Management Reform: It's All About Tactics

Along with EPA's Marcus Peacock, Jonathan Breul was featured at this morning's Government Executive Leadership Breakfast. Breul, the executive director of the IBM Center for the Business

of Government and a former high-ranking official at the Office of Management and Budget, contrasted the Bush and Clinton administration's approaches to management reform.

Clinton's National Performance Review, he noted, generated some 1,600 recommendations, while Bush's President's Management Agenda focused on only five key cross-cutting areas. The two president's approaches were "starkly different," he said. Clinton worked from the bottom up, seeking to empower employees on the front lines, and actively going around established management agencies such as OMB and the Office of Personnel Management. Bush, on the other hand, took the "MBA president" approach, tying his initiatives directly to the budget process and implementing them via OMB.

The interesting thing is that both approaches shared common themes: a focus on measuring results, a belief in the value of competition, and an emphasis on service to citizens. Whoever is elected in the fall will likely choose from this same general menu of management improvement options. So the big question, Breul said, is what tactical approach he or she will choose. That will make all the difference.