What's the secret to convening a group of competing interests to solve a problem? Deseret News opinion Editor Boyd Matheson asked that of Rich McKeown, co-founder and chairman of Leavitt Partners, a health care consulting business that helps clients "navigate the evolving role of value in health care."
McKeown, a lawyer and former chief of staff to former Utah Gov. and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, co-founded Leavitt Partners with the governor. The pair have also authored the book, "Finding Allies, Building Alliances: 8 Elements that Bring — and Keep — People Together."
Matheson and McKeown talked about some of those elements and how they apply to today's national and geopolitical landscape.
Listen to the full interview on the podcast "Therefore, what?," which can be found at desteretnews.com/opinion or downloaded from iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.
Following is a transcript of the podcast episode, edited for clarity:
Boyd Matheson: It is a pleasure to be joined today by Rich McKeown. Rich was longtime chief of staff to former governor and HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, also the co-founder and chairman of Leavitt Partners, a great thinker. Rich, thanks so much for joining us today.
Rich McKeown: Happy to be here, thanks.
BM: So, as we look at this whole concept around allies and alliances, I really believe this is the most important leadership trait for the 21st century. Tell me where did you and Gov. Leavitt start with this as a concept. And why do you think it's so critical for leaders today?
RM: It's interesting because when Gov. Leavitt was governor, we began to analyze ways that you could accelerate progress. And one of the places that occurred was with the Grand Canyon visibility trust. It was a really interesting process where the federal government came in and said, "We're going to clean up the air over the Grand Canyon." And Gov. (Norm) Bangerter and a number of people surrounding that — the counties, the tribes, the states around the Grand Canyon said, "Well, wait a minute, maybe we can do this." And the federal government gave a five-year moratorium to the states, and Gov. Leavitt inherited the chairmanship of it. And it was interesting because we began to analyze, from the standpoint of what happened, four years went by with everybody kind of thumping the tub on their own behalf, advocating. It was a very traditional kind of, we need this, we need this deal. And somebody raised their hand at the fourth year and said, "You know, we haven’t accomplished very much, and the fact of the matter is, in one more year, they're going to come tell us what to do." And it changed the dialogue. And it changed that like a mediation does often where there's an outbreak of rationality and discussion, that's a conspiracy that is of goodwill. And all of a sudden, people began to frame up a way to solve this problem that was locally generated. And it became a real focal point for our discussions — where are there capacities to accelerate progress, and to do this without the litigation process and the like. And so we followed it through EPA, HHS and in our private practice, we have kind of catalogued and dealt with alliances as a very important way to deal with complex problem-solving.
BM: Fantastic. I think it's so interesting and it's so critical in the complex world that we live in today that people who are sometimes your competitors may also need to be your allies at some point or be part of an alliance to get something else done. Can you give us an example of that?
RM: Sure. It's really fascinating, we look at the world, the world is kind of intuitively organizing itself in networks, and I think it stems from the difference between a mainframe computer model and a network computer model and the power that occurs as a consequence of that, but you see places like airlines that have coalesced themselves around sky clubs and the like to increase the network that they have, to increase the capacity for interaction and the like. One really interesting one is ATMs. ATMs started out as individual bank operations. And each, you may remember seeing this down at an airport or something, we'd see 15 ATMs and they'd all be stretching, you've got to find the one that you used. And the servicing capacity for that and the maintenance capacity was just overwhelming. It was a cost-plus instead of a cost-saver. And so they began to organize — they had a common pain basically. And that was we can't afford to do this. And they began to recognize it in a single component that they shared. Even competitors could gain advantage financially and they could make this a much more efficient operation. And so driven by this pain of financial cost, they began to organize themselves into this network that produced the ATM that we know today.
BM: Yeah, it's so fascinating. We often don't really think in those terms. I often use the example of the NBA and you've got an alliance of owners that come together to form a league and on most nights, you know Danny Ainge and the Boston Celtics want to take out Magic Johnson and the Lakers any way they can, but then those owners also have to get together for collective bargaining agreements, the licensing of swag and hats and jerseys, or to negotiate TV rights. And so while they're fierce competitors, most of the time, they also have this very unique alliance.
RM: And they've created a capacity for a commissioner to have authority. So they've given up some of their own autonomy to a commissioner or in baseball, basketball, football, you name it, and they are willing to do that to create a sense of unity that they all benefit from.
BM: Interesting. And I think there's a really interesting political play here, we look at what we were talking earlier about this idea of dealing with North Korea and the North Korean threat. And so that's a real common pain that I think is felt around the world. What do you do with a nuclear North Korea? And the key to solving or dealing with the North Korea issue, comes down to a very interesting alliance where you have Russia, China and the United States who are being fiercely competitive when it comes to trade issues, tariffs and all kinds of other geopolitical things. But yet they are the key alliance when it comes to dealing with that common pain of what's happening on the Korean Peninsula.
