Government Executive - Authors - Jeff Myers

How the Pandemic Has Impacted Grants Management

Jeff Myers — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 14:36:13 -0400

REI Systems, the George Washington University, and the National Grants Management Association recently presented the results of their fifth annual grants management survey to an audience of more than 350 grant managers. Those survey results included some that could be easily foreseen, and some big surprises. All of the results have important implications for federal managers and policy-makers.

Among the easily foreseen results: COVID-19 has had a big impact on grant management and grant managers have a hard time measuring performance.

The surprises illustrate the challenges grantors face:

Administrative costs for grant management spiked in 2020.
Although compliance is still the biggest focus of grant manager time and effort, technology innovation holds promise for reducing that burden.
A majority of respondents said COVID-19 significantly impacted performance.

Grant Managers Are Key

The pandemic has impacted grant management in substantial ways: Large, new grant programs have been created to tackle COVID-19. The Paycheck Protection Program and funding for vaccine development and therapeutics attracted inexperienced new grantees and created complex new challenges for grantors. At the same time, old ways of managing grants aren’t all possible. For example, training, technical assistance, and site visits to grantees all happen virtually now. Likely as a consequence, more than 75% of survey respondents indicated that COVID-19 impacted grantee performance, with two-thirds of federal grant managers indicating a significant impact (of more than 5%).

The pandemic will almost certainly present a continuing challenge for grant managers as the nation moves to recover economically and Americans recover their health. Grant managers should focus on those challenges and be ready to point to successes that would not have been possible without strong grants management.

However, many grant managers have a hard time measuring performance. Although 67% of federal survey respondents indicated that their grant recipients’ outcomes have improved over the past 12 months, nearly the same portion of state managers say that performance has declined, or that they don’t know whether performance has changed. It isn’t surprising that measuring recipient outcomes is challenging. Grant managers are accustomed to measuring and reporting funding flows and uses, timeliness, and compliance. But data about quality, customer satisfaction and mission impact are harder to define, harder to gather, place a greater burden on recipients, and are rarely validated by an independent entity, such as a financial auditor.

A recent illustration is the success of NASA’s Perseverance Rover as it landed on Mars. NASA Small Business Innovation and Research grants funded development of key technologies that aid the Rover’s navigation, and it is easy to measure the amount and timing of those funding flows: they are inputs. It is also relatively easy for NASA to determine that it received the navigation software and hardware from the awardee: an output of the grant process. But the outcomes (the quality of the navigation technology, its success helping the Rover survive the landing, and its effectiveness guiding the Rover’s movement to make scientific discoveries) were not known until last week. Those results are hard to quantify and do not fit neatly within a grant reporting system. They must be captured from data sources outside the realm of most IT systems used to manage grants.

We believe that if grant managers want to measure performance—and understand what they are getting for grant funds disbursed—they will have to look for that hard-to capture data from outside grant systems. With respect to COVID-19, grant managers should measure results that include:

Jobs protected or recovered (funded by Paycheck Protection Program loans convertible to grants)
Effective vaccines developed (funded by grants via the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act)
Victims of COVID-19 who successfully recover due to therapeutics funded by CARES Act grants

Controlling Costs

Administrative costs for grant management spiked significantly in 2020, increasing by half at the federal level. Specifically, federal respondents indicated that their organization’s administrative budget made up 15% of the value of grants disbursed, up from 10% in 2019. State-level grant managers reported an increase from 11% to 13%, while non-governmental organizations reported an increase from 9% to 10%.

These consistent and significant increases in the cost to administer grants were explained by panelists who discussed the survey results during a February 24th Grants Management Breakfast Forum hosted by REI Systems, George Washington University, and the National Grants Management Association.

We believe that business process streamlining and technology that automates data entry and data sharing are ways to reduce time spent on administration. Craig Fischer, innovation program manager at the Treasury Department and a panelist at the Feb 24th event, suggested that innovations such as blockchain technology to track payments from the grantor to recipients and subrecipients may offer ways to manage and reduce these administrative costs. Another panelist, Eric Russell, a senior manager at Crowe LLP and NGMA vice president, suggested that more time planning a grant program, with technical assistance from a grantor, will make it possible to gain much more control over the administrative burden through the life cycle of each grant.

Other panelists noted that administrative costs for federal agencies are not controlled (as permissible indirect costs are limited for grant recipients). New programs have a learning curve, and a larger error rate than established programs. In some instances, agencies have brought in new staff, or reassigned current staff to support new grants associated with pandemic relief programs. Finally, several new requirements were implemented in 2020, including uniform guidance and subaward reporting, perhaps increasing costs for new systems.

