b'InsightsWhat are some of the challenges you face in your role?How would you define an effective leader? As I reflect on my tenure as CRO, a major challenge isDuring my career, I have been fortunate to work for some finding the time. It is having enough time to assess, focus,great leaders, from the previous IRS commissioner, John and identify risks. Along with the challenge of time, it is alsoKoskinen, to our current commissioner, Charles Rettig. I have about working with the IRS leadership team to think aboutappreciated the opportunities to serve on their teams. I have those things that could happen to get beyond whats right inlearned that being an effective leader requires one to be a front of us and spend time anticipating. Our leadership teamgood listener who takes the time to understand and engage definitely recognizes the importance of planning for andtheir team. It is also important for leaders to always be preparing to get ahead of other potential problems, issues,learning and building their skill set. An effective leader also and risks.cultivates a robust network of colleagues and people who can help them achieve their vision. Effective leaders must Another challenge is overcoming perhaps a natural tendencyalways be inquiring and ask questions. Using the resultant for people to not want to share what can be considered badinformation and knowledge gained from employing this news. The challenge lies in creating an environment wherecuriosity can help leaders match the right people with the people feel comfortable pointing out problems and raisingright skills and place them in the best role and context to concerns while theres enough time to mitigate and deal withsucceed. them. Creating a risk aware culture can help an institution get out in front of possible issues and mitigate their potentialThere are various definitions of risk. What is risk and why adverse effects. Our leadership recognizes this realityis risk so often viewed in negative terms? Can it have a and promotes the notion that everyone needs to be a riskpositive sense to it too?manager. If were going to be successful in what were doing here, we really need everybody to be on the lookout for risksRisk is uncertainty: the reality that we never really know and things that could go wrong. how something is going to turn out. On a personal level, we take risks every day. Many risks are related to how we make Within IRS, there is also a desire to fix problems before raising them. Culturally, if we find something that is not working, there is a strong interest in fixing it before sharing it. Given how quickly situations can escalate from an isolated issue to a full-blown crisis, we are challenging this way of doing things internally. Its about creating a truly risk aware culture and that can be challenging for any organization. What do you appreciate most about the IRS?What I appreciate most about the IRS as an institution is just its ability to get things done. My time as CRO has coincided with a period of significant reductions in the agencys budget and staffing. During this period and under these constrains, the IRS implemented critical aspects of the Affordable Care Act and most recently the tax reform law. In both cases and in a variety of others, under significant constraints, we are able to marshal people, attention, and resources to get things done. For example, the tax reform law with almost a nonexistent window of time to implement those provisions, the IRS had to reprogram hundreds of lines of code and do untold number of forms and guidance. These changes and updates had to be completed and ready to go by the following tax filing period. We got it done. WINTER 2019 / 2020 IBM Center for The Business of Government 31'