Senior Fellows and Friends

Retooling and Refreshing to Set Yourself Apart

2011-10-16T22:07:00.002-04:00

The following is an excerpt of a story I wrote for a new book called The Insider’s Guide to Supervising Government Employees, edited by Kathryn M. Johnson (Management Concepts Press 2011). The book is a collection of stories from many supervisors whose purpose is to help government supervisors (new and seasoned alike) navigate their responsibilities and challenges more successfully. It covers

A solution to "not enough time"

2011-06-06T22:32:00.000-04:00

Rachael Happe, groundbreaking co-founder of The Community Roundtable, has just written an incredibly important post entitled, Communities - The New Strategic Imperative. I urge you to read and consider it. Some managers and executives I know have expressed what I'll characterize as desperation at the speed at which things are running, and the fact that an end to the acceleration is nowhere in

Civil Protection 2.0 - More from Elena Rapisardi in Tuscany

2011-04-03T13:56:00.001-04:00

Some of you will remember an earlier blog post about the webconference that Elena Rapisardi and I convened, in January, 2010, between Virginia, New Orleans, Boston, Italy (University of Ferrara campus) and in Dublin, with the generous assistance of Management Concepts staff. Elena continues her groundbreaking efforts to harness social media for emergency preparedness and emergency response

Social Learning for Leaders

2010-12-21T12:33:00.002-05:00

We know that a critical component of effective leadership is a commitment to developing talent and helping people reach their full potential. This most often takes the form of formal training opportunities, like workshops or seminars. But we know that most workplace learning occurs not in a classroom. Where and how does one learn – really learn—to be good at one’s job? Through daily interactions

Resources That Promote Leadership Systems Thinking

2010-11-14T17:59:00.000-05:00

The Leadership Dilemma in a Democratic Society: Re-energizing the Practice of Leadership for the Public Good (think about the systems maps and read more at the Public Sector Consortium's site) Tim Bonnemann's blog post about the New York Times Budget Puzzle And see related posts on the Experiments in Civic Sensemaking blog

Question for Government Leaders at All Levels

2010-08-14T10:44:00.000-04:00

Do you measure your leadership ability by the size of the burden you carry? Or by the amount of responsibility you create in others? Check out this little video.

To stimulate adoption, just say no.

2010-06-19T23:34:00.004-04:00

About mid way into the pilot phase of the open collaborative workplace project, we added Karl to the team. This is the story of his adoption of a wiki approach to preparing a large document. Karl had joined the Canadian Public Service 6 years earlier, after surviving most of the Nortel Networks meltdown. He had a background in large-scale learning, IT development and management and he knew this

Gov 3.0 - Engagement in the year 2030

2010-03-21T12:08:00.008-04:00

Reflecting on events in Gov 2.0 over the past year or so and the many blogs, web sites and reports across the globe it seems to me that there are some common threads. For example: People wanting to become involved in the day-to-day affairs of government. Governments increasingly realising that they need to engage with citizens to solve problems and deliver more efficiently. A drive to get

1.16.10 Event with Elena Rapisardi: Civil Protection 2.0

2010-01-30T18:36:00.015-05:00

Dear Senior Fellows and Friends, On Saturday morning, January 16th, members of this network held an experimental webconference that linked 19 Americans in Virginia, New Orleans, and Boston with 6 like-minded Italians at the University of Ferrara and in Dublin, Ireland, for a couple of hours. The purpose was to introduce you to ground-breaking volunteer training and coordination done in Italy

3 Common Obstacles to Performance Management in Government (and Ways to Overcome Them)

2009-11-26T00:11:00.008-05:00

In leadership workshops I facilitate, Federal government leaders who gather to improve their supervisory and leadership skills share their ideas and experiences and often recount very similar challenges. Some of the most frequently experienced obstacles have been an unclear or unstable vision from the top of the organization, tentativeness with performance management due to fear of litigation or

The Concept of Level 5 Leadership in the Federal Government

2009-09-07T15:10:00.008-04:00

For my USDA Graduate School Executive Leadership Program, I was recommended to read a book titled “Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap and Others Don’t” by Jim Collins and so far, I have been transformed by the leadership principles and characteristics laid out in the book for going from Good to Great and what it takes to become a Level 5 Leader. Very briefly, here are some of the

What Does Gov 2.0 Mean to You?

2009-09-06T00:19:00.006-04:00

Pay attention to a conversation that's been happening across GovLoop, YouTube, Govfresh.tv, and a handful of other sites. In his seminal book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Clay Shirky talks about the change from one-way to many-way communication that's coming in with social media. He makes the case that the impact of this global mushrooming of

She was Right the First Time, Too.

2009-08-22T13:43:00.001-04:00

Judge Sotomayor’s retreat from her “rhetorical flourish” that a wise old Latina might decide better than a wise old man was the right tactic to secure confirmation, but it was also a retreat from our newly-gained understanding of how the human mind works. Back in 1890, William James formulated a general law of perception: “Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object

Innovation is what happens when people do these two things together.

