Creating a Culture of Helping

How can leaders inspire employees to help their colleagues? The leader of the design firm IDEO, Tim Brown, set out to create a help-friendly organization in order to spur greater creativity. Collaboration is key to effective organizations. But how can leaders encourage helping behaviors among employees? A recent Harvard Business Review article by Teresa Amabile,Read… Read more »

SES Job Opening – Associate Director of Administration

The Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (CSOSA) has an opening for an Associate Director of Administration. This position heads the Office of Administration, which is responsible for managing Agency acquisitions, and directing CSOSA’s facilities and security programs. Many of CSOSA’s programs are evolving, requiring the incumbent to develop precedent-settingRead… Read more »

Structure in Threes: Service DesignService Quality

This morning I started some R&D prototyping on measuring Services Quality. Started with SERVQUAL model by Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry. Put together a simple spreadsheet model for GAP #1. The approach is similar in format to Peter Marks’ [Design Insight] measurement of customer perception of product desirability. Since Services are purchased and experienced similar toRead… Read more »

Mentoring to Replace Yourself

If something happened to you tomorrow, do you have a successor leader ready to take the helm? In too many organizations, especially in a workplace where individuals are tasked with performing multiple roles, the process to identify, mentor and cultivate a replacement for you can be a haphazard approach to succession planning. Not only isRead… Read more »

The Game is On – FHWA is Seeking Your Input on Smart Cars

The USDOT and several other transportation agencies around the nation have been paying close attention to the emergence of the smart car. Over the last few years, they have funded research in this technology and studied how to integrate it into the existing system. And now, they are reaching out in several ways to shareRead… Read more »

Complexity is a Measurement Problem

This was originally posted at www.cpsrenewal.ca. In today’s ecosystem of articles and books about innovation, management, governance, policy, and technology, there is a sentence that is becoming a standard: “Leaders must manage an increasingly complex environment.” And the author can point to anything – Moore’s Law, economic interconnectedness, citizen participation in policy-making, environmental externalities –Read… Read more »

Digital Leadership: Opportunities for Cities, States, and Regions

Summary: What does it mean for a city (or state or region) to be a digital leader? This post provides ideas to stimulate thinking and discussion by promoting a focus that is broader than the technologies themselves, specific applications like consumer marketing, high-tech start-ups, and the digital sector. Advocating a more strategic and holistic approach,Read… Read more »

If You’re Selling, Are You Showing or Telling?

I tweeted this quote by American humorist Will Rogers the other day: “People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.” If you’re selling (and, if you really think about it, we’re all selling something), this quote speaks to what it takes to close the deal among an increasingly skeptical and informed buying audience.Read… Read more »

MLK Day: Has the “Dream” Been Realized?

As Americans pause to honor the courageous life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we should ask ourselves a profound question: Has the vision articulated by Dr. King in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech become a reality in 21st century America? According to a Presidential Proclamation issued by the White House:Read… Read more »