Almost a decade ago, I wrote an email to the director of the Alaska Division of Family and Youth Services to introduce them to the concept of Lean Government. I got no response. I spoke to our Alaska GOvernor and his Chief of Staff about the promise of Lean Government for improving the quality of our children and social services, and got just the political response. Our Governor committed to a second meeting to talk about ACE’s. I am currently working to get a meeting with the Governor with Dr. Vincent Felitti. Dr. Felitti will be visiting Juneau for a community forum, a public meet and greet, presentation of testimony to the House HESS Committee and hopefully a meeting with the Governor and select State Commissioners who run justice, social and health programs.
I understand both limited influence and apathy to new knowledge. I have been promoting Lean Government since 2006, and advocating for the recognition of ACE’s in our population and the development of policy and programs to respond to it. I even asked the new President of the University of Alaska, a Lean Management proponent, to consider expanding University research in the field of ACE’s. And I have advocated for the School of Business to consider courses in Lean Management. I patiently wait, but because I have been successful in life, I can wait patiently.
My concern is for the victims of poor government and a lack of effective policy and resources. This Commentary from the Alaska Dispatch News, “Flawed Alaska child abuse study suggests 'solutions' likely to worsen problem,” highlights the convergence of all 3 deficits. Existing policy, a 900 page manual and time spent documenting cases says that policy is incredibly deficient. What I read in the article and in the University report indicates a real need for policy reviews. In particular, developmental trauma and ACE’s seem unrecognized in state policy so far. Alaska is also undergoing a huge fiscal issue and social programs will likely be at risk. Our Division of Public Assistance has issued an RFP for a Lean Government Consultant to help them with significant operational issues already, and that is, at least in my opinion, a step in the right direction.
It’s disheartening to watch our families and their children subject to the abuses the report and this commentary seem to acknowledge. One of the central principles of Lean Management is a recognition that management problems are usually systems problems, and not to blame individual employees for system problems. There is a lot of blaming in the OCS system in Alaska. With blame follows tremendous oversight by governmental agencies. The try to build quality in through inspection, but then they never commit the resources available for the inspection. Dr. W. Edwards Deming is the Guru of modern management, and his 14 principles of management are incorporated into the Lean Management system. Change is difficult, and we must be relentless in our advocacy for change.
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