GovHelp: How Would You Create a "Culture of Performance" in Government?
I was just reading OMB's April 14 memo that talks about "Building a government that works smarter, better, and more efficiently for the American people" as tied to the GPRA Modernization 'Act of 2010 (President Obama's Accountable Government Initiative).
- Leaders set clear, ambitious goals for a limited number of outcomes-focused and management priorities;
- Agencies measure, analyze, and communicate performance information to identify successful practices to spread and problematic practices to prevent or correct; and
- Leaders frequently conduct in-depth performance reviews to drive progress on their priorities.
This all sounds nice in theory, but:
- How does it work in practice?
- Does performance measurement just create more paperwork for you in terms of reporting?
- How would you improve the processes surrounding performance measurement?
- How / Does performance improvement tie to the Open Government initiative?
And this isn't true only for Federal government as I know there are city- and state-level initiatives on performance measurement.
Eager to hear your insights...
Tags: Accountable Government Initiative, GPRA Modernization Act of 2010
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Carol Davison on
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It is easy to improve performance. All you have to do is change your system to reward production of the results that you want. (For example if I told all my subordaintes that tap dancing would be rewarded, by the end of 60 days they all would be) Then you change our policies, sops, and training programs to support performance of the desired result. (At Commerce/ITA we wanted to tie performance and awards so awards are submitted using the last page of the performance record/apprasial. Score of say 500-450 is outstanding and can get up to $....., etc. If supervisors don't write an appraisal, they can't give an award.) After that you change position descriptions and vacancy announcments to reflect the new competencies need to produce the results. It's a systemic process. much like a spider web where if you touch one area, if impacts another, and when you pull your hand away you can do damage, or get stuck. Of course all performance systems are an attempted to objectivize a subjective process and all systems can be gamed to reward one's buddy for fogging a spoon, but you have to assume that most people are ethical. That is why I would make integrity the most highly valued competency for leadership.
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Permalink Reply by Allison Merkley on -
It's both easy and extremely difficult. Just as you said, altering one area may affect tens of others you did not account for. I think that attempting to reform our performance management system is a noble effort and I wholeheartedly support it. But I also feel very wary of what may come in its (current performance management's) place.
As far as open gov is concerned, I think implementing across-the-board 360s would be a great start. Currently we only have 360s for a certainl level of management, which, although helpful, is not reaching as far as we could go.
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As a performance person, I realize that changing what will be rewarded, makes it happen. If we reward transformation from manages to leaders who compell their employees to high perforamnce, integrity, appreciative inquiry (vs fault finders), coaching, etc; we will get it regardless of whether we change training, sops, hiring, etc.
For example, my dog knows that if he presses his chest to the floor when I say down, he gets a pupperoni.
Because we reward people for working 9-5 we get it.
Because its expected to be quiet in the theater, we don't talk back like we do at home.
Children are good in December so Santa will bring them presents. They aren't so good in January.
Changing what is rewarded is the quickest way to make something happen. A 360 will requie analysis, skills gap training, rewriting Pds and vacancy announcments, etc all of which are a lot of work which I don't see happening any time soon.
Here at Commerce/ITA we tied awards to performance by building the award nomination into the performance appraisal form. No appraisal, no reward.
If I had bossaroni, spousearoni, and kidaroni I could rule the world.
Of course this is an over simplification.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Krzmarzick on -
Carol - you are too funny!
And obviously, you have not been to some of the theaters in and around the DC area where people act like they're at home.
What's the best "Pupparoni for a Government Employee?"
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Krzmarzick on
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What's the time and cost of a 360 per employee?
How often would you do it (annually only)?
Would competencies be common or customized?
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Its FEDARONI Andy. And do you think I would share it if I had it? No way I would hold out for world domination! It would be okay though, I'm a pretty benign dictator: Rule 1. Play nice. Rule 2. Collaborate. Rule 3. Produce results for the taxpayer. Rule 4. No Inflicting your chemicals (smoke, perfume, air freshener) on innocent bystanders. Rule 5. No brick sidewalks on which myself and others can twist our ankles. 4x4 concrete slabs are much less painful. Rule 6. Seats in the lobbys of all Federal buildings where one can rest one's feet while waiting, or to change our of sneakers.
Actually once we transform managers to leaders who compell high peroformance, engage employees, empower them, challenge them, develop them, give them work with intrinsic reward so the employees will work harder that what is required.
360s cost $200. The problem is that we first we need to get out of the command and control mentality and change from management to leadership before doing them. Check out the leadership circle's results graphic on its website for the best explanation of this.
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Permalink Reply by Allison Merkley on
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360's have been fairly effective at Treasury. They are given once a year. I do think though that Carol hit the nail on the head: you need some culture change before its really a good idea to try. Leadership has to lose some of its risk-adverse behavior and trust that their employees are (generally) willing to provide good insight into how the workplace should function.
When implemented under these conditions the leaders will listen to the information provided, employees feel they have an outlet for their feedback, and miscommunication can be minimized. However, I have to admit that even though we are working towards a trusting environment there are many people that do not trust their leadership and remain skeptical.
IMO, it's all about manuvering the pieces in tandem: you gotta push a little culture change, but you have to start performance measures to get the "Fedaroni" to be useful. Pushing them along is a painful process, and may not work as well as everyone hopes, but in the end it can lead to really good change if only on a micro scale.
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Permalink Reply by Jaime Gracia on -
Accountability is the answer. All the metrics and goals are useless unless you hold people accountable for results.
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THE FEDARONI REVEALED and it costs no time or money: It's praise. Just the other day my supervisor told me that the Executive Director (E.D.) was called to the White House and asked how he accomplished so much is such little time. My boss said "This is your legacy." I could have wept. This second generation Sunday School Superintendent hugged him. The E.D. told me "We couldn't have done this without you." I felt ten feet tall and bulletproof even before they gave me the commendable write up for my appraisal. When was the last time your boss or anyone else's said something like that to you?
OPM reports that 5% of Feds are problem employees. Why do we manage all as though they are problems?
We need to change our outlook and "catch them doing something good", and to say yes unless we have good reason not to. The Leadership Circle graphic circle can help us do that.
GIVE 'EM THE FEDARONI, BOSSARONI, SPOUSEARONI, and KIDARONI.
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Permalink Reply by Tera Lea Salo on -
Carol,
We caught you doing something good! (again). this is great stuff... please keep influencing, and writing.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Horn on -
Hi Andrew,
for a performance culture you need: leadership buy-in, early involvement of managers in the development of the system, support for early adopters, clear expectations from leadership, transparency, demonstrated use of performance management. Easy to list, hard to do.
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Permalink Reply by Alison Simon on -
Hi Andrew-
Thanks for starting this discussion! My addition would be to say that there needs to be a host of metrics (some sort of balanced scorecard), not just one thing that we hold people accountable for. Its nice if you have a good manager but if they don't understand the business, that's a problem. So in addition to all the things that Michael points out, we also need multiple metrics that cover the tasks associated with the job. It is going to take awhile for us where we need to be---let's keep these conversations going and maybe we'll get there.
-Alison
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