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World War II brought forth a generation of leaders within the U.S. government who had scarce resources and global enemies to combat. Some of the most difficult battles in that war, such as D-Day, featured political, military, and civilian leadership pushing down the decision-making and authority to those closest to the enemy and the problem. This “over” authorization gave rise to decentralized decision-making, innovative leadership, transformation of operations, and, most importantly, victory in war.

The War on Terror has created urgency for innovative ways to protect the American people and spawned a new breed of government manager to lead that innovation. Such dramatic change is happening so quickly because the government is undergoing the largest reorganization since World War II. And just as the Greatest Generation brought forth the Best and Brightest to serve the government at a time of need, a new leadership profile is emerging within the Intelligence Community (Intel), Department of Defense (DoD), and burgeoning Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Professor John Kotter of Harvard Business School has found that 50 percent of change
initiatives fail because the urgency rate isn’t strong enough to get people out of their comfort zones. Based on his extensive studies, he believes that 75 percent of an organization’s management must genuinely believe that business-as-usual is totally unacceptable in order for change to occur.

September 11, 2001, was a “forcing function,” according to Dr. Linton Wells, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense and the Department of Defense’s Chief Information Officer. That horrific set of events triggered government executives and legislative leaders to believe that “government as usual” was no longer acceptable. It created the urgency and the budgetary freedom to pursue ideas that had been developed prior to that event, but lacked the “force” to get them off the white board and into the real world.

Seeing this renewed sense of purpose and drive for change among our government clients, Sapient embarked on a seven-month study to better understand the profile of these emerging government leaders in the War on Terror. We call these managers change agents. Our goal: to pinpoint the management practices that these leaders are using to create innovative security approaches, business processes, collaborative inter-agency frameworks, and, most importantly, organizational change.

We interviewed 24 diverse senior leaders from the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, the Intelligence Community, and academia and asked 10 questions  (See Appendix A for methodology and protocol.) Based on the analysis of these in-person and telephone interviews, this study:

• Uncovered six management practices used by change agents in the War on Terror 
• Developed the first profile of government change agents making change happen in the War on Terror
• Pinpointed six ways that change agents measure their success