Government Executive - Authors - Paul R. Lawrence

The Veterans Benefits Administration is a Good Candidate for Tailored Reforms

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 06:00:00 -0400

A recent piece for Government Executive titled “Government Reform Isn’t Dead. It’s Just Changed” recommends that federal agencies no longer wait for large-scale reform and instead focus on smaller, tailored changes to fit the needs of their agency. An excellent candidate for agency-specific reform is the Veterans Benefits Administration, which faces challenges with customer service and could serve as an example for other agencies that fit into the broader category of “production agencies.”

Production agencies are characterized by three needs: delivering their required output, getting their metrics right for measuring success, and focusing on customers. In many respects, they resemble the factory floor in a manufacturing company, and they face a common challenge: They rely on their people to process applications for benefits in a timely fashion and respond to customer needs. Currently, hiring is simply too slow and ineffectual to meet customer demands. In the years ahead, these agencies will need to more nimble.

When he was undersecretary for benefits at the Veterans Affairs Department, Paul Lawrence, co-author of this column, saw production agency challenges first-hand. He was responsible for implementing new regulations to comply with a 2019 law regarding Blue Water Navy veterans, considered to be those who served aboard ships in the open waters off the coast of Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and who did not go ashore. The law extended the presumption of herbicide exposure and made them eligible for benefits. The Veterans Benefits Administration was given six months to get the program up and running and to be able to accept applications on January 1, 2020, but because of the length of the hiring process, VBA was behind the required timeline from the start. The agency had no special authorities to bypass existing rules to get the program off the ground.

With special authorities, the hiring process could have been completed in no more than 30 days, instead of six (or more) months. While some of these hires might have been permanent staff, others might have been term appointments in response to meeting specific immediate challenges facing the agency. Flexibility to hire would also likely have decreased the agency’s reliance on contractors. Such flexibility to hire would mean increased ability to attract specialized staff to better manage key processes such as acquisition and technology.

In the private sector, it is now common for companies to place job announcements, receive resumes, interview candidates and hire immediately. In VBA 2.0, with new employees hired faster, there would have been ample time to train new hires on reviewing Blue Water applications and making accurate claim decisions. An increase in accuracy would have saved money in the reduction of rework time and a decrease in appeals of benefits decisions.

There will be more work that requires fast hiring at the Veterans Benefits Administration. In 2022, Congress passed legislation to improve the presumption process for burn pit veterans. VBA again faced new legal requirements and an increased workload with new rules and claims to process. The existing slow hiring process continues to make the job of VBA even more difficult.

In addition to quickly implementing new legislative mandates, VBA faces the continual challenge of updating its technological capabilities. With rapid advances occurring in artificial intelligence, it is likely that AI could be used in the future to make initial determinations on veterans’ claims. But implementing these new capabilities would require highly specialized information technology talent. Such talent is in high demand and in short supply at VBA. The current VBA faces a steep challenge to hire such talent. VBA 2.0 would be better equipped to hire such individuals, with both pay flexibility and hiring flexibility.

Another example where the present system of hiring and compensating employees hinders service to veterans involves financial management. VBA is essentially one of the country’s largest financial institutions, paying out $150 billion in benefits annually. This is a complicated undertaking and it is vulnerable to significant improper payments and fraud. Private sector financial organizations—banks, mutual funds and insurance companies—employ top talent and cutting-edge tools and approaches to thwart bad actors and secure their customers’ funds. VBA can’t do this now, because of the limitations it faces with its existing hiring authorities and compensation system, but VBA 2.0 would be better able to protect taxpayers and veterans with access to the same top talent.

Between now and 2028, we anticipate dramatic changes in the operations of the federal government’s production agencies, including the Veterans Benefits Administration. Rapid advances in technology and artificial intelligence will improve the ability of government to process benefits claims more quickly and accurately—the primary output of production agencies. Can VBA and other production agencies get there with their existing rules, regulations and hiring authorities? We are skeptical.

Production agencies all share many of the same common problems. Working together over the next five years, agency-specific reform is indeed possible and much needed.

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson are co-authors of Succeeding as a Political Executive: 50 Insights from Experience. Lawrence is the former undersecretary for benefits at the Veteran Affairs Department and can be reached at lawrencepaul@cox.net. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. and his email address is mark.abramson@comcast.net.

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Making the case for a Federal Management Corps

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 17:06:00 -0400

In a recent Government Executive column, a Management Corps was proposed as a valuable new tool for achieving the President’s Management Agenda goal of making every federal job a “good job.” In the column, it was argued that a new set of skills will be needed to manage a more complex hybrid workforce in the years ahead.

The Office of Personnel Management has historically had the authority to approve demonstration projects to test out new human resource ideas. The concept of a Management Corps is clearly an idea worthy of testing and, based on our observations and experience, the Veteran Benefits Administration (VBA) in the Department of Veteran Affairs would be a strong candidate to test its potential.

