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NNSA’s Strategic Documents and Culture Change

A high-profile 2014 report to Congress about the health of the nuclear security enterprise, the “Augustine-Mies report,”¹ concluded that successfully addressing management issues at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would not be possible by focusing on quick fixes. Instead, NNSA needed to reform the management culture, specifically to a culture of “performance, accountability, and credibility” that is “mission-driven.” Culture change is a long-term effort that requires sustained leadership attention and adequate resources.

The importance of clear plans and effective communication to effecting persistent culture change is well-known. This panel’s second interim report, issued in early 2018, strongly urged NNSA to develop a more strategic approach to reforming its governance and management of the nuclear security enterprise.² The release of the Nuclear Posture Review in 2018, and the appointment of a new NNSA Administrator shortly thereafter, provided critical impetus and opportunity for NNSA to adopt a more strategic approach to reforming governance and management of the enterprise. Accordingly, the panel’s 2018 report called for NNSA “to create two plans expeditiously: (1) an integrated strategic plan for the entire nuclear security enterprise, focused on mission execution, and (2) a more complete and better grounded plan to guide the ongoing program of governance and management reform.”³

Consistent with element (1) of the quoted material above, in May 2019 NNSA released three strategic documents that provide a high-level vision and roadmap for the nuclear security enterprise:

• National Nuclear Security Administration Strategic Vision: Strengthening Our Nation Through Nuclear Security (NNSA, Washington, D.C., May 2019);
• National Nuclear Security Administration Governance and Management Framework (NNSA, Washington, D.C., May 2019); and
• NNSA Strategic Integrated Roadmap 2020-2044 (NNSA, Washington, D.C., May 2019).

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¹ Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise, 2014, A New Foundation for the Nuclear Enterprise: Report of the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise, http://cdn.knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2014/12/Governance.pdf?_ga=1.83182294.1320535883.1415285934.

² National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the National Academy of Public Administration, 2018, Report 2 on Tracking and Assessing Governance and Management Reform in the Nuclear Security Enterprise, Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. NNSA is the government agency responsible for the nuclear security mission. The nuclear security enterprise consists of NNSA plus a network of eight laboratories, plants, and sites, each managed by a Management and Operating (M&O) contractor. The M&O workforce is much larger than NNSA’s own.

³ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the National Academy of Public Administration, 2018, Report 2 on Tracking and Assessing Governance and Management Reform in the Nuclear Security Enterprise, Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, p. 1.

The Strategic Vision and Governance and Management Framework reports articulate the following five mutually supportive and interlocking expectations related to culture. Four were presented in the Strategic Vision report⁴ and reiterated in the Governance and Management Framework report⁵ as NNSA’s “key expectations for the governance and management of the nuclear security enterprise,” and the fifth—an overarching principle—was emphasized by the Administrator in her personal message of introduction to the Governance and Management Framework.⁶

1. One NNSA. “We work with a single purpose as ‘One NNSA’ through more effective teaming and improved mission integration.”
2. Workforce’s understanding of their alignment with mission. “We ensure every member of our workforce knows and understands our mission and his or her role in accomplishing it.”
3. Risk management, not risk avoidance. “We empower leadership to streamline decision making and manage rather than avoid risk.”
4. Clarification of roles. “We execute the mission based on clearly defined roles, responsibilities, authorities, and accountability to prevent redundancy and miscommunication.”
5. Getting to “Yes” to successfully deliver the mission. “We will work together across the entire enterprise to achieve the Nation’s priorities and goals. … Success with Governance and Management means success in delivering the mission. It means getting to ‘Yes.’”

NNSA’S DEVELOPMENT AND ROLLOUT OF ITS THREE STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS

In the panel’s view, the strategic documents are a step in the right direction and a significant improvement over NNSA’s 2015 Strategic Vision. These 2019 documents present objectives, priorities, and the desired culture, including themes of “one NNSA,” “getting to yes,” and appropriately managing risk.

The Strategic Vision and Governance and Management Framework effectively set forth a vision for the future of the nuclear security enterprise. Those documents emphasize in several places that they pertain to the entire enterprise, and they refer to the aspiration of being a single team. For example, the Governance and Management Framework “Purpose” includes the statement that the document “encompasses the federal headquarters and field office staff, our partner laboratory, plant and site personnel, and the partners’ corporate parents.” Overall, the documents’ language regarding culture (including values and behaviors) and the importance of governance and management is promising.

Some specific aspects of the strategic documents are particularly noteworthy. Placement of the statement “Strengthening Our Nation Through Nuclear Security” front and center on the Strategic Vision’s cover is an effective way to communicate leadership’s focus on that mission. The “mission priorities” in the document are long term and strategic, and each mission priority includes “mission milestones.”