Vision for the Future

The survey results tell us that time spent on financial compliance and reporting is still the biggest use of grant manager time and effort and that administrative costs are increasing. These findings are discouraging. But, there may be reason for optimism. Pilot demonstrations of distributed ledger technology (“blockchain”) are promising. One by Treasury focusing on the pre-award phase (use the password “fit_gps” to gain access) and another by Mitre, REI Systems and several partners focusing on the post-award phase would allow grant-makers to better track the money they disburse to recipients, sub-recipients and end users, and receive comprehensive information back about the recipients and uses with no additional effort for reporting required of recipients and subrecipients.

According to results of this survey, respondents said they spend 25% of their time monitoring financial administrative requirements. Thus, if effective implementation of blockchain in the coming years allows this effort to be reduced, the grants management community may free up a tremendous amount of effort and expertise to focus on improving program results, whether those be better health outcomes, new scientific discoveries, or more good jobs.

COVID has presented new challenges to grant managers—widespread telework, a steep learning curve, pressure to issue new grants quickly yet accurately, and a big increase in administrative costs. But by sharing experience and lessons, and by continuing to innovate, the future looks bright.

Jeff Myers is a senior director at REI Systems. He leads partnerships with universities, research programs, and customer engagement with federal agencies.

Rujuta Waknis is a director at REI Systems. She leads the company’s Grant and Innovation Research Systems offering.

Jason McGill is a director at REI Systems. He is responsible for helping federal, state and local grant making agencies strengthen their capabilities and performance.

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We Know Almost Nothing About the Costs of Grant Administration

Jeff Myers and Kathryn Newcomer — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 08:46:17 -0400

Most Americans who make charitable contributions want to have an impact—not support administrative overhead. Whether their contributions are made to help feed the hungry, house the homeless, or fight muscular dystrophy, donors typically expect that the vast majority of their contribution will go toward achieving the charitable mission. And they expect that a very small part—typically 10% or less of their contribution will be used for administration and fundraising.

Surprisingly, we don’t have any similar rule of thumb for grants management, despite the fact that the federal government spends over $730 billion on grants, a significant part of the federal budget. In fact, we haven’t really had any idea what proportion of their budgets grantors and grantees typically dedicate to administrative costs until now.

A new series of questions in the Annual Grants Management Survey* conducted by our organizations has just captured these data. So now we can say: Local governments spend about 7% of their grants on administration. Federal and state grant agencies spend just over 10%. And non-profit respondents to our survey report spending about 9%. All of that is not very surprising—kind of comforting perhaps. Until we dig deeper, and realize that 36 entities spend more than 20% of their grant value on grant administration, while 107 respondents reported spending less than 5% of their grants on administration.

How do grantors compare to grantees in administrative spending?

A breakdown of the data shows, perhaps surprisingly, that grantors spend more than recipients—an average of 10.3% of the grant is spent by grantors, versus 9.3% spent by recipients.

And just 8.7% of grants are spent on administration by “pass through” entities such as state governments, which both make and receive grants. Finally, as the graphic above shows, a substantial portion of all grant managers spend over 10% of their grants on administration, with the largest proportion of grantors falling into this group.

What about efficiencies of scale?

We considered whether organizations that manage a larger volume of grants may achieve “efficiencies of scale.” For example, do larger grant managers see a lower percentage of administrative costs (perhaps realizing savings as they spread staff expertise, audit fees, or technology costs across a larger volume of grants)?

We found, however, that the smaller grant management organizations—those managing less than $1 million (37 respondents), and those managing $1 million to $10 million annually (115 respondents) reported the lowest median administrative costs (2-5% and 5-7%, respectively). In contrast, the largest reported higher administrative spending—managers of $250 million to $1 billion (23 respondents) reported a median of 10-20% administrative costs, while the managers of over $1 billion in annual grant disbursements (12 respondents) reported a median of 7-10% administrative costs. Thus, grant managers do not appear to take advantage of any efficiencies of scale that may be available.

What are drivers of administrative expenses?

One driver may be the fact that survey respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the information technology systems their agencies use to manage grants. And in fact, each agency typically spends time and money to choose, acquire, install, and implement an IT system. Some grantees indicate that they would prefer that grantors provide grant recipients with an IT system (capturing efficiencies by sharing one process to choose, acquire and even install an IT system) which might serve 10 or even 1,000 grant recipients from a single grantor agency. Each bar in the chart below shows the percentage of the number of grant managers (n) submitting each response option.