VBA administers the wide range of benefits Veterans earn for their service. This includes disability compensation, the GI Bill education, home loan guarantee and many more. As many as 25,000 employees administer more than $100 billion of benefits annually. The key VBA performance measures are speed, quantity and accuracy of benefits delivered.

Why a Management Corps?

A major argument in favor of a Management Corps is the need for more highly trained managers who are equipped to manage a hybrid workforce of in-house civil servants, remote civil servants, in-house contractors and remote contractors. During the pandemic, the number of telecommuting workers at VBA dramatically increased, and while government managers have long had experience with remote staffers, the number of teleworkers created a new “ballgame” for the federal government.

Managers in VBA told agency leaders that they had no training and limited experience in managing remote staffers. In addition, there were instances in which managers mishandled issues related to telework. VBA top leadership spent much time resolving these issues and attempting to develop consistent policies for managing telecommuters. It became clear that VBA managers had not been trained or prepared to manage remote staff.

At VBA, managing daily performance for both in-house employees and teleworking employees is a key activity of leaders at all levels within the agency. Traditionally, managing daily performance has been done in-person through observation and meetings. With everyone working remotely during the pandemic, leaders began to experiment with new ways to provide “over-the-shoulder” assistance. Without an existing playbook, new approaches were developed. A well-trained new Management Corps could identify and adopt the most effective approaches.

A second argument supporting the concept of a Management Corps is the need to create new pay scales for managers. Based on the experience of VBA, the pay differential between managers and non-managers is negligible. Potential employees who would have been strong managers saw there was little financial incentive to become a manager. Thus, many talented employees opted not to become managers.

While pay is not only the reason to become a manager, pay is an important ingredient to the professionalization of managers in government. Today, management is not viewed as a profession. At VBA, it is an auxiliary responsibility to their “day job” of processing claims. By creating a Management Corps, management becomes a full-time responsibility and has a clear managerial track. Today, like many other federal agencies, there is no management track at VBA.

Implementing a Management Corps

There are three key steps in implementing a demonstration project to test the potential value of a Management Corps at VBA. First, there is the nitty-gritty bureaucratic work to be done prior to the creation of the Management Corps. Jobs will need to be classified (or reclassified) as part of the new Management Corps. Equally important, some jobs now classified as management will be “taken out” of the management since these positions may be primarily technically oriented and not managerially oriented. A pay band system for managerial salaries will need to be created. The creation of a pay band system will solve the issue of pay differential which now discourages VBA employees from applying for managerial positions.

Second, after the bureaucratic apparatus is in place and the number of Management Corps positions agreed upon, the application process will begin. This is a key step in that it will involve key decisions by two groups of employees within VBA: those who decide that they are interested in pursuing a managerial career and those who decide that they no longer want to manage people and in fact, may never have been eager for a managerial position. Many civil servants historically “fell” into the managerial ranks because of the government seniority system and the existing classification system. We believe that there are many civil servants (many of whom have not yet been identified) who have the skills and interest in developing employees, engaging employees, and improving employee productivity.

Once the new members of the VBA Management Corps are selected, they will be sent to the VBA Management Academy to receive training in federal “management.” Managing the new hybrid workplace would be one of the core courses. The new course on hybrid management will discuss the challenge of developing both remote employees and in-person employees. Other courses might include customer service and employee engagement.

Mark A. Abramson and Paul R. Lawrence are co-authors of Succeeding as a Political Executive: 50 Insights from Experience. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. Lawrence is the former Under Secretary for Benefits, Department of Veteran Affairs. They can be reached via email at: mark.abramson@comcast.net and lawrencepaul@cox.net.

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Making the Case for a Federal Management Corps

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 05:59:00 -0400

Why a Management Corps?

Implementing a Management Corps

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How New Agency Leaders Can Get Off to a Successful Start

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 14:09:22 -0400

Change is coming. New political appointees are arriving almost daily and career executives are being assigned to new positions. So where should leaders begin when they arrive at a new organization? We had the unique opportunity to ask 65 Obama administration appointees this question. There was clear agreement that new executives should do the following:

Deal with immediate problems
Assess the organization
Decide where to focus your attention

Deal with Immediate Problems

New executives are likely to face immediate fires, unfinished business from their predecessors, and priorities already set by the White House. And by “immediate,” we mean before you’ve had time to arrange your office furniture. Erica Groshen, former commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recalled, “My first 24 hours were my hardest. I had to choose to eliminate three programs due to a sequestration. I discussed with the staff why it made sense to cut these three programs. I had to get up to speed quickly and fully understand the reasoning behind this plan before signing my name to it,” she said. “No day since then has been so hard.”

