TOPICS
TOPICS
Career officials called key to management reform initiatives
The long-term success of reform initiatives such as those included in the Bush administration's President's Management Agenda depends on whether career managers and executives support those initiatives over the long haul, participants at a conference in Washington said on Monday.
The administration's greatest achievements in management have more to do with leadership than with the particular success of a program or initiative, said Jonathan Breul, executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, at the Government Performance Summit, sponsored by the Performance Institute of Arlington, Va.
"What we have seen in this administration over the last seven years is the most sustained high-level management reform effort in history," said Breul, who also is a former high-ranking official at the Office of Management and Budget. That effort, he said, has "remained focused surrounding a set of five coherent, interconnected initiatives."
Several other participants agreed that the personal investment of the president in pushing management improvements has made a big difference. But over the long haul, it's critical, they said, that career civil servants get on board and take ownership of the programs.
Mike Hettinger, a director at Grant Thornton Public Sector and former staff director of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Finance and Accountability, said most of the work on the management agenda takes place at high levels, with a political appointee at OMB working directly with other appointees at agencies. "While I think the administration has been successful to some extent in pushing it down beyond the political leadership of the agencies, we need to make sure there is more ... of a role for career agency personnel to play in these management initiatives," he said.
That, said participants, is the only way for initiatives to survive from one administration to the next.
"Unfortunately, major change efforts, and I'll include the PMA in that, don't happen to fit nicely into presidential transition cycles," said Ron Sanders, the Office of National Intelligence's chief human capital officer. "To sustain these kinds of transformations over the course of presidential transitions ... takes some courage on the part of the career folks who are left with the responsibility to carry the ball forward."
Clay Johnson, deputy director for management at OMB, said he hoped career employees, as well as members of Congress, interest groups and other stakeholders, would keep the pressure on the next administration to improve agencies' financial management and make sure "everyone in our programs gets better every year."
Hettinger said it is also important that those that are named to appointed positions in the next administration be familiar with the federal landscape and the problems they will be taking on. During the presidential campaign he said, "You get all these ideas and some may sound good on the stump, but we need to have people in place who have a fundamental understanding of what they're trying to accomplish."
While management challenges certainly will continue into the next administration, they are not the type of high-profile public concerns that will translate into political support. "You will never get a vote for spending your time on this stuff," Breul said. "It needs to be done because it needs to be done. No president has won an election because of this and no president will get reelected because of this."
COMMENTS
- Career federal managers did not embrace the ideals and ideas of the PMA. Business acumen, even though a requisite executive core quality, does not easily translate in a non-business world that does not manage to the demands of investors. PMA established the base upon which to manage the federal “business” world so that the investor (American taxpayers) could understand what products are available to them for the investment made. Each administration will put in action its brand of lines of business and measures. Career federal managers will not embrace new methods because they are unwilling to change, even though they realize that change is inevitable. I believe that the PMA is a valuable set of tools and federal career managers should offer PMA to the next administration. Donald E. Watts Posted March 4, 2008 10:13 AM
- Having good managers is knowing the job that your subordinators are doing.The goverment keeps trying to reinvent the wheel. It's been done let it go.NSPS is not something new it's been tried and it failed.We've been through TQL and numerous acromyns for ways of managing people. We've had rules in place for years to rid ourselves of those who refuse to do the job hired, the managers don't want to spend the time and enery to do so. If you want the best people for the job treat them like adults and pay them like the hard working Americans that they are. Clinton wrote and executive order to pay federal workers equal or greater pay to those in the public sector, they have yet to receive it. Fast tracking those who can quote seminar lingo does not a manager make. Career officials need to look at the bottom a little closer and quit thinking every new public sector think tank scenario(like ISO 14,000) will improve government efficiency and productivity. They start too many programs with thinking them through fully which creates more problems than they solve and lots of litigation. These are wasted legal hours which with more research and planning could have been avoided. A career official making 6 figures is basically trying to retire with all their bennies intact. Has anyone ever questioned those (career officials)who believed in our government only to leave in disappointment at the way we do business? Pamela Motton Posted February 27, 2008 7:04 PM
- After the recent “generalization” articles, I continue to see these exact generalizations made below; but then I expected nothing less because when you’re down the ladder and looking up, you seldom see anything but bottoms. Having studied management techniques and having had more leadership classes than I care to remember, IMHO it is more of a fine art than a science. I come from the old school that says the boss should intimately know what is going on to better direct the troops and yet, looking around my office, I am currently observing a rising young star who knows little detail but is a consummate manipulator; still, he is effective. I see lazy folks and vain strugglers; I see numerous co-workers who are highly proficient, knowledgeable, but have little wish or tolerance for directing others. Succinctly put, people are problems; or opportunities if you believe the literature. Yes, much of our problem is managerial skills and guidance, but what is the fix? Not so long ago it was lean Sigma 6, more recently it was MaxHR and/or NSPS; and I’ve heard horrid things on all. If we are to generalize, then I shall… the problem is the size of the problem. The US government strives to be the “Big Brother” to any and all, directing traffic and solving problems with the wave of its only magic wand, the green kind. Politicians, by their nature, wish to please people. It’s the sound bite promise that causes the most difficulty. They say what they think we wish to hear. And into all this you stir human self-concern, greed, personalities, and territoriality and you have a volatile mix. The citizen is tired of Uncle Sam’s hand in their pocket; but insists on more services. Civil servants, by their charter and oath, are here to uphold the Constitution, our elected representatives, and the people of these United States. They can be charged with or sued for negligence if not doing their jobs. Government contractors (the companies), as currently employed by this administration, are there for profit. Their employees are there to provide product; a situation that is sometimes contradictory. Suits against these are harder, but gaining favor in Congress. I don’t know the solution, but sound-bites and going off half-cocked are not solutions. Oh, BTW Skeeter, the vast majority of us are hourly employees with strict accounting of our schedules. Tip off Posted February 27, 2008 1:00 PM