Grantees report that the automation they rely upon has not improved much. Almost one third of the respondents (32%) report that they have no database for reporting from grantees, and 38% still rely on email reporting along with data entry. On a 1-to-5 scale where 5 is high, 34% of grantees reported low satisfaction (a 1 or 2) with their access to technology. This fairly low level of satisfaction has not improved from our survey findings the year before. Even among those who are satisfied with their access to technology, many grantees are still not satisfied with their organization’s ability to use that technology. In fact, just 30% of all survey respondents indicate satisfaction that their organizations have both access to technology, and are able to use it (i.e. have staff who know how and have time to use it), while about another 30% were dissatisfied (the remainder described themselves as “moderately satisfied”).

What about grantees’ performance?

Given the reported insufficient access to technology and the skills to use it well to support grant making, what difference does this make? About half of responding grantors say that they can’t measure performance of their grant program (47% of federal respondents, and 56% of state and local government respondents). This lack of focus on performance is noteworthy.

Relatedly, when asked which are the most significant factors in achieving success, the number one factor noted in both 2018 and 2019 remains “well qualified grant management staff.” And the second most important factor is “effective training/technical assistance for grantees.”

Looking Forward

Grant managers are not happy with their technical capabilities nor with their ability to measure performance, and they view data sharing and automated federal and state interactions as their highest priority. A unified portal for grant recipients to use as they interact with all federal grantors is viewed by many as the innovation that can bring the most improvement across the board going forward. In fact, 56% (71 of 126) of the respondents who identified their highest opportunity for improvement selected “a unified portal for grant recipients to use as they interact with all federal grantors” as the opportunity they found most promising. Grantees, whether they are states or nonprofit organizations, typically receive grants from multiple federal agencies, and one federal portal for all federal grants’ transactions—from the requests to final reporting—could be invaluable in reducing administrative costs. The second most frequently volunteered opportunity was “data standards for grants management,” cited by 31 of 126 respondents (25%).

Fortunately, the federal government has been devoting time and thought to such data standards. Likewise, we believe a unified portal presents an important opportunity for grant recipient burden reduction, but it cannot happen without coordination across agencies at the federal level.

*A note about methodology: The survey, conducted in October 2019, relied on voluntary, self-reported responses from federal, state, and local government grant managers, as well as those in non-profit and some private sector roles. A link to the survey was sent out by multiple organizations, so it is impossible to know how many people received the link. Thus, those invited to respond did not constitute a statistically representative sample of grant managers. There were 309 respondents. This self-reporting method has two key weaknesses regarding estimation of administrative costs: (a) We did not provide a clear and complete standard chart of accounts that would have helped ensure that every respondent defined administrative expenditures to include the same items; and (b) We did not validate responses using data from accounting records or from an independent audit, nor do we believe that most respondents relied upon those credible and valid sources. We suspected that such data validation requirements would have dramatically reduced the number of persons willing to take the time needed to respond to this survey.

Jeff Myers is a Senior Director at REI Systems, which develops grant management IT solutions for government agencies. Dr. Kathryn Newcomer is a Professor of Public and Nonprofit Program Evaluation, and Research Design at George Washington University. She recently completed service as the Director of the University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

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How Agencies Can Improve Grant Management

Jeff Myers, Jenata Spencer, and Shelly Slebrch — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 14:17:13 -0500

In late January, grants experts from around the country came together to analyze the results of the 2017 Annual Grants Management Survey, sponsored by The George Washington University, the National Grants Management Association and REI Systems. One observation that ran through this year’s gathering at GWU was that many grant managers face the same challenges.

The good news is that grant managers from federal, state, local and non-profit organizations for the most part feel well-equipped to succeed. This continues a trend seen in the 2016 Survey results. Another positive finding was that more than 56 percent of survey respondents indicated they thought federal laws and directives have been helpful, while just 9 percent perceived a negative effect and 35 percent were neutral. These mandates include the Uniform Grant Guidance, the 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, the 2016 Grants Oversight and New Efficiency Act, and OMB Circular A-123 updates.

In addition, panelists felt the recently-introduced bi-partisan Grant Reporting Efficiency and Assistance Transparency Act would improve program impacts and could reduce the burden and costs of grant administration.