During the Obama administration, new executives found that one of their major priorities was implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Flash forward to 2021 and new executives will face the challenge of implementing the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan. Jonathan Adelstein, former administrator at the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service, said, “By the time I (arrived), much of the work on setting up the Recovery Act’s Broadband Initiatives Program had been completed with oversight from the secretary’s office and the White House … So I didn’t have a role in the design of the first round of the program. I had to work with what I found. I gave a speech to the agency within a week of my arrival [and] I let the staff know that I supported their mission.”

Executives also frequently arrive after a mandate has been handed down by the Office of Management and Budget (or another White House unit) to undertake a specific set of activities. The late Brad Huther recalled his arrival at the Housing and Urban Development Department as Chief Financial Officer, “Before I arrived, OMB had mandated the drastic move that HUD go to shared services. We had to redirect everything to shared services. It was a whole new process and we were the first cabinet department to do it … We had to build political support for this change within the department and had to report to OMB once a week on our progress.”

Assess the Organization

Executives face their first management challenge when they arrive at their new organization. They must decide how quickly they want to move on assessing their organization. David Kappos, former director of the Patent and Trademark Office, wanted to meet quickly with his staff so that each could begin to assess one another: “I wanted to hit the ground running, but I didn’t want to jump out of the chopper shooting.”

Nearly all of the executives interviewed wisely avoided the tendency to “jump out of the chopper shooting.” David Stevens, former commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, described his deliberate pace: “I spent my first days at FHA assessing the organization. I would go out into the field and talk with our staff. We held large staff meetings and an offsite planning retreat. I wanted to better understand the major issues facing the department. I focused on what I thought I could accomplish and what would make a real difference.”

During his initial assessment, Stevens said, “It became obvious to me that we needed to better manage risk. We needed a risk office and a chief risk officer. I felt FHA needed to go outside of the organization to recruit some top-notch deputy assistant secretaries. We needed to recruit people with experience in credit risk, credit policy, and lending.” Stevens concluded that reorganization was not needed so he put his efforts into assessing the talent already in the organization.

Several of the executives interviewed launched initiatives to examine a specific set of activities within the organization. Often these reviews led to personnel changes. John Thompson, former director of the Census Bureau, recalled, “When I got here, Census staff were all over the map about how to proceed in 2020 … I needed to get the staff to understand a new way to manage the census. We could not simply use our existing methodology.” So he launched a “rocket team” to evaluate the options and come up with a new approach. “It took six months. In that time, I also put in a new leadership team for the Decennial Census.”

Assessments are especially crucial when an executive arrives to find the agency in a firestorm of negative publicity. David Strickland, former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found himself in that situation when he arrived in the midst of furor over a massive Toyota automobile recall. “When I got here, there had already been a significant amount of work in progress on Toyota,” Strickland said. “My first task was to determine whether NHTSA was broken. Some people were saying that we had a broken culture here. I decided that they were wrong and that NHTSA was not broken. That decision was a risk I had to take, but I believed it. It turns out that I was right. The final analysis showed that NHTSA had done a fantastic job on the Toyota recall.”

Decide Where and How to Focus

Margaret Hamburg, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, was advised by several former commissioners to just pick out a couple of issues and focus on those items. “Instead,” Hamburg recalled, “I found that I had to focus on positioning FDA for the future. I wanted it to be as effective as it could be. This required a whole new level of engagement with the agency. I wanted to strengthen the quality of the work done here. The agency needed an advocate for itself. There was no beginning and end to the initiative of improving the agency. I felt that if we didn’t address this issue, we would be losing critical ground. We needed to forge stronger working relationships with many groups.”

David Kappos reached a similar conclusion at PTO. He launched an aggressive campaign on multiple fronts: “The job of leadership is to work on all the challenges. You need to do it all. There is no one single thing that you have to do; you have to do a hundred things. Change is the sum of a lot of little things. I don’t believe there is a magic bullet or a single fix. I believe it is about making day-by-day changes and continuously working toward improvement. I believe philosophically that you are never done. Change goes on forever.”

David Stevens took a different approach. Because of the financial crisis confronting the nation and HUD when he arrived at FHA, Stevens adopted a management strategy to focus on just a few major issues. “I’ve learned to just focus on two or three issues and give those my full attention,” says Stevens. “That meant I gave other issues much less attention. On other issues, I just needed to know enough to give people my go-ahead to keep them going. You really have a short time here and you have so much to get done, you have to focus on just a few things. I had to focus on a couple of things and dig in to get them done.”

Mark Rosekind, another former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, described a similar experience: “The intensity and tempo are never-ending … There was one staff meeting early on where a lot of new ideas were developed and subsequent assignments were handed out. One staff member said after the meeting, ‘Can we stop adding more to-dos to our agenda?’”

Arriving at a new agency is indeed a challenge. But take it from those who have been there before: Dealing with immediate problems, assessing the organization, and deciding on how to focus your attention are good places to start.

Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. Paul R. Lawrence is the former Under Secretary for Benefits, Department of Veteran Affairs. This article is adapted from their book Succeeding as a Political Executive: 50 Insights from Experience. Their email addresses: mark.abramson@comcast.net and lawrencepaul@cox.net.

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After Confirmation: The Golden Hour for Political Appointees

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 15:24:18 -0500

With confirmation hearings underway across the Capitol, the new administration is slowly filling out the top ranks of federal agencies. For President Biden’s nominees now arriving on the job, this is when the challenge of governing begins. Based on our interviews with 65 former Obama administration officials, we offer some insight on how political appointees can get an effective start to the job.

Be ready to go to Washington on short notice. Sometimes the Senate has a clear schedule for confirming political appointees, but more frequently prospective nominees are caught off guard when a confirmation vote takes place. Voting often happens prior to the Senate going on a recess. Several of our interviewees were caught by surprise, in some cases after having waited for several months for a confirmation vote.

David Kappos, former director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, recalled, “The whole confirmation process places heavy demands on political appointees … I was confirmed at 11:00 a.m. on a Friday and I was supposed to start work on the following Monday. I had to leave my family on short notice. There was no time to plan on where to stay. But I managed to get to D.C., find a hotel, and start on that Tuesday.”

Don’t expect the red carpet—or a nice office. Some political appointees might expect a royal welcome upon arrival. Former Chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission Inez Tenenbaum’s experience was different. “The physical office space was a real mess,” recalled Tenenbaum. “The walls had not been painted. I found old furniture in my office that needed replacing. The building itself was run down. It was a pretty dreary place. We had very few supplies, and we also had no business cards or stationery. At the start, I just had one staff member who I brought with me from South Carolina. We have since improved the physical look of the building and created standard operating procedures.”

Rhea Suh, former assistant secretary for policy, management and budget at the Interior Department, had a similar experience. She recalled, “During my interview process for the job, I visited the building and was struck by how old the building was. It was really worse for wear. And my new position was responsible for the building.”

Besides the potentially disappointing physical space, new appointees will usually be arriving alone without any additional political executive colleagues. “I felt like an outsider. I had only been in the building twice before,” said John Porcari, former deputy secretary at the Transportation Department. “I was familiar with the organization of DOT since the Maryland Department of Transportation (which I headed) was set up the same way DOT is. We had highways, airports, and ports in Maryland. But I found DOT to be somewhat alien and very different. I felt I was largely on my own in the beginning.”

Be prepared for briefings—probably too many of them. “I was overtaken by briefings in the first days and weeks,” recalled Marcia McNutt, former director of the U.S. Geological Survey. “I had just gotten sworn in when I started to get briefings. There were lots of things that the agency wanted me to know about, and there were conferences and Congressional testimony coming up on a variety of topics. But I felt that the agendas were being managed and I had other things to do … My time was being chunked up into 15-minute components. I think the intent was good—the agency wanted to tell me as much as they could in a short amount of time. But I needed to have more time for myself so that I could figure out what needed to be done.”

Meet with career staff at headquarters. Like many of our interviewees, Kappos held a staff meeting during his first morning on the job. “Everybody was a bit nervous about the new guy on board. I knew the issues facing the USPTO, so I wanted to get off to a fast start. I know you only have a certain period of time in these jobs, so I didn’t want to waste a single day.”

Mary Wakefield, former administrator for Health Resources and Services at the Health and Human Services Department, reached out to the entire organization: “On the day I arrived, I went through the entire agency—1,600 people. We have 10 divisions on 10 floors. I was excited about the privilege of holding office and the opportunity to work with great people. I spoke to each of the divisions that ranged in size from 70 to 200 people. I wanted face time with each office. I wanted them to see me and I wanted to see them.”

One interesting finding from our interviews was the eagerness of career civil servants to meet with and hear directly from the new political appointee. “My position had been vacant for most of the previous two years (dating back to the prior administration),” Suh recalled. “I think this created a higher anxiety from civil servants than usual. Some people were eager for new leadership while others were not. I felt I had to meet people and earn their respect. They wanted to know what I wanted to do.”

Meet with career staff in the field whenever possible. Many of our interviewees emphasized the importance of meeting employees outside headquarters. Given the vast array of field offices, Kathleen Merrigan, former deputy secretary at the Agriculture Department, made visits with field staff a priority. “Many employees in our county offices had never had people from Washington visit, not just in [the Obama] administration, but some told me not in the 35 years they had worked for USDA. Employees come to these meetings expecting a big speech, but after five minutes of remarks, I turned to questions and assured them that they could be frank and that everything was on the table.”

Michael Huerta, former administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said that whenever he traveled, he took time to visit FAA facilities. “I didn’t just visit control towers—that is just too easy. I met with our operating offices and talked to employees. I just talked to them and answered questions. Many FAA employees are not used to seeing people from headquarters, including the administrator.”

