What did government learn from 9/11, and how is it keeping those lessons alive?

Terry Gerton Well, let me first wish you happy birthday. Today is the partnership’s 25th birthday, founded actually on 9/11.

Max Steir Thank you, it’s hard to believe. I kind of would like to be 25 again. So that’s a date that is long in history, but it’s fun to have that as an anniversary for the partnership.

Terry Gerton Almost old enough to come off your parents’ health care program.

Max Steir Yes, as I also do medical appointments for my college-age kids. That is a day, I guess, good and bad.

Terry Gerton Well, let’s think back to 9/11 because the government that we have today is very different from the government we had on September 10th, 2001, for lots of reasons. And the partnership has watched that closely over the last 25 years. When you think back over the process, where do you think the government diagnosed problems correctly, and where do you think they got the diagnosis wrong?

Max Steir So it was clearly a critical, transformative moment, and it, I think, really arises from the purpose of our government, which is fundamentally to deal with our biggest problems that we face as a society. It’s the only institution that has the public and premature and taxpayer resources behind it. And I think the primary lesson that we learned from 9/11 was that we weren’t safe. We were oblivious to the large and consequential risks that we faced as a nation. And those risks had changed and we had been used to two oceans protecting us and they no longer did in a modern world. And so I think the most important lesson was that we actually weren’t safe and we did need government to be there in a way that it hadn’t been on 9-11 and that required changes. And one of the very rare commissions that actually produced something that was both thoughtful and resulted in real change is the 9/11 Commission. And their analysis, I think, is the best that’s out there. And as they identified, the biggest challenge was not the lack of warning. The biggest challenge, was the inability of our system of government to connect the dots. And that came from a variety of sources, including the fact that President Bush’s senior national security people had not been in place or in place fast enough to understand the systems and develop the relationships. But I think that was the most prominent ill that was diagnosed. And I do think that we saw, especially the intelligence community, change in some pretty consequential ways. And if you ask me on the plus side, the creation of the DNI at that point, I think was a very strong model of looking for a way to create connectivity amongst existing organizations. I think the creation of DHS was not such a great idea because there the model was to create something new and to push together all these organizations. I think that the DNI model was the smarter investment for us nationally. But anyway, more to say on this, I should add that just on the anniversary point, We were doing our first launch event in the capital on 9/11 Joe Lieberman and Dan Burton, then the chairs of the relevant committees in the House and the Senate, were sponsoring it. And then Dan Burton ran in and said, the plane hit the, you know, the World Trade Center and we had to evacuate immediately. So this is very relevant to the work of the partnership. And I wouldn’t be alive today, but for the fact that the folks who took down the plane over Pennsylvania did so.

Terry Gerton I was in the Pentagon on that day, and so I share your emotional connection, I think back to it. It’s still a hard day to talk about, but let’s talk about those reforms. A lot of the connecting the dots that you mentioned, the reforms were focused on people. 25 years on, we have a lot more technology. How are you seeing the people in the technology threads come together for better or for worse.

Max Steir So, you know, I’m gonna say something that is, I think, quite strong, and I do so with full intent. I think we’re unfortunately less safe today than we were pre-9/11, so on September 10th, because of not the technology issues, but the people issues. So yes, technology has improved its capabilities, and we’re watching that across the world, but at the end of the day, the people pieces are the most important because technology is a tool, not as of now, a truly independent actor. Maybe that changes with AI, et cetera, but we’re not there yet. And I think your proposition that the people issues were the most important is one I subscribe to entirely. And I think it begins with leaders. And one of the things that I believe is fundamental to any organization’s effectiveness and certainly the public sector is that you have competence and character is the touchstones for the people who are in charge. And you want that across the board, but more than anything else than those in charge. And frankly we do not have that at the senior-most levels of this administration, and that puts us at significant risk. And that cascades from the talent that was pushed out, to the morale challenges that we have, to failure to respect expertise. You know, the list is long and scary, but we are in a more dangerous world than we were. A 9/11, and we are less, I think, able right now to deal with those risks.

Terry Gerton Max Steir is the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. Max, thinking even beyond national security, the ability to turn data into information has become more and more of a focus of the government. We have so much data and not so much information. How would you evaluate the government’s ability now to actually act on data, whether in the national security space or in public service delivery or anything?

