Scott Weiss

Full Transcript



Karen Holst:

And we're alive. Good morning. Good afternoon. Depending on where you're joining us from. I'm Karen Holst. And with me, I have Douglas Ferguson. We're coauthors of Start Within and today we're chatting with Scott Weiss who is doing amazing work and has been sitting at the intersection of design and social impact. And I just can't wait to dive right in to what you do and what you're about, but to start, how did you land this job? What led you to the work you're doing?

Scott Weiss:

Yeah, great question. And I, all of a sudden became really aware of my quarantine hair. Bare with me. It's really going down. So yeah. So prior to joining what we call PIF, presidential innovation fellowship, I was co-leading a social innovation consulting firm based in New York City. And it was really meaningful work and work that I was really proud of. But I realized that because we were sort of constrained by sort of consulting business model, you really only work on projects that were about 12 weeks long. So it forced this really interesting conversation for my colleague, Allie and I to really unpack what it meant to deliver impactful work.

Scott Weiss:

I felt like, well, we were really proud of the research that we're conducting and the questions we're asking, this notion of impact became less and less real. And while we delivered recommendations, we didn't really play much of a role in the implementation piece of that conversation.

Scott Weiss:

So I was really looking for an opportunity to find networks and communities that were delivering meaningful social impact. And I connected with a friend who is in the PIF program, who really sort of championed this program and really articulated the sort of impact opportunity that it brought. So the more I looked into it and the more conversations I had with folks who've been through the program and folks who were leading it, I realized that there was a really interesting connection point between federal government and the improvement of lives of citizens of the United States.

Scott Weiss:

So, that was really what sparked my interest and then went through this sort of rigorous interview process and then got matched to what we refer to as our detail. So there are a bunch of really interesting kind of innovation projects happening across government that my program is involved with. And looking across that portfolio, they realized that there was a really interesting opportunity. I kind of married my skillset, which is sort of around systems design and organizational design, and their need for real organizational transformation.

Scott Weiss:

And so I was assigned to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs and specifically helping them really strengthen their research and design capabilities so that they can better understand the unmet needs of veterans. So yeah, that's the work I've been doing. And I've been specifically working with an office called The Veterans Experience Office, which is essentially an R and D arm of the VA, which by the way, I didn't know this going in and this was totally mind blowing. This is a 400,000 person organization. It is the world's largest healthcare system. It is this massive, massive machine.

Scott Weiss:

So entering in, I entered into this project with so much humility and so much awe of the opportunity. So I'm now on my ninth month working with other PIFs, to really help them strengthen their core capabilities and a lot of that has to do with customer experience.

Karen Holst:

So we met at IDEO and I don't know if you knew before that, I had done a year long fellowship with the California Department of Education, and that's actually where the book Start Within was firstborn. I was coming off of a startup, super excited about launching new ideas, ready to innovate within the Department of Education and had to pump the brakes. They're not a go, go go type organization. My entrepreneurial spirit was appreciated, but needed to taper back and learn a new way forward. And that was a big part of writing this book was there's phases to this work. And I just wonder when you were doing this and kind of getting started, what does that feel like? And how is that evolved who you are?

Scott Weiss:

Yeah, it's such a good question. And actually you never shared that. So I hope we can talk more about that at another time because it's fascinating. So yeah, I think what the sort of revelation that I kind of came to when I entered into government is that private sector does not have all the answers to solving these challenges. To assume that as quite arrogant. And I think what is common across my fellowship is that we come in with, again, I used this word earlier, humility and real respect for all of the amazing work that's currently taking place. And we kind of try to serve as enablers and catalysts of that work because we don't know what we don't know.

Scott Weiss:

And I worked on this interesting project, pre PIF, with Harvard University, kind of helping them stand up a social impact institute within their ed school. And I spoke with one of the professors at the Kennedy School and he... I'll never forget this. When he was referring to collective impact work and he said, "Change happens at the speed of trust." So it took a good three to four months just to build that trust with our federal partners and really roll up our sleeves with them as collaborators and really do that in as empathetic a way as possible.

Scott Weiss:

And Karen, I don't know if that resonates with me, but there's so much relationship building that needs to take place before the real work can actually get done.

Douglas Ferguson:

I want to just say that Speed Of Trust is one of my favorite books by Kovi. It's really good. So I'd love that you bring that up.