RM: And what you begin to articulate, Boyd, is really an interesting component that brings people together. And that is this idea of common pain. The notion that people look at things from an opportunity standpoint is one thing, but it is easier to bring groups together when there's a pain that you can see that's visible, that's visceral, and that you can feel sufficiently to know that you're better off with the construction of an alliance. And, I agree with you there. And there were other minor players who, in that same region are threatened by North Korea and who looked for the outcome. But you began to look at the drivers and the capacity for this common pain to bring them together at some point in time to begin to deal with this uniformly in a way that really gets progress that could be done in no other way.
BM: So we've talked about this idea of common pain, bringing unique people to the table to deal with specific issues. Again, sometimes it's bringing strange bedfellows, so to speak, to the table to address things, you also raised this idea about leadership, and that how someone has has to lead out even if it requires everyone else to maybe give up a little power. But that's also critical to really functioning in this allies and alliance model.
RM: Yeah, one of the things we've found is that you have to have both a convener who is of sufficient stature or bring people together. And certainly presidents of Russia and China and/or premiers of China and the president of the United States have the capacity to convene this kind of thing. If Bill Gates wants to convene a group of people on malaria, they're going to show up. And you see this happen at the local level where PTA presidents sort of have the capacity by virtue of their status to bring people together in the school community. So problems can be solved at lots of different levels, if the right person convinced the group has a vision, to say, "Are you feeling the same common pain that I am?" And that's really what drives a convener to bring people together.
BM: I also think it's really fascinating — one of the other elements that you and Governor Leavitt talk about in the book is this representatives of substance. So you have to have the leader, but then you've also got to have these people of substance who can carry it out. I sort of look at it as the diplomats, if you look at it in geopolitical terms, you may have the presidents of the nations having the photo op and the press conference and the private one-on-one meeting. But if anything's ever going to really produce results, it's going to be on the backs of some really hardworking diplomats who were going to do the hard work and heavy lifting of getting it done.
RM: Yeah, and this is really in an alliance dependent on whether it's local, or national or international, has to do with people who have the ability to make decisions. And this thing that over the course of time, we began to analyze these people in terms of their effectiveness. And, and we characterize one part of this as people who have collaborative IQ. And these are people who are empathetic to and have the capacity to understand and listen, and as we've configured these alliances, we've recognized that they are best done when there's a multi-sector group around the table, that the whole group around the table to solve a problem can be there. It enhances their voice, it enhances the strength of their position, and it actually solves a problem instead of creates a system of advocacy, which is what we've lived with so much is, you know, constitutional government's great, but 50 percent plus one, I think everyone could see, there are times when it polarizes and we have lived through that for the last whatever period of decades of time. And, and I think people are beginning to see that you have to get a full spectrum around the table of these representatives to solve problems.
BM: Yeah. And in order to do that, it really is, I think one of the things that we've lost in this collaborative spirit is that when we whenever we talk about collaboration or doing things by consensus, we think that means we have to have 100 percent agreement and consensus is not about 100 percent agreement, it's about 100 percent support once the decision has been made in terms of execution. But often we lose that if we don't go through this process properly.
RM: You point out a really important factor, I think, and that is alliances should be driven by basic consensus decision-making. And what happens in the dynamic of this is entirely different than what happens in a legislative body, or one that's governed by majority vote, because instead of having people try to advocate their position strongly, and to hold cards back and to — this is like trial law, which I participated in a lot and, you know, you're trying to get your position and negate the other. But in this consensus notion, what happens is people actually begin to listen, every voice in the room all the sudden becomes important, and the capacity to start phrases with such things as, you know — what if we try this? Or how about this? Or have we considered this? — become the prelude to a lot of conversations that change dramatically the nature of what you're the discussion itself.
BM: It does, you know, framing things in the form of a question as opposed to a political positioning statement, I think makes all the difference in terms of collaboration. We're in the middle of all kinds of hearings going on on Capitol Hill — we’ll have a big hearing for the next Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge (Brett) Kavanaugh as we get into the fall, we've got House hearings going on around investigations and the FBI and some of the players there. And it seems to me that we've sort of lost that, that in order for a hearing to be a hearing, there actually has to be a little bit of listening going on. And you see so many members of Congress that are just bloviating and making their political points, as you said, it's all posturing, holding some cards back and blasting others. But that doesn't get us to the kind of collaboration that's really going to solve any of our issues.
