9-675-123 REV: APRIL 9, 2002 WICKHAM SKINNER, ANNE JARDIM, MARGARET HENNIG ARDIS BURST, KATHLEEN CURLEY Elizabeth Best (A) On July 1, 1987, Elizabeth Best assumed the position of undersecretary of Environmental Affairs, Water Division, for the State of Delaware. The Water Division was responsible for the engineering and construction of dams, the pipeline transportation of fresh water, and the collection of all water revenues from the various cities and towns throughout the state. In addition to these responsibilities, the Water Division was charged with overseeing sewerage disposal and marine transportation. Elizabeth Best had received notification of her appointment from the Governor s office only two weeks before. The position involved jurisdiction over the directors of the five departments of the Water Division and the 330 persons who were employed in the Water Division (see Exhibit 1). Although she did not know exactly what working for the state government would be like, she felt she was entering a territory both familiar, because of her extensive volunteer experience in environmental affairs, and presumably friendly, because of her previous professional association with the secretary of Environmental Affairs and one of the deputy secretaries. She arrived at the state office building at 9:00 a.m. and went to the Water Division on the 10th floor. There she introduced herself to the receptionist, was shown to her large but spartanly furnished office, and met the deputy secretary, who told her that the secretary of Environmental Affairs had arranged for her to meet the other undersecretary (in charge of the Environmental Standards Division) and the directors of the various environmental agencies at 9:15. At 9:15 she went to Conference Room A, where 22 men were assembled around a huge table. They all stood up as she came in, and the secretary introduced her. Everyone sat down and one by one they introduced themselves to her and told her what part of the agency they headed. Elizabeth then said a few words about her expectations for felicitous working relationships, and at 9:30 the secretary adjourned the meeting, nodding politely and agreeably to Elizabeth as he left the room. Elizabeth returned to her office. She began looking for the files her predecessor had left. There were none. This surprised her, for she knew the Water Division collected millions of dollars annually in water revenues and reviewed engineering specifications for pipeline construction and sewerage treatment. She noticed the other undersecretary as he walked by her open door, but he did not speak to her or show any recognition. At lunch time she went out alone and did some errands. Afterwards she returned to her office and began ordering and organizing supplies. The afternoon mail arrived, but there was nothing of apparent significance, nor were there items that required action. She then Research Assistants Ardis Burst and Kathleen Curley prepared this case in a program of case development sponsored jointly by Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration and Simmons College Graduate Program in Management, under the supervision of Associate Professors Anne Jardim and Margaret Hennig, Simmons College, and Professor Wickham Skinner, Harvard Business School. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright 1975 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the permission of Harvard Business School.
675-123 Elizabeth Best (A) asked her five directors to come in, one by one, and each uniformly and respectfully reported that everything was fine and politely excused himself. At 3:30 the undersecretary walked by her office again. When she heard his footsteps as he returned down the hall, she went to the door of her office. Hello, George, she said. Won t you come in and talk? George stepped into her office and welcomed her to the division, but then he excused himself almost immediately to get back to a meeting. Elizabeth returned to her desk. She decided she needed to map out some kind of strategy to become a working member of the state Water Division. Elizabeth Best s Background Elizabeth Best was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1944. The only child of middle-class parents, she always assumed she would go to college and pursue a career. After graduating from Radcliffe, she worked in New York for Newsweek as a researcher, a job she and her classmates considered highly desirable. After one year with Newsweek, she resigned and married J.B. Best, whom she had met while in college. The Bests traveled for a year, first in Europe on an extended honeymoon, then around the United States, assessing possible places to live, and finally settling in Seattle, Washington, in 1968. There Elizabeth began working for a large corporation on a market research study of the effect of television advertising on consumer behavior. As an economics major in college, she had anticipated a career in market research, but although her job was interesting, she became disenchanted with market research and lost confidence in the techniques used in the project. While she held this job, she also began volunteer work with the League of Women Voters. She continued her volunteer work and over the next 18 months was elected a vice president of the Seattle league and a representative to the national league convention. She described the period: I found the league extremely rewarding. Within the first year there I worked on television programs on league subjects. This work was important, not because I ever went into television or market research, but because it gave me quick feedback on the fact that I could do something, I could achieve. It was a reinforcement of identity, so I didn t have to feel a sense of helplessness. My success was a combination of being assertive and awfully lucky. In 1971 the Bests returned to the East Coast so that J.B. could attend business school at Wharton. For the next two years, Elizabeth spent most of her time caring for her daughter and a son, who was born in December 1971. After J.B. s graduation, the Bests moved to a suburb of Wilmington, Delaware. The two years at Wharton and the first year in Delaware were difficult for Elizabeth. For one thing, she felt overwhelmed by the two children. Then J.B. could not decide what job to take after he finished school. The Best family s financial situation during the year after his graduation was less than ideal. Finally, J.B. bought a small manufacturing company with a classmate and began working. Elizabeth again found time for the league. The first year I went back to being active in the league, I was asked by their state board to act as program chairman for the School of Foreign Affairs. The woman who had chaired the school the year before knew me and my experience in Seattle and recommended me to the board. We had a budget that seemed enormous to me then, $5,000 or $6,000, to be used to obtain any speakers we wanted on any foreign affairs topic. The board wanted the program to focus on Latin America, but this was during the peak of interest in the oil crisis and I wanted to do oil. I was in awe of the board, but something inside 2
