Give yourself permission to practice

This post is written by Kitty Wooley, founder of the Senior Fellows and Friends network and a retired civil servant in the US federal government.

The problem: The norm of working in organisational silos makes public servants ineffective in handling complex, crosscutting problems for which government is the logical lead.
Why it matters: The thorniest crosscutting problems continue to grow, while public organisations are not improving their capacity to “reach across” to address them.
The solution: Make boundary spanning across silos a new organisational norm, despite associated risks.

The most complex problems with which national governments grapple have one thing in common: they cross silos and boundaries. Their solution or amelioration requires co-operation and partnering, if not formal collaboration, among departments and organisations in other sectors of the economy. Analysis of Supreme Audit Institution publications, including Government Accountability Office reports in the US, shows that problems with crosscutting elements persist.

"We can probably agree that it will be a long time before boundary spanning becomes the default setting up and down the hierarchy."

As I continue talking with colleagues in large, hierarchical bureaucracies here and abroad, I hear a common refrain: We could help, but we aren’t empowered to leave our silos. Even though I’ve talked to everyone about everything my entire working life – and was able to help more, keep myself engaged, and make a decent living because of it – a still small voice in my head says, ‘Oh, but could everyone really help?’ The answer is a resounding yes. Here’s why.

Only leadership development programmes for senior leaders routinely focus on reaching across silos in alignment with a mission-related purpose, or boundary spanning (versus networking, which has its own benefits that may or may not have an impact on the mission). One of the problems with this is that senior leaders make up only a tiny proportion of public servants; they can’t possibly do all of the “reaching across” that needs to be done. Those of us who have always spanned boundaries to get work done find this strange and counterproductive – why not encourage and develop such a pivotal skill beginning with new employee onboarding, so that the entire organisation gradually expands its capacity, enlarges employee comfort zones, and becomes predisposed to reach across silos to get work done better – and then embraces crosscutting challenges as they arrive, rather than avoiding them?

We won’t dwell here on all the reasons why “it will never work”. In fact, we can probably agree that it will be a long time before boundary spanning becomes the default setting up and down the hierarchy. So, a few of us have concluded that another alternative would be for individuals who want to make a difference and are willing to endure the periodic discomfort of comfort zone expansion to cultivate boundary spanning skills on their own. It’s a personally agile alternative to nursing feelings of underempowerment for years or leaving public service.

What’s been done so far? What have we learned?

Eighteen members of the Senior Fellows and Friends network (not a business, not a nonprofit, just a network that hosts conversations and special projects) have co-created three related ebook projects since 2017, culminating in the recent publication of Permission to Practice: Public Service Boundary Spanning (a freely available ebook, roleplay videos demonstrating boundary spanning situations that actually occurred, and interviews with public servants who achieved outcomes at three different orders of magnitude).

P2PCover

The creators are diverse along many dimensions, including rank and grade, professional discipline, race/ethnicity, and employer, and each has brought unique gifts to our experimental projects. None were commanded or micromanaged; all were attracted and chose to show up fully. They’ve been invited, heard, valued, and encouraged to discuss the project idea and then create their contributions on their own time – usually singly, although most roleplay videos were invented by a trio. They’ve contributed from the Washington, DC area and six states (Rhode Island, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Colorado) as well as Brighton, UK. Their accomplishments have demonstrated the enormous drive to serve and well of untapped capacity that exists beyond current organisational ability to harness, unleash, or even imagine.

ebook roleplay creators 7-6-21 Screenshot

How would you like to play?

In 2022, a few of us will be experimenting with small, short-term practice sessions that alternate between a weekly evening conversation during which each participant shares new boundary spanning behaviour that was attempted in the past few days, reports what worked and what didn’t, and hears others’ lessons learned from similar situations. We’ve seen that most people have mental hang-ups about this that dissolve in friendly conversation. Rather than conceiving of this as “coaching circles” (which emphasises the gap between experts and non-experts), we are thinking along the lines of “masterminds” (which highlights the fact that everyone has spanned boundaries in one context or another, although perhaps not at work).

A poll of potential participants shows that everyone’s boundary spanning experience is on a continuum: While one employee desperate to grow reached across agencies to set up an information interview last year, two of us have done lots of boundary spanning in the flow of work and one has reached across continents to grow his side business. Only those who continue to learn and wish to do it together will be allowed to take part.

If any Apolitical colleagues wish, we would enjoy having a Zoom conversation about this project, sharing anything we’ve tried as well as our thinking about what worked and why. Since each country’s public servants work in a different context, we would be willing to help others convene such sessions if invited, although we doubt that it would be necessary.