{"id":28859,"date":"2021-01-25T20:08:39","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T20:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/?p=28859"},"modified":"2021-01-25T20:11:25","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T20:11:25","slug":"getting-smart-as-a-new-agency-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/business\/industry\/getting-smart-as-a-new-agency-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting smart as a new agency leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Taking over any organization can be difficult, but the size and complexity of many federal agencies, as well as the critical role they play for citizens, magnifies the task at hand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Article by<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/about\/people\/experts\/sharon-marcil\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sharon Marcil<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/about\/people\/experts\/mel-wolfgang\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meldon Wolfgang<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/about\/people\/experts\/danny-werfel\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Danny Werfel<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/about\/people\/experts\/brooke-bollyky\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brooke Bollyky<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/about\/people\/experts\/troy-thomas\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Troy Thomas<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/about\/people\/experts\/catherine-manfre\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Catherine Manfre<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<h5><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This article is the first in a three-part series from BCG providing insight on how new government leaders can hit the ground running. The second article will explore how leaders can get organized by preparing a plan for the first 100 days, and the third will cover how they can quickly get going, putting their plan into action with a proven change management approach.<\/span><\/i><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Change is coming. In the next several months, thousands of\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/publications\/2020\/preparing-for-day-one-of-the-new-presidential-term\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">new leaders will take the helm at agencies and departments<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0throughout the US federal government.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In order to create momentum early in their tenure, incoming appointees must quickly get smart about the organizations they are leading. This exercise should kick off with a study of the broad, foundational information about their agency or department, including its mission, personnel, and budget. But while such information is a critical starting point, incoming leaders should push to gain a deeper understanding of the DNA of their organization\u2014one that illuminates its culture and capabilities and illustrates how those elements drive its performance. On the basis of\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/featured-insights\/presidential-transition\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">extensive experience in transitions at the presidential, agency, state, and local government levels<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as well as at leading companies, BCG has developed a diagnostic approach\u2014think Meyers-Briggs for organizations\u2014that will enable incoming leaders to gain the appropriate level of insight. This diagnostic has four dimensions:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Talent:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0the distinguishing factors of an organization\u2019s workforce, including any prevalent specialized skills and the geographic distribution of the staff, that impact how a leader engages and motivates the workforce to support change<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Autonomy:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the various external stakeholders (such as Congress, the White House, or the citizen groups the agency serves) and relevant federal laws that may guide or constrain agency operations and the degree of change permissible within an agency<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Execution:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0the ways of working in various offices, bureaus, and other subunits throughout the agency that will be tasked with executing different aspects of the administration\u2019s and new leaders\u2019 agendas<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Management:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0the leadership styles of the management teams in the offices, bureaus, and other subunits that will be charged with advancing priorities and potential reforms<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This initial work to get smart about the organization is critical for several reasons. First, in the near term, such insight will allow an incoming leader to understand the risks or issues that they will have to address immediately, including those related to national security, economic recovery, and the pandemic response. Second, appointees need a solid comprehension of the agency to get organized and craft an effective 100-day plan. Third, deep insight into the agency will allow appointees to tailor their engagement and change management strategies to the organization\u2019s unique practices, behaviors, people, and culture.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>A challenge of scale and complexity<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even appointees that have led other large organizations may not fully appreciate the scale and complexity of the federal agency or department they are tasked with leading. Consider, for example, that the fiscal year 2020 budget of $712.6 billion for the US Department of Defense (DoD) dwarfs the $503.4 billion in total costs and expenses for Walmart\u2014the largest company in the world. (See Exhibit 1.) Similarly, the DoD\u2019s workforce of civil and military personnel in 2020 was more than 33% greater than Walmart\u2019s global workforce. Meanwhile, the US Commerce Department, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the US Department of Homeland Security have a combined workforce topping 1 million. And even agencies that are relatively small by federal government standards can be quite large compared with many private-sector or nonfederal public institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-28860 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2480\" height=\"1430\" srcset=\"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-200x115.png 200w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-300x173.png 300w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-400x231.png 400w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-500x288.png 500w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-600x346.png 600w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-700x404.png 700w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-768x443.png 768w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-800x461.png 800w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-1024x590.png 1024w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr-1200x692.png 1200w, http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ggfr.png 2480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2480px) 100vw, 2480px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Certainly, well-established mechanisms\u2014most notably, the formal agency transition process\u2014can provide incoming government leaders with detailed, foundational information about their organizations. (See \u201cThe Ins and Outs of the Agency Transition Process.\u201d) Through briefing materials and meetings with career transition officials, new leaders can get the lay of the land at the agency and gain insights into the actions they can take to advance their budgetary, policy, and other priorities. The formal transition will also help new leaders identify important stakeholders, including decision makers within the organization, individuals who lead critical programs or processes, and those who will be impacted by the change efforts, such as the citizens the organization serves. And it will give incoming leaders insight into the current state of an agency and the policies and issues that should be integrated into plans for the first 100 days and beyond. But while such information is invaluable, new appointees must complement that material with a deeper analysis of the organization if they want to generate early momentum and get lasting results during their tenure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As leaders for the incoming administration take their new positions throughout the US federal government, they will be hoping to hit the ground running with ambitious policy changes. Those that push change without fully understanding the culture, roots, and unique characteristics of their organizations will face an uphill battle. But leaders who take the time and energy to understand the organization they will be leading are likely to have greater success at positioning and building support for their agenda from day one.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Read the full article and the rest of the series <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcg.com\/en-mx\/publications\/2020\/how-to-effectively-transition-into-a-new-agency-leadership-role-in-the-united-states\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking over any organization can be difficult, but the size  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,53],"tags":[3741,99,1385,4417,4364],"class_list":["post-28859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry","category-opinion","tag-bcg","tag-ceo","tag-ceo-northam","tag-federal-agencies","tag-public-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28862,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28859\/revisions\/28862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}