Most know Al Gore these days as the environmental protector (and possibly the world's best Powerpoint presenter). Others know him, as he says in one of the greatest opening lines of any speaker, the man "who used to be the next president of the United States."
We "know" him (note quotes) as the designer of one of the best virtual teaming projects we've ever worked on.
In 1993, then Vice President Gore was leading the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (originally called the National Performance Review), the 500th study of how to streamline, shrink, and simplify the mammoth beast that is the US government. Gore's design was unique: instead of hiring consultants, he recruited volunteers from within the agencies and departments. They, in turn, staffed cross-functional teams that studied each government entity. If you were from the Justice Department, you might serve on the Dept of Agriculture team, along with people from what was then called Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Dept of Energy, and so on.
These volunteers were good, very good. They in turn recruited every and anyone with a new idea about organizations, business, and communication, i.e. every legitimate book writer they could lay their hands on. Tom Peters kicked off the five-month effort in Mellon Auditorium and for every Wednesday following, anyone with a book vaguely related to organizational life was invited to a brown-bag lunch.
We got our call just as our book, The TeamNet Factor: Bringing the Power of Boundary Crossing into the Heart of Your Business, was in production. Marion Metcalf, a staffer at INS and a key member of the Reinventing Government staff, read the galleys of the book, called, and said that boundary crossing was key to their work--and to their sustaining the energy behind the project. We've told the detailed story of what happened next here in our following book, The Age of the Network. The cross-boundary design of the project which encouraged, indeed required, people to team up outside their agencies' walls proved a powerful engine. For years following, NetResults, the network that we helped launch as the project came to a close in the same auditorium where Tom Peters keynoted the project's beginning, maintained connections among NPRG staffers, some of whom we're still in communication with today.
During our days working on this project, we heard only praise for Al Gore, adjectives like hard working, smart, insightful, visionary.
Highest salutes today to you, Al Gore.
