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Government Leader home > September/October 2006 issue
Back to school - It’s graduation week on the Harvard University campus, the culmination of four years of hard work for thousands of college students. But just down the street at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, it’s the first day of class for 74 mid-career government managers.
The roots of leadership - When Elizabeth McDaniel arrived at the National Defense University’s Information Resources Management College in November 1999 she wasted no time in making a few waves. One of the first things she did was to press for change in the faculty hiring system at the college.
Emergency operation - What do you do when Congress passes controversial legislation that requires you to jump-start a new systems program that involves multiple government agencies, but with no business processes in place and a timetable so tight that pilot programs aren’t viable? You push forward—quickly.
Fair and balanced - A silver-haired man in his eighties enters the classroom. Dan Fenn, adjunct lecturer for the Kennedy School of Government, begins teaching a session on how to handle changes in management. It sounds innocuous enough. Yet the observant student will notice an unmistakable Irish twinkle behind Fenn’s glasses.
Big Picture - The Senior Executive Fellows program at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government is not the place to find a definitive answer to a specific problem. The program strives instead to provide students with new tools for problem-solving.
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ViewPoint
Wyatt Kash | Viewpoint: ExpectMore.gov - The Web site, launched last February by the Office of Management and Budget, hasn’t gotten much attention since its debut. And it has its detractors. Yet ExpectMore.gov deserves credit for opening a new chapter on governance in the Internet Age.
UpShot
Performance | The training void - Ask a federal executive to make a wish list for his or her agency, and it’s likely that more training for new managers will appear near the top. But for years, the likelihood of such an item going from wish to reality has been slim.
UpShot
Human Capital | Succession success - At the Government Accountability Office, workforce issues are a big priority. GAO was among government agencies singled out in a recent report by international accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers as having a good plan for executive succession.
UpShot
Acquisition | Rising numbers - The acquisition workforce is one of new Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator Paul Dennett’s main focus areas. He said during his confirmation hearing in June that he wanted to improve the education of the acquisition workforce.
UpShot
Workforce Planning | Best case, worst Case - Workforce planning isn’t just a matter of identifying impending skill gaps. Planning also has to be aligned with the direction the work is going to take, said Rebecca Jones, a human capital analyst for Gartner Inc. of Stamford, Conn.
Commentary
Jonathan D. Breul | The impossible dream - Would you like to increase your agency’s productivity by 40 percent? What about reducing erroneous payments by 50 percent? How about doing so in one quarter of the fiscal year? Sound impossible? “Stretch” goals aim to achieve breakthrough results and always seem impossible at the time you set them.
Survival Guide
Survival Guide | If You Gotta Go - etween clearing time on your schedule and weighing the costs of attending a conference, especially one out of town, you’ve got a tough decision to make about whether you really, really need to go.
Inside Job
Inside Job | A New Model for Training - Leaders are found at every level at the Environmental Protection Agency, from GS-1 through the Senior Executive Service, said Sharon Ridings, EPA’s national training manager. That’s why the agency offers five levels of training and development.
Inside Job
Online extra | SES pay for performance is "lost in translation" - The Senior Executive Service’s pay-for-performance system is causing a host of problems, ranging from lowered morale to a hastening of the retirement wave, according to survey released.
BriefCase
Tools: It's All Arabic to Me - Because of the conflicts in the Middle East, one of the most in-demand languages in the federal government right now is Arabic. The government suffers from a constant shortage of personnel who can speak and read Arabic.
BriefCase
Reading List: Build Strong Accountability Five Ways - In the rush to use performance measures to boost accountability, some government organizations could actually be making things worse.
BriefCase
Bookshelf: Moments of Hard Truth - At last, you’ve landed your government dream job, leading a staff of 20. You’ve got butterflies in your stomach as you get ready for your first weeks on the job. You can hardly wait to meet your new staff and bowl them over with your terrific ideas.
BriefCase
At Random: Tabulating Telework - Between 2003 and 2004, there was a 37 percent rise in the number of federal teleworkers, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
Practical Leadership
Stephen Barr | Civil Disagreement - In times of crisis, the White House, the Congress and the government often turn to reorganization to fix what has gone wrong. Move the boxes on the organizational chart. Draw a new schematic.
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