Changing Our Capacity to Govern, Learn, Make Collective Decisions and Be Productive

This new book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari is getting a lot of attention and for good reason. The author lays out in detail how we are all bombarded by systems that are designed to distract and hold our attention for the purpose defined in business models. This constant level of distraction has taken a heavy toll on our collective ability to think, focus for any length of time, listen accurately and deal with complexity. This has very real impacts on public leadership and democracy. It is already altering how we educate our citizens, communicate with them and choose to use/purchase technology that will protect citizen privacy.

To govern and lead with any success we need citizens and employees who can focus for more than seconds or minutes. It goes without saying that many studies including this book lay out the basic reality that our brains were never designed to multi-task and in fact are incapable of doing it. We continue to convince ourselves this is not the case, but studies confirm the opposite is true. Hari’s research shows that we use up a significant amount of our energy and productivity when we switch from one device to another, one tab to another, or constantly take calls on our phones while focused on something else. The author describes in detail our current reality. Teenagers in the US can only focus on one task for 65 seconds at a time and the average office worker is not much better clocking in at only three minutes of focused attention. Most senior executives now report a max of 20 minutes a day of uninterrupted time.

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Systems thinking is an essential leadership practice often not taught practiced or included in the education of public leaders. The complexity of the public sector combined with the number of people who depend on public leadership makes it essential for us to develop skilled confident systems thinkers. Ideally, public sector workplaces would be run by leaders who understand how to address system delays, how to manage intended and unintended consequences, and where the point of leverage is in a system. Our leaders must also educate the citizens who depend on them to think systemically as well. This field of learning is critical for our policy makers and legislators who can find themselves setting policy or making decisions that have unanticipated consequences that are both unexpected and costly.

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The response to the current public health crisis has fallen heavily on local Municipal and School Department Leaders. Their ability to implement and design communication systems which build trust and keep people safe in this constantly changing landscape has been nothing short of heroic.

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In their 2011 report the Carnegie Corporation discussed public schools as the guardians of democracy. As students go back into the classrooms this fall, many for the first time in 18 months, our work with the public-school leaders is at the forefront of our minds. Despite a tumultuous election cycle and a focus on public sector issues in the media such as public health, the federal budget and policing, few people have asked how are schools doing civically? Are they adequately developing students who will be our next voters and civic leaders? Will they be prepared or even interested in participating in our democracy and facing the challenges ahead?

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“Over the past 12 years, U.S. airlines have accomplished an astonishing feat: carrying more than eight billion passengers without a fatal crash. Such numbers were once unimaginable, even among the most optimistic safety experts.” 
Wall Street Journal article, 4/16/21 The Airline Safety Revolution by Andy Pasztor.

This WSJ article is a tutorial in organizational learning and the practices of skilled public leaders who aspired to make the US airline industry among the safest in the world.  The hard leadership work in this kind of change process is always the same, facing the current reality openly and honestly, creating the shared vision for change, engaging the essential partners, staying focused and sustaining the focus and discipline over time. The good news for all of us they did it.

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Independence Day is an opportunity to reflect on the courage, compassion and resiliency that so many public servants exhibited over the last year.  Many of you have been working over-time in stressful situations for more than a year.  Our wish for all of you this summer is the time to restore your energy and re-connect with family and friends.

Since last July we have shared  a number or relevant topics on our website. Feel free to go back and read all the monthly updates and take advantage of some of the recommended books and videos as well.

Click the links to view the following topics from 2020:

• Reactive Technology Choices and Unintended Consequences
• Back to School: Innovation and Leadership in Education
• Embracing the Current Reality: A Leadership Key to Achieving Greatness
• Resiliency Practices: The Essential Skill Set for All Public Leaders

Click the links to view the following topics from 2021:

• Public Services Affect Almost Everything In Our Lives
• Facilitative Leadership Practices: The Fundamental Skill Set for Leadership Transitions
• Earth Day 2021, Restore Our Earth

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There is no question that we are learning daily as we reach for technology platforms to conduct distance meetings and teach the millions of students who would normally be in classrooms. We are all learning through trial and error that each platform has different levels of security, architecture and ease in usage.

When we find ourselves in crisis the speed of reactive decisions is often staggering. With the current public health crisis, we experience daily results of a technology laboratory fully open for business. The technology you select for a meeting with people you know well may be different than a platform you select for people you have never met before. Many of you already use different platforms for different groups in your communities.

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Public Service Appreciation Week! was established in 1985 and is in its thirty-sixth year. During these worldwide public health and financial crises, we are witnessing the testing of public leadership and public service as we have never seen before. The Public Leadership competencies needed to effectively address daily decisions during this crisis have become the essence of our personal sense of well-being and trust in governance systems. There could be no better time than May of 2020 to celebrate and thank our public servants who are on the front lines working to keep us safe.

This crisis has also exposed the critical interdependencies between public leaders and their citizens, public leaders in different levels of governance systems (local, state, federal), leaders in different countries, and finally leaders in different sectors (private, public and nonprofit). These relationships have become transparent as never before. Our hope is that these interdependencies will result in strengthened partnerships, and greater invests in hiring and developing highly skilled public leaders who can meet the challenges today, tomorrow and in the future.

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This April we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the first Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin believed that we all share one earth, so we need to take care of it. He was disturbed that an issue as important as the health of our planet was not addressed in politics or by the media, so he created the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970. 20 million people nationwide attended festivities that day. It was a truly astonishing grassroots explosion, leading eventually to national legislation such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, The Toxics Control Act, Clean Water Drinking Act, Insecticide, Fungicide & Rodenticide Act, Endangered Species Act and several others.

Fifty years later, despite all the efforts to protect and restore our environment, we find ourselves facing new national and international challenges that are the result of our collective human choices and their long-term impact.

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March is Women’s History Month and 2020 marks the 100^th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment granting women the right to vote. This month we focus on the role of women as Public Sector leaders and their achievements. Learn about the 19^th amendment here or start a book discussion about women who lead in the public sector.

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