Later that year, he signed an Executive Order that made my team a permanent part of the government. President Obama soon caught wind of our team’s impact and we were invited to brief him in the Oval Office. ![]() This led to a groundswell of interest and drove some early, crucial wins. Importantly, I created an admissions ticket for the event: you could only attend if you developed a concrete proposal for how you’d integrate behavioral science into one of your department’s programs in the coming 6 months. One of the strategies I used to help inspire my colleagues to get to action was to create a moment we could all mobilize around: I organized a conference where luminaries, like Nobel Prize winners Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman, would give behavioral science guidance to my colleagues. Maybe then more resources would follow the proof of concept. If we could partner on a few early pilots, we could show-not tell-the power of behavioral science in policy. Instead, I could start on the ground and try to inspire organic interest in my colleagues in various government agencies. What I realized is that I didn’t actually need President Obama or his Cabinet or even their Deputies to sign off. But I was given no mandate or budget, and so I followed what I thought was the correct order of operations: I wrote a compelling proposal, sent it up the chain, and hoped some big-shot at the top would sign it.Īnd so I decided to start thinking more like an entrepreneur: I first asked myself a question from Tom’s playbook: “Who really needs to say ‘yes’ to this idea”? I came to the White House with an ambitious goal: to build a dedicated team of behavioral scientists who could improve public policy using our best understanding of human behavior. ![]() But I kept an open mind and this single piece of advice helped me overcome significant barriers and find creative ways to innovate within the constraints of the government and, since then, in other large organizations. Here’s a bit more context:ĭuring my time in the Obama White House, my boss, Tom Kalil told me to think of myself as a “policy entrepreneur.” I wasn’t sure what to make of this, because “entrepreneur” and “government” aren’t words that typically go together. The best career advice I’ve been given is to think and act like an entrepreneur no matter where you find yourself working.
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