Elizabeth Best (A) 675-123 me said, Oil. I don t know how I managed to get away from home, but somehow I got sitters and spent days in the library, researching both topics: who the speakers would be and what the specific topics would be. This was in 1975, when there was a lot of concern about the whole Middle Eastern question. So when I went to the board with my proposal, the president said we would do oil if I could get a secure, respectable person to speak. Instead, I set up a panel of people with very different, very vociferous viewpoints. Every seat was sold out; the auditorium was overflowing. It was the most enormously successful program they had ever had. Shortly after the Foreign Affairs School ended forever, elections for Elizabeth s local league chapter were held. The local league didn t have anyone to be president. They asked me and I think I surprised them by accepting. Both the presidency and the chairmanship, I feel, were the result of having good luck plus a willingness to move forward, leap in when the openings arrived, and not hold back. There I was with two small children and a husband barely on his feet. A few feathers were ruffled when I became president. Some of the old-timers were horrified at the idea of a young new person whom they didn t know and whom they suspected of having radical ideas because of the oil program. Although I wasn t a radical, I made it very clear that I was open to change and to reevaluating every single thing the league did. There was a real problem there at first, which was very threatening to me at the time, because I was afraid I d end up as a social outcast in town and the league. Around the time she became president of the local chapter, Elizabeth also realized that very few women were involved in the government of the suburban town where the Bests lived. Furthermore, the women in the league were reluctant to monitor and evaluate the work of town government. As league president, Elizabeth set up observer squads to oversee key boards (finance, selectmen, etc.) in the town. Meanwhile, she set her sights on being appointed to one of the boards herself. One day the town moderator, who had power to make board appointments, called me. I remember the conversation very well. He started with a lot of flattering remarks and then asked if I would serve on the Fourth of July committee. I said no very definitely. You have to be willing to have a view of where you re going, hold to that view, and not take the first thing that comes along. I wanted to be on a planning board and I was willing to wait. Now, I could have run for office. Let s face it: I could have run and not sat around and waited to be appointed. But I don t recall that it ever occurred to me to run for office. I take that as a reflection against me as much as against the times. Finally I was appointed to the Conservation Board, in which I was keenly interested, and also to the Finance Committee, one of the most important positions in town. During this period (1976-1981) of league presidency and town government activity, Elizabeth began and completed a master s program in philosophy and the Bests had a third child. By the time she was asked by the town fathers to run as a selectperson, she had decided that she was more interested in state politics than in town politics. She declined to run and instead became more involved in the league at the state level. 3
675-123 Elizabeth Best (A) The League s Environmental Study and the State Environmental Planning Commission In 1982 Elizabeth was asked to become chairperson of the state league s Environmental Policy Committee and a member of the Delaware Environmental Planning Commission. These two jobs, which meshed very well, consumed as many hours as a full-time job for the next four years. The Environmental Planning Commission had been established by the state Legislature to work with the Delaware business community and various citizen groups in planning for the state s industrial expansion in an environmentally sound way. Elizabeth asked the league to recommend her appointment to the commission to the governor. The League did so and she was appointed. This turned out to be really a stellar committee because it had some of the outstanding members of the Senate, the Legislature, and business communities. We were really concerned with balancing economic and environmental needs in a program of sensible growth and expansion. I asked to be assigned to a subcommittee chaired by a former environmental affairs secretary, a man who took the whole thing very seriously. It was like having a superior tutor. One of the major assets for me was that it was a real entree into the legislative and business communities. I didn t appreciate at the time how great it was, but later I got some perspective on what a break it was. The project undertaken by the league s Environmental Policy Committee centered on policy recommendations for the future. According to Elizabeth: The basis of the League of Women Voters is study, consensus on a program of action, and then action. We studied the entire environmental policy issue, including budgetary procedures and methods as well as environmental planning at both the local and state levels a tremendous undertaking for a volunteer group. We set up discussion groups, briefed discussion leaders, prepared all our own materials, and organized panels and programs throughout the state. In the spring of 1986, after the study period, we were waiting for local league recommendations to come in. We were basically looking for a model that we could use in pinpointing the economic tradeoffs of various environmental controls. One of the other women on the commission came up with the model. We thought it was good, but we didn t want to do anything until we had a chance to test it on the computer to see its impact on individual cities and businesses. We d seen too many models adopted that turned out to be awful. The husband of a committee member ran the local university computer center. He volunteered to help and provided computer time and a student who wrote the program. League volunteers keypunched the data that came in from local league study groups, and a rather complete profile was developed for each city and manufacturing firm in the state. Using all this, we tried our model. It worked. It was a beautiful model. It highlighted the cost of various pollution control devices and equalized the cost impact so that small businesses did not bear an inordinately high percentage of the total cost. At the same time we found that the governor s initial environmental proposals had been voted down by the legislature. We said Hah, let s use our model to evaluate the governor s new legislative proposals. Now, the league is nonpartisan. We knew what we had was a great gift. We didn t want to give it to the Republicans and not the Democrats, or to the executive branch and not the legislature. So we drew up a plan as to how we would introduce the proposal. We d had 4