A good start is essential. The tenure of a political appointee is often shorter than anticipated, for a variety of reasons. Thus, a quick, effective start is essential. Based on his previous experience in government, Seth Harris, former Labor Department deputy secretary, said, “I realize how short the time you have in government really is when you’re a political appointee. The challenge is whether you are going to leave footprints in concrete or footprints in the snow. There are so many things that can be undone after you leave or an administration changes. In this position, I came in with a better understanding of how to succeed.”

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The Deputy Secretary: Linchpin to Making Government Work

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 14:25:05 -0500

Memorandum

To: All Biden Administration Deputy Secretary-Designates

From: Mark Abramson and Paul Lawrence

Subject: Succeeding in Your Role as Deputy Secretary

Congratulations on your nomination. During the Obama administration, we had the unique opportunity to interview 16 deputy secretaries. We asked each about their experiences, how they defined their position, and how they measured their success. They shared insights we think are still relevant and want to share them with you.

While there was substantial agreement on the roles played by deputy secretaries, several emphasized the ambiguity of the position. After two years in office, one told us, “the job of the Deputy Secretary is still a little unclear to me.” While the position is often dependent on the relationship with the secretary, there was agreement that it consisted of several primary and secondary roles. Success was defined as understanding those roles, developing an effective working relationship with the secretary, and helping achieve the administration’s goals.

Primary Roles

Serve as the department’s chief operating officer. The role of a department COO is clear. One deputy secretary reported, “I work on the infrastructure of the department. There are many actionable items and a bunch of moving parts. We need to work on many fronts.” These fronts include working on the culture of the organization, as well as focusing on the people.

It’s not just your agency’s bureaucracy you’ll be engaged with. Deputy secretaries also spend time on interagency committees, including the President’s Management Council. In describing the COO role, one said, “My job is really a T-shape as I do a lot of collaboration across government with other agencies. It helps that I have a network of people I know across government. Then my job goes straight down the bureaucracy.”

The official designation of COO responsibilities dates back to an October 1993 memorandum from President Clinton establishing the President’s Management Council and asking each department to designate a chief operating officer. With a few exceptions, departments designated the deputy secretary as COO. In 2010, Congress passed the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act, which codified the COO role into law. The law, signed by President Obama, states that the COO shall be responsible for improving the management and performance of the organization and “achieving the mission and goals of the agency through the use of performance planning, measurement, analysis, regular assessment of progress, and use of performance information.”

Lead departmental initiatives. When there is a high-priority initiative, the secretary often asks the deputy secretary to take the lead. Such initiatives may originate with the department or the White House. For example, the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act quickly became a top priority for the Obama administration, and deputy secretaries in all departments assumed some responsibility for oversight of the law’s implementation.

Serve as a liaison to stakeholders. Many deputy secretaries have been selected because of their relationships to specific stakeholder groups. That puts them in a position to serve as the key liaison between their department and that community. This responsibility often entails giving speeches to those stakeholder groups and spending time on the road. One deputy secretary reported, “When I came in, I thought I would just be doing management. But the secretary wanted me to do more public outreach. So I ended up with a mixed portfolio. Part of my time was on public policy. Part of it was interfacing with the public. The rest of my time was on management.”

Secondary Roles

Serve as a Convener. Several of the deputy secretaries emphasized their role as “convener” of key decision-makers within their own departments, and often key leaders from outside their department. “The office of the secretary,” said David Hayes, former Interior deputy secretary, “is the only place where everything comes together. Traditionally, the agencies have tended to work alone in the Department of the Interior. Integration can only happen when the secretary, deputy secretary, and assistant secretaries get involved.”

In describing his role at the Health and Human Services Department, former deputy secretary Bill Corr also emphasizes the importance of bringing people together to develop solutions and ensure continuous momentum. Corr said, “One key aspect of my job is to get the right people in the room, determine the decisions that need to be made and ensure that we not lose our focus on our goals.”

Serve as crisis manager. The deputy secretary often assumes the role of crisis manager. Corr noted, “A major difference between my tenure in the Obama Administration and my time at HHS in the Clinton Administration is that the department now has a critical emergency preparedness role. We now have emergency response capabilities for natural and man-made disasters that we did not have the first time I was here.” During Corr’s tenure, HHS confronted a series of emergencies during its first term: the H1N1 swine flu crisis, the Haitian earthquake, the Japanese tsunami, and the [Deepwater Horizon] oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hayes also faced a crisis at Interior: “I was the operations lead for the department on the Gulf oil spill,” Hayes says. “I spent every day—as did much of our team—from April 2010 to September 2010 on the oil spill … We were also involved in the response, the cleanup phase. We negotiated with BP every step of the way. I am proud of what we did.”

