Commencement Address
Some Thoughts on
Doing the Right Thing
and Doing the Thing Right
Class of 2009
Fels Institute of Government
University of Pennsylvania
May 2009
Dick Thornburgh
K&L Gates
1601 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: 202.778.9080
Fax: 202.778.9100
dick.thornburgh@klgates.com
www.klgates.com
Members of the Class of 2009
of the Fels Institute of Government:
It is a great privilege to join you today and to visit once again this handsome campus.
We gather today to pay tribute not only to this year’s graduates, but to this great
University of Pennsylvania, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in these
United States, founded by a true Pennsylvania patriarch, Benjamin Franklin, and to the
72-year tradition of the Fels Institute of Government and its focus on leadership for
results.
Graduating classes are always daunting audiences. Graduates invariably seem less
interested in the speech than in the sheepskin and are justifiably skeptical that the speaker
can impart anything of lasting value to them in the waning days of this way-stop on their
academic careers.
Hodding Carter, press spokesman for President Jimmy Carter’s State Department and
today a leading national journalist, unburdened himself some years back on the subject of
commencement addresses. He noted that:
“If the speakers are even moderately self aware, they know that they are irrelevant and
are therefore blessedly brief. If they are so fatuous as to believe that the students
assembled hang in fascinated rapture upon their every word, they will be unbearably
long.”
Somewhere between these two extremes must lie a happy medium. I am bold enough to
try to strike it this afternoon.
A little preaching, to be sure, is required. And a proper mix of optimism and realism
should be the order of the day. Many would characterize these occasions as turning
points or crossroads and I will not deny the aptness of those analogies. But I do not
propose to be as naively oblivious to reality as that great baseball philosopher, Yogi
Berra, who once observed
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Nor do I choose to emulate the pessimism of that later pop philosopher, Woody Allen,
who is reputed to have once told a graduating class:
“Today we are at a crossroads. One road leads to hopelessness and despair. The other to
total extinction. Let us pray we choose wisely.”
We must recognize that there are many more positive aspects to your future than either
such overly simplistic or overly apocalyptic visions might suggest.
During the early part of the last decade it was my privilege to serve as Under-SecretaryGeneral for Administration and Management at the United Nations. A major part of my
responsibilities was to try to untangle that international bureaucracy from the maze of
disorder that it had inherited from the Cold War era, an effort, by the way, not completed
Some Thoughts on Doing the Right Thing and Doing the Thing Right 1
to this day. In that assignment, I took inspiration from our then Ambassador to the UN,
Edward Perkins, who emphasized the need to make the organization both more effective
and more efficient. He put it this way: "Being effective means doing the right thing.
Being efficient means doing the thing right."
What I offer to you today are some thoughts about how we can both “do the right thing"
and "do the thing right” as we face up to the complicated problems of our time. The
themes that I will stress today apply to all engaged in public enterprise -- those holding
elective office and those engaged in public management in non-elected positions -- but
they apply as well to those charged with the responsibility to restore our battered
economic system to vitality.
I. I would first underscore the vital importance of effective leadership as a key to
accomplishing organizational goals. Leadership is important for both external and
internal purposes in public management. The revered John Gardner once charged our
leaders with these specific responsibilities:
"They can express the values that hold society together. Most important, they can
conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations, carry them
above the conflicts that tear a society apart, and unite them in the pursuit of objectives
worthy of their best efforts."
Leadership requires vision. Despite denigration from time to time of "the vision thing," it
is clear that the path of public management must not only be straight and uncluttered, but
must incorporate true visionary characteristics from the outset of the journey. "Where
there is no vision, the people perish," the Book of Proverbs admonishes us and it is as
true today of organizations as it is of the people.
Moreover, that vision must be expressed in terms of tangible goals and specific
destinations. And those goals must be communicated clearly to the constituencies being
served. There is an educational function to leadership which is ignored at great peril.
Those served must be nurtured and nourished by a steady diet of specific reminders as to
where the leadership effort is bound.
Of enormous importance in this effort is the imperative of integrity. To accomplish the
tasks at hand, simple competence is not enough. Just as a positive view of the integrity of
leadership can inspire allegiance to a cause, a negative view can erode even the most
sound and well-intentioned of undertakings. Indeed, part of the function of integrity in
the performance of public duties is serving as a role model. Inspiring those with whom
one serves to emulate the visible characteristics of the leader is clearly a means of
furthering advancement toward shared goals.
The imperative of integrity must be clearly communicated as well. One of the key
lessons I have learned in my public career is that assuring integrity in any organization,
from an isolated field office to a major cabinet agency, cannot be addressed indirectly.
Clear and explicit signals must come from top leadership, lest any confusion exist over
what is, and is not, permissible conduct. To do otherwise allows informal and potentially
subversive “codes of conduct” to be transmitted with a wink and a nod, and encourages
an inferior ethical system based on “going along to get along” or on the notion that since
“everybody’s doing it,”
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it must be okay.