Nonetheless, key challenges remain, including:

Information sharing. Attendees overwhelmingly said there is a need for better (and automated) information sharing between states and federal agencies. This was the single most strongly supported priority, with 95 percent of respondents answering “yes” to the question “Should state governments and federal agencies share data and automate interactions more than they do today?” Just 3 percent answered, “Not at all.”

Funding uncertainty. Another area of widespread concern centered around “funding uncertainty and susceptibility to politics,” with 72 percent of survey respondents saying that was a top challenge—a significant 21-point increase from the 48 percent of respondents who indicated that same topic as a top challenge in 2016.

Time spent on compliance. Grant managers report focusing too much time on compliance as opposed to helping grantees strengthen program performance and impact. They said the largest single focus of their time and energy—more than 45 percent of their time—is focused on monitoring requirements (financial and non-financial). Surprisingly, panelists and survey respondents seemed to agree that ranking grantees’ performance is not a priority. Few—16 percent—report that they publicly recognize outstanding grantees “to a great extent” or “a lot.”

Skills and education. Panelists noted that more federal money is spent via grants than through contracting and procurement. Consequently, more grant management expertise and education is needed, which could be achieved through degree programs or certifications, continuing education, and revisions to position descriptions.

Agency coordination. Panelists and audience members noted that standardized data may make it easier to identify where cross-agency coordination is needed, although some already occurs. For example, homelessness is addressed through grant programs at the Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs departments, as well as other agencies. The same not always true for water quality, where the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Army Corps of Engineers all play roles. This interconnection of mission and operations can leave grantees confused and frustrated by requirements from multiple federal agencies. Without effective collaboration on priorities, methods, and outcome measures across federal grantors and state and local agencies, this frustration will persist.

Grant managers are tasked with extremely difficult responsibilities, with no real how-to guide. This year’s forum served as a valuable meetup for grant managers to learn, share, network and discover ways to improve effectiveness. In addition, the NGMA Network offers a platform to share ideas, challenges, and solutions in a virtual community. It also allows members to post questions, answers and other advice, write or respond to blog posts, and search for other NGMA members.

Jeff Myers is a Senior Director at REI Systems with 30 years’ experience advising government agencies on strategy and efficiency improvement. Jenata Spencer is a Business Analyst at REI Systems with expertise in data standards and analysis around grants management. Her current work primarily supports state and local government. Shelly Slebrch is Executive Director of the National Grants Management Association.

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How the Trump Administration Could Get a Better Return on a $650 Billion Federal Investment

Jeff Myers, Katherine Dawes, and Kathryn Newcomer — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 15:09:15 -0500

In fiscal 2016, according to USASpending.gov, federal agencies issued more than $650 billion in grants—more than 16 percent of overall federal expenditures (and an even larger part of discretionary spending). Given President-elect Donald Trump’s focus on infrastructure and immigration, it is likely that even more money will be spent in the coming years via grants. The Obama administration launched an initiative to move toward evidence-based grant-making that has much potential, but is in great need of hands-on guidance. Calls for evidence typically exceed both legislative and data infrastructure limitations.

In order to obtain a current picture of the landscape for federal grants management, the George Washington University and REI Systems conducted the first national survey of grant managers in the United States in September 2016. The results of that survey can help us better understand the state of grants management and what the incoming administration might do to improve it.

The research has led us to conclude:

More attention should be given to grants management—not because of the risk of potential scandal, but because grants managers recognize they need more support to make the process more effective and efficient.
OMB leadership will be key to navigating current and future complexity in the grants management arena.
Legislation is needed to dedicate a meaningful portion of applicable grant programs to innovation—at least 5 to 10 percent.
Evaluation and performance management employees in agencies are a relatively untapped resource for grants management.
There is a need for standards around grant reporting (similar to those in the 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act), in order to reduce the burden on grantees, improve accountability, and make it possible to evaluate return on investment across grantees.

The charts below show the top six federal grant-makers. Grants have grown quickly, and the Department of Health and Human Services is the biggest grantor.

Survey Findings

In the survey, the responding grant managers reported that their most significant challenges are:

Inefficient/bureaucratic processes, tools and/or systems
Funding uncertainty/susceptibility to politics
Attracting/retaining well-qualified grant management staff
Disconnect between grantee expectations/needs and agency programs/priorities

The most significant factors that survey respondents report as consistently leading to success are:

Well-qualified grant management staff
Effective training and technical assistance availability for grant awardees
Passionate, skilled grantees
An organizational structure that supports agency-wide coordination and a standard approach to grants management

The survey respondents spend more than three times as much effort “monitoring administrative requirements” (28 percent of their time) as they do “evaluating outcomes and impact” (11 percent of their time).