Max Steir I think you put your finger on something that is so vital. When we talk about AI, you can’t actually disentangle that from data. The AI is only as good as the data that is available and it’s training on. I do think that there is phenomenal opportunity for providing better service to the public in all realms, so national security and beyond, by better use of data. I think, you know, once again, there are some definite bright spots in our government, but we are taking steps back in a lot of places where data is being shut down, like either a collection is not happening or it’s not being offered to the public, or it is not being acted upon. So I think the opportunity is quite large to provide better ROI for the American public, but we’re not taking advantage of it in the ways that we should. Understanding that there also has to be guardrails because as you say, the ability to use data to understand things also raises risks for privacy issues and bad actors that we have to be cognizant of as well. And we now have a whole new level of issue associated with AI in terms of every tool can be used for good and for bad. And part of government’s responsibility is to use tools responsibly and to ensure that the referees are in place And to make sure that they’re being used responsibly for everybody.

Terry Gerton One other piece of the reforms was really to get agencies to talk across their agency silos. You mentioned the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which was putting a whole bunch of agencies in a room together so that they would hopefully talk together better. But many of the challenges that government is dealing with now don’t sit within a single federal agency. So when you think about cross-agency collaboration, are we better at it or worse?

Max Steir So I think yours is a profound insight. You know, government’s there to deal with problems. The problem set of today requires multi-agency, I would argue multi-level of government and multi-branch, you know, Congress and the executive response and sometimes multi-sector. So what I describe as the enterprise perspective, taking approach across all those boundaries is fundamental to good results to solve for those problems. I do not think we are all that much better at that process than we’ve been in the past. There are places where there are improvements and I think in the intelligence community is an example of that. My own view, and it comes back to your earlier point, which is it’s all about the people. I think one way we would see better cooperation across entities is if we had mobility requirements for leadership and for junior talent. You see that in the military, the joint duty requirement as an example to be a flag officer. I do think that is actually a very smart way to create relationship. The tendency is to think for structural reform, that’s like the creation of DHS. And I think the challenge with that is that the energy involved in trying to achieve that is so large and difficult to accomplish within a single or even multiple administrations that it becomes a distraction from things that actually would produce better integration like the mobility of talent. So that’s why I would emphasize that over other attempted structural reform.

Terry Gerton And one other thing here, the partnership has focused on trust and government for a long time, how the public responds to those kinds of questions, certainly in the post 9/11 era, trust was immediately much higher than than it’s been since. What are you seeing when you look at the trust measurements and what do you think might really turn the needle?

Max Steir So again, a great observation. And I think the reason why you saw trust increase was because I think American people were reminded in a vivid and horrifying way why they needed effective government by the attacks of 9/11. And I we are unfortunately in not this exact same kind of moment, but at least the moment that has echoes of it because we’re seeing loss of services in our government, in today’s world, whether it’s the fires everywhere or, you know, measles that at, you know, a 35-year-plus high, or foodborne illnesses, et cetera. I think we’re seeing our government, in some sense, the chickens are coming home to roost. The mismanagement of our government is leading to consequences that the public is experiencing. I think this is a moment for historic civic education so that the public, as it was true in 9/11, can be reminded of why an effective government is so important to their safety, health, and prosperity. And hopefully that energy can be directed at political leaders who will actually embrace smart reforms of our government, which there are many. And that is the focus of the Partnership for Public Service right now, is how do we create a government for a new era? One that will actually deliver better in today’s world results for the people.

Terry Gerton Well, we started our conversation today with a happy birthday to you, but as you look towards maybe the partnerships next 25 years, what do we need to be focused on in terms of building that productive, trustworthy government for the future?

Max Steir Well, the first proposition is that it’s a forever job. Like you, you know, you don’t like, you people talk about, oh, reinventing government, but I’m like, there is no organization that does it once and is good for the next 30 years. Doesn’t happen. It’s a constant learning and that requires people at the top who see that as their job. So I begin with leadership and believe that we need to change our standard of leadership. We have this. Bizarre notion that we can focus on the civil service and trying to make it accountable and not pay any attention to the 4,000 now way more than 4,00 political leaders and not hold them accountable and you’re gonna be fine when those political appointees represent four or five layers on top of those career civil servants. We should have one standard of expectation of confidence and character and whether you’re political or career, you need to meet it and you need have performance plans and accountability to do so. I think that’s the most important change we should see. In our government, there are plenty of other things that will help get us there. 25 years to me is way too long of a look forward. I don’t even know what’s gonna happen in three years. I know our world is changing so fast, but I do know that having really great leaders in place that are committed to the health of the organizations they’re responsible for will create a group of people who will solve for those problems as they come up and take advantage of the opportunities that are there to do better.