Guest blog by John Jenks, IPP’23
The policy implementation challenge that I worked on during the Implementation Public Policy (IPP) course was the shortage of workforce in the State of Wyoming that discourages new firms from entering the state, inhibits existing firms from growing or expanding, and/or contributes to existing firms closing shop and moving out of the state. Wyoming is the least populated state in the country with approximately 580,000 residents and is the second most sparsely populated state behind Alaska. In addition to remoteness, the economy of Wyoming has historically been reliant on the extraction industry—namely of fossil fuel like oil, gas, and coal. As a result of this reliance and the reliance of this industry on state revenues, the state’s economy has been historically subjected to booms and busts. To add to this, there has been little concerted effort to diversify the economy and workforce of the state. Additionally, there is a pervasive undercurrent throughout the state of a fear of growing or growing too fast. Much of this fear has come from seeing what has happened in Utah with the Wasatch Front and Colorado with the Front Range. As a result of these factors, Wyoming faces headwinds in terms of growing and diversifying the state’s economy to make the economy more resilient for current Wyomingites and future generations.
There are many things that I have learned through the IPP course and don’t have the space to give all the things I learned adequate space. Here are a few of the highlights of my learning though. One of the core principles I learned is the PDIA approach. This foundational concept I learned differs drastically from the “plan and control” approach. Building off of this, one of the other foundational things I learned was understanding the downfalls of a “plan and control” approach in policy and most importantly, appreciating the breadth and impact “unknowns” have on policy implementation. It is very hard to plan for all contingencies. Thus, as we learned, continuously working on garnering buy in among authorizers and other stakeholders is critical to keep the team engaged and bought into the policy challenge that is being worked on. The course has also reframed how I think of success. Success should be thought of in two dimensions: Functionality (where we are solving the problem we are working on and building capabilities to keep doing so) and Legitimacy (where we are building or maintaining support for the work we are doing).
Another critical component of the course that I will take away is the concept of coalition building, iteration, and small steps. The first part, coalition building or team building, is centered on the concept of growing “buy in” among authorizers and stakeholders. This part of the implementation process is crucial to the longevity and success of the implementation challenge. Growing your “army of thousands” is critical in order to grow the numbers that are working on the policy challenge. It is much easier to “fail” if you are part of a large team that is bought in rather than failing alone. In other words, sharing your target, especially on difficult topics and challenges, spreads the arrows out that will inevitably come at some point on almost all policy challenges. Secondly, in terms of iteration, I have learned that it is ok to begin working on problems and going down certain paths so long as you are comfortable with pivoting, taking a step back, or even potentially radically altering the plan or implementation process if you find that it is not working. As mentioned earlier, this is much different than “plan and control” where a plan is implemented and pushed forward regardless of its effectiveness. Closely related to this, “small steps” is critical to ultimately being successful in your implementation challenge.
The old adage, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” is very appropriate here. When it comes to difficult challenges and projects, it is often much more effective to take small steps towards implementing a policy rather than one drastic overhaul. These small steps take on many different forms of small meetings, individual reach outs, and small implementation steps that gradually introduce people to the new policy or new way of doing things. But importantly, it is critical that you remember to celebrate your small wins. This can be as simple as having a cup of coffee with someone you have never met or generally don’t see eye to eye with; it can take the form of celebrating a small milestone in the iteration of implementation; or it can take the form of celebrating a meeting of varying agencies and stakeholders that have not worked together before.
Whatever it is, this projects confidence in the project and builds buy in among stakeholders and others that may not be involved in the project. The last major item I have learned from the course is the idea of delegation and self-care. I have always been very good at delegating tasks and empowering others either internally or externally to do their jobs or even go above and beyond. However, the course has taught me to stay more mindful of this as I continue to evolve my leadership style. In addition, I immensely valued the importance and concept of self-care. I take my work very seriously and sometimes find myself stretched thin. I appreciated the concept of staying mindful of self-care to avoid burnout and poor work.
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 47 Participants successfully completed this 7-month hybrid program in December 2023. These are their learning journey stories.