NASCA Connection meetings are pre-scheduled 20-minute one-on-one interactions for state members and corporate partners. Individual itineraries are sent via email, and please see the app for the most up-to-date schedule. Attendees who do not have a pre-scheduled Connection appointment can use this time for a break.

What will government outcomes look like in the future? How will public value be measured? What can state leaders do to build a vision for the future and the case for change? These pivotal questions are at the forefront for innovative government thinkers as they move to deliver on the promise of good government. To move forward, both new and current state chief administrators must translate vision into action, and develop a strong portfolio of innovations. To meet citizen demands, they must prepare their organizations to quickly implement "uptake” reforms—proven programs that require robust leadership—and “edge” innovations—untested ideas with enormous potential. This session will explore these challenges via parallel examples, provide insights from the pre-Institute Compass Diagnostic, offer key themes and ideas from a panel of corporate partners and state leaders, and engage the group in dialogue on the key challenges and opportunities associated with driving good government.

NASCA Connection meetings are pre-scheduled 20-minute one-on-one interactions for state members and corporate partners. Individual itineraries are sent via email, and please see the app for the most up-to-date schedule. Attendees who do not have a pre-scheduled Connection appointment can use this time for a break.

Between 2005 and 2009, Ingrid Johnson was tasked with leading significant change at the business banking division of Nedbank, a prominent South African bank. Just 11 years after Apartheid, this transformation was taking place during a period of significant change within Nedbank and South Africa. One of the oldest banks in South Africa, Nedbank had merged with another South African bank in 2002. Troubles financing the acquisition and several ill-advised bets in the market caused Nedbank's market value to plummet and led to the ouster of the bank's senior leadership. The business banking division was one of Nedbank's largest business units with over 2000 staff. For many years, it had been a consistently profitable but underperforming division, and had yet to fully implement a strategic restructuring when Johnson took over in 2005. Johnson's mandate was to instill a high-performance culture, which she determined required overhauling the division's culture, formal organization, critical tasks, and people. In this session, participants will explore strategies to lead significant change to systems, structures, and personnel, align key stakeholders, communicate a new vision, and pace change.

NASCA Connection meetings are pre-scheduled 20-minute one-on-one interactions for state members and corporate partners. Individual itineraries are sent via email, and please see the app for the most up-to-date schedule. Attendees who do not have a pre-scheduled Connection appointment can use this time for a break.

To continuously deliver on the promise of good government, state chief administrators must effectively lead their partners, teams, and organizations through change. During this session, we will consider structural, cultural, and political barriers to leading change. We will also discuss approaches to overcoming resistance to change, reflecting on leadership tactics, organizational design, and activating change agents.

In 2016, the Minnesota Department of Administration’s Office of Continuous Improvement led an initiative to assess and improve how the state manages its internal sustainability reporting and efforts. After some initial fact-finding, the team discovered there were unconnected reporting requirements, a variety of approaches to sustainability activities, and no coordinated effort to understand outcomes or identify opportunities for improvements. This case study will examine how Minnesota responded and the Department of Administration’s newly formed Office of Enterprise Sustainability, in collaboration with the Continuous Improvement team, led a statewide project to build a streamlined and effective governance structure with state agencies to use. In particular, participants will examine how the team built a case for change, developed cross-agency relationships, managed initiative fatigue, led culture change components, and established new systems, structures, and processes. The case study will also examine the legacy of this program during a gubernatorial transition.

NASCA Connection meetings are pre-scheduled 20-minute one-on-one interactions for state members and corporate partners. Individual itineraries are sent via email, and please see the app for the most up-to-date schedule. Attendees who do not have a pre-scheduled Connection appointment can use this time for a break.

Early in his tenure, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts established process improvement as a key strategy to, “create a more effective, more efficient, and more customer-focused state government.” To achieve this, state leaders first evaluated state models from around the country to help introduce more sustainable change that would help grow Nebraska. This led to the launch of a Center of Operational Excellence (COE) within the Department of Administrative Services, which has already trained over 12,000 employees, completed over 245 projects, saved over 290,000 verifiable hours, and had a significant impact on services to Nebraska’s citizens. This case study will examine these efforts, and steps COE took to establish a new operating model, hire and train new staff, generate buy-in, and navigate competing priorities. During the session, participants will examine how the team aligned political actors, fostered a collaborative atmosphere working across agencies, measured progress and public value, brought innovations to scale, and put structures in place to sustain progress.

NASCA Connection meetings are pre-scheduled 20-minute one-on-one interactions for state members and corporate partners. Individual itineraries are sent via email, and please see the app for the most up-to-date schedule. Attendees who do not have a pre-scheduled Connection appointment can use this time for a break.

Government models of the past are not sustainable and major changes are needed to meet new citizen demands, harness new technologies, and respond to greater change and complexity in our operating environments. To prepare for the future, we need strong execution of ideas on the uptake and creative adoption of ideas on the edge. How do government leaders adopt and implement near-term innovations, but also learn about long-term solutions and the leadership strategies needed to deliver a more efficient, effective and responsive government? During this session, we’ll introduce the Public Sector Uptake and Edge Matrix and delve into what’s on the “Uptake” – innovations and business models that require robust leadership to implement yet are proven to increase effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, participants will grapple with what’s on the “Edge” – innovations and business models that are still emerging, yet are poised to deliver dramatic improvement in public value. Working together, participants will plot out their current activities and develop a strategy to accelerate their innovation portfolio.