Creating the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the reorganization of government it has entailed is "the biggest change management challenge of all time," according to Tom Ridge, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security.
Speaking February 11 at Harvard Business School, Ridge adopted the language of management to explain how his department does its work in the face of an enemy that has "no country, no cause, no flag."
A Republican, Ridge had been governor of Pennsylvania before his appointment and was elected to Congress six times. His talk was titled "Leadership at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security."
"If you look at Homeland Security from a business perspective, we are in a diverse 'risk management' business," Ridge said. "Our marketplace competition is terrorists—shrewd, agile, calculating. Our corporate board consists of 535 members—that's Congress.
"We can't run this entity like a private sector business, but we can apply various business principles to what we do every day. And we do. We laid out a clear set of management and leadership strategies and worked with full speed to quickly and ably meet them. And we established strategic goals for the department and hold our workforce accountable for achieving those goals."
| We became a "public-sector offering" staked in the security of our country. |
Building the newest cabinet-level department has been a massive undertaking. According to Ridge, it had to unite roughly as many divisions as General Electric and as many employees as Federal Express. There were 180,000 employees, 22 human resources servicing offices, 8 different payroll systems, 19 financial management centers, 13 procurement systems—hundreds of legacy systems that had to be consolidated, integrated, and upgraded, he said. The employee roster includes border patrol agents, port security personnel, Coast Guard members, intelligence analysts, disaster relief workers, and many others.
"If you think about it, never before have we witnessed a full-scale government divestiture, merger, acquisition, and startup all coming together at once—certainly not on this scale. Neither have we seen a consolidation of this size occur with such national importance and urgency and in such a short amount of time.
"In a sense, on March 1, 2003, the Department of Homeland Security became the largest IPO ever. We became a 'public-sector offering' staked in the security of our country and, as such, everyone in the country, and the world, having a stake in its success," he said.
This kind of merger met with skepticism, he said, but he saw the glass as half full. The 180,000 people were already committed to their respective jobs.
"No, we didn't have the private-sector compensation 'carrots' that often encourage performance, but we did have men and women with a tremendous sense of mission and commitment. Why? Because the images of 9-11 resonate deep within, they know [that] the freedoms and security of their family, friends, and fellow citizens are at stake. That is the calling they serve."
Despite this sense of commitment on the part of employees, leadership in the department requires management skills as in any company. People have been afraid of losing jobs; they wanted facts on salaries and health benefits. Ridge held town hall meetings and answered questions. Titles alone do not convey leadership, he added. A title represents a peg on the chain of command, while real leadership is expressed through commitment as seen in hours, effort, and passion. "If you exude confidence and lead by example, rather than title, people will respond."
"For me, personally, the essence of leadership is marked by two things: One, it is personal; it's highly individualized. It's about how you choose to define it and what you choose to make of it. And, of course, how you lead is often a matter of selecting approaches that are appropriate to the challenges of the task and the circumstances of the times. And two, I believe that leadership is rooted in fundamentals. And most of those fundamentals we commit to our character as soon as we're old enough to appreciate the wisdom around us, usually in our most formative years."
Risk management only
Ridge outlined the department's daily responsibilities. It has to patrol 9,500 miles of coastline and navigable waters and 7,500 miles of borderline with Canada and Mexico. It handles 429 commercial airports and screens nearly 1.5 million passengers and 2.5 million pieces of luggage.
"We inspect tons of imported food products, and review thousands of visa and green card applications," he continued. "We work with states, cities, and citizens to help them prepare and recover from emergencies—whether acts of man or Mother Nature. We review dozens of technology proposals, some 500 cyber-security reports and more than 1,000 pieces of intelligence. We're in constant daily communication with authorities throughout the country to safeguard our nation's most critical infrastructure—bridges and water supplies, phone and cyber systems, airports and shipping lanes, chemical and nuclear facilities, hospitals and laboratories—just about everything that keeps this country operational and economically strong."
| We have to try and design a system to avoid, as best we can, a catastrophic occurrence. |
Asked by a student if his mandate was impossible to achieve, given the nefarious nature of terrorism, Ridge agreed that his department will not be able to prevent a future terrorism attack, a view he has expressed in public many times. If the U.S. is to remain "as open and welcoming as we are, diverse as we are, and preserve that very delicate balance of civil liberties, freedoms, and security, I've always operated under the belief that no matter what we do, I believe there will be another event. Or events. It's a different kind of enemy, a different kind of soldier. ... They plan for the long term."
With local help from police or individuals who report suspicious activity, the department might be able to prevent isolated, individual terrorist acts by a suicide bomber, for example, he said.
"We are in the risk management business. We can't possibly be in the risk elimination business," he continued. "We have to try and design a system to avoid as best we can a catastrophic occurrence where there's an enormous loss of human life or catastrophic economic destruction."
Islamic fundamentalism and extremists are driven by ideology for a variety of social and economic reasons, he said. The war against terror and nation rebuilding will bring social and economic progress in the environments that are fertile ground for fundamentalism, he said. Fighting terror needs to be an international effort, he added. "We need to go to the source. We can fight it militarily or with additional security, [but] there are reasons fundamentalists in this extreme form happen to have propagated thousands and thousands of zealots. We can't destroy them all. We've got to turn the environment around and help make some changes.
"It's not an obligation of this country alone. The attacks occur in Riyadh, Turkey, the United States, Malaysia, other targets. I think the world community has to take on that task. But I think we ought to provide there a leadership role as well."
Ridge spoke to an audience of about 800 students, faculty, and staff. He was invited to HBS by the School's Leadership and Values Committee. 