Secretary Ridge's Remarks at Harvard Business School's Leadership and Values Forum

Release Date: 02/11/04 00:00:00

Boston, Massachussetts
Harvard Business School
Leadership and Values Forum
February 11, 2004
(Remarks as Prepared)

Thank you, Dean Clark, for that very nice introduction.  And my thanks also to the students, faculty and guests of Harvard Business School for your hospitality and warm welcome.  

I'm pleased to be here ... and appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today about this nation's newest Cabinet Department - about its management philosophy - as well as certain leadership principles that I believe are integral to its success.  As Dean Clark has said, leadership and ethics should be an "explicit not implicit" component of today's business school curricula. And I want to commend you, sir, for your own leadership in establishing the Leadership and Values Initiative here at Harvard.

For me, personally, the essence of leadership is marked by two things: One, it is personal; it's highly individualized.  It's about how you choose to define it and what you choose to make of it.  And, of course, how you lead is often a matter of selecting approaches that are appropriate to the challenges of the task and the circumstances of the times.  And two, I believe that leadership is rooted in fundamentals.  And most of those fundamentals we commit to our character as soon as we're old enough to appreciate the wisdom around us ... usually in our most formative years.

One of my foremost memories of Harvard is graduation day, 1967.  I have a photo from that day - a photo of my dad and me.  I'm in cap and gown - looking happy.  Dad has a smile - looking so relieved. No one has had a more profound effect on who I am and what I have achieved than my father.  He was emblematic of the word "integrity," and that left a lasting impression.  Aspire to be your best, he would tell me.  Take personal responsibility for your actions.  All work has dignity.  Education is the tool of empowerment.  Nobody loves you more than your mother.

My mother is a Republican, by the way.  My dad was a Democrat.  So-much-so a Democrat that just before I was elected to Congress, he changed his voter registration so that he could vote for his son.  Then the very next day, he changed it right back.  You can imagine, we had some pretty interesting dinner table discussions.  What I learned most from those moments was that - moreso than any differing views you bring to the table - be it in the kitchen, boardroom, within diplomatic circles or on Capitol Hill - it's the notion of "shared values" that unite us ... and help guide us in our decisions.

A 21st Century Threat

We know that terrorists don't share our values.  They walk a different and destructive path.  They represent no country, no cause, no flag, no people - yet they have access to a steady supply of technologies, and funds, and willing recruits.  Their motivation is merely to kill what they do not understand - freedom-loving people around the world.  

As recent events continue to show, we have passed into a far more menacing frontier of warfare - with far more potentially horrifying consequences.  International terrorism has become "the new totalitarian threat."  For the first time in the history of humankind, a small number of people with weapons of mass destruction can wreak untold damage.  These perpetrators seek to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons ... and before them lays a map of the world.  While terrorism is not a new phenomenon, we must recognize that, in the 21st century, it is different.

And so, on September 11, 2001, moments after the Twin Towers fell, and the Pentagon burned, and the passengers of Flight 93 made their heroic goodbyes - we knew.  We knew the next storied chapter of American leadership was about to be written.  How it was to be written was ours to decide ... but we had to decide quickly.  

Terrorists, after all, were able to turn airplanes into missiles, with an "army" of fewer than two dozen men, and a budget of roughly a half a million dollars.  They showed that they are adaptable, disciplined, patient, insidious and opportunistic; they left no question that fear, catastrophic destruction and mass murder are its clear objectives.  So to secure our country, we understood that we would have to become just as adaptable, uncommonly flexible, rapidly innovative and decisively responsive. In other words, we would have to fight this 21st century enemy in a bold, broad, brand new, 21st century way.  

The Scope of the Challenge

As you've learned here at Harvard, throughout history, there are often revolutionary changes that successful businesses must adapt to ... or perish.  We faced the same challenge.  The old model of disparate agencies was no longer adequate.  The President saw that we needed to attack terrorists on all fronts - on new fronts; he saw that we needed a new, nimble government structure to fight this war, and we needed it fast.  And so he exercised strong leadership - the right leadership - when he, along with Congress, moved at lightning speed by Washington standards to make Homeland Security a new Cabinet Department.

