Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 7, 1993 TAG: 9309070210
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID VON DREHLE THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
The story of Bob Stone's conversion is an important one right now.
Why?
Because he is the project director of Vice President Gore's National Performance Review, and today, with the publication of the review's conclusions, the White House will begin preaching Stone's gospel to the entire executive branch.
So here is Stone's story:
"When I was at the Department of Defense, like a lot of people in the federal government, I got promoted for all the wrong reasons. Namely, I could add numbers and concoct glib arguments why people should not be allowed to do things they wanted to do.
"Then I got the religion, and I realized that one of my main achievements had been to stymie the Tactical Air Command on a major improvement."
That was back in the 1970s, when the chief of the command concluded that the key factor limiting his fighting capacity was not jets or pilots but maintenance workers.
Stone blocked his proposal.
"My job was to turn down requests, and I did such a good job I got promoted," said Stone, who is on loan from the Pentagon.
On his next job, overseeing America's far-flung military installations, he saw the light. He came to the conclusion that what government needs is fewer rules, not more. More initiative, not less. Responsibility widely dispersed, not concentrated in Washington.
There was a bible of Stone's new religion: management guru Tom Peters' "In Search of Excellence," which documented similar conversions going on in American industry. Stone had the tenets of his new faith printed on thousands of gold plastic cards that his disciples could carry in their wallets. Serve the customer. Discourage conformity. Reward excellence.
His new religion earned him the enmity of some in the Pentagon. And it earned him the job as head of the performance review staff. Two hundred people, brethren in the new faith, have been looking for ways to make the federal government do more for less money. Other versions of the idea have been rebuffed by the bureaucracy in the past, but Stone and his colleagues labor on, secure in their belief that, at last, the time is right.
"Transformations typically come only when institutions are in trouble," Stone said. "In government, there is now enough of a crisis to concentrate the attention of the bosses."
Stone, 58, an MIT-trained engineer, sprawls in an office chair and talks in a soft but heated voice about his new religion. "The federal government is a very sizable structure, with half of it designed to do something and the other half to prevent it," he said. "We have a great halfback whose job is to catch the ball, and a great cornerback whose job is to keep him from catching it."
Like any good evangelist, Stone's gift is for telling stories that lead to the faith. Some come from his own experience. Perhaps some are apocryphal. There is the story of 23 signatures required to buy a desktop computer. The story of multiple forms to be approved before buying a grade of paper that wouldn't jam the copier.
Bob Stone has a theory about what's wrong with the federal government:
"The federal government was built around the organizational ideas of the early 20th century," he said. "Workers labored with their backs or hands, with managers overseeing their work, and supermanagers organizing it all. If you went to business school after World War II, you studied that model - General Motors, circa 1925.
"The new model says in the modern Information Age, it doesn't make sense to have a lot of people thinking about what other people should think about," Stone continued. "If employees say they need a computer, or a three-ring binder, or a new grade of paper that doesn't jam the copier, give it to them. The general idea is that you have to trust employees."
Which may be the rough nub of the whole religion. Other members of the performance review staff have advised Stone that America may not be ready for the idea that government bureaucrats should be trusted.
"The CEOs of Harley-Davidson, Federal Express, General Electric, companies that have embraced the quality revolution, they understand," Stone said. "Ritz-Carlton authorizes every bellhop and maid to spend up to $2,000 on their own authority to solve customer problems. Their CEO told us that, to his knowledge, there has never been one abuse."
Bob Stone's faith is coming, with the president's imprimatur. If - against all odds in the hidebound halls of America's largest institution, the U.S. bureaucracy - his faith catches on, it could change the whole country's experience of the public sector. Stone has printed new golden cards, ready for thousands of new wallets.
"Reinventing the Federal Government," the card is titled, and the tenets of the faith follow: Serve customers. Empower employees. Foster excellence.
Some will buy it and some won't, Stone said placidly. That is the story of evangelism.
\ REINVENTING GOVERNMENT\ EXPECTED PROPOSALS\ \ Internal Revenue Service to mail tax refunds within 40 days, shorter for electronic returns. Allow people to pay taxes by credit card.\ \ Compete with private real estate developers and rental firms for lowest-cost government offices.\ \ Convert air traffic control system into government-owned corporation underwritten by user fees and run by private board.\ \ Move from one-year to two-year budget system.\ \ Exempt federal construction projects of up to $100,000 from law requiring workers on almost all federal projects be paid the "prevailing wage" in their area.\ \ Let federal agencies use private collection agencies to collect debts.\ \ Plan "rapid development" of a nationwide system to deliver government benefits electronically, instead of by paper via the mail.
Order agencies to try to sell data they compile to businesses.
by CNB