Page 184 - The Drucker Lectures

21

Reinventing Government:

The Next Phase

1994

t is a great pleasure and a great privilege to speak to such a
Idistinguished group and on so important a subject. My title,
as you know, is “Reinventing Government: The Next Phase.”
My topic is: how to build on your achievement. It is a remark-
able and substantial achievement. But is it also a fragile one. It
is a first step.
What comes now is both to consolidate what has been achieved
so far and to break through to a new dimension of achievement.
But before I begin, one caveat: You who are listening to me to-
day, you government people, emphasize the word government in
“reinventing government.” My emphasis has to be on the word
reinventing. Of that, I know a little bit, having worked for half a
century with all kinds of organizations—a good many govern-
ment agencies and state governments, both U.S. and foreign (the
United Kingdom, Canada, Japan); with our own military many
years back; with businesses and labor unions; with churches and
hospitals—on repositioning themselves. It’s a term I prefer to
what you call “reinventing themselves.”
But of government, and especially the entirety of the federal
government, I speak as an outsider, and with considerable trepi-
dation. I simply don’t know enough firsthand about the federal

[ 165