Scott Weiss:

Great. There's a lot of... Yeah. Because we're interlopers essentially. We're innovators, "innovators" coming from the private sector to bring our skills and expertise. And that only offers so much. We really also have to diagnose the problem of which there are many, right? And I think what's also really exciting about the program is because we come in, and apologies to people that are listening to this who aren't familiar with sort of government employees scales. We come in at a pretty high level, which gives us access to senior leaders in government who have the capacity to make decisions about change. So being able to access, I mean our program is two degrees from the secretary, right? So we get to really engage in these transformational conversations which is really exciting.

Karen Holst:

Yeah. I think building the conversations as you go, the evolving network of who's involved, and who's excited about the work you're doing. I know that you're coming at nine months, there's the phases that you go through. You start, you're excited. It feels like you're onto something then something, obstacle, whatever that might be. You're set back a little bit. Where are you feeling in the phase of being able to do this work right now?

Scott Weiss:

Thanks for asking that. Yeah, it's so funny. I just got off a call with the sort of core team to really assess where we were. And, because this is a big organizational design challenge, as you know, we are just about to get to the starting line. We did a ton of research. We spoke with a wide variety of stakeholders, customers, employees, and synthesized all of those conversations into really what we've currently perceived as valuable insights to the apply to some transformation recommendations.

Scott Weiss:

But to your point, we really need leadership buy in. So we're sort of entering into this space of how do we inspire, how do we build a movement within our organization that can... That's supported by this notion of co-design, right? We don't go off into this dark room project space for nine months. We're side by side with our stakeholders. So how can we almost inspire them to deliver the work for us, if that makes sense.

Karen Holst:

Yes. I remember bringing design thinking to the Department of Ed and again, in California, in a specific group and going into this brainstorm and I'd been doing brainstorms at startups and I'm... There might be a little bit of rough around the edges, but we'll be able to do this. So I set the rules up front. Don't interrupt, lots of "yes and" as ideas come up and one of the gentlemen in the room, every idea that came up, he broke one of those rules. He's like arms crossed, "That would never work. That name's taken. Ugh, who likes that idea?" Just so negative. And I had to kind of tongue in cheek, be like, "All right, three strikes, you're out, go back to your corner."

Karen Holst:

But we had to go through the uncomfortableness of doing things different to be able to make the idea happen. And I was so jazzed and energized about getting the idea to happen. Then I had to pause and say, "Can we just evaluate where there's holes in this process and focus on the opportunities to do that?" And I'm sure you're seeing some of that and how you're bringing that to the work.

Scott Weiss:

So interesting you say that because naturally I came into government with some assumptions, right? Hierarchical, bureaucratic, never get anything accomplished. And some of those are validators, don't get me wrong, but I was so inspired to learn that design language is a real thing in government. Human centered design is talked about, it's talked about constantly. I think there were varying maturity levels around how to apply it effectively, certainly, but it's there. There's a real foundation that's been built over the past decade, I would say, to enable and catalyze a lot of really exciting conversations around the article possible. I think there's still this reflex around efficiency and productivity being a primary driver, but there has been a lot of conversations around stepping back and really applying this process to some pretty complicated challenges.

Scott Weiss:

So that's been inspiring and also, bureaucracy is important sometimes. We don't have to explode everything in government, right? I think FDA needs guardrails on certain testing and approvals, right? There are certain protocols that make complete sense to me, but I do think that more and more I chat with senior leaders of government, the more appetite there is for innovative thinking around some of this.

Douglas Ferguson:

So when I first heard about the US Digital Service, which is connected to the work you do. Not, it sounds like you guys actually invented that program, the program that you work with. And when I first heard about the work they were doing in the Veterans Affairs, there's this really provocative story that stuck with me and it's like, I can't even... I can't forget it. And it was that one of the first things they did was they literally wrote a JPEG to PDF converter.

Scott Weiss:

Yes.

Douglas Ferguson:

Saved lives, because if a doctor uploaded a PDF instead of a JPEG to the medical record, the record would just evaporate. And then, it would totally hose that veteran's access to care. And then people went untreated and it's so phenomenal that something that probably took a day to write and then however long the roll out just saved lives. And I wonder if you've had any stories? I mean, maybe they're not saving massive list of lives, but what things have you found that have been just like, "Wow, that's so amazing that I've been here to be able to make some of this change."

