Peter W. Preuss, Ph.D., Director,

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Coping with Change in Turbulent Times
Moving from Good to GREAT!
Presentation for ORDs Managers Workshop and
Division Directors Meeting November 5, 2008

• Peter W. Preuss, Ph.D., Director,
• National Center for Environmental Assessment

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Incremental change sucks!! Buy-in is
overrated!!...and Stakeholders are
inconsequential!!!
Do you believe that?
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Transforming ORDs Business ModelThe Hedgehog
Concept

• Extensive studies by J. Collins revealed that
  organizations which have made a sustained
  transformation from good to great all shared a
  single concept they used as a frame of reference
  the Hedgehog Concept
• The Hedgehog Concept is founded on a deep
  understanding of an organization along three
  dimensions

• What are we deeply passionate about?
• What can we excel at? (Be the best)
• What drives our resource engine?

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They are extinct in the wild Wait for it but
some still exist in ORD. No one in this room, of
course!!
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CHANGE IN ORD Going From Good to GREAT

• The Greek poet Archilochus (7th Century, B.C.E.)
  said The fox knows many things, but the
  hedgehog knows one big thing.
• The hedgehog concept is not a goal to be the
  best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to
  be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an
  understanding of what you can be best at. The
  distinction is absolutely crucial.

• Those who built the good-to-great companies
  were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. Those
  who led the comparison companies tended to be
  foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of
  the Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered,
  diffused, and inconsistent. (From The Hedgehog
  Concept, J. Collins)

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Change, BIG Change, has happened and is happening
in ORD and successfully!!
My experiences

• Creating the Office of Science Policy (OSP)
• Expanding the National Center for Environmental
  Research (NCER)
• Refocusing the National Center for Environmental
  Assessment (NCEA)

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Change, BIG Change, has happened and is happening
in ORD
My experiences

• Creating OSP
• Expanding NCER
• Refocusing NCEA

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Creating of OSP
OSRI Office of Science and Research Integration
OTTRS Office of Technology Transfer and
Regulatory Support
OSP Office of Science Policy
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ORDs Office to Integrate and Communicate Science
Results

• Problem
• Large number of offices in ORD, each dealing
  independently with EPA programs and regions
• Programs and regions would go directly to the ORD
  office that they knew would give them a favorable
  response
• These were bad ORD budget years. ORD offices
  became contract labs to programs much of the
  funding coming from programs
• Little, if any, cross-ORD coordination or
  communication
• Corrections
• Understanding that ORD needed to coordinate and
  communicate a single ORD face to the rest of
  the Agency
• Create new office that reported directly to the
  AA
• Proposal to AA included the establishment of
  small teams to interface with each of the media
  offices
• Interact with appropriate ORD offices/scientists
  and relay in unified fashion information to the
  programs facilitate resolution of disagreements
  among ORD scientists
• Results
• Single ORD interface with the rest of the Agency
• Consistency, coordination, communication

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Change, BIG Change, has happened and is happening
in ORD
My experiences

• Creating OSP
• Expanding NCER
• Refocusing NCEA

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Expanding ORDs Extramural Grants Program
OER Office of Exploratory Research
NCERQA National Center for Environmental
Research and Quality Assurance
NCER National Center for Environmental
Research
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Expanding ORDs Extramural Grants Program

• Problem
• Large number of offices in ORD each funding
  grants, cooperative agreements, IAGs, etc.
• There was an Exploratory Grants Program, but no
  GRANTS PROGRAM just a series of individual,
  unrelated grants
• No cross-ORD coordination or communication
• External researchers could not depend on
  long-term ORD funding for a multi-year, complex
  project
• Thus, no external researcher could build a career
  based on EPA funding capacity
• ORD had poor relationship with the academic
  community
• Corrections
• Build a significant and coordinated program that
  is
• Relevant to EPA needs
• Makes a difference to environmental protection
• Brings EPA to the forefront in funding research
• Develops true partnership with academic research
  community
• Results
• Grants and fellowship program that is uniquely
  EPA
• Dependable partnership with academia
• ORD recognition and influence increased

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Change, BIG Change, has happened and is happening
in ORD
My experiences

• Creating OSP
• Expanding NCER
• Refocusing NCEA

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NCEA Focus on Areas of Excellence

• Past BOSC reviews (1997, 2001) remarked that NCEA
  was a mile wide and an inch deepnot good!
• There were many people in NCEA who worked on
  individual projects that they convinced the RCTs
  to support
• Corrections needed
• Review all activities across the organization
• Determine selected areas of emphasis
• Phase out or eliminate unrelated work
• Develop multi-year plan for human health risk
  assessment work
• Continue to focus NCEAs scope and mission
• Results
• Some hard feelings
• A few staff found other jobs

• And

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NCEAs 2007 BOSC Review

• The Subcommittee believes that the HHRA Program
  has a comprehensive and logical framework for
  producing high- quality risk assessments and for
  managing internal and external review
  processes.
• The focus on risk assessment has allowed the
  HHRA Program to serve as a center for risk
  assessment methodology development.
• The HHRA Program has been highly responsive to
  the needs of the program offices and regions.
• The Subcommittee found the science that the HHRA
  Program is using in its risk assessments to be
  state-of-the- art, and that the research
  conductedis forward looking and cutting edge.

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Incremental change sucks!! Buy-in is
overrated!!...and Stakeholders are
inconsequential!!!
What have we learned about change in ORD?
AND gtgtgt
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So, What are the lessons from these three efforts
at change?

• In ORD, we need the full support of the AA and
  the AAs Deputies.
• We need partner(s) to succeed
• There is no need to reinvent the wheel - others
  have traveled the same road - use the lessons
  they learned
• Build a constituency that will support the
  change for a long time

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• Make sure that if you are going undertake big
  change, that your boss is 100 on board.
• The importance of buy-in from senior management
  cannot be overstated.

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ORD Future State

• ORD is recognized as the go-to organization for
  solving problems of national/international
  significance through integrated,
  multi-disciplinary research
• All ORD employees at all levels of the
  organization understand that our strength is in
  conducting integrated, multi-disciplinary
  research and are individually and corporately
  engaged (silos removed)
• Research portfolio reflects growing emphasis on
  decision support and translational science
  focused on problems of national/international
  significance
• Science communication transcend traditional
  scientist-to-scientist and peer-reviewed journal
  articles
• Effectively engaged/communicating with
  stakeholders that directly affect our revenue
  stream
• ORD leaders are recognized both within and
  outside EPA for their capability to deliver on
  our mission
• ORD has goals about which we are passionate and
  which allow us to demonstrate that we are the
  best
• ORD embraces change, and, importantly

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Dont let this happen to you!!