Page 30 - FCW, September 30, 2016

FirstPerson
‘We need safe spaces to do things differently’
Federal Communications Commission CIO David Bray discusses change agents and the aspirations for this year’s Executive Leadership Conference
Federal Communications Commis- sion CIO David Bray is the govern- ment chair for the 2016 Executive Leadership Conference — ACT- IAC’s annual gathering of govern- ment and industry leaders in the federal IT community.
He talked recently with FCW Editor-in-Chief Troy K. Schneider about the agenda and ambitions for this year’s conference. The tran- script has been edited for length and clarity.
You often talk about the impor- tance of encouraging colleagues and team members to be change agents. How do you teach such an intangible skill, particularly in a culture that’s as bureaucratic as government?
That’s a very good question. In some respects, it’s helping someone, dare I say, almost recognize their inner potential. They can find an oppor- tunity to use whatever gifts and talents they have to make a positive difference.
The nice thing about it is it’s actu- ally somewhat easier to do in public service, which you wouldn’t think. This is definitely a rules-driven cul- ture, but people usually sign up to make a difference.
What about the attempts to teach by example — whether it’s an individual leader or a digital service team or whatever? Can you trans- fer some of this culture through osmosis?
You can, and I want to be very sup- portive of those teams. The chal- lenge that you run into is when you bring someone from the outside to teach by example and there’s no encouragement of “seek to under- stand before you seek to be understood.”
They can have all the best inten- tions in the world. I actually saw this happen a year ago where some- one from a digital service team was talking about the importance of your customers wanting to be sur- prised and delighted by how much information you know about them that they don’t know they need you to know.
That might work for Silicon Val- ley firms. You’re filling out a form and, oh, it’s nice that I don’t have to fill this out. But that probably doesn’t work for government agen- cies. I don’t think a lot of citizens want to be surprised that, hey, we pulled records from other depart- ments and know all this stuff about you.
We’re headed into a transition, which means huge turnover in the leadership ranks. How do you build a culture of change that sticks after the change agent leaves?
You do have to have C-suite leaders who are willing to stay there long enough to, in some respects, work themselves out of a job.
The other thing, though, is actu- ally preparing your successors. Suc- cession planning is something that is talked about but not often done — making sure you have a succes- sion plan, and making sure there are at least two people as successors because you never know, they may end going someplace else, too.
That planning and that conversa- tion between political leadership and career executives are things I would hope come up at ELC. Clear- ly, political appointees are providing the political direction to the ship of state.
The question is: How can we have a better two-way conversation about what are the things you want to get done? And then how can we help you take those objectives and actually execute them in a way that maintains momentum?
Make changes if necessary, but keep things moving as opposed to
28 September 30, 2016 FCW.COM