Certainly this idea had its skeptics - people who said it couldn't be done.  But to those who said that this notion was impossible, our response was quite simply - why?  The glass is already half full.  Why?  Because we already had 180,000 people committed to the job - to their respective jobs.  Yes, we didn't have the private-sector compensation "carrots" that often encourage performance, but we did have men and women with a tremendous sense of mission and commitment.  Why?  Because the images of 9-11 resonate deep within; they know - the freedoms and security of their family, friends and fellow citizens are at stake.  That is the calling they serve.  

I've traveled much of the country and talked to many of my co-workers.  Far from dragging their feet, the vast majority of them welcomed the merger.  In a post 9-11 world, they gained a new respect for the importance of their jobs and the need to do them differently and better.  And so our charge was to unify that sense of purpose and mission.  Our charge was to make it easier for them to do their jobs and, as a nation, approach the protection of our people and our way of life in a smarter, more efficient way.  

Now - that's not to discount the fact that this was an enormous undertaking.  As you can well imagine, this reorganization of government has presented the biggest "change management" challenge of all time.  If you think about it, never before have we witnessed a full-scale government divestiture, merger, acquisition and startup all coming together at once - certainly not on this scale.  Neither have we seen a consolidation of this size occur with such national importance and urgency and in such a short amount of time.

In a sense, on March 1, 2003, the Department of Homeland Security became the largest IPO ever.  We became a "public sector offering" staked in the security of our country and, as such, everyone in the country, and the world, having a stake in its success.

From the word "go," we had roughly as many divisions as GE and as many employees as Federal Express.  In fact, one of the first things we had to do was essentially terminate 180,000 people on February 28th and rehire them the next day, on March 1st ... without a delay in their paycheck.  But more than 22 agencies and 180,000 people - we also had 22 different human resources servicing offices, 8 different payroll systems, 19 financial management centers, 13 procurement systems - literally hundreds of legacy systems that had to be consolidated, integrated and upgraded.

What's more, this reorganization required looking beyond old agendas, missions, cultures, histories and processes ... and coming together as one holistic enterprise.  It required - and I would emphasize, finally enabled - once-disjointed employees to rally around a single mission:  to prevent and deter terrorist attacks, to protect against and respond to threats and hazards to our nation ... ultimately, to secure borders but also keep open doors so characteristic of, and essential to, this welcoming and economically thriving country.

At the same time, from the start, we also had to remain operational - that is, while we worked swiftly to get servers up, systems consolidated, a stapler on every desk - we had to be squarely focused on the protection of the country.  

The recombination of agencies created a vast job description for the new Department.  Just to give you a snapshot:  Today, as we have every day since March 1, we patrol 95,000 miles of coastline and navigable waters ... 7,500 miles of borderline with Canada and Mexico.  We screen nearly 1 1/2 million passengers before they board commercial aircraft and 2 1/2 million pieces of luggage that pass through this country's 429 commercial airports.  We inspect tons of imported food products ... review thousands of visa and green card applications.  We work with states, cities and citizens to help them prepare and recover from emergencies - whether acts of man or Mother Nature.  We review dozens of technology proposals, some 500 cybersecurity reports and more than 1,000 pieces of intelligence. We're in constant daily communication with authorities throughout the country to safeguard our nation's most critical infrastructure - bridges and water supplies, phone and cyber systems, airports and shipping lanes, chemical and nuclear facilities, hospitals and laboratories - just about everything that keeps this country operational and economically strong.

And so if you look at Homeland Security from a business perspective, we are in a diverse "risk management" business.  Our marketplace competition are terrorists - shrewd, agile, calculating.  Our Corporate Board consists of 535 members - that's Congress.  We can't run this entity like a private sector business, but we can apply various business principles to what we do every day.  And we do.  We laid out a clear set of management and leadership strategies and worked with full speed to quickly and ably meet them.  And, we established strategic goals for the department and hold our workforce accountable for achieving those goals.

Create the Team:  180,000 People Strong

The greatest anxiety in anyone's life - personally or professionally - is the unknown.  What we wanted our employees to know was that they were now at the core of a unified mission, no longer at the periphery.  With only three months between bill signing and the merger taking effect, we had to work quickly to minimize worker anxiety while preserving productivity. Certainly it was outside the "Washington way of things" - to speak to your employees before you were even confirmed by the Senate to do the job - but we did because it was just that important.

