We’re Ready For A Disruption Czar
Not too long ago, I began to wonder about Czars. In the historical sense and in the today sense. It (as always) sent me down a rabbit hole to learn a lot more about Czars that I ever would have imagined I’d care to know. And now I’m going to share it with you because I think we need another Czar on the list. Actually four more.
Here’s a peek into my thought process and how I kick around my own ideas in a short story.
Me seeing Biden selecting a Czar of something recently: Hmm. A Czar seems to be a fast way to put someone on the task of activating care factor on a large scale, government-wide. But given how much innovation has become the hip topic over the past couple of years, surely this exists already. Do we have a Czar of Innovation in the current Administration?
Me still: Or a previous one? <I googled> Wait, no? Ever? <Another Google> Never?
Now I have to pull the thread by going backwards to understand why this today status is the way it is. In order to properly question why something is or isn’t happening that seems normal (at least to me), I first need to understand my own question and then I try to break my own thesis.
— How many Czars have happened and where did this trend start? How do they decide what Czars need to exist and why?
— What constitutes a “Czar” nickname vs just the average political appointee (or are they just the same) and why opt for this unique verbiage given our affinity to distrust anything not invented here?
— How many Presidents have had Czars? <Googles to find out a LOT of Presidents have had Czars for many decades. Who are the Czars now? Are they productive?
— What sparks the desire for a President to create a Czar role, is it a self-appointed (or Presidential slang) title to note the most important person in the US to care about a specific topic? Is it to market the awareness of a particular topic or to match the energy of something that already exists? What is the political gameplay involved with selecting Czars and does that vary by President.
— What types of Czars are there or have been? What did they do afterwards or what came of their efforts?
This Wiki has an insane amount of data including the bizarre fact that in 2010 we had an Asian Carp Czar. Which means obviously, there’s a lot of wiggle room on Czar’ing and what you can focus on when you are one.
In my search down this rabbit hole and during my question process, I really got into my idea (this can’t and doesn’t happen that frequently, I usually break my own thesis pretty early on and then move onto something else). I can see so much value in pursuing the adoption of an Innovation Czar (plus others). I found lots of answers to the questions above, generating even more questions — and way more information than I needed.
I mean, the Asian Carp data is gold in itself, but for the heck of it I went a few steps further just for you.
I thought it was fascinating that in 2006, there was a Birth Control Czar and he was a man(“W” era, has since deceased). Although a doctor, I was surprised that as recent as that, it felt okay to publicly label a man as the Czar of this topic, but unsurprising too. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of Population Affairs for Health and Human Services, and he is noted for making the claim that when a woman has sex with multiple partners, it alters the woman’s ability to bond by altering her brain chemistry. So for the sake of not making this even more polarizing or starting a riot about that topic, I’ll call this new information (new to me at least), “interesting, and I think it’s good that this role has been retired.”
Byron Price was the first Censorship Czar. Born in March of 1891 and served under Truman from 1941 to 1945. He received a 1944 Pulitzer Prize for his Czar’ing skills, (a Special Citations and Awards, which is coincidentally the same category of award Aretha Franklin was awarded in 2019 — though for very different work obviously). He received his for the creation and administration of newspaper and radio codes — which was a friendly way of saying, “an effort to guide journalists in voluntary censorship to avoid revealing the creation of the Atomic Bomb.”
Here’s more on that for journalism junkies to to enjoy that rabbit hole in a paper written and presented in 1988 by Patrick S. Washburn of Ohio University. However you may feel about this, the strategy worked, so there’s that.
My eyes were drawn to the Ebola Czar on the list because I lived in Dallas at the time of the Ebola “situation” in 2014. Here’s more on that to catch you up if you like rabbit holes of the pandemic variety. When Ebola arrived into our country, I lived just down the road from Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas where the case appeared and I was so undereducated about pandemics I remember wondering if I was safe. Many miles away. I now know that this is not how that works, but I do realize I grocery shopped with people who worked there, so I understand how much risk we’re in for benign daily chores.
Two nurses serving the patient also contracted Ebola, but survived. He did not.
Bonus fact: The Ebola Czar of the Obama era, Ron Klain, is now Chief of Staff for President Biden.
If I spent more time looking into each Czar (which I kind of did but I need to limit the word count on this) I imagine I’d uncover so much more in the fascinating stories of Czars.
I’ve got to move on, but for fun, here are other notable mentions that furthered my mission to push for an Innovation Czar which is just logical to me at this point: Human Trafficking Czar, Climate Czar, Reading Czar, Rubber Czar, War Czar, Weatherization Czar.
Bottom line, we are full of Czars!
If you’re a lifelong student of these topics, then you might be saying to yourself, “Duh, Molly.” Which would make you not the audience of those facts above and merely a receiver of the rest of this article. I don’t have to tell you that they can be useful in influential campaigns, and that’s what I’m calling for right now.
Disruption Czar
With a Czar for every occasion and every need imaginable, an Innovation Czar is a no-brainer. But I have three more I want to suggest, one specifically — the Disruption Czar — which I’d love to see come into office at the same time as the Innovation Czar, because I think that alone is a cultural kick in the OODA Loop and would be quite effective in highlighting not only the differences but the unique ways in which they can work together in an infinite planning space. This person would focus more on the systems that enable or block healthy organizational and cultural change. I would want them to look into incentive structures, promotional processes, workforce pipelines, things that — if tweaked or focused on for quality control — can significantly drive sustainable change.