The process for developing the documents was also a valuable step in governance and management reform. The Strategic Vision was developed with input from a variety of stakeholders; the panel understands that leaders from headquarters, NNSA field offices, and management and operating (M&O) partners had varying opportunities to provide input, and some Department of Defense (DoD) personnel were briefed on the Strategic Vision and given an opportunity to provide feedback before it was finalized. This inclusive process is at least as important as the documents themselves: it has the potential to strengthen relationships and trust across the enterprise and creates buy-in for change from key leaders and stakeholders.

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⁴Strategic Vision, p. 5.

⁵Governance and Management Framework, p. 2.

⁶Governance and Management Framework, “From the Administrator,” introduction (no page number).

The rollout of the documents included communication from the Administrator and other senior leaders. The documents were released at a town hall meeting that was broadcast to the federal workforce and featured the Administrator and leaders from key parts of the enterprise (including some M&O partner leadership). The Administrator also transmitted the documents, accompanied by a message from her to federal personnel via an all-hands e-mail.

In addition, the Administrator directed field office managers to communicate with their own staffs and share the documents with their M&O partners. Field office leaders have communicated with their staffs in a variety of ways, including all-hands meetings, videos, disseminating the documents (in some cases, the documents were placed on every employee’s desk), and requiring managers to have one-on-one conversations with each of their direct reports.

During 2019, the panel carried out a number of discussion groups and interviews to gather thoughts about governance and management from personnel across the nuclear security enterprise.⁷ Through these interactions, the panel also gained insight about the degree to which the Administrator’s principles of governance and management have been heard and internalized. The panel’s discussion groups—which were held 4-5 months after release of the strategic documents—indicated that awareness of those documents across the enterprise is divided. NNSA employees almost uniformly were familiar with the documents, while employees from M&Os, especially below the senior management level, were much less likely to have been aware of them prior to receiving the discussion group invitation. In fact, several M&O personnel indicated that the documents had not been “rolled out to the masses” and thought that, if the goal is “one NNSA,” they should have had access to the communications and training available to NNSA employees. On the other hand, some thought most M&O employees would not care about the documents—either because they are not relevant to their day-to-day jobs or because they assume their site strategic plans (with which they are familiar) are, or will become, aligned with the NNSA documents.

Subsequently, the panel interviewed 20 NNSA headquarters leaders of both functional and program offices. All of those individuals indicated that they have bought into and support the strategic documents.

Most of the discussion group participants had a positive view of the three strategic documents. The following are examples of comments from those discussion groups:

• You can’t argue with the core values.
• The documents provide a common-sense way to accomplish the mission.
• These documents energize the conversation and it’s good to have a conversation about what good governance is.
• Governance and management are clearly a priority for the Administrator.
• The documents are better than previous versions of the Strategic Vision.
• The core values resonate with me in my day-to-day job.

While, in general, the documents enjoy strong stakeholder support, discussion group participants pointed out that the documents are at a very high level, and they are eager to learn how the documents will be operationalized. In other words, they want to understand how these documents affect their organization, themselves, and their specific jobs; they view having office leadership translate the documents into goals and objectives for their specific office as a necessary next step. These sentiments are aligned with other discussions the panel had during 2019, especially during its site visit in May to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), during which panel members engaged in wide-ranging discussions with a variety of lab and field office employees. The general message is that the enterprise is receptive to, and eager for, more specific implementation guidance to improve governance and management and implement those improvements. This level of interest provides an opportunity for NNSA leadership to make meaningful progress.

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⁷ See Appendix A, “Data Collection Methodology.”

NNSA’S STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS AS VEHICLES FOR CULTURE CHANGE

To effectively change an organization’s culture—which is a crucial part of what NNSA is trying to do with respect to governance and management of the nuclear security enterprise—the following factors have been shown to be necessary (at a minimum):

• Senior leadership is aligned on the need for change and on change messages.
• Communication about the change is planned, targeted to different stakeholders, and phased to coincide with the stages of change implementation; there are feedback loops and other opportunities for two-way communication.
• Adequate resources are devoted to the change.
• Direction for change is centralized, but implementation is decentralized.
• Stakeholders throughout the enterprise are engaged in a manner that builds acceptance and shared ownership of the change.
• Change initiatives are coordinated, phased, and reinforced.
• Barriers to change are identified and removed.
• Progress is assessed and demonstrated.

It is too early for NNSA to have made substantial progress on some of these bulleted items. NNSA has done well on the first item, and most of the rest are being addressed somewhat, but incompletely.

