Excellence in Government
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The 5 Best Ways to Attract STEMM Talent to your Agency

Recruiting highly sought after STEMM talent – that is professionals in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics or medical fields – is hard and getting harder. The demand is growing, but the number of college students who have selected STEMM majors so far is staying flat. Federal agencies ... Read & React

It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through. Zig Ziglar

How to Prevent the IRS From Abusing Its Power Again

by Conor Friedersdorf

Almost everyone agrees that the IRS behaved badly when it singled out conservative activist groups for extra scrutiny. As Ezra Klein put it, "because the Internal Revenue Service holds so much ... Read & React

7 Tips for Taming Your Calendar

by Scott Eblin Executive Coach

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post called Five Ways to Get Your Calendar Under Control.  Since then, I’ve used it as the starting point for a conversation among high potential leaders in our Next Level Leadership® group coaching program. The framing questions for the group about the post are: ... Read & React

Government Should Run Like a Business—But Not in the Way You Think

by Eric Schnurer

"Government" is, everywhere, an industry in serious trouble. Not only do its consumers constantly complain, but some also are finding alternatives. Its products are failing the tests of quality and innovation, and it costs more than users want to pay. If governments were private firms, they'd be ... Read & React

The Myth of Presidential Leadership

by Norm Ornstein

The theme of presidential leadership is a venerated one in America, the subject of many biographies and an enduring mythology about great figures rising to the occasion. The term “mythology” doesn’t mean that the stories are inaccurate; Lincoln, the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie, conveyed a real ... Read & React

With the IRS Scandal Ablaze, How Does that Special-Prosecutor Thing Work?

by Matt Vasilogambros

While the Justice Department has started an investigation into whether the Internal Revenue Service broke any laws by targeting conservative groups for heightened scrutiny, critics of the Obama administration will likely continue their call for a special counsel. Already, Louisiana Gov. Bobby ... Read & React

How the Zebrafish May Hold the Key to Human Disease

Researcher Zhaoxia Sun, at Yale, uses the zebrafish to study Polycystic Kidney Disease, which affects more than 600,000 Americans. Mutations in the zebrafish vhnf1 gene, and its human counterpart, cause cysts in both zebrafish and human kidneys.
by Dr. Francis Collins Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Wouldn’t it be instructive if we could see the effect of a genetic mutation in real time, as the gene was misbehaving? Well, that’s one of the perks of using the zebrafish—a tiny, striped, transparent fish. Just last month, an international team of scientists—funded in part by NIH—published the ... Read & React

4 Takeaways from the IRS Inspector General's Report

by Michael Catalini

The IRS is about to become Washington’s favorite political target as hearings get under way about its targeting of conservative non-profit groups. With the White House and lawmakers expressing outrage, a key report from the agency’s inspector general paints an unflattering view of the goings-on ... Read & React

Al Gore and More: EIG 2013 as Told by Your Tweets

by EIG Staff

Some might have questioned whether the concept of “excellence” in government was even worth talking about this year—with the sequester, furloughs and the potential for lean budgets on the horizon. But a lineup of the government’s best and brightest—including approximately 800 900 attendees—showed ... Read & React

Space Is Now a Reality TV Show

Chris Hadfield experiments with water drops in microgravity
by Megan Garber

"Why are people so fascinated with @Cmdr_Hadfield?" the tweeter asked. "Can someone enlighten me?" The answers were swift and sharp and unsurprising. "Dude, he's a frigging astronaut!" one replied. "Um, he's an astronaut?" another offered. "What else do you need?" Someone else explained things with ... Read & React

How to Walk Away

by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Most of us know what it's like to stay in a job or a relationship after it's stopped being satisfying, or to take on a project that's too big and be reluctant to admit it. CEOs have been known to allocate manpower and money to projects long after it's become clear that they are obviously ... Read & React