Pi-Squared Part 5: Sustaining Excellence
by Anita McGahan
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Learn more about Pi-Squared: Private Innovation in the Public Interest at https://pisquared.burnescenter.org.
Welcome to the last post in the five-part series on insights that are emerging from my conversations with thought leaders about supporting companies and other private-sector innovators that want to contribute in a sustainable way to the public interest. This week, I focus on what the conversations with thought leaders emphasize about sustaining excellence. (The prior posts in this series were on creating a compelling aspiration, engaging stakeholders, excelling in value creation, and building resources and capabilities.) Sustaining excellence is where the rubber hits the road on the enduring social impact of an initiative. If what you do is not sustainable on a series of levels, then by definition it cannot be sustained. But even if your project is sustainable, it will not have the impact you want unless it unfolds at a level of excellence that makes your organization distinctive. On criteria that are both quantitative and qualitative, sustained excellence requires a commitment to ongoing innovation and re-investment over time. The conversations that I’m featuring on this topic are with Daphne Baldassari and Henri Hammond-Paul.
1.Initiatives such as Oscars-So-White and Ontario’s comply-or-explain legislation may be first steps but they are not the end of the road on addressing structural bias. Professor Daphne Baldassari wrote her dissertation on structural interventions designed to address structural racism and gender bias. Sustaining excellence on initiatives such as the ones she studied – Oscars-So-White and Ontario’s comply-or-explain legislation – requires a long-term commitment to solving the problems that underlie the first layer of opportunity in relieving systemic bias, but they are not enough on their own to fix systemic problems. In our discussion, Professor Baldassari explains just how pervasive systemic challenges can be. She points to the importance of qualitative and quantitative understanding of the processes that give rise to bias, and the ways in which initiatives must be designed to peel back the layers of problems that become exposed through progress. Our conversation evoked themes also described by Professor Leo Pongeluppe on structural impediments to inclusion
2.Emergencies such as the COVID crises can open opportunities for rapid system change. Henri Hammond-Paul described how, in the State of New Jersey, corporate actors stepped up with housing and transportation resources to relieve critical shortages for essential workers during the pandemic. These experiences revealed the possibilities for overcoming entrenched challenges during crises that might otherwise take years to accomplish. The relationships that developed through these collaborations can be the foundation for enduring change at scale.
3.Over the long run, excellence requires resolving deep tradeoffs, such as between privacy and access through AI-enabled service improvements in government. In the short run, technology can improve service delivery significantly when it is a tool for fulfilling long-overdue commitments. In our conversation, Henri also reflected with Anita on the privacy implications as governmental agencies rely increasingly on AI-enabled tools for service improvements. Overall, our conversation emphasized how tools such as LLMs can improve service dramatically without compromising core principles if they are deployed to deliver on long-overdue initiatives that have been vetted for public concerns like privacy. AI tends to raise our fears about losing control, but many of the applications right now are improvements in established systems. As we get closer to the innovation frontier, of course it will be important to develop systematic understandings of the kinds of structures that we might build on AI-1enabled technologies.
4.Private-sector support for government in the design of public-service systems for excellence is a big opportunity. In reflecting on these two fascinating conversations, Anita sees significant opportunities for redesigning systems as AI-enabled technologies are implemented. Redesigning systems at scale will require thinking carefully about the structural problems that are embedded in old approaches. Getting the redesign right is imperative for sustaining excellence.
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