Digital leadership moves.

• Author: Mechling, Jerry
• Position: Commentary

E-government presents leadership challenges much mole substantial than simply placing more transactions online.

Effective leaders pay careful attention to needs for continuity. With stakeholders demanding traditional values and services, leaders ignoring continuity tend to get defeated at the next election.

At the same time, effective leaders also respond to needs for change. In the long term, the major benefits for society--and the key challenges for leaders--come not from redistributions among today's ways of doing things, but rather from innovations that increase productivity.

As we move deeper into the Information Age--which began after World War II and is expected to continue for much of the 21st Century--leaders must increasingly succeed with the "change agenda." They must help us move forward on the risks and returns of innovation. This takes guts.

More and more, it also takes good judgment about how digital information and technologies can be used for new divisions of labor. As many have observed, we're moving from hierarchical to networked organizations and governance. Powering this transition, there are three increasingly large leadership moves--based on remote service, simplified service, and outsourced service.

What is the essence of these moves? And what are the challenges for governors, mayors, and other leaders?

1. For remote service, it's reforming service distribution and continuing to work with CIOs and customers. In a world of pervasive computer networks, services can now be accessed over the net, anytime, from anywhere. Government can deliver "Online, not in line" Over the past decade, leaders have pursued these possibilities with substantial success. The public has benefited through easier interactions with government. Progress continues and without much opposition. Service distribution is changed dramatically, but production (and the lives of production workers) stays rather constant.

   The challenge for governors and mayors is to keep working with CIOs and customers to expand and integrate remote online services for a wider range of transactions. This is important work, and almost always a no-brainer: just do it.

2. For simplified service, it's reforming production processes and working with COOs and program managers. Harvesting the economies of computer-based work requires changing jobs and simplifying workflow for the entire government enterprise, not just for service delivery. Massive opportunities for consolidation...