What Will Killefer's Role Be?

Newsweek's Powering Up blog has a consideration of Nancy Killefer's role as Chief Performance Officer that gets some things right, but misses the point a bit about how the role is likely to work.

The post is right in that Obama does seem poised to demand stronger performance-based results from agencies, but the "running-government-like-a-business" canard seems to me to be somewhat off the mark. Government can't run exactly like a business. It doesn't produce products, for the most part. Government can't boost profits to support new initiatives. It's not that easy to just shutter divisions. And that's not actually the point--either of government itself, or of Killefer's role. Obama's not actually interested in a lot of the initiatives that, if implemented, would turn government towards more business-like practices. He's no huge fan of privatization, he's critical of some of the efficacy of contracting, he supports strong federal labor rights. He wants government to be better, not something else entirely.

In most of the commentary about Killefer, and in this Newsweek post as well, writers haven't mentioned that Killefer is a government veteran (she served in Treasury) as well as a management consultant. She gets what's unique about government. Also, she'll be wearing dual hats, both roving government as the chief performance officer and with authority beyond simply that of an adviser as Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.

That dual authority demonstrates why Killefer is unlikely to end up on the dust-heap, as Newsweek implies. Doing business differently, and making government more responsive, were key Obama messages on the campaign trail. They're also an area where he has to deliver. Almost everyone interacts with government on a regular basis, even if only to pay their taxes every year. If people don't start to see and feel differences in those interactions, they will notice. Giving Killefer a dual role, where one of her titles backs up the other, gives her authority and stature--and she'll need both if she's going to deliver on the very complicated task Obama has set to her.