Good leadership requires being a good listener.  It is a critical communication skill.  If you don't have a deeply felt respect for your employees - their concerns and ideas - then respect for you and the organizational mission won't be returned.  So we held a town hall meeting with employees; we spoke, we listened, we answered questions.  Many employees, understandably, just wanted to know - do I still have a job?  They wanted to know about salary, health benefits, new reporting structures.  We couldn't tell people things weren't going to change - because after all, things would change ... they were supposed to change ... and all the better for them and for our country.  But we could tell them what we knew.  And that was important to do as soon as news of this new Department was announced.  

Clearly what was initially critical to guiding this combined workforce ... and guarding the country ... was building a first-rate leadership team.  Aside from the normal and expected slowdown of the confirmation process, we worked quickly to identify and, ultimately, integrate an extraordinary group of people to lead our functional responsibilities.  First we had to look to people who had a deep knowledge in their area of expertise - but also who were willing to blend what they know and what they've done with both new thinking and group thinking.  A reorganization of this kind comes with its element of hassle not to mention pure hard work.  We needed aptitude but also attitude.  We needed people who had a great sense of history-making and were fully committed to the mission.  

We also needed leaders who understood that titles don't convey leadership.  A title suggests little more than a chain of command, which may get you compliance to minimal standards but not commitment, which is emotionally and intellectually different.  Commitment translates into hours and effort and passion for what you're trying to achieve together as an organization. If you exude confidence and lead by example, rather than title, people will respond.  

As a leader, you have to have faith in yourself.  As Adlai Stevenson once said, "It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny sitting on a horse."  I don't know how my leadership team looks on a horse - but I know they're skilled, principled, confident, entrepreneurial, good-hearted people ... and I'm fortunate to have them by my side.

Establish a Focus for the Leadership Team and General Workforce

So we had a team - a leadership team as well as an energized, dedicated group of border patrol agents, port security personnel, TSA screeners, Coast Guard members, intelligence analysts, disaster relief workers - men and women nationwide, and worldwide, who were committed to the fullest protection of our nation and our people.  As with any private sector merger, this public sector merger was likely to have a few bumps, but the operational security of this nation had to remain smooth ... remain paramount.  So our management challenge was to focus our team on their responsibilities, without any disruption of service to the mission.

In any task you undertake, if everything becomes a priority, nothing gets done.  Or rather, nothing gets done well.  You have to have a clear set of priorities - know what needs to be done first - and what next and what next and what next.  We had a framework of priorities - a clear and well-defined charter laid out in the President's National Strategy for Homeland Security.   The Department of Homeland Security was the primary engine that would drive that strategy - along with other federal partners as well as governors, mayors and private sector leaders.  But we knew, we were the catalyst for getting things done.  And so we sharpened our focus and went to work.  In a short amount of time, we began to layer defenses ... build multiple perimeters ... put them in and around airports, seaports and land borders.  We quickly assessed vulnerabilities and launched measures to correct them.  It was a first-things-first approach, done fast but done well - to carry out the guidelines set out by the President.  Now, as a Department, we have completed our own strategic plan that includes a vision, mission, strategic goals, core values, principles and action plans that will take us into the future.

Redefine Federalism

And let me emphasize:  This is a national strategy.  Homeland Security is about much more than the horizontal melding of 22 agencies and multiple systems.  The attacks of 9-11 required a whole new philosophy of how we secure the country - a philosophy of shared leadership and shared responsibility ... in essence, a new notion of federalism.  Because, given the scope of what occurs here every day and every minute, it's clear that the protection of this nation cannot be micro-managed from Washington, DC.  Instead, it must be a priority in every city, every neighborhood, and every home across America.  And so, homeland security in the 21st century is really about the integration of a nation - led by national leaders, but also governors, mayors, county officials, airline personnel, border patrol agents, law enforcement, business leaders - citizens everywhere.  

