GovernmentExecutive.com

When Bob Stone left a private sector engineering job in 1969 to help analyze the Army's helicopter program, he intended to stay at the Defense Department for two years. He ended up spending nearly 30 years working for the federal government.

"I had entered government service without a clue what it would be like," Stone writes in his new book about the 24 years he spent at the Pentagon and the six years he spent helping lead Al Gore's effort to "reinvent" government. "I left it with 1,001 lessons - a story behind every one."

In Confessions of a Civil Servant (Rowman and Littlefield), Stone shares interesting and often entertaining anecdotes about his long career in government, during which he became known as the "Energizer-in-Chief" for his efforts to help the military and civilian agencies run more efficiently.

The book is divided into 15 chapters, each with advice aimed at federal managers looking for ways to become more effective leaders of vast bureaucracies. Each chapter addresses a theme, ranging from how to motivate workers to dealing with difficult bosses or meddlesome inspectors general. Stone explains how he overcame challenges in his own career and ends each chapter with a section listing several lessons learned.

In the second chapter, about how to "shrink" regulations, Stone tells a story he heard in 1983 from painters on the tank repair line at the Army's depot in Anniston, Ala. A Pentagon regulation required the painters to get the base chemist's permission to use any can of spray paint past its shelf expiration date. The "sign-off" process usually did not involve substantive safety checks. Instead, the chemist would print a computer-generated "revalidation" label.

When he served as deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for installations, Stone convinced then-Deputy Secretary Paul Thayer to sign a memo to the military departments offering each service the opportunity to designate a few bases as "model installations" that would be granted waivers from Pentagon regulations, so they could try out new procedures in the hope of working more efficiently. The model installations were allowed to use any savings generated from such changes to make improvements on the bases.

This was a "radical departure from typical practice," Stone writes, because " 'offering' and 'waive' were not traditional words in Pentagon directives." In the first two years after the new policy was implemented, more than 8,000 model installation proposals were submitted to the Pentagon or to one of its major commands and "countless thousands more were approved by the base commander acting within existing authority," according to Stone.

"An unknowable number of times, people just used their heads, freed from the shackles of overregulation and micromanagement," Stone writes. At the end of the chapter, he summarizes one of the lessons learned from the model installations project: "Headquarters rules often drive people in the field to do foolish things."

In 1993, Stone left the Defense Department to join Al Gore's National Performance Review. In the book, he recounts the story of how Gore came up with his famous anecdote about federal ashtray regulations. Stone says a 16-year-old NPR volunteer uncovered the General Services Administration rules, which, among other things, specified that federal ashtrays, when shattered, "should break into a small number of irregular shaped pieces not greater in number than 35." Gore went on "Late Night With David Letterman" and attempted to smash an ashtray according to procedures laid out in the regulations.

In addition to helping lead Gore's effort to track down colorful anecdotes about federal rules, Stone pushed the concept of "reinvention labs" at agencies. The labs would be similar to the "model installations" Stone had created earlier in the military.

In Confessions of a Civil Servant, Stone acknowledges the reinvention lab effort had mixed results. Under the concept, he writes, "agency heads were simply encouraged to delegate some of their authority to the 'labs' and to respond quickly and positively to their requests for waivers of rules." Some rushed to take advantage of the new opportunity. But others simply ignored it.

Stone also recalls that a meeting with leaders who had helped make reinvention recommendations to Clinton in 1993 and then returned to their agency jobs turned out to be a "dreary affair." The attendees had "been to the mountaintop and now were back below sea level," he writes.

Despite these frustrations, Stone said his stint in the federal government left him invigorated. The book ends with the farewell letter he wrote upon leaving government.

"Go to the roots of reinvention," Stone wrote in the letter, "and listen to all the men and women who signed up to make a difference for America - listen to their stories about working like Dilbert in dreary cubicles, contending with pointy-haired bosses who don't have a clue about trust and enthusiasm. Go get in touch with the power in them - the untapped potential that, unleashed, will restore America's faith in government."

COMMENTS

• As an alumna of the National Performance Review (later renamed the National Partnership for Reinvention of Government) I was inspired, encouraged and energized by Bob's great leadership. I was one of the few who, like Bob, had also worked in private industry for many years, and was new to government. I found that my NPR colleagues were at least, and some more, creative than many of my industry colleagues, as we worked, excitedly, with purpose and with great outcomes, to move, "From Red Tape to Results." That work, nonpartisan, continues to this day. I was back in our nation's capital recently, in meetings with government (all branches!), and industry, and saw first hand much innovation and productivity. Concepts like strategic business plans for agencies, information technology plans aligned with agency plans, enterprise architectures...business process through technology, government performance results mandated, chief information officers, chief operating officers, cross-functional teams, eGovernment, have strong roots in NPR. And our General Accounting Office actively constructs and publishes best practices drawn from industry and government. As a member of its Executive Council on Information Management and Technology (ECIMT), I am one of several practitioners—both private and public sector, who contribute through leadership to help governance be more effective (doing the right thing) and efficient (doing things right). Bob is an unsung hero...a catalytic leader that helped us move past barriers and emancipate "government workers." Thanks, Bob! Laraine Rodgers Posted February 25, 2003 11:44 PM