Serve as a policy advisor. Because of their extensive careers inside and outside government, deputy secretaries generally bring a great deal of policy expertise and experience to their positions. This makes it natural for deputy secretaries to expect to play a policy role in the department. Based on our interviews, the policy role varies dramatically from department to department. In some cases, the deputy secretary may be asked by the secretary to participate in the policy making process on a specific issue because of his or her expertise in that area. In other cases, a deputy secretary may be thrust into a policy making role because of the need for a strong individual to lead the policy making process. One deputy secretary told us, “I had to step into the policy development and policy agenda-setting process. I ended up driving the policy process. So I had to do two and a half jobs for a while. This isn’t the regular job of the deputy secretary.”

Serve as an alter ego for the secretary. One deputy secretary described this function this way: “My major role is backing up the secretary. We want to make sure that we make the best use of his time. I’m the back stop. I’m available across the board on many issues. Your job [as deputy secretary] is to serve the secretary in whatever capacity he or she desires. I support the secretary and focus on what is important to him. That has been my view from the first day I was here.” This role includes filling in for the secretary when he or she is unavailable to attend key government meetings and serving as acting secretary when necessary. As one deputy secretary put it, “I have to be here when the Secretary is out.”

Several Deputy Secretaries noted that there was an ebb and flow between various roles over the course of his or her tenure. One remarked, “We started out on management and we spent a lot of time on that during our first year. That was very important. Then the secretary asked me to play a greater role in another area. There are also the unexpected events which nobody can predict. So you must learn to live with this ebb and flow, and you have to be ready to respond to unanticipated events.”

Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. Paul R. Lawrence is the former under secretary for benefits at the Veterans Affairs Department. This article is adapted from their book Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government. Email them at mark.abramson@comcast.net and lawrencepaul@cox.net.

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How To Be Successful in the Trump Administration: Four Lessons From Previous Political Appointees

Paul R. Lawrence, Mark A. Abramson, and Joseph Gurney — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 08:00:00 -0500

The first round of the Trump Administration Cabinet nominations is nearly complete. In the weeks ahead, subcabinet positions will be announced.

Nominees face a difficult period between nomination and confirmation and they must proceed carefully. There is, however, much they can do to prepare for the responsibilities to come.

Based on interviews with previous political appointees, here are some words of advice:

Lesson One: Be Prepared to Wait

Be warned! This can be a lengthy process. While the confirmation of cabinet secretaries and other high-level positions might proceed quickly, the confirmation of the subcabinet is likely to proceed very slowly throughout 2017. Based on interviews with previous appointees, wait times ranged from eight to 358 days, with three months being the average. During the Obama Administration, the average length of time between nomination and confirmation from 2009 to 2014 was 127 days. If a nominee is lucky (or if there is a crisis in an agency needing the urgent attention of a new appointee), confirmation might be expedited. More likely, however, it will be a frustrating, slow wait.

Erica Groshen, commissioner of the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, was a vice president in the Research and Statistics Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when she was tapped for the position. After her nomination in mid-February 2012, Groshen recalls, "I started spending my time finishing up my work at the Federal Reserve. In July 2012, I was told that my nomination would be held up until after the presidential election in November. I was prepared for the possibility of a delay . . . I focused on getting my work and home in order." Groshen was confirmed in January 2013, nearly 11 months after her nomination.

Gayle E. Smith, a former national security aide, was nominated in April 2015 to serve as administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. The previous administrator had left the position in February 2015. A Senate committee approved her by a voice vote on July 29 with no objections. The full Senate vote was held up by one senator. On Nov. 30, a vote was finally held on the Senate floor. Ms. Smith was confirmed 79-7, seven months after her nomination.

Unlike Groshen and Smith, Terry Garcia's experience did not end as well. In May 2011, Garcia was nominated to be deputy secretary of Commerce. When nominated, Garcia was an executive vice president at the National Geographic Society. His nomination, along with several other Department of Commerce nominations, was held up by the Senate. In October 2011, Garcia was reported to have become frustrated with the continued delay and asked that his nomination be withdrawn. An administration official told Reuters, "He has been held up for no specific objection to him, his qualifications, or background. We've had this happen with a lot of our nominees, where there's an objection raised that has nothing to do with their qualifications."

Lesson Two: Talk to Predecessors and Experts

While the conventional wisdom is that nominees must keep a low profile between nomination and confirmation, this does not mean that nominees shouldn't seek advice and talk to many individuals. You can put the long wait time to good use.

David Stevens, former assistant secretary for housing and commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, did his homework for the new position on weekends while still working at his previous job. "I would spend weekends with binders to learn more about the department. I would also make phone calls on weekends to talk with people about the position. You need to use your pre-confirmation time wisely. You should talk to previous incumbents and find out about their experience. I used the time to become as knowledgeable on issues as possible and find as many resources—both people and written materials—as I could."

Nearly all of those interviewed spent time talking with predecessors from both parties. Many suggested seeking out predecessors from all previous administrations, regardless of party affiliation. Leon Rodriguez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Homeland Security Department, recalls, "Regarding predecessors, I talked to Ali Mayorkas (my immediate predecessor) and two Bush Administration appointees . . . I found my conversations with the Bush Administration appointees helpful."