Elizabeth Best (A) 675-123 some lobbying experience, and because of the commission I knew who the inside people were, the people to whom we should leak it before we gave it to the leadership. So we timed it very closely, first distributing it to a few key people. Then we stood in the middle of the statehouse and distributed it simultaneously to the leadership and the executive offices. Next we asked for, and got, interviews to explain it. The model gained the total support of the speaker of the House and some support from the secretary of Internal Affairs, who met with us but couldn t quite take the fact that we had come up with the model. A few weeks went by before the governor s amended proposals were distributed. We rushed for a copy, read it, and our hearts fell. The model they used wasn t ours. But in fact, the proposals looked good. If they were good, we d have to submerge our own interests in true League of Women Voters fashion. But we rushed to the library, and we had enough data on our own printouts to do a quick extrapolation to see what the impact would be on communities and businesses we had identified as bellwethers. And the governor s model didn t work. In fact, it was a terrible model. It did all the wrong things like pushing some smaller companies into bankruptcy with the cost of new pollution control devices, and imposing no costs on other companies. It was marvelously awful. So we handwrote some of the odd outcomes, pairing some small companies with larger ones for maximum effect, and took it to the Internal Affairs Office and said, Look, ha ha, at what you ve just proposed. Of course, they d never analyzed it that way. We really shamed them. By the time the next hearings came up, we had lobbied heavily with other organizations and businesses and had lined up support. Our lugging around printouts of economic tradeoffs made people sit up a bit. First, we were the only ones doing it. Second, we were volunteer women. At the public hearing, we packed the auditorium and it was a triumph when the mayor of Wilmington stood up and endorsed the result of our model. The governor s budget was then amended to include it. The amazing thing was that all this took place within two months of the end of the league study. The original environmental proposal was adopted by the House but lost in the Senate by two votes. However, the results of the model were adopted for use by cities and towns for local environmental planning, so it was on the books. Elizabeth felt that the campaign had been a very educational experience about action in the statehouse and what was involved in getting a change in state law. Becoming Undersecretary In February 1987 I saw in the paper that the job of undersecretary, Water Division, Department of Environmental Affairs, had been vacant for 18 months, and I remember at breakfast saying to J.B., Well you know, I think I ll apply for that and he said, Why not? You re working hard enough as a volunteer and you might as well get paid for it. She talked to a friend who was a state congressman. He checked around and found that the job was still open. He then recommended that she run her job application like a campaign and develop a 5
675-123 Elizabeth Best (A) strategy that involved touching base with people from a number of different communities within the state--business, academic, and political. She began doing so. I guess it doesn t sound so unusual to someone else, but to me, at the time and even in retrospect, it seemed like an extraordinary amount of chutzpah for me to have gone forward that aggressively. I called businesspeople who were really very prominent, made appointments, and went to see them. I would talk with them for half an hour about why I wanted the job and why I wanted them to write a letter on my behalf. I was really surprised myself that I did it. After four months of gathering support, Elizabeth was appointed undersecretary in June 1987. She felt that she got the job because of three factors: (1) she was a woman, (2) she had the league s, nonpartisan, good-government image, and (3) No one in the department wanted the job. It is nontenure, non-civil Service. In fact, the directors are paid more than the undersecretaries. She was interested in understanding how the government administered a large statewide service such as water. She was also concerned about how local communities and interest groups participated in decisions such as dam construction or rate setting. She also hoped that as a participant in state government she would eventually have some influence in seeing the league s environmental proposals adopted statewide. After Elizabeth was notified of her appointment, she met with the secretary of Environmental Affairs privately for the first time. He was, it seemed to her, cool, neutral, and yet perfectly pleasant. She then spent some time trying to make a realistic appraisal of where she might fit in. All but three of the employees in the entire division were Civil Service appointees with guaranteed jobs. All directors were over 50. She also knew that her immediate predecessor had been moved to a much lower position in the division because he had fallen out of favor. This could imply that the secretary hoped to replace him with someone more dynamic, or it could mean that he didn t want anybody who would create waves. In this case, her job would consist of doing little. She was, after all, a political appointee, a newcomer to state government. She decided that she would simply have to feel her way and see what the first days brought before making any decisions as to how to approach the situation. 6
675-123 -7- Exhibit 1 Organizational Chart Office of Secretary Environmental Affairs Undersecretary Water Division Deputy Secretary Deputy Secretary Undersecretary Environmental Standards Division Dam Construction Engineering Water Pipeline Transportation Water Revenue Collection Sewerage Marine and Waterway Transportation Deputy Secretary Forests and Parks Pesticide Control Budget and Personnel Adm inis tration Forms Design Department Pollution Monitoring and Control Environmental Impact Review Audit Department 10 Inspectors 3 Inspectors