It is a common myth among people who get tired of the words “innovation” and “disruption” to blob them together and disrespect the power that these practices have on an organization. Contrary to public opinion, they don’t just happen once you train everyone to think differently or send everyone out to telework.
Similar to how agile is so poorly executed outside of the classroom, it isn’t until you understand how organizations are impacted whether directly or indirectly, when emphasis is put on meaningful initiatives like these.
Ocean Czar
Given Biden’s Executive Order for the Climate Crisis, I think it’s wise to go one step further than merely a Climate or Environment Czar and go big on this next one. A focus on one, if not the, most important resource that we abuse and do not work to conserve and reverse damage on today — the ocean.
Therefore, an Ocean Czar would be enabled to think on this exclusively vs. the broad reach of a Climate Czar. This one could bring about significant change that I don’t have word count to go into, but I’ll continue discussing this and recruit my brilliant friend Jeremy McKane to talk about this concept more with me — or peer pressure him to discuss on Clubhouse one night as part of the Ocean Currency Network initiatives we work on together.
Venture Czar
And then lastly it’s just a logical move to add a Venture Czar to this team of avengers. Once again, it peels the Innovation, Disruption and now Venture into separate but complimentary corners, permits experts in all realms to show up and have a unique voice for these lanes, and would culturally expose all levels of the government to these practices that are increasingly being tapped and consistently being misunderstood or gamified for vanity metrics.
There’s a great need to align the venture investments (said loosely because “venture” is engaged quite differently in the government because process, legal, ethics, etc.) across all agencies — if even just in awareness. A Venture Czar would not only have a hand in implementing policies that would allow for the creation of new types of funding that stretches long past the incubation and SBIR stages. And they could have a government-wide insight into large acquisitions, new accelerators, shared resources and joint contracts that would benefit multiple agencies in so many ways. Because although the use cases might be different (often they aren’t) it makes no sense for the IRS and the Air Force to accelerate and fund the same or similar technologies in different ways at the same time and lose the opportunity to invest wisely together for better longterm efficacy.
I went one step further and I’ll continue to do so, to learn what other countries are doing on this topic and how they’re implementing innovation and venture into their government models. A global approach to this would be incredible.
Imagine a dozen countries having Ocean Czars and what a gathering of these individuals might be able to accomplish together. Any of these Czars replicated in the global sense would x10 the amount of impactful work and output that could be done — with greater transparency, some social pressure and a lot of helpful FOMO. Not to mention logic in designing new systems that can be scaled across borders.
Here are the countries and efforts I’ve located in a short amount of research that touch on these initiatives though:
I see that the UK began seeking a Venture Czar as early as 2011. Here’s more on that call for a Venture representation by the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA).
From this article in 2014, I’m unable to determine if that had occurred yet or it’s been shoved to the side entirely. They were quite complimentary of the progress made to the point of this article date, but it’s clear they were being polite. I imagine this was a frustrating effort because it’s a pretty simple and logical idea. And those are the hardest to push to the finish line in a bureaucracy because everyone is so zero sum and competitively shallow.
I can’t find any articles noting that the BVCA’s efforts were fruitful. Perhaps you can — tweet me if you do. They certainly provided some exceptional information around it and some great arguments for what seems like a logical step given so many governments are tapping into venture capital spaces right now for a heads up on the solutions, practices and relationships that need to be considered for future appropriation efforts.
I see Jamaica was recruiting an Innovation Czar in 2013. I can’t find whether they eventually found this person, but I do see that in 2016 they brought on a Growth Czar, which in many ways is very much similar to what I’d envision for a Venture Czar. Here’s an effort that stems from that Growth Czar, which was postponed but would probably be a pretty great event to attend if you’re a nerd on these topics as I am.
So there you go. Four Czars I’d love to see in this Administration or in anticipation for the next. I’ll continue circulating these ideas until someone steals them to run with them or wants to collaborate on making it happen.
If you could pick anyone in the world, who would you put into these roles?
Venture Czar
Disruption Czar
Innovation Czar
Ocean Czar
I’m open to other ideas too, but the point that I’ve belabored here is really simple. We can’t afford to think about the same things and just stay in our pockets of the world anymore. In silos scattered across the government and in public/private partnerships working on similar goals but missioned differently by every agency and country (if at all) without the big picture in mind.
I will avoid telling you we need to think agile on this because that immediately suggests this hasn’t been done before and we’re venturing into the unknown. It has been done, just not on a meaningful scale and in different ways and industries. Certainly not in a collaborative and infinite-friendly manner.
We need to think differently about tackling challenges that stretch far beyond US boundaries, and placing Czars in the most trending topics is a great way to grab hold of the momentum that can’t go back into the tube of toothpaste at this point.
We need to take our newfound global, simultaneous, infinitely-adaptable and accepting of outsider mindsets with insider expertise.
Anybody can do it, but a Czar could do it on purpose.
