00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Deputy Secretary, for being here today.
00:04Perhaps you've heard the phrase that if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority.
00:08One of the ways that you could assess that is by looking at an org chart.
00:12And so, in fact, Secretary Rubio said that if I show you an org chart of what the State Department used to look like
00:18and what it looks like today, it's unrecognizable.
00:21So I decided to look at the org chart.
00:23So we got the org chart here from 2000.
00:26And you can just, you know, obviously I'm not expecting you to be able to read it and be kind of an org chart,
00:31but it's really just kind of a visual representation of what the different offices, agencies, and so forth were looking like.
00:38And then let's show the one from the org chart for after the Biden administration.
00:43And Tyler, just hold both up there.
00:46Right?
00:47So if you look at it, I mean, just visually you can see that it's just a lot more complicated after the Biden administration.
00:53In fact, I count there's 16 additional bureaus and offices that were added over the last two decades.
01:00And, you know, to me, this is an indication that there could be bureaucratic bloat in your organization.
01:07Yeah.
01:08Similar to what maybe you just described here.
01:10And not that organizations shouldn't change.
01:13You know, organizations should change and they should adapt to the new circumstances.
01:17In fact, I think, Deputy Secretary, your position wasn't even around a few years ago.
01:23But more does not necessarily translate to better.
01:26So, Deputy Secretary Regas, can you explain how the differences in the two different org charts,
01:31here, Tyler, keep the other one up, please, thank you.
01:33Can you explain how the two different, the illustration of these two different org charts kind of demonstrates the challenge the State Department has long faced in terms of efficiency and agility,
01:43and how your proposed reorganization is going to address this?
01:48Thank you, Senator.
01:49I appreciate that question.
01:50As I noted, you know, we asked the people sort of at the top of each of those, there are six undersecretaries,
01:56about their bureaus that report down to them and ask them what works, what doesn't work, where can we consolidate functions.
02:04And, you know, as anyone, you know, you've run, you've been a governor, you've run a large organization.
02:09These things just kind of come up over time.
02:12You have some issue of the day that needs to be addressed and it's a real problem.
02:15And you create an office to address it, right?
02:18And they probably did a good job and addressed it.
02:20And then five years later, like, maybe the problem isn't as salient or as urgent, but the bureau remains.
02:26And what we've looked at here is to the extent that some of those issues still need some day-to-day management,
02:32maybe they don't need to have their own bureau.
02:35Maybe they can be combined with another bureau that does similar or overlapping functions.
02:39And we found that in a number of different places.
02:41Like, we had three offices that dealt with sanctions.
02:44And we said, okay, well, sanctions are important, but do we need three offices?
02:47Can they be done?
02:48Can it be done in one office?
02:49The same thing with, you know, nuclear proliferation.
02:51There were, you know, the State Department had absorbed an agency years ago, but that had remained its own bureau.
02:59And so we asked folks, like, how can we continue to execute on these important missions, but do it in the most efficient and effective way possible
03:05so that you've got clearer lines of accountability and a better use of resources?
03:10Great.
03:11Well, thank you very much.
03:12You mentioned I was governor.
03:13I was governor of Nebraska.
03:14And one of the things we focused on as well was government efficiency.
03:18In fact, we actually combined different agencies together, similar to what you're doing with your different offices here.
03:24One of the other things we did is we trained 30,000 people of our state teammates in Lean Six Sigma, which is a process improvement methodology we've discussed.
03:33It's using the private sector to eliminate waste, redundant steps, reduce costs, and improve service.
03:39Because of that investment, we were able to save our state teammates 900,000 hours of their time by finding simpler steps.
03:49So we reduced the amount of time it took them to do things and save taxpayers $115 million.
03:55The private sector has competition to drive that.
03:58Government obviously does not.
04:00That's why it's so important that we have leaders who take the steps to try and drive these things.
04:06Deputy Secretary, when we spoke before your nomination hearing, I appreciate that you're focused on personnel management.
04:11And I agree with, I think, what you said.
04:13Personnel is policy.
04:14And process is also performance.
04:17Now the State Department's organization chart better reflects the administration's priorities.
04:23What are your specific plans to go beyond just the structure to focus on day-to-day process and system to impact service, to improve it, and get rid of waste and inefficiency?
04:32Oh, thank you for that question, Senator.
04:34I think that is kind of a daily exercise when you're in the business of management is asking how things work.
04:41How can we make them work better?
04:43We're going to take a hot minute here to let the new organization sort of settle in.
04:48And over the next three weeks or so, bureaus that are being combined are going to come together under new leadership.
04:55And I think it's a daily, iterative process to say, what are we doing?
05:02How can we do it better?
05:03Why does something?
05:04And you see it come up every day when you've got questions about why did this take too long or why do we get this constituent complaint about what's happening here?
05:11It's usually a sign that something is not working as well as it should.
05:16And that's an opportunity to drill down and say, how did this happen?
05:19How can we prevent it?
05:20Were there too many steps involved?
05:22Or maybe is there a step that's missing that should be there?
05:25And I think it's just a constant evaluation about what is the ultimate goal we're trying to do in each of these areas, whether it's an oboe building, safe, secure buildings at a price of the taxpayer that we can justify, or whether it's delivering on passports to Americans.
05:41We're doing that in under two weeks now.
05:43The standard is like four to six weeks.
05:44So I think we're doing a good job there.
05:47But there's always issues that come up that people come up with, you know, with constituents who have visa issues or how are we dealing with our trading partners.
05:56You know, that's a big thing that the president has really led the way on and where the State Department is going to be right behind him, making sure that we're able to deliver for American businesses and American workers and also onshore some of these critical national security functions and supply chains as well.
06:15Well, I thank you very much, Deputy Secretary.
06:17I want to point out that I asked one of your predecessors what her goal was to process a passport application.
06:22She couldn't tell me.
06:23She didn't have a goal.
06:24So the fact that you actually have standards is a good start in being able to actually deliver for the American people.
06:30I'd recommend that the things you're talking about, you formalize that process through Lean Six Sigma or another process of improvement methodology so that you actually formalize and you train people on how to do it.
06:40So it's not just one offs the way it could devolve to like, hey, we have a problem, but that you actually make it a formal process as part of the culture that people are doing this each and every day.
06:49And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me go over it.
Comments