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William D. Eggers

William D. Eggers

Contributor

William D. Eggers is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Government Insights. A noted expert on government reform, he has authored or co-authored nine books, including Bridgebuilders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems, Delivering on Digital, The Solution Revolution, If We Can Put a Man on the Moon and Governing by Network.

Eggers' writings have won numerous awards, including the Louis Brownlow award for best book on public management, the Sir Antony Fisher award for best book promoting an understanding of the free economy, and the Roe Award for leadership and innovation in public policy research. A former manager of the Texas Performance Review and director of e-Texas, he has advised governments around the world, and his commentaries have appeared in dozens of major media outlets.

The state brought together a remarkable coalition and waived red tape to get traffic on I-95 moving again just 12 days after a bridge collapsed. That kind of focus on results, not procedures, can help restore trust in government.
Traditional approaches to the kinds of complex issues governments face stymie creative work. Houston has been making significant progress on reducing homelessness with a process of bridge building among stakeholders.
State and local leaders will face implementation challenges of scale, complexity and accountability. To mitigate those and maximize the benefits of new federal programs, they need to have the right strategies in place.
It’s an opportunity for governments to dramatically improve access to critical services, guiding people step by step through what too often is an unnecessarily arduous process.
Too many programs place the burden of complexity on citizens, leaving those who need services the most struggling to access them. To include marginalized users, services should be designed for them.
Rapidly maturing technologies hold the key for dramatic improvements across an institution that was designed for incremental change. Governments need to act quickly, deliberately and flexibly.
In responding to COVID-19, governments have been forced to move far more quickly and flexibly. What they've learned will prove invaluable as they prepare for the crises of the future.
Artificial intelligence has tremendous potential for government, but putting it to work requires making management choices up front. The last thing we need is for it to evolve unpredictably.
New technologies can move the focus from cleaning up problems to preventing them, while putting taxpayer money to more efficient use. But governments lag the private sector in employing these evolving tools.
Public-sector management practices and workplace tools rooted in the distant past can't address today's complex challenges.