240. A Different Look at DOGE
At The Table with Patrick Lencioni
Patrick Lencioni
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why is it so difficult to reform government inefficiencies? And what can organizations and households learn from eliminating waste in large, public institutions?
In episode #240 of At The Table, Pat and Cody explore the concept of government efficiency through the lens of organizational health. Drawing comparisons between the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the federal government, and dysfunctional teams, they highlight the painful necessity of accountability and cutting waste.
Topics explored in this episode:
(01:04) Reframing DOGE
* The goal is to explore waste and accountability without partisan heat, looking instead at structure and culture.
(6:09) Government vs. Private Sector
* The federal government is not set up to be a team like private sector organizations.
(10:47) The Storage Unit Analogy
* Cody shares a story of trying to help a hoarder consolidate two storage units, which becomes a metaphor for government systems that resist change.
(15:24) Accountability
* Leadership requires doing what is right, even when it’s unpopular or emotionally difficult.
(20:44) Mistakes Will Happen
* Even a well-intentioned cleanup will result in some regrettable losses.
* Without a willingness to risk minor mistakes, the entire system remains unsustainable.
(25:31) DOGE in Your Organization
* The hosts discuss applying DOGE at the Table Group.
* Even healthy organizations benefit from periodically eliminating waste.
This episode of At The Table with Patrick Lencioni is brought to you by The Table Group. We teach leaders how to make work more effective and less dysfunctional. We also help their employees be more fulfilled and less miserable.
At The Table is a podcast that lives at the connection between work life, leadership, organizational health, and culture. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
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Connect with Cody Thompson on LinkedIn.
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Let us know your feedback via [email protected].
This episode was produced by Story On Media: https://www.storyon.co/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And that's what makes this so hard. |
| 0:02.8 | By definition, the people, taxpayers, employees, the whole system, if we're going to do what's |
| 0:08.6 | right for the viability of our nation, some of the people that work for the government are probably |
| 0:13.1 | going to have to be upset, and we're going to have to love them through that and do it anyway. |
| 0:17.2 | That's hard. |
| 0:20.1 | Welcome to At the Table with Patrick Lynchoney, the podcast that lives at the connection between |
| 0:24.5 | work life, leadership, organizational health, and culture. I'm Pat Lincone, your host, joined by |
| 0:30.2 | my co-host, Cody Thompson, and our engineer behind the glass, Matt Lincone. And just to remind |
| 0:36.6 | everybody, we're doing many of these |
| 0:38.3 | just the two of us now. It's been difficult to get everybody involved. We're going to have some |
| 0:42.3 | guests on from time to time. But this is our first video version of At the Table, Cody, and you're |
| 0:49.6 | looking splendid. It's so our listeners' eyes and ears can have the same mediocre experience, Pat. |
| 0:56.1 | It's going to be great. Cody, what's our topic today? A different look at Doge. |
| 1:02.9 | That's right. Doge is fascinating. It's every day we're hearing about this thing. And the whole |
| 1:09.7 | idea that this acronym has become a verb, part of our, part of our lexicon is nuts. |
| 1:16.3 | Now, because much of Doge is happening in Washington, D.C., it always turns out to be political. |
| 1:23.8 | Everything gets politicized that happens in Washington. |
| 1:27.0 | But we want to look at this from a different perspective, maybe more light than heat, |
| 1:33.5 | and look at what's really going on from an organizational and a cultural standpoint, |
| 1:38.6 | because it is fascinating. |
| 1:40.9 | And just to make sure that people understand that this isn't really just a political thing. |
| 1:45.7 | Certainly there's political angles to that, and that gets for good ratings on TV, I suppose. |
... |
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