Building the team that will run the state

How governors build the leadership system that turns priorities into results

In brief

• Governors must define how the executive enterprise will operate before determining who will fill individual roles.
• Effective transitions move from desired outcomes to required capabilities to leadership roles before selecting individual appointees.
• Integrating political appointees, trusted advisors and career leaders into a cohesive enterprise delivers results on day one.

The mistake many transitions make

Most transition discussions begin with names. Who should be chief of staff? Who should lead transportation? Who should run health and human services?

Before selecting leaders, a governor must prioritize what the administration is trying to achieve and when, which capabilities are required to achieve it, which capabilities already exist within the career government team, and, therefore, which skills and experience are needed in the political appointee(s). This enables the transition organization to build a slate of political appointees that meet the specific needs of the agencies they would join or lead. Only then can leaders be selected to fill the roles the system requires. In other words, start with the operating model, not the people that fill the roles.

Build the leadership architecture before filling the roles

Successful transitions begin by defining the outcomes they want to achieve, identifying the capabilities required to achieve them, and determining the leadership roles needed to deliver results.

A single desired outcome often requires multiple capabilities and leadership roles. If economic development is a priority, the administration may require fiscal analysis, legislative strategy, workforce expertise, infrastructure coordination and stronger cross-agency delivery. If workforce modernization is a priority, it may require operating experience, technology leadership, labor relationships and the ability to manage change across multiple agencies. Ultimately, the objective is to build a leadership team that collectively has the capabilities required, and one that enables accountability to produce results.

Sequence matters more than speed

Every transition faces the same constraint: available time is painfully limited. For critical personnel decisions, the instinct is often to move quickly and fill as many vacancies as possible. Instead, we recommend focusing on the key positions that unlock an operating rhythm that enables the administration to fulfill campaign promises, which we call the Governor’s Operating Core.

The Governor’s Operating Core typically establishes the operating rhythm of the administration and is comprised of the following individuals: chief of staff, budget director, general counsel, appointments lead, communications director and leaders responsible for the governor’s highest-priority initiatives.

The objective is not to fill every seat before inauguration, but to staff the positions that enable decision-making, hiring, coordination and execution.

Incoming administrations often focus on political appointments and overlook an established and valuable asset: experienced career leaders. These individuals understand agency operations, state and federal requirements, workforce challenges, technology limitations and the practical realities of implementation. They know where previous reforms succeeded and where they stalled. They “know” the agency. They will be critical to the success or failure of initiatives within an organization.

Retaining institutional knowledge does not mean preserving the status quo; it means avoiding unnecessary relearning. The strongest administrations pair fresh leadership with operational memory, using continuity to strengthen and not impede the momentum of change.

Selection is only half the job

Many transitions invest significant effort in identifying appointees and relatively little effort in integrating them; but a cabinet does not become a team automatically. Agency leaders bring different experiences, assumptions, leadership styles and personalities. Left unmanaged, those differences can create friction and fragmentation.

Strong governors treat appointments as a lifecycle and onboard leaders as a cohort. Recruitment, vetting and ethics reviews prepare individuals for service; shared priorities, decision-making processes and accountability mechanisms prepare them to operate as an executive leadership team.

What “good” looks like before inauguration

By inauguration, a transition team should be able to answer five questions with confidence:

1. Which constituent outcomes should the administration achieve in its first 100 days, first year and full term?
2. Which enterprise capabilities are required to achieve them?
3. Which leadership roles are needed to provide those capabilities?
4. Which strengths and institutional knowledge already exist within the current government workforce?
5. Where are the most important leadership gaps that must be addressed to achieve the administration’s desired outcomes?

If those answers are clear, the transition has accomplished something more important than staffing an organization. It has designed the executive operating model that will govern the state starting on day one.

Voters will never evaluate the quality of an appointments process, but rather whether government works. Do priorities advance? Or stall? Are services functioning? Improving?

Those outcomes depend not simply on the individual leaders a governor appoints, but on whether the team collectively has the capabilities to deliver.

This is the third article in our multi-part gubernatorial transition series. Our first, “Ready to lead with the rolling start readiness score,” focused on what candidates can prepare before election day; our second, “The 72-hour transition,” focused on the immediate shift from campaigning to governing. Next, we’ll look at “Budgeting for outcomes: turning the first budget into governing strategy.”

Mark Vineyard, Ernst & Young LLP; and Nita Bhat, Ernst & Young LLP contributed to this article.