Over 25 years ago, President Ronald Reagan stated that "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'" This statement reflects a deeply felt belief of many of us today - particularly among my business peers. That is, the government is generally not helpful and in many cases gets into the way of progress - at least when it comes to business.
Recently, I was part of a group of business leaders and entrepreneurs invited to the White House to meet with members of President Barack Obama's staff, economic advisers and political appointees regarding the economy, job growth and what initiatives were under way to improve our economy and create more jobs. During the course of the meeting, I began to see how some of the pieces could fit together in a way that left me feeling more optimistic about our country's economic future.
From a policy standpoint, it was clear that the administration's goal is to pursue policies that will establish a strong "sustainable economy." Specifically, the administration seeks to foster growth and job creation by moving toward a more balanced export- to-import ratio by increasing exports, supporting the growth of advanced manufacturing and attracting foreign investment to build and produce more within our borders.
Throughout the discussion of the administration's tactics and strategies used to advance these policies, I noticed a few common themes. First, the officials in the room were making honest and straight forward assessments of where we are and how far we need to go. It was clear no one had his or her head in the sand about how serious the deficit is or how difficult it will be to get the millions of unemployed Americans back to work.
As a businessman, I think this type of honesty has proven to be the only way to make real progress when facing major challenges.
Second, most of the ideas,
plans and initiatives were aimed at creating long-term value. It was surprising to me that the administration officials were looking for sustainable solutions to economic problems with a presidential election only a few months away. I am sure that in politics, just as in business, it is tempting to look for "quick fixes" that will make everyone feel better today and worry about the big picture later. I was encouraged to see that the solutions being discussed were aimed at solving long-term economic problems.
Third, I was surprised to learn the extent to which the administration advocated policies that brought business and government together to create partnerships. This made a lot of sense to me as an entrepreneur. Rather than deciding what is best for business from Washington D.C., the administration sought to go to people who start and operate businesses to develop partnerships aimed at solving specific problems.
One program I think has a lot of potential is the Entrepreneurs in Residence initiative. The initiative encourages federal agencies to engage outside entrepreneurs and agency representatives to create a lean start-up minded team within the agency to help modernize and improve the performance of a particular service within that agency. The team will work together to identify a specific problem or challenge the agency needs to address, develop a plan for addressing the problem, then execute the plan over a 90-day period.
This program is in its early stages and has a few "pilot" teams in place. One team will work on streamlining operations for businesses seeking to obtain visas for foreign expert employees through the immigration agency. A second team has been created by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to create a rapid review process for breakthrough technologies that revolutionize disease treatment or target unmet medical needs.
Although these programs are in early proof-of-concept phases, I think they have a lot of potential. In fact, I think that programs like these have the potential to dramatically change how we think about government. If we want to improve how the government operates, it makes sense to engage entrepreneurs who are technology experts and give them the ability to design systems that will break through bureaucratic inefficiencies and modernize antiquated systems.
In an era when we are able to search billions of records in seconds and can download 99-cent applications to our phones that will translate what we say into dozens of languages, we should be able to use technology and the minds that create these technologies to make government work the way we need.
In America, we are surrounded with talented entrepreneurs who are gifted thinkers and innovators. The current administration seems to recognize that entrepreneurs have a role in modernizing government. I hope that entrepreneurs around the country will take advantage of this opportunity and step up to reshape our government into all that it should be.
T.J. Gentle is president and CEO of SmartFurniture.com in Chattanooga. He may be reached by e-mail at tjgentle@gmail.com.