasingly complex, cross-jurisdictional, amorphous, and difficult to solve—what is commonly referred to as “wicked” problems. We argue that wicked problems ultimately require enterprise so- lutions. “Enterprise” here refers to the resources and capabilities found in the constellation of public and private organizations that must act in concert if they are to successfully address cross-cutting national and international challenges. Such entities include federal,
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drawing upon a network of critical organizational and individual actors, no matter where they may reside. They require a type of leader who can encourage and facilitate collaboration by leverag- ing shared values and interests to achieve a resolution that is greater than the sum of individual actions. We call individuals who are imbued with or have developed such abilities “enterprise lead- ers,” and they are increasingly in demand. Given the constraints of existing management authorities, gov- ernmental structures, and historical approaches to leadership devel- opment, many of today’s government leaders simply are ill equipped to tackle wicked government problems. Put plainly, the government needs to substantially increase the number of enter- prise leaders in its ranks, and to do so, it needs to change its para- digm for developing such leaders. Recognizing that developing a new leadership paradigm is itself a wicked government problem, we reached out to a set of enter- prise-wide actors—government executives, academics, think tanks, thought leaders, and consultants— to assemble a collaborative, in- terdisciplinary, and broadly experienced network of individuals with overlapping interests. Sponsored by Brookings Executive Ed- ucation and Booz Allen Hamilton, we held a symposium at the Brookings Institution in March 2012 to discuss the issues of enter- prise leadership and leading through collaborative networks. Par- ticipants were subsequently invited to write chapters to contribute to this edited volume. The purpose of this book is to heighten recognition of the need for enterprise leadership, to explore alternative views of the capa- bilities needed to be an enterprise leader, and to highlight some early steps being taken by agencies to develop a new cadre of en- terprise leaders. The first part of book, “Contemporary Enterprise Leadership Challenges,” focuses on the individuals who are charged (formally
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or otherwise) with tackling wicked problems. Our assumption is that, while these leaders are likely to be senior officials in one or more of the enterprise’s constituent organizations, they will rarely have any sort of formal, chain of command authority over most of its constituent components, not to mention the enterprise as a whole. This is an all-too-common contradiction to the classic axiom that authority must match accountability. The second part, “What Makes for an Effective Enterprise Leader,” offers several perspec- tives on various skills and capabilities required of successful enter- prise leaders. The third part, “An Enterprise Approach to Leadership Development,” describes several practical approaches implemented by federal agencies in their efforts to develop enterprise leaders. We conclude the book by summarizing lessons learned from these contributors and laying out a bold alternative and practical guide for how to develop enterprise leaders. The following paragraphs pro- vide an overview of the issues discussed in each of the three sections and briefly summarize the contribution of each chapter.
Part 1: Contemporary Enterprise Leadership Challenges
The definition of enterprise leadership is admittedly imprecise, in part because those of us who worry about the state of leadership in today’s federal government are only now beginning to recognize the distinction and differences between leading an enterprise (as we have defined it) and leading an organization that by that defi- nition is almost always going to be part of the larger whole. In so doing, we are also beginning to recognize the inadequacy of “tra- ditional” leadership development strategies to prepare those who must lead that larger whole— sometimes by design but more often by default. With some exceptions—most notably the U.S. military and, more recently, the U.S. intelligence community— the vast majority
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This approach is undoubtedly necessary, but it is no longer suffi- cient for those leaders who must confront wicked government problems that transcend organizational and institutional bound- aries and span the greater enterprise. These wicked problems, which we believe are no longer exceptions, require a different kind of leader, one who can discern where their organization fits in the larger enterprise, is charged with comprehensively framing and for- mulating the wicked problem, and can bring together the networks of actors from across the enterprise who share an interest in re- solving the wicked problem. To get a better grounding in the chal- lenges of enterprise leadership, we turn to three enterprise leaders who share with us the wicked government problems they faced and how they responded to their enterprise challenges. A former director of national intelligence, the Honorable J. Michael “Mike” McConnell, shares his story of how he was charged with unifying the intelligence community to work together as an en- terprise (see chapter 2). In response to 9-11, his mission was to cre- ate a culture of “jointness” across various agencies responsible for our national security. McConnell, recognizing the importance of sharing information and leading thinking, had to counter the resis- tance of agencies to sharing information and did so by creating a “forcing function.” He describes how he contributed to solving the wicked problem of sharing information and the lessons he learned throughout the process as he reshaped the institutional architecture of the intelligence community. McConnell reflects on how his enter- prise leadership abilities were molded through networks, particu- larly informal networks, and how his connectedness to others across the government sector contributed to his success. Pat Tamburrino (chapter 3) describes the impact enterprise lead- ership had as he served as the chief of staff to the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, when he partnered with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and other agencies to maximize