In addition to talking to predecessors, nominees should also to seek out experts in their professional community to get input into their new position and agency.

Lesson Three: Gather Information

Today, it is much easier for a nominee to obtain information about agency operations than during earlier administrations. While nominees ultimately receive briefing books in advance of their confirmation hearings, they will be on their own in the immediate days after nomination.

"I have been confirmed twice for presidential appointments," recalls Kathryn Sullivan, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "The confirmation process was similar in both instances, but my pre-confirmation preparations were very different. Prior to my first appointment, I was assigned to the Office of the Administrator where I undertook several projects which served as a great introduction to NOAA programs and issues."

"The second time (2010)," says Sullivan, "I relied on the Internet for my preparatory research. The variety and volume of materials available online—budgets, program evaluations, independent review reports, and more—allowed me to become quite familiar with NOAA's current operations and challenges."

Lesson Four: Take Advantage of Onboarding Services

As discussed in "What the State Department Can Teach Agencies About Preparing New Appointees for the Job," we highlighted the value of State's three-week Ambassadorial Seminar. Participation is mandatory.

While few departments are likely to undertake three-week seminars, we believe that all departments should be assigned responsibility for onboarding their new appointees and providing learning opportunities to them. These activities should be undertaken between confirmation and nomination for maximum impact.

After confirmation, there will be many demands on nominees' time, which will leave little time for preparation for the new position. It is imperative that the crucial period between nomination and confirmation be used wisely and effectively.

Joseph Gurney is Leader, Public Sector Practice and Senior Vice President, Kaiser Associates, Inc. His e-mail: joe.gurney@kaiserassociates.com .; Paul R. Lawrence is Vice President at Kaiser Associates. His email: plawrence@kaiserassociates.com .; Mark A. Abramson is President, Leadership Inc. His email: mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com.

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What the State Department Can Teach Agencies About Preparing New Appointees for the Job

Paul R. Lawrence, Mark A. Abramson, and Joseph Gurney — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 14:50:27 -0500

We recently called for the new administration to revisit how political appointees are prepared for their new positions. We recommended that each cabinet department assume responsibility for onboarding their new appointees, and that agencies step up the activities undertaken between the nomination and confirmation as well as increase in the number of mechanisms for delivering vital information—briefings, seminars, training, site visits, etc.

The State Department has long been a leader in providing a variety of onboarding activities for new ambassadors. The department's Ambassadorial Seminar is a model for others to follow. The key characteristics of the seminar include:

Participation is mandatory.
A single entity (the Foreign Service Institute) has clear responsibility for undertaking the onboarding of new appointees.
The department effectively uses the period between nomination and confirmation.
The department does not rely on a single orientation event to prepare its political appointees, but instead provides a range of support.

State devotes significant resources and attention to onboarding. The goal is to set up new ambassadors for success. Such preparation does not start the day they walk into their new office, but rather many months prior to their swearing in and assumption of duties.

The three-week seminar—participation is required—is provided by the Foreign Service Institute for all incoming ambassadors. It is facilitated through the FSI Leadership and Management School and led by former ambassadors who serve as course mentors, along with FSI trainers. The seminar consists of a two-day preparation session for non-career candidates and three weeks of onboarding activities for both career and non-career nominees. (For more detailed information, see the The Onboarding of New Political Appointees by Lilith Christiansen, Paul Lawrence, Mark Stein, and Mark Abramson.)

Preparation. Prior to the three-week Ambassadorial Seminar, non-career candidates are encouraged to attend a two-day Non-Career Ambassadorial Seminar that is designed specifically for non-career nominees. The intent of this seminar is to provide information about department operations generally and U.S. embassies specifically. This helps nominees begin the Ambassadorial Seminar on a more level playing field with their career Foreign Service counterparts. Many candidates are new to the federal government, so this workshop helps address many of their basic questions. Candidates are encouraged to bring a list of questions and concerns.

Week One. The first week of the course is held offsite and facilitated by course mentors, FSI staff, and external contractors. Being out-of-town provides the opportunity to step away from the distractions of an office. The focus is on leadership—leadership skills, styles, and expected challenges. The offsite also provides the chance to build relationships among participants that can provide continued support once they are in the field. Learning happens both in a formal classroom setting and informally during meals.

Week Two. The second week takes place at department headquarters in Washington and focuses on policy and the specific roles, responsibilities, and authorities of the ambassador. The schedule is filled with guest speakers who hold some of the highest-level jobs within State (including the secretary of State, schedule permitting). Participants are briefed by selected principals with essential expertise and experience. Participants also receive a variety of short presentations from guest speakers on topics the departmental leadership team believes will be of interest to ambassadorial candidates. External speakers from the military and law enforcement community are often included to highlight the interagency culture. For many of the substantive topics presented during week two, participants may schedule a follow-up one-on-one consultation with the principal to get country-specific information.