Scott Weiss:

Yeah, thanks for sharing that story Douglas. Yeah. That really, that resonates with me. And I think I have, through the PIF program alone, that is now seven years old, which is still, by government standards, that's startup. By all standards, a startup. I've observed a lot of projects that led to real sort of transformation around cost recover ability and fraud detection. And that's been really profound, but what I've also found quite interesting is this notion of how do we get to that revelation? How do we get to that revelation as a team? Because I think there are tech problems for sure. And I think what has been very interesting was this observation that a lot of people in government conflate technology and innovation, and I don't think they're the same.

Scott Weiss:

I feel like technology can be an output of innovation, but really it's about how do you inspire teams and government to better organize themselves around technology? What new process that can they think of to get them to yes? And to get them to sustainable delivery, right? Because there are cycles of leaders that come in and out with different agendas and priorities. So how can we future group a lot of the stuff that we're designing towards and building towards. So I think there's a real opportunity to build sort of innovation infrastructure and government, right? We're shifting mindsets, first for sustainable change.

Scott Weiss:

And what's interesting, I think about the origin story of the program, which yes, ultimately led to USDS and 18F, and some really interesting tech ecosystems. It really was born out of a crisis where I don't know if y'all remember this, but when the Affordable Care Act passed and they rolled out the platform to help citizens register for insurance health insurance, it crashed immediately. And it was quite embarrassing for federal government. There was this realization that they were not modern and they were not equipped to deliver usable technology to large audiences. So that was the inspiration for this fellowship really, is CTO, Todd Park kind of brought in technologists to help just bring the system back online, which led to this epiphany of, "Oh, we should be working with the private sector more thoughtfully around some of these challenges." Which then led to this tech infrastructure that was built to support modernization.

Douglas Ferguson:

I love this notion that technology is not just about IT or bits and bytes and electronics and things. And one of my early mentors always reminded me that a pencil is technology. And that was his... He'd always, "Douglas, a pencil is technology."

Scott Weiss:

I mean, I could agree. Just how you meet as a team.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yes, absolutely.

Scott Weiss:

That is innovation. Put your phones down. You listen actively, you empathize with. That is innovation. We don't need a sexy CRM tool. We need collaboration, creative collaboration.

Douglas Ferguson:

And in fact, if we stop using the word meeting and be more intentional about how we're coming together and how we refer and use a better technology, sorry, taxonomy. That is innovation.

Scott Weiss:

Totally. Yeah. And there's a real app... I've observed. There's a real appetite for that. And what is also interesting, and Karen, you touched on this before we went live, but I think we're at a really unique time right now with this pandemic. I think it has surfaced a lot of conversation around how we're contributing. How we're contributing to society, how we're contributing professionally to society. So I am really excited about how this can catalyze a movement, public service movement, and really open up lanes of communication between private sector and public sector to solve some pretty gnarly challenges ahead.

Scott Weiss:

How can we build more resilience on the other side of this? How can government become more resilient because of this? So how are we learning along the way and learning together? So that is my dream. That is my dream. And I really hope we don't squander this opportunity.

Karen Holst:

Yeah. On that, I would like to plug Fuse Corp, which is an organization that I got my opportunity to work with the California Department of Education, which that year was one of the most exciting and challenging opportunities in my career yet. I really, I can't say enough about the opportunities that came from that and maybe an opportunity also to give a plug to the work that you're doing, how people can get involved or there might be other organizations as well.

Scott Weiss:

Yeah. Yeah. I would love to. Thanks for that. Yeah. So it's the Presidential Innovation Fellowship. We actually just wrapped up. We just closed the application cutoff for the next cycle, but you can go to... Let me make sure I'm getting the website right. PresidentialInnovationFellows.gov to learn more. And of course, I'm Scott.Weiss@PIF.gov. So if anyone wants to email me about the program and learn more, I'm happy to have that conversation. This is a topic that is near and dear to me.

Karen Holst:

Yes. Thank you so much for joining us. And for those that are tuning in, Karen and Douglas, authors of Start Within, you can find that on Amazon or on our website, start-within.com. And we do this every week. We talk to people that are innovating within an organization, whether it's public, private, nonprofit startup. So if you're doing this work and you're someone that you want us to talk to, or you have questions, reach out to us via LinkedIn. Thank you. Take care, Scott.

Scott Weiss:

Take care everyone. Thank you.