2009-08-06T22:46:00.006-04:00

Saturday 1st August, 2009. Lunched with Mom and daughter today. We have Ladies Lunches, when all three generations of us females go out to lunch together and share sandwiches, cake and giggles. We met Mom at the mall and she looked rather harassed. She sighed, “I have this letter from the Council about my refuse collection and I don’t understand it so I brought it along for you to look at. I

Tapping the Genius of People in Federal Government - Michael Lee Stallard

2009-06-21T16:12:00.005-04:00

The Obama Administration has a tremendous opportunity to tap into the genius of people who work in Federal government. An example from the past shows what’s possible. The “genius of our people” is a phrase that was used by former Chief of Naval Operations (“CNO”) Admiral Vern Clark who led the US Navy when he was CNO from 2000 until 2005. Clark described his strategy as using the Navy’s “

Are You Adding Too Much Value?

2009-06-14T12:57:00.004-04:00

How could it be possible to add too much value?Marshall Goldsmith provided a compelling answer in his December, 2007 Fast Company article, Adding Value -- but at What Cost?. Mr, Goldsmith, a noted executive leadership coach, examines a shadow aspect of adding value: "The problem is, while they may have improved the idea by 5%, they've reduced the employee's commitment to executing it by 30%,

A Coach's Feedback for Supervisors

2009-05-25T16:53:00.011-04:00

I recently participated in 13L’s FedPitch 2009 practice session in the role of coach. Basically, FedPitch is an opportunity to propose ideas about how to recruit and retain federal government workers. After hearing all the great proposals both at the practice session and at the official event, I realized just how important it is to implement ideas, not only from senior-level staff but from all

Employee Engagement: Imagine.

2009-04-25T19:02:00.005-04:00

There is a 4-minute YouTube video of an event in Antwerp's central train station that's had 2.5M hits in the month since it was posted. You should watch it! All mind chatter aside, I noticed the wonderful feeling the video evoked. How might that feeling, and an experience of flow, be evoked in the federal workplace? Your thoughts are welcome.

Career Change: From I.T. to Acquisition

2009-04-06T22:22:00.005-04:00

After 15 years of government service in the IT field, I felt it was time for me to make a change. I can't really say I was burned out, I loved my work and really enjoyed helping/teaching others and traveling coast to coast in support of that effort. But, I felt there was no room for growth - not only career growth but personal growth. I wrestled with the decision to change series but thought it

Transparent, Participatory, and Collaborative Government

2009-03-07T21:09:00.005-05:00

Recently the National Academy of Public Administration posted a report, written by its Collaboration Project Advisory Panel, that proposed ways in which the President can foster transparent, participatory, and collaborative government. If you want to participate in a growing conversation about the latter, here are several options:To learn more about the Collaboration Project and join the

Leadership Development in Criminal Justice Agencies

2009-02-15T20:32:00.005-05:00

Leonard Sipes and Timothy Barnes, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), recently posted a new internet radio interview by this title with Dr. William Sondervan, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland-University College and Deputy Commissioner Debbie Owens of the Baltimore City Police Department.CSOSA is a small, fairly new independent federal

Using the Combined Federal Campaign to raise money & morale

2009-02-07T20:46:00.012-05:00

I accidentally became the CFC Coordinator for the Department of Education’s Office of Management this year. I became a volunteer when I strayed into our FOIA Chief’s office mid-way through a conversation she was having with someone else and thinking they were talking about the need for CFC Keyworkers, I volunteered. Later in the day, as the news circulated among the staff that I volunteered to be

How Wikis Were Put to Work for IRS

2009-01-27T00:36:00.004-05:00

The Internal Revenue Service has several advisory committees whose members provide the agency with an external perspective on tax administration. Mark Kirbabas of the IRS needed a tool to help the committees and their members communicate better. Mark created a wiki for two of the groups, introducing it primarily as a source to store and work administrative documents. The tool has reduced e-mail

Scott Derrick on Mentoring

2009-01-03T17:11:00.005-05:00

Here is an interesting concept: What if the SF&F blog (or 13L) started an advice column? Here is an example of what I would really like to see:Dear Colleague,I am a long-time federal manager and have been very successful in my leadership role. I would like to serve as a mentor to pass along my knowledge and experience to the next generation of federal leaders. The problem is that I am extremely

Training Games: Anne Laurent interviews Ralph Chatham

2008-12-28T23:56:00.004-05:00

On December 8th, thirty-nine Senior Fellows and Friends gathered to learn about the design and use of virtual-world training games to augment the tactical and cultural training of young soldiers who are deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. Anne Laurent, who has been reporting technological innovations that are ushering in permanent changes to the way government operates, contributed her