Reinvention Wrap-Up
Create waiver vouchers that cap when used or "cashed" Produce a tangible reward for the team that used it.
Always say yes unless there is a compelling reason to say no. Institutionalize this philosophy.
John Lennon met Yoko Ono because Yoko Ono had an art installation that Lennon attended. In the middle of the exhibition was a ladder. Lennon climbed it. Adhered to the ceiling above the ladder was a small "Yes." Lennon said had it been "No" he would not have tried to meet her.
USDA/Mr. Rominger - We need a waiver for all departmental personnel and procurement policies for all USDA reinvention labs. Will you do that for us?
Recruit, select, promote and train based upon ability to accept responsibility and make decisions.
Make front line service providers the 1st line customers for GSA, OPM - eliminate department layers.
Follow Blair House recommendation - Have one of these outside Washington
Assure that in tasking, authority always matches responsibility.
Accept and institutionalize the realization that disagreement is not disloyalty.
Change agents and reinventors on sidelines
- Seen as renegades
- Hard to stay:
- positive
- patient
- persistent
But keep pushing!
Vilify careerism as the ultimate enemy of productivity. Restructure organization and procedures accordingly.
Limit involvement of senior leaders to value-added activities!
Stop discouraging staff initiatives!
Require senior leaders to rotate across cabinets.
Retire them young and promote the demonstrably flexible and inquiring, also intensive training in theory
Move the "Reinvention Conference" outside the Beltway so that we can generate a captive audience of executives.
You convened the cabinet and staff - now take it on the road to DoD commanders
Create a system of (mandated?) Readings for senior leaders. These readings would reflect successes, challenges and lessons learned. Best recent example would be "Report of the CSAF Blue Ribbon Commission - Organizational Evaluation and Awards, Feb. '97." This report provides a global view on leadership direction with specifications for change. Many other documents would be appropriate.
Forget them! They don't have a clue and never will. But we can do this in spite of them. They'll never know!
Stop rewarding, respecting and admiring executives on the basis of what their budget is and how many people work "for" them. Use results and outcomes.
This information is too hard to find! You need to create links to local gov pages and not-for-profit organizations so people outside the Federal Government can see the quality of thinking and add their comments. How about adding links to actual success stories of people who have manage to create change at public agencies and how they did it!
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In reinventing the government remember there are a number of people who would love to retire who have already completed and served 30 years of quality government service. The problem is not addressed by the agencies using the buyout, and it has not be addressed through anyother reinvention mechanisms. For pepople who have served and completed in excess of 30 years of government service, there should be no age reduction penalty. Downsizing of government would go much smoother and quicker, if this age penalty was removed for those persons who fall into this category
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Down-sizing shouldn't start from the bottom up, it should start from the top down. Abolishing the positions of the workers while keeping the managers makes no sense. In my office there is 1-GS-12, 1-CW4, 1-CW3, 3-GS9's, 2-GS-7's, 3-GS-5's, 5-GS-4's and 3-SSG's, and 3-PFC's. I am in a property book office and our primary duty is managing hand receipts for installation hand receipt holders. The GS-4's & GS-5's work the hand receipts. We are all in the same building, yet the positions abolished were the low grades. We have 11 people in my office who have little or no responsibilities. The person responsibile for determining which jobs are abolished is lazy, abuses power, ignores racim and and wastes government dollars by spending most of his day socializing with friends.
I would like to have a disinterested party take a survey of employees' feelings about management here and use that information to break up the "good-ole-boy" network that keeps many employees from complaining about mismanagement because they know nothing will be done.
I would also like to see closer attention paid to buyouts. Why give someone with 30 years of service a $25,000.00 buyout bonus? The only ones getting the bonus here are those with 25 years + of federal service, mostly males is GS-9 and above.
Fort Sill has gone to hell in a hand-basket because the managers are pitiful and no one is going to investigate the abuses that go on until twenty or so years have passed.
