PAD 700 Prof. O’Hara

George Sinnott casts a long shadow across the Empire State. As Head of the New York State Department of Civil Service in 1995, he took over one of the largest, most intractable and heavily unionized bureaucracies in history, amid the most byzantine and entrenched group of civil servants ever tenured. Politicians could always make hay by criticizing the Department of Civil Service; it was long axiomatic that it was bloated, ineffective and inefficient. It was also seen as a beast that could never be brought to heel. Yet George Sinnott trimmed it down and got it moving in the right direction, like Apollo Creed whipped Rocky Balboa into shape in Rocky III.

Sinnott provided skills and leadership that had been lacking for a long time. He had insights into the organization, and had the political skills required to get his reforms approved. All the credit does not belong to him, however. But for the leadership of Gov. Pataki, the cooperation of the legislature and other groups, and certain environmental factors that could have gone either for or against him, Sinnott would not have been as successful. This is not to take away from what he did. We don’t credit the rain for spoiling Green Bay’s passing game. But Sinnott’s monumental accomplishments are properly understood only in the context of the times in which they occurred.

Unlike his predecessors, George Sinnott was not an outsider. He was a career civil servant, with a track record of correcting the problems endemic to such departments. He not only had experience working in the system, he had experience fixing the system. His expertise was not the product of years in politics or years in academia. It was from getting down and dirty in the details. Sinnott read every report previously issued on reforming the State Dept. of Civil Service. He met with the authors of the most recent report. He learned the small details that he knew held the key to identifying and fixing the problems. Mastery and management of critical details is the first part of his success.

Political acumen is the second part of Sinnott’s success. He had to position himself to be selected by incoming Gov. George Pataki. He had to out-maneuver the state Budget Director, to head up the new Civil Service Reform Committee. He had to get labor leaders on board to help craft a law that he then had to shepherd through the State Legislature. None of these tasks relate directly to running the Department; but they helped to create a permissive environment that enabled him to run the Dept. the way he needed to run it. Without this political skill, his best efforts would probably have achieved little.

Leadership within the agency is the third part of Sinnott’s success. He had to fire all of the previous Governor’s political appointees. That’s to be expected. The leadership is in how he replaced them: not with new political appointees, but with experienced professionals from within the agency. This accomplished the twin goals of getting the best, neutrally-efficient administrators, placed where their abilities would best serve the organization, while simultaneously improving morale throughout the agency. Sinnott also displayed leadership by taking great personal risk. Whereas previous reform committees simply reported on what needed to be changed, his report committed him to timelines and measurable goals.

If Sinnott’s personal attributes of task expertise, political skill, and leadership were critical to his success, then the environment in which he operated also played a part. His boss, Gov. Pataki, walked in to office with a $5 billion budget deficit. The Dept. of Civil Service had to takes its hit along with every other state agency. But this difficult situation actually placed a great deal of power in the hands on the Dept. head; civil servants are notoriously difficult to dismiss, regardless of how poorly they do their jobs. The mandate to fire one thousand workers enabled Sinnott to get rid of dead wood right from the start. No department head wants to see his or her staffing reduced, but they all secretly wish for the power to chop off a thousand heads. If promoting from within raised Sinnott’s stocks with the rank and file, imagine the fear inspired by selecting the thousand who had to go. This had to hurt, both him and the department, but it also had to strongly reinforce the sense that he would reward good performance and punish bad performance. He got to show that he would wield both carrot and stick, which must have been a factor in getting the organization behind his vision. And he got to do it while trimming the fat and picking his own team. Best of all, he got to pin it all on Cuomo, or at worst, on Pataki.

After the wholesale firings, Sinnott had a lean and flexible organization, able to take advantage of his managerial innovations. He showed sophisticated management skills by reducing the number of provisional workers; not only a symptom of excess patronage, but also a drain on the security and loyalty of classified workers. He got employee buy-in by getting the labor unions to help him change legislation effecting classified workers. He listened to the people closest to the level of execution, who knew the jobs best. He both enabled and enforced high levels of performance. Sinnott let the bureaucrats manage, but he led.

There are many lessons that student of public administration can draw from the example of George Sinnott. First is the importance of knowing the skills of management, and knowing the job to be managed. Sinnott was willing to get into the details of the organization, and to get information from the best sources available. Second is the importance of being politically astute, while still remaining neutrally competent. He never would have been allowed to display his expertise, had he not understood the political realities of state governance. This is very nearly the most difficult area for a practitioner to learn. But the most difficult lesson to learn is that of leadership. George Sinnot is a bureaucrat, manager, and politician, but he is most importantly a leader. He possessed both clarity of vision, and the force of will to carry it out. These are rare abilities, especially in the risk-averse environment prevalent in modern American bureaucracies. He knew what he had to do, and even though it was bloody, painful, and very probably mind-numbingly boring at times, he did it. And he led others to want to do their share as well.

George Sinnott respected the people who worked with, and around him. That allowed him to earn their respect by setting high goals, and then holding himself, and them, accountable for achieving them. Seen in its proper context, George Sinnott’s accomplishments in reforming the New York State Department of Civil Service rival the NYPD turnaround of Bill Bratton. Management, political skill, and leadership combined to enable organizational change of a monumental scale.