The biggest change the program made in my attitude-I joined the Department of Transportation from IBM-was the recognition of the quality of the people I worked with. I was very impressed with their intellectual ability and with the hard-driving nature of many people in the super grades. I gained a great deal of respect for these people and confidence in their ability to manage their agency, and I guess I had not held that viewpoint before. I used to feel that the ordinary bureaucrat was below average in capability.

That was not the case. The super grades were largely filled with people who had grown up in the agency. They were dedicated, they worked very hard, and I think I worked harder there than I ever did at IBM, every single day and weekend from October first to

April first, with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. I got so involved, in fact, that I didn't do some of the social things I was looking forward to when I went to Washington. But we made some lifelong friends in government and also in some of the embassies. And you can never attach a value to such personal gains; you simply have to put them down as an incredible plus.

Question:

Is the decision-making process greatly different in the public and the private sectors?

James Dimling:

I found it so. The government process is much more circuitous. There are more trade-offs to be examined, more compromises to be made. Political influences are prominent in decision making within government, but they aren't really an important factor in industry.

I found, at times, a reluctance to make some of the tough, day-to-day decisions. Some people tended to retreat to long-range planning as a kind of securit blanket. In industry, I'd say, there is more of an involvement in day-to-day operating decisions at the expense of long-range planning.

Well, there are a number of short-term policies that the government might apply to deal with gasoline shortages. One is rationing; another is taxation; a third is to allow the free-market price to rise until it discourages demand. Now, each one affects different income groups differently. Rationing, for example, guarantees people with low incomes as much gasoline as anyone else. On the other hand, a high free-market price or much higher taxation would give the affluent an advantage. Then you have to take into account the inflationary impact of much higher gasoline prices. And so on.

The decision gets so complicated that in the end you are sure of only one thing: that there is no right decision, but there is probably a decision that

David Sternlight Participation period: 1972-1973

Job before participation Director

Economic Planning Litton Industries Beverly Hills, California

Job during participation
Deputy Director

Office of Policy Development
Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C.

Present job

Manager

Political Economics Group Atlantic Richfield

Los Angeles, California

will seem to be best on many different grounds. So you settle for the best of a series of alternatives, none of which is really close to ideal. Each decision seems to require a slightly different process, almost a unique process in many cases.

Question:

That would also apply for broad policy issues?

David Sternlight:

Very much so. That's one reason why government policy making is quite different from that in industry. I noticed that the people in government tend to live more from issue to issue. They tend to go from subject to subject, and once a given subject is dealt with, it tends to disappear-to go to an operational level or to vanish completely-at least, until the next time that issue comes up.

When I was in the Department of Commerce, one of the first things that commanded attention was the question of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations and East-West trade. Then we moved on to questions of employment, then to improving the productivity of Amer ican industry, then to how we could capitalize on the advantage of U.S. technology in international trade, then to currency revaluation as a solution to our trade deficit.

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Executive exchange

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Question:

Could you compare that with your industrial experience? Is there much tendency in business to jump from problem to problem in rapid succession?

David Sternlight:

No, the procedure seems much more stable. Instead of being continually shifted from one compartment to another for successive reevaluations, the task of structuring a problem and its solution seems to follow an underlying thread of policy. This can be done because of the much narrower effect a decision has on a particular corporation, even on the largest and most diversified one. The same issues in different forms keep coming up over and over again. After a while, you build a base of experience and expertise that allows you to deal with each issue in the context of everything that's gone on before.

Another reason for this big difference is that the government's policy-making shops respond drastically to a change in top management, such as a new cabinet secretary. Then basic issues are commonly rediscovered and thought out all over again. The bureaucracy-that is, the civil service-provides a kind of continuity, but it's not the strong sort of continuity you find in industry.

Even though industrial companies may change their leadership from time to time and even make some major shifts in policy direction, I have never observed the kind of inefficiency and inertia that often follows an upheaval at the top of a government agency. When this kind of confusion does occur in a company, it can be the sign of an impending inability to operate at all.

David Lehman:

I'd like to add something here. Basically, I found that I probably had more responsibility in government than I did at IBM; government problems affect the entire nation, and some of the things I was working on will affect the world transportation system, so I was very much impressed by the scope and complexity of the problem. On the other hand, I feel that I had more flexibility at IBM-I could react quicker.

But, looking back at my government experience, I now realize that some extremely complex things did get done, despite the handicap of inflexibility. What impresses me so much about the government is the fact that the people there have to amalgamate a number of diverse points of view and that they actually succeed in doing so. This is really the es

May I add to what Mr. Baynes has said? I also found that the turnaround time is very quick in industry as compared with government. In industry, unless a decision is made, a chance to make a profit may be lost irrevocably. In government, the reason that people are a little reluctant to make a decision that quickly, and the reason for having such a long chain of command before somebody finally does come to a decision, is that public opinion is hanging over your head all the time. The government worker is very much aware of what the public will think if he chooses the wrong course, and of how many people it may affect. Sometimes his social conscience overrides any thoughts he may have of what a decision will do to advance or retard his career-especially in the short run.

Nonetheless, because of my New York experience, I realized that our bunch in Washington takes an inordinately long time in putting out a finished product-in our case, a report to Congress.

There are ways to speed up that process, by deviating from the traditional approach of accountants. Mostly, it's a matter of bringing in different disciplines to help. The GAO is basically a group of accountants and business administration people. Several years ago we started to get different kinds of people to help us evaluate federal programs-mathematicians, engineers, statisticians, and experts in electronics and computers, among others.

While I was in New York, I had a chance to work with an extremely diverse group of people, and it

For me it was just the right time. I had had ten years at IBM. I was brought into the Department of Transportation, and while I did not have specific experience in civil aviation and other transportation matters, I had had a great deal of experience working on unstructured problems. It was possible for me to spend a year away without injuring either myself or IBM, I felt I had a great deal to contribute, I was open to all suggestions, and I didn't have any particular ax to grind. For me the experience came at an opportune moment.

When I returned to IBM, my new experience had a very beneficial effect on my advancement. IBM has not capitalized directly on my knowledge of transportation, but my experience in Washington has drawn me to the attention of top management. I'm sure it has accelerated my career.

Percy Baynes:

I also entered the program at the right stage. I went to Rockwell in 1972, just when that company had received the authority to design and build the orbiter for the space shuttle program. So, while NASA, my own agency, was phasing out Apollo, I got in on the ground floor of the next very big space project. But, beyond that, the experience broadened my image of the kinds of things I can accomplish personally. It broadened other people's views of me.

Question:

You five men and almost all other executives in the exchange program have spent just about one year