If you think big and start small, you can move mountains I had a great opportunity recently to interview Major General Meyerrose (USAF-RET) on the subject of organizational transformation. Major General Dale Meyerrose is the first Senate confirmed President appointed Chief Information Officer for the intelligence community. The video and transcript of that interview willRead… Read more »
“We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us.” – From Star Trek, First Contact As a teleworking manager looking in on a traditional office environment, the dangers of the office often seem frighteningly similarRead… Read more »
According to our marketing partner –Preactive Marketing – the phrase “culture is…” generates roughly 20 million global hits. This indicates it is quite a popular topic and that people are interested in what culture is – and why having a high performance one is important. We’ll share our thoughts, though we also prefer to hearRead… Read more »
How does a leader change the culture of an organization that is resistant to change? Start by working with the existing culture, says business writers in a recent Harvard Business Review article. In this way, the culture can be an accelerator of change, not an impediment. Business writers Jon Katzenbach, Ilona Steffen, and Caroline KronleyRead… Read more »
Are there legislative options beyond (or in addition to) presidential reorganization authority that could encourage collaboration and not just move boxes? Typically, the cultural, administrative, and legal barriers to working together collaboratively inside the federal government are too high and they discourage efforts to collaborate (more on this in a future post). The Obama AdministrationRead… Read more »
Should government use Legos to inspire its reorganization approach? Structural reorganization initiatives – like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security — are slow, take an enormous amount of effort, and require years to become effective. Ultimately, the new structure becomes rigid and needs to be revisited. Many observers advocate creating more adaptable approachesRead… Read more »
Would “virtual agencies” be an effective alternative to traditional structural reorganization initiatives? If so, what needs done to make them happen? When Vice President Gore’s reinventing government team was being formed in the early 1990s, he encouraged it to not focus on reorganizing agencies and programs, but rather to fix what’s inside the agencies. HeRead… Read more »
The political winds are blowing favorably for government reorganization for the first time since Jimmy Carter’s efforts in the 1970s. As a result, the conversation on government reorganization is shifting from “should we” to “how do we” reorganize. What are some of the lessons from past efforts? At one point, the advice was: don’t doRead… Read more »
President Obama asked Congress for authority to reorganize government in his 2012 State of the Union address. Several weeks later, he proposed legislation to do so. What is in that bill? What Is Presidential Reorganization Authority? Beginning in 1932, presidents were periodically granted authority by Congress to submit plans to reorganize agencies. Over time, itRead… Read more »
Last month, the Senate held a hearing on re-tooling government for the 21st century. What’s the background behind recent pushes to reorganize the government and how do they different from perennial calls to do so over the past three decades that have gone no where? The Senate hearing focused on recent U.S. Government Accountability OfficeRead… Read more »