President Obama recently proposed a new White House Leadership Development Program. The goal is to expose rising leaders to the experience of solving challenges across agency boundaries. This could ultimately lead to a new capacity in government – a cadre of experienced executives who know how to get things done collaboratively.
Cross –agency collaboration is a critical element to solving many of the hardest challenges that government faces in providing effective services to citizens. In his report, “The Next Government of the United States,” noted public administration scholar Don Kettl writes that “effective 21st century government requires new mechanisms for coordinating government agencies to ensure they can connect organically as they seek to solve the manifest problems they confront.”