TOPICS
TOPICS
Role Model
Although many presidents have talked about the need to improve executive branch performance, President Obama is the first to assume personal leadership responsibility for doing so. Without that impetus from the chief executive officer of the executive branch, there is unlikely to be the kind of change many have talked about but none so far has effected.
True leaders model the behavior they seek. While prior presidents -- both Democratic and Republican -- have proposed various new public policies after railing against the supposedly ineffective and inefficient executive branch, none has been willing to devote his time or that of agency heads to implementing those policies. The gap between policy creation and its implementation is deep and wide, and so far no president has been willing to leap the abyss, much less risk falling into it.
Obama, however, has announced a change in this pattern. He has pledged to use his most valuable resource -- his time -- to improve agency productivity. In the Analytical Perspectives section of his fiscal 2010 budget proposal, the president stated that he would conduct "meetings with Cabinet officers to review their progress toward meeting performance improvement targets." Obama also has made it clear he expects his Cabinet officers to spend their time on increasing productivity.
Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag has put teeth in Obama's plan by directing agencies to define outcome-oriented goals, the internal and external programs that contribute to accomplishing them, the people responsible, and the strategy for reaching the targets by July 30.
When performance matters to the president and his top political appointees, it also will be important to members of the Senior Executive Service, mid-level managers, first-level supervisors and employees. When performance matters to the president, political appointees can no longer avoid personal engagement and blame others for nonperformance. Instead, they must devote themselves to engagement and discussion about how to achieve their goals with their workforces.
It also is easier to delegate authority for achieving goals when they are specific and based on outcomes. Political appointees can be satisfied that their policy goals are identified, and they can measure the results, rather than attempting to micromanage.
Obama stated in the budget document that he wants to see "collaborating across levels of government" during the process of setting agency outcome goals and creating plans to achieve results. He recognizes that, given the complexity of the problems and the need for innovation, it is not possible to achieve goals without collaboration.
The president is modeling the behavior he seeks. He has created 20 czars, each of whom has the responsibility to collaborate across agencies when program outcomes cross agency lines. He has also created a chief performance officer position whose job includes developing "a performance agenda across government."
Recognizing the collaborative role employees must play through their unions to improving performance, Obama also has indicated he understands that an engaged workforce is a higher-performing workforce.
This attitude contrasts with the Clinton administration's recognition of -- but failure to enforce -- the need to collaborate with employees through their unions to increase performance, and the Bush administration's attempt to enforce agency performance goal accomplishment while rejecting collaboration to achieve the targets.
Collaboration as a tool for increasing performance has advantages:
- Learning takes place as decisions are considered;
- Better decisions are made;
- Decision-making takes longer, but implementation is faster and with much less resistance;
- Working relationships improve;
- Participation is broader and deeper, and leads to broader and deeper support for results;
- Employees at all levels have a clearer idea about how their role advances the mission of the agency; and
- Employees at all levels have an opportunity to act on the public service impulse that brought them to the federal government.
But achieving increased agency performance through collaboration will not be easy. Among the many obstacles are:
- Hierarchical, stove-piped organizations that use information as power rather than as a resource to share to make better decisions;
- The enduring myth of the need for hierarchical control;
- The difficulty of changing relationships that were built on mistrust; and
- The significant reorientation required to refocus from speedy decision-making to decision implementation.
The potential impact of Obama's personal leadership on these goals is significant. We might at last begin to truly focus on performance and improve it, and we might truly use the intellectual power and the desire of federal employees to serve the public. Let us hope that this change is in our future, because the nation has never needed high performance from public employees more than it does today.
Robert M. Tobias is a distinguished practitioner in residence and director of the Institute for the Study of Policy Implementation at American University. He was president of the National Treasury Employees Union from 1983 to 1999.
