Posts Tagged: culture

911 Made Safer – Protecting EMTs!

We’ve all seen an ambulance racing down the street, sirens blaring, weaving in and out of traffic. But sometimes in the rush to get to the hospital in the fastest way possible another tragedy can strike. In 2010, a medic, patient and passenger all died when the ambulance driver lost control on an icy roadRead… Read more »

Finding the Real Life Heroes of Orange is the New Black

If you’re anything like me, “Orange is the New Black” has taken over your life. The show illustrates the difficult and fascinating life within the walls of a federal prison. The show is fiction, but the cruel world OITNB depicts is sadly often representative of what really happens in federal penitentiaries. But there are thoseRead… Read more »

Think Digital

I’ve found myself banging on a lot recently at events and other engagements about pretty much the same stuff. It’s what organisations need to do to grasp the digital opportunity – but which isn’t about actual tools on the internet. At least, not just about that. Embedded below is the first attempt I have madeRead… Read more »

Innovation Is a Team Sport

What is the secret sauce for creating an innovation culture in your agency? Successful inventions often spring from the minds of individual inventors – we often think of Thomas Edison at the classic inventor. But successful innovation is a team sport, according to a new Harvard Business Review article by a team of researchers –Read… Read more »

How to Embed Quality Into Your Agency’s Culture

Quality was all the rage in the federal government’s ranks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The emphasis on quality, however, never really died out in private industry, largely because they quantified its benefits for business. A recent study concludes: “A company with a highly developed culture of quality spends, on average, $350 millionRead… Read more »

Pay for Play – The Culture of College Athletics May Be Changing.

As many government employees are members of unions, and many of us who work with the government interact with union members and union rules, your perspectives on this issue may vary. If you’ve ever been to a college football game – you know there is nothing like the atmosphere before the big game. Tailgating, trashRead… Read more »

Workarounds as Evidence of Broken Processes

I work for a culture (the Air Force) that prides itself on innovation and a mission-first approach. However, in a long-term work project involving process mapping and process design for an internal customer, I’ve also noticed a culture of workarounds driven by several factors: 1) obsolete yet required forms; 2) lack of concrete guidance fromRead… Read more »