A Real World Example of Strategic Intuition (Part 1)

I had a chance to here Kevin Kelly speak at Columbia University last month. He was a guest speaker in the Exec Ed course, Strategic Intuition. It is not often that “wow!” and “government leader” end up in the same sentence, but such was the case for me with Kevin’s presentation on how he tackled some major problems in New York City Government, where he serves as the Deputy Commissioner of Business Development / Agency Strategy with NYC’s Small Business Services agency. Kevin was kind enough to have a follow up phone conversation with me last week. What follows is my take on his take of Strategic Intuition.

Like most people in government leadership, the challenge typically comes in a problem begging for a solution. This is where Kevin’s approach begins. Kevin’s four step approach to problem solving looks something like this:

1. Problem Identification: Break down the problem into what Kevin calls its “prime number components.” These are the basic components of the problem that requires a solution.
2. Determine What Is Needed: Determine, in a concrete way, the nature of each component. How does it work? How should it work? Why isn’t it working? How is it important to the overall problem?
3. Search For Solutions: Kevin searches for solutions pertaining to his “prime number components,” not necessarily for the overall problem. His search is focused, but not too narrow. It is associative—he follows a creative path towards a solution that works by finding “solution components” and he tries to be as open as possible to perception and possibilities. He refers to this as a “fun, stream of consciousness approach” where it is “hard to be wrong.”
4. Create the Solution: Kevin "stitches together" the various solution components into an overall whole. He focuses on something useful, not perfect. He installs a mechanism to improve and upgrade his solution as he creates it, something most government solutions lack.

Kevin’s First Example
One of Kevin’s first tasks was to lead a revamping and revitalization of the New York City’s job centers. Despite significant resources being pumped into the job centers, there were not enough people being placed in employment. Successes were few and far between. The system was riddled with poor processes and poor technology. Businesses were not using the centers to find employees and job seekers were not using the centers to find jobs.

Kevin broke the problem down into four prime number components. He says he envisioned them as interlocking wheels or turbines—bringing job seekers in the front door, building their skills as needed, and then matching them with appropriate jobs at the back door. His four components were:

1. Sourcing of Labor (Supply)—The job centers needed to get more people in the front door.
2. Intake—Gather data on each job seeker and determine who needs what in terms of training, etc.
3. Training—Connecting people with the training that they need, depending upon employer needs.
4. Matching and Referral to Employer—The system should be demand driven with the goal of providing employers with qualified candidates.

Kevin determined that the job centers needed to have an easy-to-use mutable database that allowed the job centers to track job seekers in real time from intake to job training to job placement. The job centers also needed to be staffed so they could handle the ebbs and flows of job seekers without being either overstaffed or unable to serve job seekers quickly. Finally, job matching had to be effective and inclusive, so that the best matches were made for employers and, at the same time, job seekers did not fall through the proverbial cracks because they did not have an exact word match of skills to employer need.

At this point, the real fun begins. Kevin began his search for solutions. This is what he came up with:

• Who excels at data gathering and intake in real time with a flexible and upgradeable database? The New York City library system. Libraries have developed simple, powerful, flexible and usable data base systems that are unobtrusive to patrons and staff alike. They are easy to maintain, upgrade and they are useful to everyone involved in library use, both customers and staff.
• Who excels at scheduling and staffing based on estimates of usage? The Staten Island Ferry. The Staten Island Ferry is free to passengers and it does maintain exact count of passengers. Even so, it is able to efficiently and effective provide services at peak and off-peak use times with just the right amount of staff and scheduled services.
• Who excels at searching and matching? Google. Google provides searchers with the best matches in rank order but also does not exclude matches that are close but not exact.

Kevin was able to revamp and revitalize the NYC job centers. The result of was annual job placement in the tens of thousands instead of the hundreds. He and his team created a demand-driven system that brought people in the front door, tracked them effectively, provided them with needed training, and then matched them with real jobs at the other end. The key was the use of strategic intuition, scanning the environment for solutions and being open to the possibilities outside of his immediate field of job centers.

Next Post: Kevin’s second project.