Respondents dedicate far more of their time to competitive grants (55 percent) than to formula and block grants (25 percent total), probably as a result of the lower risks associated with formula and block grants, which are often made to states and counties. However, those same low-risk grants may not encourage innovation or efficient use of funds at the rates that competitive grants do.

Only 36 percent of respondents are satisfied “to a great extent” or “a lot” with the technology available to them. Most managers felt either neutral or negative. Even fewer respondents believed that grantees could afford or would be able to find access to adequate software—which may cause significant issues in terms of reporting results for money granted. It also raises the question of whether grants are well-used if granted funds are used to purchase similar software for each of the thousands of grant recipients.

While the majority of grant managers surveyed found enough data to monitor compliance with administrative requirements, fewer than 40 percent of respondents indicated that sufficient data was available to “evaluate and select grantees” or to “evaluate overall program outcomes and impact.” Additionally, fewer than 30 percent found sufficient data to “identify best practices and lessons learned.” Responses indicate that, even when innovation happens, grant makers have a hard time noticing it and—and even if they do, they may not be able to share the ideas or success stories that come from that grantee innovation.

Finally, survey respondents see value in recent executive directives and legislation related to grants, but express a need for help rationalizing them and make them work together. The three best-received such directives/legislation included:

Uniform Grant Guidance of December 2014: 78 percent of respondents indicated this guidance had a positive impact on day-to-day grants management, while 15 percent were neutral and 7 percent negative.
OMB Circular A-123 Updates addressing improper payments: 56 percent indicated a positive impact, 34 percent indicated neither a positive nor a negative impact and 10 percent reported a negative impact.
Grants Oversight and New Efficiency Act of 2016: 48 percent indicated a positive impact, while 47 percent reported neither a positive nor negative impact and 5 percent indicated a negative impact.

What the Trump Administration Could Do

Survey results included open-ended feedback, which led us to identify several issues with grants management and potential responses to them from the Trump administration.

Problem: Grants are intended to promote innovation, because grant recipients operate programs “close to their customers.” However, a widespread focus on compliance may limit creativity.

Approach for the new administration: Allow grant applicants to define problems and solutions, rather than restricting them to a narrow focus on problems the government has already noticed. Dedicate a meaningful portion of appropriate grant programs to innovation (at least 5 to 10 percent).

Problem: Grant makers don’t have open, easy-to-use lines of communication or ways to share success stories with each other—or even with their own grantees.

Approach for the new administration: Use executive authority to create a strong grants management community centered on effective management, just as the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the Chief Acquisition Officers Council lead initiatives to focus on effective procurement. The Office of Management and Budget is the logical place to put such leadership.

Problem: Grant recipients face a wide range of reporting requirements and spend significant resources on systems, processes and staff in order to meet reporting requirements, instead of using those funds for the grant’s mission objective. When a recipient receives grants from more than one federal agency, this becomes even more challenging.

Approach for the new administration: Use executive authority to develop standards for grant reporting (similar to those in the DATA Act), in order to reduce the burden of grants management on grantees, improve accountability, and make it possible to evaluate return on investment across grants. Set an explicit target for grant maker administrative costs (as a proportion of grant funding disbursed) for each major type of grant.

The George Washington University, the National Grants Management Association and REI Systems are working to strengthen the community of grant makers. Specific initiatives include Grants Management Breakfast Forum events, monthly training sessions from NGMA and evaluation, education and thought leadership from GWU. Together, we are considering working to create grant-maker’s idea exchange, modeled on Wikipedia. It would start by drawing heavily on NGMA’s Grants Management Body of Knowledge, but would rely on community members to share their insights.

Lead author Jeff Myers is a principal at REI Systems Inc. Kathryn Newcomer is director of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University. Katherine Dawes is a visiting scholar at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration and director of the Evaluation Support Division at the Environmental Protection Agency. (The views in this article, however, are her own, and do not represent those of EPA or any other federal agency.)

Photo: Flickr user DonkeyHotey

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Turn Styles

Dave Mader, Jeff Myers, and Steve Kelman — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The broad, sometimes little-defined concept of change-especially as it relates to improving government management-was a central theme of the 2008 presidential election. Now our new president is faced with having to make good on the promise of change during one of the most challenging economic environments the nation has seen since the Great Depression.

