By now it's pretty clear that most people are not happy with the ways of Washington. A
Washington Post article speculates on the reasons why Congress and the President have been having so much difficulty addressing the major issues of today -- what the administration refers to as "
Grand Challenges".
The article got me to thinking. What lessons could open innovation teach Congress and the President about addressing important public issues are also complex and messy? How could we apply the principles strategic doing -- guiding strategy in open networks -- to Washington's broken policy process? After all, the principal players in the Washington policy process -- Congress and the Administration -- form an open network in which nobody can tell anyone else what to do. How could leaders guide this network strategically?
What if we viewed Washington's policy breakdown from the perspective of open networks?
I came up with three lessons.
Lesson 1: Define your outcome with a handful of clear characteristics.
To mobilize the resources in an open network, leaders help the network define clear outcomes with concrete characteristics. In a network, leaders focus delivering coherence (which is something more than a vision). A network's coherence emerges from answering two questions: Where we going? How will we get there? In the case of NASA's moon mission, President Kennedy answered the first question, while the NASA administrator answered the second.
The problem we are facing in the health care debate arises from our leader's inability to outline clearly where we are going and how we will get there. We don't really know what comprehensive health reform looks like. We have no wide agreement on the characteristics of this reform.
Unless members of the network can both see and feel deeply connected to where they're going, they will not move. Clear outcomes give us the metrics we need to define what success looks like. Defining outcomes is an iterative process, as members of the network refine their thinking, learn the lessons of "what works", and evaluate what's possible.
Even so, defining a clear outcome goes only part way to creating coherence for the network.
Members of the network also need to be convinced that there's a practical pathway to get from here to there. In the health care debate, the process has become a mishmash of ad hoc steps. Not surprisingly, the public is lost confidence in our leadership. We don't have a clear idea where we are going, and we utterly confused about the process.
Lesson 2: Design a simple, coherent process with clear next steps.
In open innovation, the quality of the process drives the quality of the product. Over the last number of years, we have watched as the legislative process has slowly broken down. Arguably, the roots of this breakdown reach back to the 1970s. The legislative process that gave rise to major domestic initiatives in the 1960s bears little resemblance to today's Congress.
(In 1975, while a legislative assistant to a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, I wrote about the early disintegration of the tax legislative process. The article, which appeared in the
Harvard Journal on Legislation, focused on how structural changes taking place in the House undercut traditional approaches to complex legislation.)
To my mind, there is little chance that Congress will be able to fix its process any time soon. But the recent health care summit between the President and key members of Congress opens a window to a more promising future. The President and Congress could easily convert this event into a process. By meeting every 90 days, they can keep us all focused on articulating clear outcomes -- Where are we going? -- and set reasonable 90 day next steps -- How will we get there?
These regular policy gatherings can be open so the public can attend and submit questions (a hybrid of the town meeting format). At the same time, the public will be able to see leaders grappling with the hard issues and, at the same time, getting something done. Conducting strategy in open networks is all about following simple disciplines to guide complex conversations.
Lesson 3: Go slow to go fast.
As we shift our thinking toward networks, we encounter seeming paradoxes. One of the most arresting to my mind is that we need to move slowly at first to go faster later. It all has to do with building trust in an atmosphere of transparency. We build trust through our behavior.
By taking small, consistent steps that other people observe, we build trust. Taking small, fast steps is important, because trust grows on a foundation of constancy.
Trust powers open networks. As trust builds, speed accelerates, not linearly, but exponentially. The capacity to take on complex tasks multiplies. Executing a strategy in open networks is all about translating big ideas into small next steps -- continuously.
Right now, the legislative process in Washington doesn't work because trust has collapsed. To rebuild trusted relationships, the President and Congress need to focus less on winning the grand policy debate (which inexorably dissolves into talking points) and more on taking small steps toward clear outcomes.
Reforming Washington's policy process
How could we reform Washington's policy process to follow the principles of strategic doing? In complex areas like financial reform, health care reform, immigration reform and education reform. the process should be punctuated by day long gatherings between the President and legislative leaders every ninety days. These gatherings can be structured to refine outcomes and set ninety day goals for both Congress and the Administration. The public and press, as both observers and participants, would be free to blog the session during the day.
To imagine how this suggestion would work in practice, think of a week devoted every ninety days to aligning the interests of Administration and Congress on the Grand Challenges. On Monday, the President and Congressional leaders meet on education reform. On Tuesday they take on financial reform. On Wednesday, it's health care. On Thursday, immigration reform. On Friday, the President and Congressional leaders focus on the budget deficit.
In each of these gatherings, the session begins with a brief review of where we stand. The agenda then moves the participants to focus on the key issues of outcomes and initiatives: where we ere going and how we will get there. The meeting next turns to the commitments that Congress and the Administration make to move forward their common agenda over the next ninety days. The last critical issue involves setting the date and place for the next meeting.
Each session could then end with the press and members of the public asking questions of the participants: an open press conference. The Administration and Congress would commit to reporting their progress on these issues to the American people every ninety days. So, we would have a strategic action plan on health care, for example, that would be continuously refined and updated as legislation is enacted.
Can these reforms work? Only if Congress and the Administration can follow some simple rules. Strategy in loosely joined networks boils down to following a discipline. Open networks can achieve remarkable innovation to meet incredibly complex challenges. But we need to follow some simple rules. Establishing some
rules of civility to govern the quarterly policy meetings is a good place to start.
Congress and the Administration have lost the ability to do complex thinking together. The good news is that it costs nothing to move in a new direction.