II. A second theme that I would urge as important in public management today is that of
accountability. This is really the other side of the leadership coin. Accountability
depends first of all on openness and transparency in the governing process. Clarity in the
setting of goals for an organization facilitates appropriate bench-marking as well as
constructive evaluation. And specific delegations of authority must be the rule if we are
to identify those individuals responsible for reaching agreed upon goals.
Institutions for insuring accountability are equally important. These include internal
compliance mechanisms to deal with fraud and corruption such as those which I helped
structure for the United Nations, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development
Bank and effective criminal justice systems to deal with major lapses in integrity within
public enterprises. For example, the Public Integrity Section of the United States
Department of Justice which we established in 1976 has since prosecuted thousands of
corrupt public officials at the local, state and federal level for betrayal of the public trust,
not only bringing those prosecuted to account, but creating a true deterrent capability
among those who might be tempted otherwise.
Investigation and prosecution of violators is essential and I have done my share during
my professional lifetime. But, as I have noted, even more important for the long-range health
of an organization is an aggressive and visible commitment to observing sound ethical
principles before the fact, so as to encourage the best instincts of loyal employees and to hold
in check the worst instincts of others.
In both public and private sectors today, we face challenges to standards of ethical conduct.
Political and corporate leaders alike appear to regularly fall short of observing the principles and
standards that have characterized those who built and sustained this great nation. Scandals have
resulted from politicians playing fast and loose with public funds and the public trust. Corporate
executives, too, have become caught up in a “culture of greed” which causes them to turn their
backs on their responsibilities to shareholders and other stakeholders in corporate democracy in
search of private gain.
We yearn for those who both enunciate and live out high standards of conduct and lament when
our hopes are dashed by each successive headline of political or corporate wrongdoing. In the
aftermath of scandal, one hopes that the accountability inherent in our electoral system and our
law enforcement and regulatory processes will purge those who fall short of our expectations and
elevate those who are determined to play to our better instincts. As firm proponents of democracy
and the rule of law, we should expect no less.
III. A third theme of importance is the desirability of full participation by our citizenry in
the political process.
Democracy is not a spectator sport. And politics is an honorable calling. All of us must
exercise the opportunity to contribute to improving and sustaining higher levels of
performance in public life. This involves much more than simply voting or even being
part of a focus group or responding to poll questions. And it is just as important in
contests for the local school board as in those for higher office.
Some Thoughts on Doing the Right Thing and Doing the Thing Right 3
One need not be a candidate for public office to take advantage of the multitude of
opportunities presented by our democratic society. My former colleague at the John F.
Kennedy School of Government, the late Dick Neustadt, often lamented recent changes
in political campaigning with their diminished need for what he called "scut-work by a
host of volunteers" and more reliance on computer programming and exotic media
strategies. I always reminded students that my own introduction to politics came not as
the Governor of Pennsylvania, but as an elected precinct committeeman in the First
District of the 14th Ward of the City of Pittsburgh. In that capacity I, in turn, introduced
my ten-year old son to the rigors of campaigning by rousing him before sun-up on
Election Day to festoon door-hangers with campaign messages throughout our
neighborhood.
This kind of participation must be availed of by all. Our great progress in legislating civil
rights for all Americans and in combating the denial of the full enjoyment of citizenship
to anyone on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin and, most recently, disability, has
opened the door of opportunity for all to participate in our political and governmental
processes. This opportunity is made available not through any forced or false diversity
occasioned by quotas, set asides or preferences, but through the full empowerment of all
citizens to play a role in our political process. I well remember within my own family the
excitement we experienced when our third son Peter, who has intellectual disability, cast
his first vote at the polls in Pennsylvania. And I was particularly proud of my wife's
effort, during my governorship, to help recruit more women candidates to run for public
office, not on a party or "issue-oriented" basis, but simply to enlarge the universe of
candidates available for voter consideration.
Public management in all aspects can only be enriched by opening opportunities for all to
fully participate in as wide a variety of ways as possible. Let us hope that the higher
levels of voter participation, particularly among younger voters, in last year’s presidential
election is an apt indicator of increased citizen participation in general.
IV. As a fourth theme let me emphasize how all endeavors in our governing process can
profit from a reinvigoration of the concept of civility. Much of this, to be sure, begins at
home and in our communities. How we treat and interact with family members and
neighbors is eventually transferred into the public dialogue. "People deserve to be treated
with respect," observed the theologian Donald McCullough, "The neglect of courtesy
leads to the collapse of community." If meaningful dialogue is to take place -- in a
family, in a community or in government -- it must be a civil dialogue. Today we are
forced to endure a noticeable decline in civility -- the ability to disagree without being
disagreeable. The critic Robert Hughes has noted, for example:
"In America today . . . hysteria over feminism, gay rights and abortion has filled the
discourse of politics with a rancor that has few parallels in other Western democracies."
