When Louis DeJoy announced February 18 that he’d “notified the Postal Service Board of Governors that it is time for them to begin the process of identifying his successor,” speculation began about how that process would unfold.
In his statement, he clearly anticipated that the governors would have plenty of time to find his replacement and that he, in turn, would have the opportunity to school that person about how to continue implementing his 10-Year Plan.
Given that the Postal Service will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding this summer, many observers assumed that DeJoy wanted to be part of the ceremonies and that he’d pass the baton thereafter.
All that theorizing vaporized on March 24 when, apparently because of external pressure, the governors suddenly told DeJoy that the time for his departure had come, and he resigned (but came right back in a new role).
The loyalists
DeJoy was inexorably tied to his 10-Year Plan; as elements of it appeared to be failing he was unwilling to change course and unable to separate himself from the consequences.
DeJoy had also assembled a cadre of former XPO associates and internal postal executives as the team of loyalists who would prosecute his Plan’s implementation. Moreover, as part of the orderly transition of power to his successor, DeJoy openly stated it would include ensuring continuity of his Plan after his departure.
But if the leader has left, what will happen to the rest of the band? Given the apparent disfavor into which the 10-Year Plan has fallen, will DeJoy’s XPO cronies decide it’s their turn to leave as well? Moreover, within the ranks of HQ postal executives, will there be similar decisions to move on?
Of course, any or all could stay to see what DeJoy’s successor will want to do, but the prospect that the next PMG will embrace The Plan and simply continue what DeJoy was doing is far from assured. Therefore, the VPs and other senior staff who were The Plan’s most visibly zealous advocates may want to consider their futures accordingly.
The Plan
As for The Plan itself, DeJoy’s successor will – or should –have the opportunity to do a reset, retaining what was working or modifying it as needed, or replacing it with a set of strategies no longer bearing the Plan’s name. The appearance of a fresh start will be important, even if everything that was part of DeJoy’s Plan isn’t erased.
The two highest-profile elements of The Plan, semi-annual price increases and widespread changes to the transportation, processing, and delivery networks, may be the likely areas in which to make visible changes of direction. However, altering course in those regards won’t be quick or simple, and unwinding some of what DeJoy had started would need to involve adjustments in other related areas. As has been noted before, the economics of the Universal Service Obligation are no longer working as conceived or as they worked even thirty years ago. The associated costs are no longer supportable by postage revenue, and the rate increases during the DeJoy years were not encouraging the growth or retention of hard-copy mail volume. Therefore, at some point in the not-too-distant future, a DeJoy successor should have a heart-to-heart discussion with legislators to review the realities and decide what to do about the USO – or, more particularly, how to support its costs.
Redesigning the retail, processing, and delivery networks to meet the resulting level of service would follow logically, but the real challenge would be dealing with the opposition of postal customers if their local facilities are impacted, and of the postal labor unions when the unavoidable reductions in complement occur.
In the interim, until such big-picture issues are resolved, the next PMG may want to consider returning to an annual pace for price changes and encouraging creative strategies to make using the mail less costly and difficult for commercial mailers – who are the source of most mail volume.
The next PMG might also unwind the RTO program, ending controversy over its apparent bias against service to rural areas, and return to the less costly and more flexible use of contracted services for other than intra-city transportation.
Also on the to-do list might be returning to less relaxed service standards, establishing greater transparency and integrity in the measurement and reporting of service performance, and better integration of the functional groups responsible for processing, moving, and delivering mail. Removing the siloed HQ-to-field operational structures, and giving local executives, such as at the district level, the authority and responsibility for all of their operations, might improve accountability and, hopefully, attention to service.
The successor
Naturally, the speculation will continue until the next PMG is named, and that choice rests on not only what that person’s qualifications may be, but also on the mandate – implicit or otherwise – that the person might be given.
By driving out many experienced senior executives, and by building a management team based primarily on loyalty to him and his Plan, DeJoy depleted the ranks of potential internal successors. Moreover, given that DeJoy’s executives are viewed – not without reason – as wedded to continued implementation of The Plan, choosing the next PMG from “inside” is even less likely.
Conversely, though, the merit of picking someone from “outside” depends on who does the picking and the criteria used in the selection. Though the governors of the USPS have the exclusive legal authority to appoint a PMG, how they get candidates, and how they may get pressure about whom to choose – as was later known about DeJoy’s selection – can skew the definition of “best qualified.”
Ever since DeJoy’s February 18 announcement, the names of persons professionally qualified to run the USPS have floated around to generally positive reaction, but those aren’t who concern industry observers. In the current hyper-political climate, what’s worrisome is the potential selection of someone for political reasons, and the instruction to such a person to fulfill an agenda having only marginal relationship to the long-term interests of the USPS and its customers.
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