Shalala calls HHS tenure a 'wonderful management experience'

GovExec.com exit interviews with key officials in the Clinton administration. When Donna Shalala took the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services in January 1993, she immediately set about changing the way the department had traditionally been run. She decentralized authority and implemented a collaborative decision-making style that emphasized the input of senior staff and program-level managers. Public policy gurus hailed Shalala's management approach as an example for others to follow. Soon Shalala, who is the longest-serving HHS secretary ever, will begin her new job as president of the University of Miami, but before moving on, she spoke with . I think we demonstrated that large complex government agencies can be managed and managed well, by putting management systems in place, by hiring first-rate managers and by encouraging the development of managerial skills in the department. I regularly said to my colleagues that the civil servants that were already here were our colleagues who had been waiting for us for 12 years. It has to be a good partnership between the political management and a remarkable group of civil servants. My meetings are much larger, the department is quicker and more nimble in making its decisions. We implemented the Children's Health Insurance Program faster than any other health insurance program in history. We implemented welfare reform much more smoothly and quickly than anyone ever anticipated. We improved the food safety system, even though a number of agencies were involved, much more successfully than anyone anticipated. It was a matter of getting the regulations out so that the states could move ahead. We also used the waiver process to try out new ideas, far more successfully than any previous administration, and we've been tough-minded about holding our programs to a very high standard. In the whole history of the Head Start Program no one has ever had enough nerve to close a program. We have closed 150 because they didn't meet our standards. We were already deep into reinvention when the initiative started; this department was in a mode of continuous improvement. We actually streamlined the processes of approvals and the way in which we did business. We set up a private sector organization to handle the business services of the department. Being on the cutting edge of great public issues, being right in the middle of some of the most important policy debates of my generation, [such as] the Medicare debate. It has been a wonderful policy-making experience, but more importantly it has been a wonderful management experience. It has been fun that we proved that you really could manage an organization as large as this one. I think they ought to enjoy themselves. The best thing about this job is that you learn something new every day from some of the smartest people in the world, and so my advice is to thoroughly enjoy the job. Go to the White House for meetings early and stay late because your relationship with the White House staff is absolutely key. The policy development process in the government isn't just done by the agencies, but by the agencies in cooperation with the White House. The political managers of the agencies have to develop a relationship with the senior White House staff to be successful. This is a piece of cake compared to universities.