In other words, it's about partnerships. So immediately in 2001, we began working with state and local partners to improve coordination and delineate chains of command.  We have a large shared agenda, ranging from sharing and responding to threat information and building up emergency preparedness capabilities.  We also provide our government partners at the state and local level with resources to help them achieve this critical mission.  Since March 1, 2003, we've made available homeland security grants totaling more than $8 billion to help them with those efforts.  But we're not just giving out checks.  We're requiring strategic plans from all the states and territories to help ensure that these funds are spent in a smart and focused way.

We took a similar approach with members of the private sector.  Nearly 85 percent of America's critical infrastructure is owned by private business.  Al-Qaeda has already made it known that they're out to destroy our economy.  We know: institutions have to trust institutions; leaders have to trust leaders.  So we started by inviting business people to the discussion table early on and sharing information.  We needed to get a business "buy-in" to help us help them protect their fiscal assets and protect their employees.  But also, when you're talking about chemical and nuclear facilities, oil refineries and power plants, we need them to help us protect our citizens and our way of life.  

Key to good risk management in the terrorist-fighting business is to build up your protections so we are less vulnerable to attack.  Our role has been to perform vulnerability assessments, provide training and collaborate on security standards.  And, quite frankly, to convey that good security is good business.  We've had highly successful collaborations with the private sector in securing the supply chains through their participation in known shipper programs at land, sea and airports.  And I have to say, we've had a strong response - offered with a sense of urgency and commitment to do what's necessary to protect the country.  Again, shared leadership ... but also shared responsibility.  

Forge New Capabilities

Any business understands, you're always trying to improve your old products.  But you also want to bring brand new products to market to respond to competition and evolving consumer sophistication.  The same can be said of Homeland Security.  One of our charges was and continues to be to create brand new capabilities, which we are affecting partly through reorganization and functional integration ... and partly by creating things out of whole cloth - capabilities generated by our Science and Technology and Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection divisions.  

For example, one of the first things we did as a new Department was reorganize our border functions in a way that would create one bureau dedicated to securing our border, one dedicated to enforcement responsibilities and another to facilitating the process for lawful immigration.  In creating that trifecta, we established better morale, improved service, shorter delays and tighter security.  We also accelerated and unified the border inspection process by taking three once-disparate faces of government, three chains of command, three different folks in three different uniforms ... and cross-training them to do each other's job.  This established "one face" at the border - one officer, one uniform, now trained to address all three inspection needs ... with new technological tools, long promised by their legacy agencies, quickly delivered by their new agency, DHS, to help them better do their jobs.  Also, an extension of that program is US-VISIT, which as most of you know, we launched in January at major airports and seaports across the country.  Since then, US-VISIT has sped the processing of more than 1 million legitimate passengers and matched more than 100 potential entrants against criminal watch lists.

As I said, we're also creating new capabilities through functional integration.  Those 22 different human resource servicing offices I mentioned earlier are now down to 7; those 8 different payroll systems are now down to 3; the 19 original financial centers are now down to 10; 13 procurement systems, down to 8, and so forth.  We've spent most of the last year working with representatives of all our employees to create one personnel system that rewards the kind of agility, innovation and extra commitment so critical to our success.  The proposed regulations to establish this system will be announced very soon.  All of this consolidation, all of this streamlining, is reducing costly overlap and duplication that once weighed down "old government" and is creating "new government" state-of-the-art "smart systems" for the 21st-century way in which we now must work.

But again, we've also created new divisions that previously didn't exist to generate innovative approaches and greater capabilities to ensure public safety.  After all, every day we must operate with the knowledge that our competition - terrorists - are changing based on how we change.  As we shore up one vulnerability, they work to uncover another.  

But as the President has said, "Our enemies are not idle, and neither are we."  I can assure you - we've made great progress in the developing stages of new technologies - radiation detection devices, bio-agent sensitive alarms, sensors that can detect dangerous pathogens when they are released.  We've instituted new protective measures - seen and unseen - to safeguard everything from our nation's vast web of computer networks to our vast array of byways, bridges and buildings.  As you can guess, the challenge of our time is not simply to change - but to leave nothing to chance.  And the entrepreneurial spirit driving Homeland Security, all across the country, is making sure we remain forward-thinking ... and as quickly adaptable as our enemy.