Long ago, Voltaire established the marvelous principle that he could "disagree with
everything you said, but defend to the death your right to say it." One wonders how he
would have coped with today's "in your face" attitudes which stunt civilized discourse.
Or with the concept of political correctness which seeks to impose a deadening
uniformity in the name of sensitivity.
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One related area in public life where we suffer from a particular lack of effective
communication with our citizenry is in handling the subject of compromise. The notion
has grown up among too many Americans that no one in high public position can be
trusted. "They all lie," too many citizens think, "They constantly compromise and sell
out their principles." Why is this so?
During my 25 years in public life, the vast majority of persons with whom I worked were
decent and honorable men and women of integrity and commitment, often serving at
great personal sacrifice. How do we come, as a nation, to so disrespect such persons?
Here important distinctions must be made. Those in high office occasionally do lie and
deserve public condemnation. Some do compromise their principles. And they also
attract widespread media and public disapproval. But "politics," it has been observed, "is
the art of the possible." And constructive compromise is of the essence of the craft of
politics. While no one should abide or approve compromise in matters of principle,
compromise in the pursuit of principle is part of the political process, often prompting
those in public life to forego the lesser for the greater good. Without such compromises,
I doubt if many of the major advances made in our over 200 years of history would have
been accomplished.
V. A fifth and final theme that I suggest for your consideration is a reaffirmation of the
importance of effective governmental structures in public management. Whether or not
“the era of big government is over,” as President Clinton suggested during the last
decade, or whether the current administration’s ambitious initiatives presage a massive
growth in governmental involvement in our economy and society, there can be no doubt
that we are in the midst of an era where government at all levels will be called upon to
carry out more and more responsibilities.
The mechanisms which we devise for the delivery of services within particular
communities will have an enormous effect on our ability to deliver those services
effectively and efficiently. Pundit Tom Brokaw recently noted that “Every state and
every region in the country is stuck with some form of anachronistic and expensive local
government structure that dates to horse-drawn wagons, family farms and small-town
convenience. … It’s time to reorganize our states and local government structures for
today’s realities rather than cling to the sensibilities of the 20th century.” Moreover, the
U.S. Department of Justice, through its Public Integrity Section, studied the causes of
corruption across the nation and found such activities occurring at much higher rates in
states with a large number of local governments. Not surprisingly, Pennsylvania is
among the leaders in both categories!
Reform of this sort is, of course, not a sport for the short-winded. I well remember my
tenure as planning chief for the criminal justice process in Allegheny County during the
early 1970s. My home county is something of a poster-child for fragmented and
disorganized local government. In the criminal justice area, it was (and, regrettably still
is) afflicted with 115 separate police forces, one of which was so small that a single
revolver was passed from hand to hand at shift changes from one cop on the beat to
another. Recommendations made nearly 40 years ago to rationalize this arrangement and
to group policing functions in logical, regional forces have fallen, over the years, on deaf
ears, largely, I suspect, because the reduction in the number of police forces would mean
that a corresponding number of chiefs of police would be left without a job!
Some Thoughts on Doing the Right Thing and Doing the Thing Right 5
We will also be well-advised to look at expanding our reliance on public-private
partnerships. When Pennsylvania faced economic disaster in the 1980s due to the decline
of our traditional manufacturing base, we turned to joint undertakings involving
government, industry and our great research universities to facilitate the transfer of
technology into the marketplace and to create new businesses and job opportunities.
Today, over 25 years later, the Ben Franklin Partnership is an internationally-recognized
exemplar of public-private collaboration and every one of our 50 states now has in place
counterpart efforts to help build their own more future-oriented economic base. Surely
your own founder, Samuel Fels, a classic progressive reformer businessman, would have
approved.
Through endeavors in each of these areas –effective leadership, a high level of
accountability, full participation in the political process, a reinvigorated concept of
civility and reformed governmental structures -- you can help to make a vital difference
in how effective and efficient we become in meeting public responsibilities in these vital
times. And, indeed, at no time in our history has the challenge of "doing the right thing"
and "doing the thing right" been greater for all engaged in management of public - and
private - institutions.
You have been equipped by your experiences at this fine institution, in and out of the
classroom, to put into practice the very best principles of public management. Wherever
your careers take you (and those paths can barely be discerned at this juncture), you will
be well-served by the grounding you have received at Fels. Now it is up to you to make a
contribution to better communities and a better nation and world by applying your skills
to the common good. I have no doubt but what you will succeed in this effort.
When my wife was a Girl Scout years ago, one of her favorite leaders told her that her
troop's goal should always be to leave their campsite in better shape than they found it. I
thought as I prepared these remarks: Isn't that what all of us interested in public
management aspire to? We aim to leave our cities, counties, states and nation, indeed our
world, in better shape than we found them. I hope these observations can add to your
ability to do just that.
And, by the way, when you come to that fork in the road … take it!
Thank you.
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