Reflections on six more weeks: DPI 662 Digital Government: Technology, Policy, and Public Service Innovation

My reflection for the first half of this course centered around understanding why it is so difficult for us to digitize government. My main takeaway, in brief, was that the government is a large, legacy system that has run on paper for a long time, and has been thus far incapable of successfully leveraging capabilities like open data and the use of platforms in the same way that the private sector has.

In reflecting on my experience interacting with government through my work, I believe it is crucial for government to tackle these obstacles in order to transform how they can provide economic security for low-income Americans. For example, these are some of the changes at the top of my priority list:

1. Upgrade capabilities of EBT system to stay up to date with private sector capabilities, including mobile wallet and online purchasing (for more information and insight on that, check out Access for All: Innovation for Equitable SNAP Delivery by Urban Institute)
2. Expand the capabilities of EBT to serve as a system through which more benefits can be delivered to citizens. This includes programs like TANF, WIC, etc.
3. Expand SNAP benefit amounts more to eliminate food insecurity
4. To enable all of this, reform and regulate contracting and procurement rules — for example, allot more money to management of SNAP

These are enormous changes. How does one even begin to “harness the beast”, as we say in my Policy Design and Delivery class, to even bat an eye in the direction of these changes?

My reflection from the class is that we have to start with a deeper understanding of relationships — both within an organization, from your organization to others, and of your organization or product to the broader market within which it rests. Our class conversation has mostly centered around examples using IT or digital teams, but I’m broadening my discussion here to be more general than that because I am unsure if I will necessarily be leading explicitly IT or digital teams in the future. I will use this reflection to highlight some stories from my past experience, some thoughts on what these dynamics look like in the EBT / benefits / income space, and my advice based on our class for what students should look for as we become job-seekers again, either in the near future, or beyond.

My first experience doing this in any organized shape or form was in 2017, when I first interviewed for Propel. In order to prepare for my interview I scoured the Internet for information about the company — everything from podcasts to blog posts to LinkedIn profiles of current employees. I downloaded the app to try to use it as much as I could, although some features were unavailable since I didn’t have an active EBT card or test account. I even put up flyers about the product at my mom’s convenience store to see how customers reacted to advertisements of the free app.

The next thing I did was to create a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) based on all that I had gleaned from my information gathering process. As I was recruiting for a business analyst position, this helped me to come up with useful insights to share in my interview. Doing this analysis also helped me to generate questions that I could ask my interviewers to demonstrate a high caliber of thought throughout the process.

I continue to think this process is sufficient for someone who is interviewing for an entry level role and will still place you above and beyond most peers who are interviewing for roles (there’s a lot of “spray and pray” philosophy out there when it comes to job interviewing). However, I’m now in a different point in my career where I’m seeking to go into positions of leadership, or a more clear / direct pathway to leadership (yes, the dreaded “middle management” phase). At the entry level, reporting to one manager and owning more specific workstreams and projects, you’ll do well if you master navigating within the explicit structure and dominant narratives of the organization. I believe that at the next level, you must uncover and name any implicit structures and / or nondominant narratives in order to understand whether you want to join the company, take on the role, and whether you can be an effective agent of change within it.

1. Understand the types of power.

As an idealist who wants to work for social causes, I think that I found the notion of trying to really understand power and politics in society somewhat distasteful. Can’t we all just work towards a mission without making it like an episode of The West Wing or Succession? My reflection, though, from my negotiations course is that the understanding that there is power inherent across systems in society can work to your advantage because you can know that there is no predetermined outcome. You can work to bring things into your advantage.

• Legitimate power: Who in the organization would you report to? Who reports to you? What authority does that give you?
• Reward power: Closely related and intermingled with the above, who can provide rewards for good performance (or punish for bad)? Usually these are the people who have legitimate power, but there are ways in which people who don’t have legitimate power can still exercise reward power.

This is the obvious type of power that people think about, but it’s worth considering which of the following types of power can also be contributing to or changing dynamics within your organization.

