“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” Thomas Jefferson

In the Legislature there is clear accountability and authority around spending and revenues.

Still, one of the practical problems during these challenging times is that the traditional legislative structure and process of analyzing bold government reform may not be sufficient.

We are, quite simply, nervous about tackling really big structural problems because the scope of the challenge is greater than any of us.

And that’s the point.

We are very good at managing the tactical and operational challenges of a particular one or two year budget. Where we often struggle is how best to explore large-scale structural and systems issues.

At McCaw Cellular Communication I was impressed with a total quality management practice of creating special swat teams across disciplines to tackle large-scale, systems issues. We mixed front line workers through senior executives across various functional areas into a single team with accountability and authority to address a major structural challenge—and to come up with answers. Examples included core business functions such as reducing churn among our cellular customers, radically increasing revenue from data services, expanding distribution partnerships across new markets and more.

Perhaps we should consider creating and empowering a special swat team of legislators and others charged with specifically exploring large-scale government reform.

Everyone knows that government studies, commissions and task forces often end up on the dusty shelf. Yet during these challenging times, as we prepare for a tough 2011-2013 budget cycle, I believe we should create a major task force—the Government Transformation Initiative—charged with asking the extremely tough political, policy and financial questions based upon these core long-term ideas and many more.

Thomas Jefferson encourages us to have courage. In our corner of our country today, that means asking big questions.

“If we were designing government in Washington State from scratch today, what would it look like?”

“What level of government should provide what level of service?”

“What does state government do well and what does it do poorly?”

“How can we get more transparency into how money flows in our state between cities, counties and the state?”

“What is the reality of our tax obligation in Washington and does it meet our needs?”

“What do the people of our state want and need from government?”

“Why does our state government fail to embrace the reality that education is our paramount duty?”

Tackling systems questions is rarely rewarded politically, and few find it intellectually interesting. But long term planning and strategic analysis of our systems challenges is essential to a living, breathing and vibrant organization.

We need to ask big, uncomfortable, serious and thoughtful questions about what government should look like in the new century. We need a team-based process—that reaches out to the 6.7 million people of our state—to embark on this journey. It is bigger than any one candidate or campaign or special interest or even era. It is about the people and our ability to meet their needs. It is about community organizing around a bold notion that we can create the type of government that we want. We are not tied to old models, systems and structures if we don’t want to be.

Our state government is 120 years old and it is, of course, a monopoly. The challenge of our time is to act with courageous honesty, bold conviction and a youthful eye toward our new century.

We need government reform that reconnects people with their own needs, services, taxes and benefits. The question today is not bigger government or smaller government but better government.

A Government Transformation Task Force should not be about politics, parties, interest groups or ideological turf. It should be about freshness, energy, reflection and courageous honesty. Imagine if we assembled the best of the best—public, private, progressive, conservative and more—to tackle bold systems challenges.

Would the work product sit on the dusty shelf? Perhaps. But only if it became an insiders game of control of message and content. If we reached out, engaged with the people of our state and embraced the larger systems challenge with courage and dignity and purpose, it would bring deep and genuine value. And perhaps some new ideas.

Your partner in service,

Reuven.