Along with the obvious turmoil and political strife caused by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the historic tragedy set in motion the most significant government reorganizations in decades in the homeland defense and intelligence communities.
The effects of the reorganizations continue to reverberate today. For that reason, the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton released a report Tuesday detailing lessons from those efforts that may guide the Obama Administration in government reform and reorganization efforts currently under way.
Securing the Future: Management Lessons of 9/11 provides a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of and subsequent problems within the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The report is based on exclusive interviews with major figures in the reorganization efforts, including Judge Michael Chertoff, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and General Michael Hayden.
“The report makes it pretty clear — management matters,” said Ron Sanders, Chief Human Capital Officer at the DNI during the reorganization and now works for Booz Allen Hamilton. “In many cases, the key to success can be in mundane things such as IT and management processes. Operations demand attention. If you’re not careful, you’ll be enmeshed in it 24/7/365 and that has long-term consequences.”
While acknowledging that DHS and ODNI are very different organizations in many respects, the report uncovers common management lessons in four key areas Breaking Gov will detail in the coming days:
- Lesson One: the role of leadership and need for across-the-board management buy-in;
- Lesson Two: intangible but essential issues involving creation of a new culture and value system;
- Lesson Three: the need to elevate the importance of management issues as a means of successfully implementing policy;
- and Lesson Four: the role of congressional and White House politics in determining the effectiveness of a new organization.
Specifically, the report notes, the law creating ODNI gave the DNI oversight responsibilities but not explicit authority over the agencies and elements of the intelligence community. This approach hampered leadership and failed to result in the kind of integration that was envisioned.
Authors hope the report will assist Congress in current and future federal restructuring initiatives, such as the brand new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in response to the 2008 financial crisis and new Department of Health and Human Services offices to manage the sweeping 2010 health care law.
In addition, the Obama administration is now considering a significant reorganization that would merge many of the government’s export and trade-related agencies as a way to better focus government policy and assist American businesses in navigating the global marketplace.
“It’s easy to lose sight of just how difficult the challenges were,” Sanders said regarding the events of a decade ago. “It’s easy to look back and critique. The challenges were historic. Hopefully, we can learn from the mistakes with some of the forward motion that the Obama Administration has moved in.”