At the Bellingham City Club on Wednesday, Norman Rice, the former mayor of Seattle, spoke about public process. It was an enlightening conversation for all that were in the room, as a politician (albeit former) clearly articulated many issues around government process. I could write a lot on the public process piece, but two other insights were important as well and parallel many of my own experiences and thoughts.

One of the problems of large bureaucracies (whether business or government) is the stove pipe organizations they have that limit innovation, communication, and the ability to solve complex problems. The other problem Rice articulated was about where power is held and how an organization will hold on to power, even if results are better when they give it up. He repeated a conversation he'd had with a federal cabinet member who, when presented with a new way of organizing, in effect stated, it is my budget and I am going to keep it. Senior executives (again in business and government) will make decisions based on their own personal power and preferences, and go against the greater good. He also told the story of Washington State legislators who would not cede control over their transportation budget to let regional governments solve transportation issues. In both instances, protecting their turf was more important than solving problems.

Washington State has a stove pipe organization, pictured in image 1. This style of organization takes critical government functions and creates silos which limit the ability to solve complex problems that cross organizations. Occasionally the state government will try to cross silos to solve issues, for instance, the Puget Sound Partnership. But overall the state government will never solve critical issues like the environment, education, poverty and job creation, simply because they do not have an organizational structure that will allow resources, both financial and human, to be directed so as to solve them.

Fundamentally, the government has three primary responsibilities. The first is children and making sure they are not only ready to learn, but that by the time they are 18, they have a solid education and life skills that will allow them to get jobs. Ensuring children are ready to learn is not the only function of local school districts, they must also concern themselves with things like poverty levels, parental support (or other appropriate mentorship), and health care access. We expect school districts to make sure children are ready to learn, but they do not have the financial resources to deal with all the issues that might hinder a child’s readiness. Image 2 shows a new organizational structure to give school districts the primary responsibility for readiness to learn and then gives them access to all the state's resources to help them in that effort.

The second responsibility of government is economic vitality. Jobs must be available and businesses must be able to function so they can create new jobs. Again, the current structure forces businesses to deal with all sorts of departments, each working against each other to promote economic vitality. Aligning all those functions, like Labor and Industries, Ecology, Commerce, higher education, and Agriculture and Transportation, allows the state to work with businesses to make sure they have both the resources and ability to successfully create good-paying jobs as well as people ready to fill them.

The last responsibility is livability, which is the community aspect of our state. Individuals need workable housing, health care, transportation, etc. to have a good quality of life. The livability portion of the state's responsibility should be controlled by local governments and state resources should be directed by local government as a way to help them be more successful. This is another instance where power would be better served at the local level instead of the state level. Norman Rice mentioned his idea of giving neighborhood organizations more power and authority in the budgeting process and having more say over police, parks, etc. This could be equivalent at the state level where taxes may be levied, but the state should not control how they are spent, that is left to local governments.

Certainly there are issues to be worked out, most notably to have some organizations with responsibilities in multiple areas (like transportation and social services), but those functions can easily be divided to provide necessary focus, and then cross-coordinated where needed. This also requires politicians and government bureaucrats to give up their kingdoms for the good of society. Considering they continually ask citizens to make sacrifices for the common good, maybe some politicians can follow their own advise and give up their turf to those who could better serve the citizens.

We can talk all we want about government funding and increasing the amounts for education, poverty, transportation, etc., but we will be talking until we are all dead and nothing will change because the funding level is not the problem; the structure is. Fix the organizational systems and then you can fix the problems. This is change we can really believe in.