When I’m teaching bureaucracy hacking workshops, the idea of being the queen on the chessboard in your agency is a practice I include no matter who’s in the audience. While other chess pieces have their limitations, the queen can navigate freely in all directions — forwards, backwards, diagonally — and cross any distance. This flexibility is a powerful metaphor for individuals seeking to drive change and solve problems within complex bureaucracies.
So, how can you apply the queen’s moves to your own professional journey?
Challenge Assumptions: The first step is to examine your assumptions about where you are allowed to go and what you are permitted to do. Bureaucracies often have unspoken rules and boundaries that are not actually real. Break free from these constraints, and explore uncharted areas around your agency. There’s likely no rule at all that you can’t befriend and no areas far outside your own immediate responsibility that you can’t understand.
Cross Boundaries: Seek out others who share your role but operate in different corners of your organization. Their unique perspectives can provide fresh insights into common challenges. Additionally, reach beyond your role to connect with individuals in entirely different functions within the agency — perhaps an accountant, an executive assistant, or even a team member from the cafeteria. Unconventional connections can lead to unexpected solutions.
Expand Your Knowledge: To be effective as the queen, you must gain a broader understanding of your organization’s landscape. Attend status meetings or special presentations in areas outside your immediate focus. This can help you acquire information that can help you navigate complex challenges and relationships more effectively, or identify new opportunities for collaboration. If you can’t find an event to join, consider hosting a lunch, a networking event, or a happy hour.
Look Beyond Your Organization: Don’t limit your perspective to internal matters only. Sometimes, the best solutions lie outside your agency. Explore external resources, networks, and best practices to gain inspiration and ideas that can be adapted to your organization’s needs.
Solve a Mystery: Identify areas where you encounter frustration or bottlenecks, such as data entry tasks, unnecessary expenses, budget constraints, duplicative processes, seemingly pointless requirements, or delays. As the queen, your newfound access can let you delve deeper into these issues. Reach out to relevant stakeholders and inquire about the “why” behind these challenges.
By engaging in conversations with those involved in or adjacent to these processes, you can uncover the underlying reasons behind your frustrations. Armed with this knowledge, you can then reevaluate and propose solutions that may have been previously overlooked. You might even find some of these solutions in the course of your moves.
Adopting the queen’s mindset in your journey to make improvements can empower you to embrace flexibility, challenge assumptions, and understand the real intricacies of your organization. By doing so, you’ll not only become an effective problem solver but also develop a reputation as an ally in driving effective change across your agency.
Marina Nitze, co-author of Hack Your Bureaucracy, is currently a partner at Layer Aleph, a crisis engineering firm that specializes in restoring complex software systems to service. Marina is also a fellow at New America’s New Practice Lab, where she works on improving America’s foster care system through the Resource Family Working Group and Child Welfare Playbook. Marina was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, after serving as a Senior Advisor on technology in the Obama White House and as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education.
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