The National Conference on Citizenship’s civic health initiatives are, according to their mission, “efforts to explore America’s civic life and motivate citizens, leaders, and policymakers to strengthen it. Through analysis and initiatives, we call attention to what we learn, make it applicable to our action planning, and help take an evidence-based approach to helping ourRead… Read more »
With budget crunches for the foreseeable future, GSA Administrator Martha Johnson says “Tough budgets should trigger innovation, not fear.” And for many government leaders, innovation means transformation of their work and their agencies. The IBM Center has released a leader’s playbook for guiding transformation. The IBM Center report, “A Leader’s Guide to Transformation: Developing aRead… Read more »
Every year at this time, the president delivers his State of the Union address to a special joint session of Congress. President Obama will do so Tuesday night at 9:00 PM. The usual fanfare will accompany the event. Teevee talking heads will begin gushing and gossiping as early as 6:00. The U.S. Constitution divides ourRead… Read more »
The leaders of government programs are just as likely as the leaders of industry to follow management fads. These are the messages that suggest there is an easy path towards organizational success–if they only apply themselves to learning X-number of steps, X-kind of actions, X concepts, etc., etc. A little know study was performed andRead… Read more »
The ability to see ahead (or even around the curve) is a requirement for leadership. Every time I get in a leader slot I am amazed by how my vision shortens. As a consultant, subordinate leader, or individual contributor I could usually make a substantial contribution, often seeing farther than the boss. When I’m theRead… Read more »
The Leadership Game is a new, recurrent feature about leadership lessons from the world of sports. Uncertainty has been a recurrent theme in the past year. The Federal government has had 3 near miss brushes with shutdown, and state and local governments have resorted to furloughs to meet budget shortfalls. Government is designed to operateRead… Read more »
Contracting-out or outsourcing in-house functions is many times viewed as a panacea to problems an organization is facing or as a sure way to reduce costs, which is not always what happens. Here are some considerations in planning to implement the contracting-out or outsourcing of an-house function. Use these considerations as a starting point; theRead… Read more »
A week or so ago, GovLoop started a discussion on what a government innovation lab would look like. Some great comments on how to build collaborative workspaces but I felt that the discussion missed the greater point of how to make government agencies more innovative. The major problem with innovation labs is that they mayRead… Read more »
As CIOs and Chief Knowledge Officers bring tools that have been used on the Internet – blogs, wikis, microblogs, profiles – behind the firewall, they tend to expect the same results. “We’ll have our own Wikipedia!” Or Facebook…or Twitter – you name it. Unfortunately, as many have already discovered and many more will continue toRead… Read more »
For the last few years, I have been working with a colleague on developing a new theory of project management. We argue that the project manager is not a manager in the traditional sense but a blending of manager and leader. This has been written about before by other project management scholars but I believeRead… Read more »