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the career readiness of all servicemembers. The enterprise goal in his case was to reduce unemployment for veterans by giving them the support and resources they needed to enter the civilian work- force. With very different perspectives and missions, the Depart- ment of Defense, the VA, and the other agencies involved had to find common ground upon which to build and deliver a program to ease this transition. The chapter outlines four features of the de- livery model and, more importantly, how agencies collaborated to accomplish their joint goal within a short period of time. Finally, in chapter 4, Admiral Thad Allen, Leonard Marcus, and Barry Dorn discuss the concept of meta-leadership and its critical components and their impacts in the aftermath of Hurricane Kat- rina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Dorn and Marcus, both affiliated with the Harvard School of Public Health, have con- ducted research and developed the concepts and practices associ- ated with meta-leadership, which offers a mindset for managing a complex catastrophic disaster well. This approach contributes to enterprise leadership by describing how a leader faced with such a challenge can unify and leverage the agencies, organizations, and people that are involved. The chapter goes on to describe five es- sential dimensions of meta-leadership practice: the leader, the sit- uation, leading down, leading up, and leading across.
Part 2: What Makes for an Effective Enterprise Leader?
The first part of the book offers examples of the challenges that face enterprise leaders and hints at some of the qualities and com- petencies necessary for success. The second part of this book asks, “What makes for an effective enterprise leader?” To start, the en- terprise leader needs to identify and understand the missions, struc- tures, budgets, and bureaucratic processes of all relevant enterprise actors. But this knowledge is only the beginning; enterprise leaders
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international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector into the mix, and there is no way to “delegate leadership upward.” Without effective enterprise leadership, interagency impasses often fester, or worse, become muddled and mired in the search for a lowest-common-denominator consensus among actors who will not budge. Experienced enterprise leaders have (sometimes painfully) learned to focus on building upon shared interests and a sense of common mission, or the bond of shared values and ex- periences. They have learned to leverage those commitments through networks of trusted extraorganizational relationships or a personal reservoir of social capital built and employed to achieve the ends of the enterprise. This ability to build and leverage boundary-spanning networks is a common theme in the case studies of enterprise leadership, which suggests that much can be learned from the science of orga- nizational network analysis. To explore what makes for an effective enterprise leader, we turn to four researchers to understand how they think about this still-emerging notion of enterprise leadership. In chapter 5, Jackson Nickerson, a chaired professor at Olin Business School and director of Brookings’ Executive Education program, discusses strategies for enterprise leadership through net- work governance. He explains how Rick Thomas, of the Depart- ment of Defense’s Test Resource Management Center, improved the management of U.S. missile ranges by coordinating and collab- orating across a network of thirty-three different agencies that lacked a central authority. Nickerson highlights four practical com- ponents of network governance through which enterprise leaders tackle wicked government problems: establishing language and communication channels, building and maintaining trust and rep- utation among collaborating actors and entities, balancing depen- dence so that one organization is not at significantly more at risk
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than the other, and determining mutual incentives or common goals that encourage collaborative action. Rob Cross, an associate professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, and his coauthors, Andrew Har- gadon, professor of technology management at the University of California, Davis, and Salvatore Parise, associate professor at Bab- son College in the Technology, Operations, and Information Man- agement Division, introduce in chapter 6 the idea that innovation is not always the result of an individual effort but instead often arises from a collaborative effort that organizations can foster by focusing on using expertise at the critical points of need. The inte- gration of multiple great ideas and technologies can be achieved through informal networks that allow for innovation. Cross, Har- gadon, and Parise discuss the three main challenges to innovation: fragmentation, domination, and insularity. They then propose five practices for using networks to drive innovation and recommend they be applied in a holistic way. Governments face many chal- lenges in innovation, but it is critical that they adapt to their envi- ronment. By learning to collaborate, agencies can overcome barriers to innovation and survive in today’s complex environment. Thomas Valente, an associate professor at the University of Southern California Department of Preventive Medicine, discusses in chapter 7 the detrimental effects of organizational silos and the benefits of a network-oriented perspective. He demonstrates the difference between formal and informal networks and relationships and the far-reaching effects that informal relationships can have on an organization. Using computer simulations, Valente shows the impact of networked leaders, who use a relational approach instead of one based on more formal authority. His results illus- trate how silos slow the spread of information, and how by using opinion leaders and meaningful ways of creating networks, enter- prise leaders can be much more effective.