COMMENTS
- “he goes on date nights with his wife where the taxpayer foots the bill for transportation--oh and how many times has he gone out to get a burger for lunch where we pay the security bill? And who paid for his kids and mother-in-law to travel with him to other countries?” OMG! Like no other president ever had a night off. Shrub never went to the ball park or the volley ball court. As a matter of fact, we paid for Mrs Bush and the girls’ trip to China. Get off that donkey you rode in on. Once a president, the Secret Service has you FOR LIFE, at the public expense. EVERYWHERE they go is subject to surveillance and the costs covered by either the public. Personally, I’m pleased that he’s getting out and pressing the flesh. At least he sees the common man's plight and doesn’t just sit in his ivory tower contemplating his navel; while those fools in congress are voting to by 3 new jets for their junkets (after chastising the automakers). “he is micromanaging every agency” You may not like it but, no, he is making himself available and showing a vested interest in his agenda. That earns buy-in from all those non-political sycophants in civil service management; the same ones we hear here crying about the unions. Shrub and everyone of their predecessors did the same things; only Dubya sent his lap dog, Dick the Bic. “But he isn't a fan of pay for performance for employees?” Which hasn’t shown an ounce of effectiveness across the board; only a propensity for managers to vote themselves more money. (See “DoD Internal Program Evaluation Report on NSPS 21 May 09”, pay 2-14. Okay, you got me on them Czars. Still waiting to see how all that unfolds BUT… IMHO it DOES seem better to create a job that pushes your agenda and that goes away with the next administration that to do what Shrub did. No single president, since the elimination of the "Spoils System", appointed as many folks into non-competitive positions as did King Shrub. The GovExec article "Transition could create leadership void, report says" dated May 6, 2008 pointed out: "President Bush named 12 percent more political appointees and 33 percent more Schedule C appointees than President Clinton." We’re still picking the fleas off the body politic. Tip off Posted August 7, 2009 9:35 AM
- "...Need to improve executive branch performance...Obama...personal leadership responsibility." Yeah, right; that's why he goes on date nights with his wife where the taxpayer foots the bill for transportation--oh and how many times has he gone out to get a burger for lunch where we pay the security bill? And who paid for his kids and mother-in-law to travel with him to other countries? "Obama, however, has announced a change in this pattern. He has pledged to use his most valuable resource -- his time -- to improve agency productivity." So in other words, he is micromanaging every agency instead of running the country and leading the leaders of the various agencies or delegating down... "When performance matters to the president and his top political appointees,..." But he isn't a fan of pay for performance for employees? "He has created 20 czars, each of whom has the responsibility to collaborate across agencies...He has also created a chief performance officer position whose job includes developing "a performance agenda across government." Hmm, by calling them czars, are we on the road to communism (guess that's why he didn't call them leaders like in China)? And how come 20 new positions had to be created--couldn't the heads of the organizations collaborated across agencies to reach a compromise (win-win) solution? And a new position had to be created to develop a performance agenda across government--isn't the government supposed to take care of the people of the US and be for the people? That in itself is a pretty big performance agenda--that is to meet the needs and provide structure and stability across the nation for all citizens...unfortunately, that isn't what unions are about these days... The comment I saw posted below the article was dead on in its assessment... Vera Ando-Winstead Robert Winstead Posted August 4, 2009 6:25 PM
- This is an illuminating article on at least two levels. The first is the tone of sycophantic yet oh-so-earnest adoration directed at the president, as though he has brought about a New Age of wisdom and beneficence. Unfortunately, this is laid on with a trowel and cloys rather quickly. Secondly is the awed tone adopted as though the preseident's behvior is unprecedented in its devotion to governmental improvement. He's even - mirabile dictu! - said that he'll meet with his cabinet officers to discuss their performance objectives. Unprecedented! Stop the presses! It's hard to belive that Mr. Tobias really wrote this tawdry screed with a straight face. Revisionist history this is not; it's pure fantasy. Intense partisanship is a long standing fact of life as she is lived in Fantasyland-on-the Potomac, but this blatant distortion of reality conveys disrespect if not contempt for one's readers. Government Executive as a credible source of information is in serious danger of losing its claim to being such when it permits its columns to be converted into an incense burning worship exercise of this type, which was to be expected, given Mr. Tobias' background and known biases. A little more attention to journalistic objectivity or at least balance in presentation is in order, gentlemen. That seems to be in increasingly short supply, unfortunately, especially when it comes to the media's consistently less than impartial, indeed fawning treatment of this "iconic" president. Jeremiah Posted July 29, 2009 6:55 PM
