EXHIBIT A Why business and government exchange executives Herman L. Weiss Reprinted from Harvard Business Review July-August 1974 No. 74411 Why business and government exchange executives Featuring a conversation among executives exchanged between business and government Herman L. Weiss 129 It sometimes seems that an impermeable membrane separates business and government, preventing unmuffled communication and dampening out understanding. To encourge more open, relaxed elations between the public and the private sectors, the President's Commission on Personnel Interchange arranges for managers from each sector to work in the opposite one for a year or more. In the colloquium presented here, five executives discuss the benefits they derived from the program, some of the differences they encountered in working in each sector, and, notably, the ease with which they were able to surmount some of these differences. The record of their experience suggests that the two sectors can and must work together more closely. In the opening and closing sections of the article, Mr. Weiss tells why the program was established, how it is administered, and the steps being taken to improve it. He devotes the main body of the text to the colloquium so that the reader can view through the eyes of the participants what has actually been happening in both sectors. Mr. Weiss is vice chairman of the board and executive officer of the General Electric Company. Not since World War II has it been so apparent that the federal government and private business must act as full-time partners to deal with the monumental problems that confront contemporary society. Yet the public and the private sectors are beset with misunderstandings about each other. Too often this leads to outright conflicts that greatly reduce the nation's capacity for doing what must be done. At a time when harmony is all-important, discord impedes progress. The problem is a people problem stemming from the fact that those in government and those in business approach their tasks in different ways, though not so differently as is generally suspected. To solve this problem and to satisfy all the nation's yearnings for equal opportunity and preservation of the natural environment, for such enormous projects as Apollo and the development of effective energy and transportation programs-the country must foster sympathetic understanding among those who make the crucial decisions in both the public and the private sectors. The United States needs a new host of hybrid leaders, men and women who have firsthand experience in solving the problems and melding the methods of both government and business. Leaders in industry ought to have sufficient background to serve on government advisory boards or to hold high appointive positions up to cabinet rank: those in government should understand how to work with companies, large and small, in the execution of large projects and in the management of social and environmental problems. The President's Executive Interchange Program was formed to build up a cadre of such leaders. (This program is the chief activity of the President's Commission on Personnel Interchange.) The program chooses rising executives of exceptional ability and promise from each sector and exposes them to the ways in which the opposite sector works and thinks. During an interchange period of one or two years, each participating manager holds down a full-time job of considerable importance in a host company or government agency. Under its charter, the commission can arrange for the interchange of other kinds of people-of scientists or inventors, for example, or public relations experts-but its lean resources have led it to concentrate exclusively on the interchange of executives as its priority program. At present, 45 executives from the private sector are at work in critical managerial jobs in various agencies of the federal government. Meanwhile, 35 from government are busy in similarly critical positions in private companies. In the next group, coming on board late this summer, we expect that the numbers will be somewhat greater, with more than 50 people from each sector participating. The reader might look at the details on the program presented in the ruled insert on page 136. As explained there, participation has increased substantially since the first year. How successful is the interchange program? One way-I think the most valid way-to evaluate the success of the program is to listen to individual participants' reactions. Thus the bulk of this article consists of an informal colloquium in which five former participants speak for themselves, exchanging ideas and opinions about their participation in the program. These five executives were picked because they are highly articulate men; also, they happened to be available for the symposium. They are: Percy E. Baynes National Aeronautics and Space Administration James S. Dimling Marathon Oil Company Francis X. Fee General Accounting Office David A. Lehman International Business Machines Corporation David Sternlight Atlantic Richfield Company The colloquium The moderator of the colloquium was George A.W. Boehm, formerly a Fortune editor and now a freelance writer. He structured his questioning loosely, and the participants spoke freely. To preserve the flavor of the conference, we present the whole symposium here in question-and-answer form. Question: First, what about the two stereotypes? People talk about the sheep and the wolves-the government executive who goes strictly by the book and is cor cerned, above all, about personal security, and the business executive who is a ruthless go-getter, hungry for success. Does your personal experience in |