In the Buffalo, New York area a public fed up with the cost of government has over the past several years voted to reduce the size of the Erie County Legislature from 17 members to 11, and the Buffalo City Council has gone from 13 members to 9. Kevin Gaughan a citizen activist has ledRead… Read more »
A key element in organization (and work units within an organization) success is its structure – how its work activities are organized; and how responsibility and authority are identified. Structure affects how employees – even at the very top of the organization – execute their responsibilities and authority, coordinate and work with others and achieveRead… Read more »
Much of Australia’s population doesn’t realise there is a difference between Australia’s public servants, who are employed and work for the state in an apolitical fashion, and Ministerial and other political advisers and staff, who are employed and work directly for politicians and political partie. However there is a crucial difference at the moment asRead… Read more »
This is the first post in a three part series about the newly released report, Open for Business: Leveraging Open Government to Improve Agency Operations. I’d encourage you to check out the Open Government Analyst briefing by the Government Business Council, the research arm of Government Executive magazine and OpenText . The report includes aRead… Read more »
From the NASPAA Nonprofit Section: “Scholarship in Action Conference Dates August 9-11, 2012 at Auburn University Abstracts due March 1, 2012 Scholars and practitioners in the areas of nonprofit leadership, community engagement and public scholarship are invited to submit papers for presentation, discussion and possible inclusion in a published volume. Specific topics include: Nonprofit Leadership,Read… Read more »
From the NASPAA Nonprofit Section: “Scholarship in Action Conference Dates August 9-11, 2012 at Auburn University Abstracts due March 1, 2012 Scholars and practitioners in the areas of nonprofit leadership, community engagement and public scholarship are invited to submit papers for presentation, discussion and possible inclusion in a published volume. Specific topics include: Nonprofit Leadership,Read… Read more »
Around this time, various IT and professional web sites list what they consider the top skills for the coming year. It’s interesting to look back and see what skills stay on the lists, what skills fall off the list, and the new skills that appear. I haven’t seen such a list for government workers soRead… Read more »
A manager asked me the best way to “knock the rough edges off” his team? I said, “How about we grow them until the rough edges are covered?” Are you a knocker or a grower?
Social Connect via: As the public service changes and let’s not doubt it is changing quite a bit, the need for a new management style emerges due to a much different set of employees to manage. I’ve argued before about the evolving public service from the point of view of an employee. Today, I’d likeRead… Read more »
American City and County Magazine ran an article recently titled Trimming the fat-or-not with Lean Six Sigma by Stephen Ursery. The article refers to the success of Lean Six Sigma in Irving Texas and its failure in Erie County, New York, according to Mark Cornell spokesperson for Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. In Irving Texas,Read… Read more »