How we were ‘doing government’ was not working. Big plans failed to deliver. Massive modernizations led to massive cost overruns, as well as scrapped projects that delivered the wrong thing. Unanticipated issues were met with the off the shelf solutions that didn’t fit. So, across a range of domains, we started changing how government worked. We brought in new tools - from process improvement and human centered design to applied behavioral science and data informed decision making - for a new era.

We’ve invested a tremendous amount into building government innovation capabilities. We’ve invested in the knowledge and skills to do government work better. We are training in and practicing value stream mapping to eliminate waste, service blueprinting to find ways to improve the constituent journey, and ideating to come up with better ways to do things. Government workers can now read case studies from other cities, listen to podcasts to hear from other government innovation efforts, and study up on frameworks from EAST and PDCA to PDIA and ‘the Four Ps.’

The investment in government innovation is paying off. Seattle, Washington is making it easier to sign up for services. Jefferson County, Alabama is consolidating tax bills to reduce confusion for taxpayers and increase revenues. Los Angeles California is building a police force that better reflects the communities they serve. Across the country, cities are delivering better results by using better tools to improve how they work.

Beyond capabilities, we’ve also invested in organizational capacity. Our investment in building government innovation capacity often looks like funding new positions and bringing new people into government. Bloomberg Philanthropies has funded i-teams. Arnold Ventures helped start up a social science team in DC. The Knight Foundation is supporting data fellows to improve services from Philadelphia to San Jose. Harvard’s Government Performance Lab placed fellows to improve procurement and increase use of social impact bonds. Government itself is investing more in innovation positions with teams funded from Boise to Boston, New York to San Diego, Montgomery County to Maricopa County.

Our investment in capacity cannot be limited to funding new roles; it’s time to invest in renewing people. More people doesn’t always expand capacity; we need people to show up as more of who they might be. This is not just about the positions, but the people in those positions. Not just about the tools, but about the people using those tools.

When it comes to government innovation, capability is fundamentally different from capacity. Capability is what we know - the skills and knowledge with which we fill our mental bucket. Capacity is how we know - our complexity fitness with which we determine the very shape and size of the bucket itself.

The distinction has critical implications for what is produced by all this investment. We’ve invested in giving government workers tools, like how to prototype. Yet the same tool in different hands yields very different results. A tool wielded in a different way is a different tool. Let’s take prototyping as an example.

From one form of mind (or, said another way, one stage of adult development), prototyping is about performance. Here a prototype is a ‘demo’ to show I did a good job. Failure feels like a personal/social rejection.

From an expanded form of mind, a prototype is a ‘hypothesis.’ Here the prototype is a test for my theory. I can handle being wrong if it leads to a better ‘v2.0’ that I can control.

From a yet further expanded form of mind, a prototype is get another thing: a ‘conversation.’ The prototype is a way to ‘talk’ to the system. Here I have no ego in it being ‘right,’ because I am a learner, not an owner.

Ostensibly, this is the same tool in each situation. If it is the same tool then it is being held by three very different forms of mind and producing very different results within an organization. One might make the case that in three different sets of hands this is actually three different tools. As constituent expectations increase, we need government workers who that can experiment with hypothesises and continuously improve. When facing the adaptive challenges in the increasingly VUCA world we face, we need governments that can be in dynamic conversation with emergent futures.

So if we continue to invest in giving people ‘innovation tools’ without also investing in their human development we do not get the outcomes we seek. Rather than just putting a better tool in the hand, we are interested in evolving the mind that moves the hand. Instead of just putting more tools in the toolbox, we can support the person holding the tools grow into a bigger version of themselves—one capable of wielding those tools in ways their former self couldn't imagine.

When we see innovation happen, we often try to codify it into a process tool, like the useful ‘Path to Public Innovation’ which maps a way to innovate in government. This is a valuable map that captures so much experience and wisdom. For emerging challenges, we need not only people who can use the map; we need people who can navigate when the map no longer matches the terrain. It is not enough to give people the map and teach them how to use it. We need to invest in their ability to navigate. This is where we hit the limits of horizontal capability development and need to invest in vertical capacity development. The map remains valuable but in a very different way.

Our world continues to change. Systems unravel and emerge. Our global climate is shifting the world we live in unpredictably. GenerativeAI creates new possibilities - not just for government but that our communities are experiencing every day. New organizational forms and ways of working are reshaping what our constituents expect. A wildly evolving information ecosystem is changing how democracy operates. For government to change at pace, means not just adding on new tools, but expanding our human capacity to invent new ways to put those tools into action. We have an opportunity to build not just government innovation capabilities but government innovation capacity. What this makes possible is government people able to navigate complex futures and respond to emerging community needs.

Note: This is a starter piece - I welcome the contributions of fellow government workers here or via substack.