<tuff94@aol.com>
usa -
Our nation's first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal said 99.9% of the problems in Government are due to lapses in communication. Many of the barriers toward creating a Government that works better and costs less is the unwillingness of many to openly communicate with others in their office, their organization, and other Government departments. The Federal family must become a family of communicators. All of us need to be forthright, to ask questions, to provide answers, and to be proactive in providing guidance and support to our internal and external customers.
Richard M. Daley <www.richard.daley.@gsa.gov>
GSA, GA USA -
Remember that mouth-wash commercial on TV in which the employees were arguing about who should tell the boss that he needs mouthwash because he has bad-breath? Everyone was afraid to tell him of the problems. Can you relate to this? Of course, you can! The "shoot the messenger" reflex happens in all kinds of settings, not just government offices. What we need is a way to subtract the messenger from the messager. Anonymity can do that. See our website at Whistleblower.Com to see how you can point out problems that everyone, except the higher-ups, knows about. (P.S. I left off my name just to see how this system here allows for anonymity.)
Whistleblower.Com, -
"Retire them young"?? Ageist! Spoken like a true twenty-nothing. Let's not focus on the Youth Cult, but keep active those who want to and can contribute. Buyouts are bad because they encourage the loss of experience.
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Rethink the reinventing craze by reading "YOU WON - NOW WHAT? How Americans Can Make Democracy Work from City Hall to the White House" which will be published by Simon & Schuster's Scribner imprint early next year. So far, it's been endorsed by 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace, Gov. Christie Whitman, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, ABC News' Forrest Sawyer, Mayor Richard Riordan, former Gov. Richard Lamm, and others.
For more information, you can check out the web page at http://YouWon-NowWhat.com.
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See the web site below for a case where the problem was swept under the rug -
htttp://members.tripod.com/~rhelbig/index.html
Coopers and Lybrand, Navy and TQM Fraud or Mistake
or how the IG proved the bribery allegation false by just pretending it was all a mistake, but do mistakes deliberately occur some 30 times costing $10 million - like the web site says, You be the Judge!.
Roger Helbig <rhelbig@california.com>
CA -
test
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The truth is simple. Falsehood is complicated.
The Government has downsized to much in some areas. Ineffiency in government has caused the lose of federal jobs; many of those were contracted out. Dedicated federal employees have risked their career and many have lost their jobs their, mental and physical health due to reprisal, after reporting fraud waste and abuse. There seems to be a bureaucracy that condones this activity. The solution would be to give more credence to the concerned employee when he sees fraud waste and abuse. Eliminate this excess red tape which gives the abusing official time to retaliate. Let the employee have some of the power to help reinvent government without intimidation. Let the employee have control of his or her job and eliminate most of the multi-tier of management officials. A friend of mine made a good living as an Efficiency expert He was hired by the company to find why they were losing money. The first thing he would do was talk to the employees to find where the problems were. He made a list; took the list to company officials. He then went to the employees and asked what the solutions were. He took the solutions to the company officials and picked up his check.
The government should be reinvented by it's workers. The workers are concerned citizens, taxpayers, voters, and veterans who want what is best fo their country. Let them have a say. Stop giving the power those stealing our taxpayers money..
JESSE SALCEDO <NRSALCEDO@WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
EDGEWOOD , NEW MEXICO USA -
Its close to September and that means its time to spend like crazy.... use or lose.... theres gotta be a better way... cant funds be rolled over to the next fiscal year... lets reward those who spend wisely by allowing funds to be carried over.
R Hicks <rickhicks@rocketmail.com>
MI -
So many people who work for IRS are frustrated and unhappy because they have been left to rot in dead end jobs. Managers still make a practice of rewarding those who suck up and punishing those who don't. There is a severe lack of employee development which is compounded by the nonexistence of career paths. There is still a secretarial/administrative ghetto which is practically impossible to break out of due to the grade structure which makes these people "unqualified" for professional series jobs. This must be eliminated in order to increase work place satisfaction. Also, once you work for one federal agency, why is it so difficult to move to another federal agency? People are not just looking for more money. They want personal growth, career growth, opportunity and variety - the things that are lacking in dead end jobs.
Karen Carreras <Karen.Carreras@ci.irs.gov>
irs, il usa -
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