Engage... Improve... Learn... Repeat

Engage... Improve... Learn... Repeat

Hi all, Bruce Waltuck here. New to i-Open, and exploring what is possible here. My great thanks to Betsey Merkel of i-Open for sharing this opportunity and for encouraging me to jump in to these (for me) uncharted waters.

My work over the past 30 years has fundamentally been about helping groups of people engage in respectful dialogue, and improving processes and results in government. Most of my career so far has been in the U.S. Federal government. I worked for 26 years at the U.S. Department of Labor, where I had the pleasure and privilege of co-creating the Department's award-winning Employee Involvement and Quality Improvement system (EIQI). I later created a model public-private partnership between the USDOL and the healthcare industry in the State of New Jersey. This model was replicated nationwide, and helped affected employers learn about their obligations under the law, and avoid costly penalties and litigation.

Most recently, I served in 2008-09 as Senior Advisor to the head of the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Maryland. My role was to facilitate process improvement at a complex government organization. The work was challenging, and required building a foundation of positive relationships; increasing awareness and engagement at all levels; teaching the skills of dialogue, collaboration, and process improvement; and building a framework for a respectful workplace.

By education, I hold a degree in Economics from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. As my work took me into quality and process improvement in the 1980s, I learned about the System of Profound Knowledge taught by the late W. Edwards Deming. In the late 1990s, my life and work was changed by by encounter with complex systems science. A couple of years later, I was amazed to find that the wonderful Plexus Institute was located literally 20 minutes from my front door.

Today I teach and write about the application of concepts from complexity science, to the work of leadership and organizational change. I am a guest lecturer to doctoral students in psychology at Rutgers University. I'm the immediate Past chair of the Government Division of the American Society for Quality, and in 2006 I received a unique Masters in Complexity, Chaos, and Creativity, from the University of Western Sydney.

Currently, I am working on a project with the Government Division of ASQ, that we have tentatively called our "Moon Shot" initiative. We are inspired in part by the words of President Kennedy when he challenged America to go to the moon. Not because it is easy, as he said, but because it is hard, and we are willing to accept the challenge. That is how we feel about the work of improving the processes and performance of government around the world. Part of the "Moon Shot" strategic plan, is a project I have been calling our "Harvest of Good Government." For too long, too many people have bought into the idea that government is largely wasteful and ineffective. Too many of our fellow citizens believe that government employees are incompetent, or lazy, or just do not care about their work. But the actual data tells a VERY different story. The real truth, at least for the U.S. Federal government, is that roughly 80% of all programs are performing as planned. Some are even great. Only about 5% of Federal employees have sub-standard performance.

So the Harvest is an attempt to bring the real stories of good government getting even better, to people everywhere. In this way, we hope to collect and share best practices, and to influence both shared knowledge, and more improved results. How do we plan to gather the "Harvest?" Have you ever heard of "Flat Stanley?" Maybe you have young children who know about Stanley. You can Google "flat Stanley" or even try "Flat Stanley and President Obama." Kids around the world learn about other people and places, by making and sending flat paper "Stanley" dolls. In a similar way, we hope to send one of the current type of small video cameras that record then plug into computers for instant video upload, all over the world. From one story of great and improving government, to the next. A video harvest of good government getting even better.

In addition, i-Open has asked us to consider a partnership aimed at creating a Civic Forum where we can share, learn, mentor, and help others interested in improving government. It is my sincere hope that we can achieve that goal in the months ahead. It was great to see that my friends and colleagues from the Plexus community are here in this space, and I look forward to contributing a video interview, as well as uploading presentations, and articles to share.

Peace, Bruce