Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
If and when there needs to be a partnership, who has to be involved and how? This is not the first effort to engage public-private partnerships in homeland security. Many prior efforts have had ambitious beginnings and faded away. A recurring problem has been finding who should be at the table to sustain strategic engagement. Who is the public sector's "functional equivalent" of a major corporation's CEO? On issues of fundamental strategy how do we match the right private and public leaders? Authority, responsibility, continuity, and competence are distributed differently in the two sectors. How do we help each sector effectively map its strategic communications and decisionmaking to its most appropriate peers? If and when there needs to be a partnership, how—practically and operationally—do we partner? The public sector is divided by federal, state, and local jurisdictions and a huge host of agencies. The private sector is divided by competitive relationships, product lines, markets, technology, financial size, and much more. Both the "public sector" and the "private sector" are largely abstractions and almost illusions. The meaningful reality is much more fine-grained. How does each side recognize and adapt to the diverse reality across each sector, as well as between the two sectors? Public-private relationships (PPR) have potential value when: 1. A specific risk, opportunity, or interest is identified; 2. hese risks, opportunities, or interests overlap in the public and private T domains; and 3. here is a mutual benefit, or a complementary value, or a conflict of values to T be resolved through shared engagement. Even when these preconditions exist, effective PPRs are impeded when the public sector is less focused on collaboration than on compliance. Effective PPRs are more likely when a consciously cultivated network of persistent relationships can be directed at specific tasks (in contrast to an organizational structure being directed at a range of issues). The public and private sectors are in a relationship. This relationship is atypically a partnership. But recognizing, valuing, and nurturing real relationships that exist will often enhance the opportunity for effective partnership when the atypical need for partnership arises. Relationships of any kind usually depend upon and benefit from identification of specific concerns that are shared. Being serious about what is shared—and tensions over what is shared—is a precondition to a healthy and meaningful relationship. Friction is to be expected. Finding effective ways to channel the energy emerging from the friction is helpful. Relationships do not flourish when either party is focused on control. Public sector behavior is too often oriented to command-and-control rather than focused on creativity and collaboration. This results in the private sector assuming a defensive stance to exclude the public sector. While public-private relationships can and should be long-lasting, public-private partnerships will usually be most successful when focused on specific, ad-hoc objectives. Historically, there have been too many advisory council meetings and reports and too few task force decisions and outcomes. 5