The question is which management and leader- ship techniques deliver effective, meaningful change-and which do not. If there is a recipe for successful government reform, what are its core ingredients? Is there anything similar about the leaders who have been the most successful-or was it even skill, or just chance? Did those who failed make avoidable mistakes, or did they encounter an obstacle that no one could have overcome?

Although change is inevitably complex, the prescriptive measures are often most effective when they are simple and intuitive.

A recent study, "What It Takes to Change Government," by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton found similarities in the methods used by public leaders who succeed. The study examined successes and failures of 12 federal agency leaders in the two most recent administrations.

Based on the experience of successful former agency chiefs such as David M. Walker of the Government Accountability Office, Charles Rossotti of the Internal Revenue Service and James Loy of the Coast Guard and compared with less successful ones, 10 key considerations emerged as a roadmap for political appointees and career executives alike.

1. Get a Running Start

Use the time between nomination and confirmation to meet with Congress and key stakeholders. Successful agency heads are twice as likely as less successful ones to use this period to interact with stakeholders and start to develop their strategy.

2. Fewer Goals, Greater Success

The successful leaders generally focus on three, or fewer, goals. Those who failed often had four or more. But it's not as simple as trimming back. Goals should be outcome-oriented, such as improved results for customers in an observable way. Unsuccessful leaders most typically set tactical, action-based goals, such as: We need a new computer network. We need a new payroll system. We need a new building. Moreover, the goals of successful leaders are intuitive, free of jargon and communicated consistently across audiences.

3. Collaborate With Employees

Resist the knee-jerk temptation to focus on political appointees. Nearly every successful leader emphasized a collaborative style of developing and implementing change, compared with those who did not attempt ambitious change. Also of interest, the successful cases typically had a smaller percentage of political appointees than federal agencies on average.

4. Manage Within

Don't focus only on the outside world. Successful leaders said they spent nearly half their time on efforts inside the agency, versus with Congress, media and interest groups. They spent internal time building capability, providing vision and guidance, and holding people accountable. Unsuccessful leaders spent just one-quarter of their time internally.

5. Use Performance Measures

Most successful agency leaders use performance measures to advance their agenda, while most unsuccessful leaders do not. Where they use measures, the failures most often evaluate only cost and production, while successes more often add measures of customer satisfaction and quality. A few successful leaders chose to rely on measures developed for their industry by outside organizations-something akin to Ford Motor Co. executives paying attention to JD Power and Associates' quality ratings rather than internal staff reports on the quality of the cars they make.

6. Be Ready to Reorganize

A sizable majority of successful leaders re- organize their agencies-not because they want to, but because they believe the organization's structure will hinder achievement of their goals. Unsuccessful leaders rarely attempt to reorganize their agencies.

7. Focus on Customers

Don't focus on the White House. Many leaders assume the president's bully pulpit is a strong tool for changing strategy. In reality, most agencies and leaders make their case to their customers, employees and Congress without seeking active support from the White House.

8. Don't Be in Such a Hurry

Don't be so anxious to set strategy that you neglect to gather the data needed to inform your judgment and the right perspectives to vet the choices you make. A common feature of unsuccessful leaders is they set strategy quickly (and not always by choice), often without good data on customer needs, stakeholder expectations or employee ideas. A poor process, or no process, for setting strategy almost always ends in failure.

9. Don't Think Spending More Time Produces Better Results

Successful leaders actually reported spending about 10 percent less time on the job than unsuccessful ones, but they spend their time more effectively. They work proactively with Congress and stakeholders to set the agenda, and present and justify their strategy. Leaders who deal with Congress primarily and stakeholders reactively, such as defending budgets and preparing extensively for investigative hearings, require more time.

10. Don't Focus So Much on Change

Too much emphasis on reforms could mean you're neglecting to manage performance. Both successful and unsuccessful leaders focus on building employee support for change, such as appealing to their public service motivation. Where unsuccessful leaders fail, successful ones concentrate on improving the enterprise in general through performance measures, strategic planning, re-organization and a focus on just a few goals.

For more information on "What It Takes to Change Government," visit www.boozallen.com/what-it-takes-to-change-government.

Dave Mader is a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton and a former IRS assistant deputy commissioner; Jeff Myers is a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton; Steven Kelman is Weatherhead professor of public management at Harvard University and a former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

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