News & Events

July 19, 2004

Commissioner Fortman Invites Staff and Partners to Participate in Bend the Curve Initiative

TO: All DOL Colleagues and Partners

FROM: Laura A. Fortman, Commissioner

DATE: July 19, 2004

RE: Bend the Curve

I would like to take a moment to discuss with you the Bend the Curve initiative. You may have heard references to “Bend the Curve” in recent weeks and wondered-what is it? What does it mean to me? As you may know, my management team and I have recently taken some preliminary steps in planning this project. All of us have participated in a 360° leadership review. As part of that process, a number of you had an opportunity to express your impressions of our leadership. We are using the information you provided to challenge ourselves, and each other, to enhance our skills as a leadership team. In the next few weeks, we’ll be taking additional steps to make sure that your insights and expertise help shape this initiative, and to further explain what “Bend the Curve “is and what it means for the Department. In the meantime, I hope the following information answers some of the questions you may have.

Bend the Curve is an initiative to help us stay focused on the people we serve - both internally and externally, and to look at how we deliver services and figure out how to do it better. There are many challenges currently facing state government and MDOL. Some of them include: a harsh funding environment, with decreasing funding and increasing expenditures; an aging workforce where roughly 50% are over age 50 and 10% are eligible to retire today; gaps (stovepipes) existing between bureaus, restricting the content of the services provided, creating redundancies, costing money and increasing the waiting lists; and a political context of increasing need for accountability and greater competition for scarce dollars.

I have heard that when the Chinese symbol for “crisis” is reversed it takes on a new meaning-it becomes “opportunity.” I suggest that we make that same decision here - turn what many may see as a crisis into an opportunity. Now is an excellent time to assemble as a team and create our future. This is not a “do more with less” scenario. It is about creating fundamental change.

Bend the Curve has two parts to it: technical and cultural. The technical involves learning some tools that will help us examine our processes - how we get our work done - in a methodical and disciplined way. We will look at the processes from the perspective of where and how we add value to the client/customer. When we find areas that are not adding value, we will collectively figure out how to change that. The cultural part involves all of us learning some different ways to think about our work. We will explore how we can embrace changes and strengthen how we do this work together. We’ll look at how we’re organized, what we value and reward, how we treat each other, and what we can expect from each other. In some ways, this is the harder piece of work.

To further explain Bend the Curve, the senior managers and I will be visiting offices during the month of August to discuss this initiative with you. Your participation is vital to the success of Bend the Curve; without it, the initiative will fail.

These discussions will be followed by a series of system-wide working conferences during the first weeks of September. I’m inviting you to participate in a one-day working conference to mobilize our collective wisdom, creativity, knowledge, and energy. At this conference, we will be having conversations about Bend the Curve; to be sure everybody has a shared understanding of what’s involved and to answer any questions that arise following the discussions at your offices. We’ll participate in some technical training so that we have common tools across the Department, and then we’ll create task teams to begin the work.

This working conference is based on the assumption that the future doesn’t just happen - it results, in part, from what we do (or don’t do) today. We want to use this conference to influence our collective future, so that all of us can shape our present actions accordingly.

Your attendance is essential to the work. I want your input, ideas, and participation. Please make every effort to attend.

We are in this together. I look forward to working and learning with you.

/laf

cc: LADS