Process - It’s Not a Relay, It’s a Medley.

Governments are a patchwork of people and programs delivering disconnected services to overlapping populations. Taking advantage of the competencies of each employee and program is difficult to construct if leaders and managers think about services as a relay race of handoffs. In a relay, every runner runs equal distance and has roughly equivalent ability. Government isn’t a relay, it’s a medley. Different agencies have differing skills and abilities, and partnerships should be constructed with those varying competencies in mind.

Why Is Process Leading to Inaction?

Employees don’t have control over the entire process. One of the most common barriers to ownership occurs when trying to hold someone accountable for something he doesn’t control.

• Why? Lack of control usually stems from multiple players being involved in the process. Maybe the program is heavily regulated by state and federal governments because it’s a grant program. For many health and human service programs, there is often court involvement from previous civil rights violations and consent decrees.

  • What can you do about it? Own what you own. Even if a local program only owns one tenth of a larger process, they should completely own that one tenth, knowing everything about it and optimizing it every way imaginable.

The District of Columbia Public Schools successfully navigated its way out of one consent decree by aggressively speeding up services to children with disabilities - something entirely within its control.

Employees can’t see the entire process. Some of the biggest problems in government occur when employees in one program have no visibility into the operations and progress of other programs directly related to their own.

• Why? Information systems are often different between programs and many governments lack interoperable communications between them. Lines of sight are limited because employees feel very removed from the final outcome and don’t have the time or opportunity to communicate with their counterparts.

  • What can you do about it? Take a page out of Amazon’s playbook. They track their customers’ every move and customers can track an Amazon package on its journey from shopping cart to front door. Thinking about the end-to-end customer experience can help siloed employees see the big picture and find creative ways to improve it.