The Defense Department‘s former policy undersecretary believes the Pentagon has an opportunity to find cost reductions by using a private sector technique known as “delayering.”

Michele Flournoy spoke to Federal News Radio Monday and said this is the time to cut overhead as the government, in particular the Pentagon, faces a time of budget cuts.

In “delayering,” Flournoy says organizations seek to remove management layers and work to focus more energy on performance.

DoD spent $212 billion on overhead in fiscal year 2011, which Flournoy said is more than Israel’s entire GDP.

“We have almost 800,000 civilians in the department, another close to 800,000 contractors supporting the department,” she told Federal News Radio.

“This is an area that has experienced tremendous growth during the war years for understandable reasons. But now, it’s a period where we’ve got to turn back that growth and right-size the organization again,” Flournoy said.

She credited Secretary Chuck Hagel for his decision to cut 20 percent of Pentagon staff.

For more of Flournoy’s insight and perspective, click here to listen to the full conversation.