RM: Don't you think that therefore has to do with the setting itself? In other words, we have in a polarized setting, created a mechanism where we're going to approve a Supreme Court justice, and it becomes a very partisan issue. I mean, you can see the lines going out and the fear mongering that's going on about this discussion. But when you change the table, and you set it differently, and you create people who want to be there because of a common pain they're trying to solve, they’re not advocating for this position, or this person, but we're going to solve a problem, it changes, it does change the nature of the conversation and makes it different, makes it more robust, and it changes it to problem-solving as opposed to advocation.
BM: Yeah, I love the way that you and Gov. Leavitt get to this whole idea of the charter. Of really coming together around what is the problem to be solved or what is it that we want to have this convening really be all about.
RM: This has turned out to be really important. And it's a really — there’ve been some interesting moments as a consequence of this. But you’re referencing a written document that sets out the ground rules, and that sets out with clarity, the purpose for this. And so many groups get together, and they talk theoretically but are unable to move towards action. And it's often because they can't define their purpose. And if they can, and they can record it and put it in writing, then it changes the nature of that conversation and grounds them and what they're going to do. There is a really interesting story — so when we were at the EPA, we conducted some local collaborations of national significance. And one of them surrounded the Great Lakes. And it turned out there were 154, I think, funding agencies from the national government going into various projects on the Great Lakes. And they weren't coordinated, and they were very disparate. And this is a story you could tell about the federal spending in lots of places. So we got authorization to move forward in the form of an executive order from the President to create this, this local collaboration, and we got all of the players around it. And I remember that Mayor Daley was standing next to Mike Leavitt, they went in to sign the charter, and there literally were flags and bagpipes kind of introducing this moment. And I remember that Governor Leavitt reported, Secretary Leavitt at the time, said that Mayor Daley looked at him and said, "This is a big deal, isn’t it?" And there's the formality of creating this changed it from a theoretical discussion to an actual problem-solving exercise. And we're running through a series of elements that over the course of time we've thought were important to the development of alliances, and if you have them, they seem to work pretty well. And if you are absent any of them, you struggle a bit. And that's been our experience. And it's not an academic book, as you know, it’s a book of stories of circumstances that have driven us, but the academicians have looked at it, and, I think, been OK with the way that we framed it, and with the concepts that are there,
BM: Yeah, the concepts are so strong. And as you continue to move through that process, the charter component to me is the great focusing element is excellent. Focus always precedes success. But I love where you went next. Because it's one that I think in organizations and groups, and again, whether it's a business, whether it's a community, whether it's a government, it's all the same. And that's this concept of the northbound train, tell us about that.
RM: Well, you know, you referenced the NATO, and NATO started out in the 1940s in the post-war era, with, I think, 10 or 12 members initially. And there, they had a motivation for common defense. And over the course of time it grew to over 25 or 30 members. What happened over the course of time with the value that was seen there was created, and people wanted to be part of this protective alliance. And that happens as you develop, if you get an alliance going that begins to solve a problem, it's remarkable how the private sector begins to say, this might be the place that this problem gets solved. And we better be on that train and our voice ought to be heard and part of it. And that's really what this is about. It's about trying to create a sufficient momentum that demonstrates that capacity to solve the problem with this group of people. There are some that you've had to create subsets of groups, because you can't accommodate as many people as would like to be there. But you can begin to frame up advisory groups, and the like around them as well.
BM: Yeah. And it's so interesting, whether it's a great presidential leader, I think Reagan had this feeling of northbound train that everybody wanted to get on. Kennedy, when he said we're going to put men on the moon and the whole country said, "I got to get on that train." But you also see it at the local level. It's that, as you mentioned, Rich, it’s that PTA president who just has this vision of what this school is going to be about. And then people don't want to miss out. Some people want to take advantage of the opportunity. But it creates this incredible pull mechanism. So often we're trying to push water uphill as we try to make change or improvement in organizations or communities. But this northbound train creates such a natural pull. I think it's another one of the real critical leadership skills for the 21st century.
RM: It's really I think, you pinpoint a really important area and that is if you can't create for your entity that capacity for people to be interested in it, then and one of the great things about collaboration and alliance work is if they aren't working people go away. Yeah, and you know, it's a voluntary kind of participation in a way and if they see results and see action, they're there, they commit the resources. If they aren't seeing things happen they kind of go yeah maybe this isn't the place for this to happen. And you can get ahead of the game too, you can be way ahead of things and have a great vision but there's not enough common pain to make it work. There's a lot of lot of nuances to the creation of these alliances.
BM: Wonderful. Again the book is "Finding Allies, Building Alliances." We're pleased to be joined today by Rich McKeown. Rich thanks so much for your insight. Thanks for being with us on "Therefore, what?"
RM: Great to be with you. Thanks so much Boyd.