Our Essential Principles: Focus On the Right Results

From Marv, our CEO and Founder –

I recently shared the First Principle that drives everything we do as a company: If government relentlessly focuses on results, it can and will make a difference in the lives of its customers.

The Second Principle came into focus for me when, as the Administrator of Economic Assistance – that is, of welfare programs – for the State of Iowa, we took on reforming and fixing that complex, controversial system:

Principle Two: If government focuses on the right result, the right results will happen for the customers of government services.

When we started working on Welfare Reform in Iowa we initially thought that the “right” result we were after was helping people out of the welfare system. Following that as our goal, we developed policies and practices that would have achieved the goal in fairly short order.

But we knew something was wrong – we didn’t like the picture we were painting. All kinds of ideas were considered, some reasonable, some bordering on perverse – like sending welfare receiving families to other states. The conversation became about one result, and one result only – lowering costs of public assistance.

But just getting families off of welfare had little to do with the original reasons for public welfare in the first place: to keep families from spiraling into poverty.

I can remember the conversation like it was yesterday. The Welfare Reform Council we had put together was considering the direction this result was leading us and they didn’t like it much. Tom Glen, the Labor representative on the Council, said it first:

“We’re focused on the wrong result. Its not about getting people out of the welfare system – it’s about getting people out of poverty.”

The other members of the Council agreed, and the entire initiative shifted. From that point forward, the policies and practices we developed were focused – not on getting families off of welfare – but on “giving people a ladder out of poverty and a way to reconnect with their communities.”

And because we were focused on the right result, our strategies shifted to support that result. We developed asset development policies. We changed our economic development policies. We created a state-wide system of workforce development centers focused on making it easier for low income families to reconnect with the workforce. We developed social contracts between the State and recipient families that set out what each would do by when to become self-sufficient. We provided extended child care and medical coverage to provide a bridge from welfare to earned income. And the list went on from there.

Iowa’s Welfare Reform initiative was a major success, and this approach was copied by other states and the federal government. It continues today to help families avoid or leave poverty and be full participants in the mainstream of Iowa’s economy and society. And, because we got focused on the right result, welfare recipient heads of household continued to fuel the broader economic and workforce goals held by subsequent Governors.

And because we focused on the right results, our customers experienced the right results.

One of the great privileges of the work we do is to help dedicated public servants become extremely clear about the right results for their customers. With that clarity, time and talent can be focused on delivering the best results for their customers. Whether it was Maricopa County, AZ, saving more than $25 million in one year on indigent health care costs, or Animal Care Services in Long Beach, CA, moving from crisis to triumph, again and again we have seen this truth:

If government focuses on the right result, the right results will happen for the customers of government services.