George W. did all of these things and the SES government managers just waited him out. I'm not sure I see anything different about this "new" system.

I find your leadership blogs refreshing and interesting. I learn something each time. And I agree, leadership is both lonely and a team sport. I heard a bunch of folks the other day saying how they don’t know why any private sector firm would want an SES to work with them (in an exchange type program), because other than our contacts for them to get more business, they didn’t see where we could provide anything of value. While I remained calm…I wish I would have had your latest blog: What the Best Leaders Know: Context Matters—because you gave some great examples of Federal employees, including Thad Allen—who were called upon to do great things…something I think private sector could learn from some of us. We do really large scale, impactful things and an exchange with industry I believe would allow us both to learn something.

I am not aware of any examples within HHS that would fit Kotter's model in its entirety. But I'm struck by how applicable it is to an initiative with which I'm familiar at CMS that seeks to establish cross-cutting teams of career box tops and staff organized around measurable strategic objectives or priorities (such as improving patient safety or program integrity--and all the program work that cascades from that kind of objective in a large agency). Indeed, a new office is being reconfigured within CMS under the direction of the COO to help develop, facilitate, implement, and manage these objective teams--similar to what Robert Kaplan advocates in his Balanced Scorecard approach.

In a way, a governance structure like this could be seen as the foundation of a dual operating system that lifts organizations out of their myopic silos, while providing a big picture view of how different programs affect one another--leading to better, more coordinated strategies and, ultimately, improved performance.

Although the example I refer to is not happening at the "Agency" level (according to how GPRA defines the word), a governance structure like this is precisely what the new GPRA contemplates with its use of strategic objectives, performance goals, and the new SOAR process. What I find interesting is how Kotter's model could help operationalize GPRA in a way that helps organizations perform better by actually changing how government leaders develop, manage, and execute their strategies, while providing clarity of purpose and effective strategies to staff at all levels.

Unsuprisingly, I say this because GPRA in its current state, while collecting lots of measures, is by and large seen as a giant compliance process by managers (within and without HHS). If done wrong, the new GPRA requirements that are in the pipe will only make things worse. Maybe Kotter offers a useful framework for how to bring GPRA out of the compliance world...