Establish Organizational Identity and Integrity

Like any new organizational entity, we had to move quickly to establish an organizational identity.  Visually, that meant branding - a new Departmental seal, for example as well as Department of Homeland Security patches, pins and uniforms.  We were resolute that the hodge-podge of logos and seals developed by agencies and programs over the decades would be eliminated.  And so, by the first quarter of 2005, all of our assets from signs, to patrol cars, to hovercraft and boats will display our unified identity.  Branding serves a number of purposes for us:  it introduces us to the public and hopefully reassures people that there’s a strong force protector at work 24-7 on their behalf.  It signals a vast presence to our enemies, and provides our employees with a greater sense of belonging. One team, one fight - and they are a part of it.  

That's where the creation of a cultural identity comes in.  Now I'm not a big fan of the word "culture."  It sounds like something you grow in a Petrie dish.  But I do believe that good leaders create environments where trust and teamwork are valued, performance is recognized and people feel compelled to do their best.  Part of leadership is vesting in people.  You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you.  As I've learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership; if they feel empowered by you - they will magnify your ability to lead. Trust is a great force multiplier.

Organizational excellence is paramount to what we do - because we have to work well in order to win the war. That's why we're building a culture that promotes mutual respect and accountability.  We're building an environment where everyone feels they count ... and knows they are counted on.  We're building a Department that strikes out to create the model agency for the new century.  Nothing less will do.

Set and Manage Expectations of Stakeholders

It was critically important for this new Department, from our earliest days on, to set realistic expectations.  Homeland Security has many constituencies:  Congress, the public as well as our state, local, private sector and international partners.

From the outset, we made it clear:  we are "an agency in a hurry."  We are relentlessly in pursuit of our goals - the foremost being the preservation of our freedoms and our security.  But, from the outset, we knew that success would be difficult to measure.  Internally, you have to define success for your employees.  Otherwise, they don't have any sense of progress.  That's fairly easy to do; we can measure progress by completion of initiatives and the timeframes under which we deliver them.  

Externally, it's a bit more difficult.  We know that we've disrupted terrorist networks, thwarted attacks and better trained and prepared our nation should an attack occur.  But the reality - and thus the expectation we work under every day - is that we can make no guarantees.  In an age when threats come packaged in a suitcase or envelope, when terrorists have access to the same web technologies as we do, the war is hard fought and ever-evolving each and every day.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

So it's particularly important from a management perspective that we communicate with our constituencies as much as possible.  So we tell our story to Congress; last year we testified before Congress more than 120 times.  We take those opportunities to talk about what we're achieving, and what we need to achieve more.  We talk to our partners, so that we can share threat information and implement the best protective measures ... and build capabilities across the country.  And we explain ourselves to the American public at every turn so they understand our policies and procedures and what they can do to help both their own families and their communities.

Today we can also communicate this:  That we've made measurable, visible progress during our first year of work.  But we know there is more to do.  So we will continue to ensure the momentum we have established, sustain and expand our first-year successes and develop new means to defend and protect our country.  We will serve as other generations have served during moments of great challenge - with persistence, grace, fortitude and moral certainty.

A Nation of Leaders

It's been said that "a great and free country is not merely defense and protection.  For every earnest spirit, it is opportunity and inspiration.  The best of each being given to all, the best of all returns to each."  To be sure, in a 21st-century threat environment, our nation will continue to face many management challenges.  But with those challenges will come opportunities; opportunities to preserve freedom and security ... and lead, as only these United States can.

I think my dad, who never lived to witness the tragic day of 9-11, would be proud to see the nation that has since taken shape.  America has become a nation of leaders - from citizens here at home ... to our soldiers overseas ... to everyone who so quickly, patriotically, compassionately, intelligently and willingly took on a collective mission - to keep America safe and free.  

That's what leaders do.  They challenge the moment.  They do great things together.  They "become the change they want to see in the world."  

I have every confidence that this sense of leadership is abundantly present in this room.  May we continue to summon that leadership to our best efforts.  

Thank you.

*     *     *

This page was last modified on 02/11/04 00:00:00