Captain's Log: Supplemental

In the post-reinvention world, who's accountable?

he four organizations described in this report are studies in tenacity and perseverance. Those qualities will serve them well as they explore new worlds. But their experience also begins to suggest the limits of reinvention.

The Patent and Trademark Office, the Army Management Engineering College and the Alaska Native Medical Center tried everything-they "walked the talk" of total quality management, became reinvention labs, created entrepreneurial and customer-focused cultures, and even found ways to pay their own way-only to be frustrated by the system's powerful pull. In the process, something happened to these organizations. For lack of a better word, they may have simply "outgrown" government; their leaders and members finally realized that so long as they stayed inside, they would never have the freedom and flexibility to "be all they could be." And in each case, their transformation continues, from reinvention lab to performance-based organization, government corporation, and beyond.

Some fundamental questions, theoretical and practical, remain behind. These case studies demonstrate the blurring boundary between public and private, and that raises some interesting practical issues. For example, who owns the files-the patient files, the personnel files, or the patent files-and who is responsible for the privacy of their contents? Who really runs these new post-NPR "agencies," even as they are performance-based, privatized, and parceled out? If they are to be self-sustaining, who decides how much they will charge their customers? And who will pay if they cannot? Perhaps most importantly, who is ultimately responsible for their actions? Who is held accountable if they fail-or worse, if in exercising their administrative flexibility, they unintentionally harm a citizen?

Who's Responsible?

To Ron Moe, a senior specialist in government administration at the Library of Congress, accountability is the highest value of public service, and the government's management systems-the rules and regulations that confine and constrain government executives-are the essence of that value. "Where the NPR sees red tape, I see accountability," he says. "The fundamental responsibility of the federal manager is to implement and follow the laws that Congress passes, for better or worse. It is not to satisfy customers!"

Not surprisingly, the executives in charge of these soon-to-be unbridled agencies disagree. Indeed, they suggest that performance-based government will actually provide for greater accountability. If the traditional approach attempts to ensure accountability through rules, the Blair House model substitutes contractual arrangements. A PBO's chief executive officer is held responsible for delivering on the performance contract that he or she executes in office. In theory, if performance goals are not met, the CEO's contract is not renewed-the ultimate in accountability.

It is not yet clear what all of this means for career senior executives. At least in theory, CEO positions raise the "glass ceiling" that traditionally bars all but a rare few career executives from the top rungs of an agency, but there are some who suggest that they may not be ready for this brave new performance-based world. Will CEOs come from the ranks of the Senior Executive Service, or will the ads say "Only those with corporate experience need apply?"

Brad Huther calls this one of the "acid tests" of the Blair House approach: "The first CEO selections will send a message to all those GS-15s and SESers who are excited about the PBO model-and I hope that message is not 'your government experience doesn't count.' " Clearly, in a performance-based world, there are no guarantees, especially when it comes to CEO jobs, but some fear a bias. One SESer (and CEO aspirant) detects an "outsider" bias among top OMB officials. "Every time we talk about CEOs with them, the discussion turns to the 'exciting' prospect of bringing in top corporate people-people 'who really know how to run things.' "

Even Richard Beale, who ran the Defense Commissary Agency as an Army two-star general before becoming its first CEO, has been characterized as an outsider, someone that the NPR brought in to take charge. "If they're all outsiders," says Huther, "That could be the death knell of the concept." Or of the SES, if the federal government's best and brightest CEO wannabes conclude that corporate experience is their only way to the top of an agency. On the other hand, this may just be a matter of career development; while many of today's senior government executives came up through technical or program ranks, the next generation may follow a different path-Phil Harper's unique USIS succession plan comes to mind.

It may also be a matter of simple economics. In its original design, the very personal risks of performance-based government were to be offset by a private sector-like reward structure: six-figure base salaries for CEOs, plus the opportunity to earn substantial performance bonuses (in an early version of the Patent Office's legislation, its CEO would have been eligible for a bonus of up to 50 percent of base pay). These bonuses caused some in Congress and OMB to choke. One Hill staffer says, "No one up here is going to let a bureaucrat get paid more than the President or the Speaker."

Relatively limited compensation may actually have a positive effect, at least as far as career executives are concerned, offsetting the "outsider" bias that may be pulling at OMB. "Top corporate execs are paid five or 10 times what a PBO could offer in a good year, so we're not likely to attract the cream of that crop," says Huther. In other words, career execs may be competitive after all.

Engage!

These are fundamental questions, and there are others. For example, what role will the Congress fashion for itself in this new administrative architecture? Will a PBO's "profits" be reinvested in the organization, or will they be used to buy down the deficit? Few of these questions are answered in the Blair House Papers. However, by all accounts, the transformation of government doesn't seem to be waiting-even as these issues are debated, it continues, domino by organizational domino. And the first of those dominoes, those organizations that have already ventured out beyond reinvention, are shedding some light on our murky administrative future.