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The third part of the book calls upon government leadership de- velopment experts to describe some of the approaches they have advocated, or in some cases taken, to develop enterprise leaders. Some of these strategies are already in practice; thus, while they may be nascent in many respects, they do offer some initial steps forward. In chapter 9, Jim Trinka, former chief learning officer at the FBI, shares the lessons he learned in the Department of Veterans Affairs as executive director for Leading EDGE (Executives Driving Gov- ernment Excellence), a program that facilitates cross-agency col- laboration and, implicitly, the development of enterprise leaders. Trinka identifies systemic barriers that make enterprise leadership difficult to develop and execute: a culture that views collaboration as a short-lived event rather than a lasting relationship, depart- ments competing for limited resources and talent, the prevalence of short-term appointees with limited time and relationships to lever- age for interagency efforts, and a lack of training to develop exec- utives’ enterprise leadership competencies, skills, and attitudes. The VA has invested in one such leadership development program with Leading EDGE and has reaped tangible benefits as a result. Chapter 10, by Ron Sanders, vice president and fellow at Booz Allen Hamilton and former associate director of national intelli- gence, discusses the impetus for developing an enterprise-focused approach to leader development in the intelligence community fol- lowing the intelligence failure of 9-11. Sanders provides an overview of the challenges overcome by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as it spearheaded the intelligence community’s civilian joint duty program in an effort to develop en- terprise leaders. Overcoming substantial bureaucratic resistance to the program, the ODNI and leaders of other intelligence agencies collaboratively determined what would qualify as joint duty, how employees would be selected and evaluated, and how to handle
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other operational concerns. Sanders provides lessons learned from the multiyear effort, including the importance of establishing clear administrative and operational guidelines, providing proper incen- tives, and strongly engaging senior leadership. In chapter 11, Laura Miller Craig and Jessica Nierenberg of the Government Accountability Office draw conclusions from govern- ment surveys and research reports that indicate interagency job ro- tation has proven successful in developing enterprise leaders. In one survey, 86 percent of participants in rotation programs found their experience to be “very effective” in helping them develop skills necessary for leading in an interagency environment. Design- ing and managing interagency programs is not without its chal- lenges; however, Miller Craig and Nierenberg offer strategies for successfully implementing rotation programs. Among other things, they argue that agency and individual goals should be aligned, and incentives must be implemented to encourage participation. The U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Interagency Fel- lowship Program illustrates how these strategies can be used to es- tablish a successful program and develop enterprise leaders. Finally, in chapter 12, Stephen T. Shih, deputy associate direc- tor of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and performance man- agement at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, discusses strategies for developing an executive corps of enterprise leaders at the seniormost levels of the federal government. Since its incep- tion in 1978, the SES has become increasingly agency specific, with a focus on technical, rather than leadership capabilities. However, Shih argues that to solve today’s wicked problems, the SES must re- turn to developing a cadre of enterprise leaders, able to provide government-wide vision and produce results through interagency collaboration. Whether through a centralized, top-down, manage- ment system or a decentralized management structure in which in- dividuals coordinate enterprise collaboration, the government’s
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