• Referent power: Who can influence who?
• Information power: What information do some know that others don’t?
• Expert power: What are some people experts in that others are not? I don’t think this has to be specifically what we think of as traditional types of expertise. If you’re in a startup with little documentation, and you’ve been around for a while, there is a type of “expert power” that you get in the traditional methods of operating and the ways to use the systems of that organization that others don’t have.
• Founder power: In some ways, this is just a blend of legitimate power, information power, and expert power. The founder, having initiated the organization or project, will have more knowledge about the project than others do.
• Charismatic power: Who has a natural ability to persuade or inspire? We all know who these people are in an organization. They’re the ones where you’re excited to see them show up on the Zoom screen in the All-Hands meeting, because you know they’re going to tell a good story or present in an enlightening and charming way. They’re the ones who are super busy at the company lunches or holiday parties, greeting everyone and making them feel special. This definitely bleeds into some additional sway when it comes to work projects and priorities.
• Moral power: Who is able to persuade someone to take a particular belief or action based on their virtue? (This may not appear to apply, but I’ve seen this one get used in social impact organizations often. For example, a user researcher may try to change a company pricing policy by appealing to the morality of a price increase on users with less means). I tend to think that this type of power can be accessed by many different types of individuals within an organization. Whether this type of power holds in the organization depends on its mission and vision.
• Process power: Who is normally running meetings, determining what gets talked about at meetings, and organizing what gets worked on and what doesn’t?

2. Understand that there are no truly flat organizations.

I think this is something that I understood for myself intuitively, but it was still eye-opening to read “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman for the first time. The key insight that there is no such thing as a structureless group — any group that is together for a period of time will inevitably structure itself in some way. In that, inevitably, power will accrue to someone in the organization.

Something to interrogate with any company is to ask where there isn’t structure or a formal framework for dealing with something, and how that might lead to more power for certain individuals rather than others. For example, I’ve heard from many who have worked in theoretically “flat” organizations where the managers claim that there is no explicit ladder or framework for promoting individuals or giving them more responsibility over time. If you are a leader, this is an opportunity to introduce an explicit framework — one that might help you draw in better talent. If you are not a leader and have no pathway towards changing this situation, run. This lack of structure will inevitably result in promotions and favoring of individuals that managers like more, and the use of subjective criteria — perhaps unknown to you — to boost others, while some do not get to advance.

The following recommendations by Jo Freeman at the end of her article are very important to look for or incorporate into your design of structure for a group. (For elaboration, see the original article).

1) Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks by democratic procedures.

2) Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be responsible to those who selected them.

3) Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably possible.

4) Rotation of tasks among individuals.

5) Allocation of tasks along rational criteria.

6) Diffusion of information to everyone as frequently as possible.

7) Equal access to resources needed by the group.

3. Seek to understand the levers you might have to make change within the organization.

These levers are straight from our class discussion, and in the context of the rest of this article, I would essentially define them as tools to increase the power that you have either individually, within your team, or in your organization as a whole. Although it might be hard to ask about these in an interview, it’s worth trying your best to see if you can get any insight into how these might apply to your team.

• Magic Wand: allows redesign or exemption of rules to allow them to proceed
• Quango: Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization. I don’t think this is applicable in all contexts, but if you are in one or have access to working with one, that could be great.
• Communications power: open discussion of successes and failures, internally or externally. I have started to see some organizations that have built these cultures of posting about failures or publishing postmortems online. This creates some credibility.
• Cool factor: High innovation. Can you get people excited about something? For example, if you’re getting your team to work on broadband stipends given on EBT cards, this is a cool innovation that maybe people would want to support.
• Proximity to power: Support from powerful person. For example, in the food security world, this could include support from people like Ellen Vollinger, research director at the FRAC (food research and action center) or Tom Vilsack, the current United States Secretary of Agriculture.
• Reputation: If your department is well-regarded within the organization, this will create a bit of power within the organization. Worth knowing what it takes to become powerful in the organization and how to leverage that.
• Hiring: Changing HR rules to allow access to talent. This is the big one! In general, if you’re able to get HR to prioritize your team, or change the rules, or help you in any way, this is a big advantage.

Something I would add as well is that an important lever can be making the case that your strategic priorities for your team align with business priorities / the long-term strategy of an organization. Especially in financially focused orgs, if you’re able to make the case for example that IT is going to save money for the organization or contribute extensively to a money-making priority for the organization, that is a surefire way to gain more power for your role and your team.

In conclusion — it’s important to think carefully when taking on opportunities about the sources of power, who has it, who doesn’t, and how you can get it. I would recommend not only thinking about the above questions / insights as you start a role, but also at regular periods (perhaps every 6 months in a 6 month feedback cycle) to help you think about how you can be more transformative in your organization.