Today’s Buzz is by Michael Baskin, human, serving Montgomery County MD as Chief Innovation Officer (come join our innovation Accelerator). Michael is also a Fellow at The People Lab @ Harvard Kennedy School exploring the future of local government organizations and an executive coach working with leaders writing their own stories. Stories on substack – connect with Michael on LinkedIn or, (for a rural setting), Instagram. Accepts and returns postcards, the most governmentXpeople of social media.
- What I’m reading: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitzyn (fiction) / Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World by Jennifer Garvey Berger (non-fiction)
- What I’m Watching: The Diplomat
- What I’m listening to: gypzy mafia Public Innovators Network set list / Mon Rovia Heavy Foot
- A hobby I enjoy: collecting photos of outdoors public benches…while asking questions about categories (What is a bench? What is public..and who?)
How do you wake up?
With that question, a dozen humans, who also serve in some capacity as chief innovation officers for their cities, opened our day together.
Responses ranged. Nico, who leads innovation and data for Syracuse NY, ‘doodles on the keys’ of a piano, giving himself an hour of practice and exploration through his fingers. Jess, who leads strategy and performance for San Francisco, CA, led us through her qi gong movement routine which she makes space for as the kettle boils. Kelly, who leads innovation for Oklahoma City, has instant hot water but chooses her loose leaf tea based on the day’s events – like something a bit more bold and spicy on some Council days. Brendan, who leads innovation for Anchorage Alaska, has a dance ritual (beyond his government role, he’s also a DJ and mathematician). From a ritual game with a French press to space with a child, we find little ways to wake up who we want to show up for our days changing in government.*
We came together to recognize our shared humanity and restore ourselves. Having tacked our mini-gathering onto a larger conference, we entered the space feeling drained, as so often happens after a convening. We left full – ready and awake.
Caption: Kyle, who leads organizational effectiveness for Boise Idaho, and Leah’s, who leads innovation and performance for Seattle WA, morning rainy run ritual didn’t hurt.
We are changing government – and changing the story of what is possible. The stories too often told of government and in government no longer serve us. They hold us back. They’re about what we can’t do, rather than what we can. We hold them not just collectively, but individually. Our own development is tied to the development of our organizations. Our own ‘forms of mind’ linked to the forms of organization that we make up**. It’s time: change stories.
For many, the current changes at the national level are a wake up call to the urgent need to build our collective faith in our ability to solve common challenges together. To address challenges together that we cannot address alone – this is what government is for, not always what it does. We need governments that work for people. Our democracy depends on delivery. For government to work for people, let’s start with recognizing that government is people, too.
How do we wake up a system?
We start with a declaration.
Government is people, too.
Public servants
are worthy
of trust
and capable
of creating change.
We are powerful.
What does this make possible? What actions are available to a public servants when we hold this to be true? What processes and ways of working are possible for government organizations with this at their core? What benefits might be possible for a society that sees government as people, too – with all their radical power?
I don’t know, and I’m curious. I think it’s time we wake up to the possibilities.
Let’s take, for a moment, this same declaration to another space. What if Google’s engineers were in the story that they are worthy of trust and capable of creating change? That doesn’t seem so crazy. In fact, their famous 20% policy says just that. They are powerful. Aren’t we?
A lot of us are working very hard on building the human centered design, process improvement, digital, data analytics, applied behavioral science, etc capacities of our governments. These apps do not fit with the core operating code of our government organizations. The apps run on recognizing a failure, naming it, and trying something new. They run on observing in different ways. They run on experimentation and prototyping and not knowing what will work but being committed to trying different ways for different results. The mainstream of government organizations rejects these approaches even when it sees they work. Our operating systems of policies, procedures and processes (and sometimes politicians and members of the public) declare we are not worthy of trust or capable of creating change. Our organizations have built up an immunity to that form of change – a hidden competing commitment that stops us from running our systems like the apps*. Sometimes that commitment is to stability, or trust through certainty, or to ‘not wasting a single taxpayer dollar.’ And the cost is our current system. We keep launching new apps, when what we need is a new operating system. At the core of that operating system is a code that speaks our declaration through its policies and processes***. A code that rather than rejecting, recognizes this: government is people, too.
This morning, let’s wake up to our humanity. Our governments need it. So do we, and the publics we serve.
Public servants
are worthy
of trust
and capable
of creating change.
We are powerful.
*Curious about how we wake up? We’ve got a series coming up on morning rituals in partnership with one of our favorite other ‘of us for us by us’ organizations – sign up to get notified at governmentXpeople.org
**For more, see Changing on the Job, by Jennifer Garvey, Reinventing Organizations by Fred LaLoux, or An Everyone Culture by Kegan and Lahey
***For more, see Kegan and Lahey, Immunity to Change