Since the strategic documents were released, the Administrator has taken steps to ensure that they are used and implemented. Notable examples of those steps are

• Incorporating messages from the strategic documents into town hall meetings at the sites, and other interactions and communications with members of the enterprise.
• Disseminating a monthly governance and management newsletter, with each issue focusing on a specific management issue (such as risk management), to the federal workforce via e-mail.
• Requiring all federal employees to have completed a new, online governance and management training course, designed to further increase awareness of and familiarity with the Administrator’s desired governance and management principles and goals.

Parenthetically, almost everyone with whom the panel spoke during its fall 2019 discussion groups who had taken the computer-based governance and management training viewed it negatively, describing it as too long and of limited value. Several people expressed disappointment that there is no indication that any follow-on to the training is being planned. These individuals appeared eager for the next step and recognized that, no matter its quality, training is not enough to drive change.

The Office of Policy and Strategic Planning (Office of Policy), which is in the Administrator’s front office, led the effort to develop the strategic documents and has been tasked with spearheading communication about the documents. While this office is very small, it has contracted with a management consulting firm that is providing support for governance and management reform.

One of the Office of Policy’s initiatives to follow up on the release of those documents was to organize in the fall of 2019 almost forty focus groups to solicit information and ideas related to improving NNSA governance and management. The focus groups were facilitated by the independent management consulting firm mentioned above, and each consisted of a mix of individuals from across the enterprise. The participants had varying levels of seniority and lengths of tenure and were drawn from both programmatic offices and functional offices, and from NNSA and its M&O partners; none of them were members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) or political appointees. The results of the focus groups were presented to the heads and deputy heads of NNSA’s offices at a governance and management workshop in late January 2020 after this report was drafted, and the results were also presented to senior staff members at a leadership retreat immediately following. The panel has been told that focus group

results and feedback from those top leaders are being used by NNSA to guide next steps, including developing a governance and management action plan.

In the panel’s discussions with a wide range of senior leaders across NNSA and its M&O partners,⁸ it received positive comments and a sense that NNSA is moving in the right direction from virtually everyone. Multiple leaders used the words “exciting” to describe the documents and the Administrator’s governance and management reforms, and “excited” to describe staff attitudes. Indications are that leaders have heard loudly and clearly the messages about “one NNSA” and “getting to yes” and fully support those concepts. Some offices, and some M&O partners, have developed their own strategic plans that align with the strategic documents, have incorporated components of the documents in their work, or have changed processes. Some details about those developments are included in Chapter 2.

SUMMARY

It is the consensus of the panel that the governance and management changes instituted by the NNSA Administrator and the organization’s communication about the desired cultural norms are consistent with what is needed in the nuclear security enterprise. Since being sworn in, the Administrator has exerted strong leadership for improving governance and management. She has pushed for, and modeled, much of what is needed to change culture and ensure a well-managed enterprise. The panel’s information gathering indicates that NNSA’s communication strategies to extend the Administrator’s reach have been somewhat successful, but the panel has not seen a comprehensive communication plan. It is the panel’s understanding that the Office of Policy is developing an “action plan” that will encompass communication, but that plan will not be shared with the panel until it is reviewed and approved internally. Therefore, at this point it is unclear the extent to which NNSA’s plans for culture change adhere to best practices and will suffice.⁹

Changing an organization’s—or an enterprise’s—culture is a difficult, multiyear undertaking. Given that understanding, the panel recognizes that NNSA’s initial efforts have produced and encouraged continued attention to factors (e.g., leadership commitment and communication) that are necessary if NNSA is to achieve its governance and management goals. However, addressing each of those elements separately is not consistent with best practices in managing change; a sustained, methodical approach to change management substantially improves the likelihood of success. This was emphasized in Recommendation 3.1 of the panel’s second report.¹⁰ While NNSA has not yet developed such an approach, its intention to use the results of the recent focus groups to develop an action plan can serve as a step down that path. The key will be for them to “strike while the iron is hot.”

Panel discussions with the Administrator have shown that she agrees with the panel that institutionalization—driving the desired behaviors down into the entire enterprise workforce and adjusting processes and written guidance so that the desired culture becomes ingrained—has not yet been accomplished. The next chapter examines progress in that direction.

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⁸ While most interviews with site leaders took place before the strategic documents were issued, the leaders had seen drafts of the documents and provided input to them.

⁹ See, for example, American Productivity and Quality Center, 2014, Transformational Change: Making It Last, https://www.grantthornton.com/~/media/content-page-files/advisory/pdfs/2014/BAS-transformational-changereport.ashx.

¹⁰ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the National Academy of Public Administration, 2018, Report 2 on Tracking and Assessing Governance and Management Reform in the Nuclear Security Enterprise, Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, pp. 13-14.