Week Three. The third week of the seminar focuses on preparing candidate for success during the first 90 days. Participants prepare an entry strategy and plan for their first week and month, and they outline goals they want to accomplish during the first 90 days. Experienced public affairs trainers provide two days of public speaking and public affairs instruction. Additional speakers discuss pitfalls to avoid and the importance of security.

Next Steps

Departments should examine the Department of State Ambassadorial Seminar as a model from which they can build their own initiatives to fit the needs of their political appointees. A key element to replicate is that onboarding activities should be provided in the period between nomination and confirmation.

As demonstrated by State (and the private sector), a carefully developed and executed onboarding program increases the likelihood that political appointees will be successful.

Joseph Gurney leads the public sector practice and is senior vice president at Kaiser Associates, Inc. Paul R. Lawrence is vice president at Kaiser Associates, Inc. Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc.

Image via Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com.

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Needed: A New Approach for Onboarding Political Appointees

Paul R. Lawrence, Mark A. Abramson, and Joseph Gurney — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 10:56:45 -0500

Change is the new keyword of 2016. A new administration was elected in November on the promise of bringing change to Washington. To make this happen, the new team needs to carefully evaluate how Washington currently does business and what it should do differently in the future.

An immediate first step would be to reevaluate how government has traditionally undertaken the onboarding of new political appointees. We define strategic onboarding as "the systemic and designed approach over the first year of an appointee's tenure that will prepare him or her for success. The goal of strategic onboarding is to have new appointees become productive in a short amount of time."

Historically, the federal government's approach to onboarding can be characterized by:

A centralized one-day White House Orientation program conducted during the second half of the first year of an administration;
Few, if any, onboarding services provided at the departmental level; and
A de facto "sink or swim" approach to new political appointees.

We believe that changing the current approach would help political appointees be more effective. In a recently-released report, The Onboarding of New Political Appointees, authors Lilith Christiansen, Paul Lawrence, Mark Stein, and Mark Abramson, propose a new process. It is characterized by:

A decentralized approach, in which each cabinet department assumes responsibility for onboarding new appointees;
An increased number of activities undertaken between the time of nomination and confirmation of the new appointee;
A variety of mechanisms to deliver onboarding, including briefings, small group seminars, training sessions, face-to-face meetings, site visits, and social events.

Why a New Approach is Needed

Based on interviews conducted with previous political appointees, we found that nearly all those interviewed felt that they did not receive the onboarding support they needed. One appointee told us, "I have had two presidential appointments and I did not receive any formal or informal orientations in either position." The experience of this appointee is common and significantly different from what goes on in the private sector, where onboarding services are typically provided to all new employees.

The incoming administration needs to take a new approach for several reasons. First, many new appointees are likely to come from the private sector, with many having no previous government experience. These individuals will need to receive key information about the differences between the public and private sectors as soon as possible. Second, since many will be coming from the private sector, they will expect the same quality of onboarding services they received in the private sector.

What Do New Appointees Need to Know?

Based on our interviews, we have concluded an effective onboarding program must communicate needed information in the following categories.

1. The Basics: How do I become an employee of the federal government?

There are a host of actions that need to be taken during the first week. Although appointees will need to be briefed about getting on the payroll and signing up for health insurance and other benefits, there is much other work to be done during Week One. Several appointees noted that they had not received any advance information on such issues as where to park, how to get around the new building. Another aspect of the "basics" is to provide new appointees with assistance in finding housing, both temporary and permanent.

2. The Essentials: What are the rules of government that I need to know?

After the basics, the next set of information centers around the "rules" of government. These rules are important because mistakes in following them frequently can get a new (or even an experienced) appointee in trouble. Government is rule-driven and there are clear procedures to be followed in undertaking the business of government. Thus, the proposed onboarding office needs to determine the best way to explain the rules surrounding ethics, procurement, personnel and travel. These are not just good things to know. A lack of understanding of these rules can get a new appointee in serious trouble. The goal of the proposed onboarding unit is to avoid the "nobody told me" response by new appointees after they have inadvertently violated a rule. Potential rule violations include things such as accepting gifts of greater value than those allowed by federal ethics rules, telling friends about a future procurement and spending more money on travel than is permitted.

3. The Job: What do I need to know about my job?

After the basics and the essentials, new appointee will need a considerable amount of information about the job itself. Providing this will take time and require a customized onboarding schedule for each new appointee. This information can be summed up by "how does this organization operate?" This component of onboarding includes understanding the department and the federal government; the tools of the job; goals and strategic challenges; the major policy issues facing the new appointee; and Congress.

4. Becoming Effective: How do I succeed in my job?

While much of the information needed by a political appointee can be transmitted through briefings, group meetings, and orientation sessions, offering advice on becoming effective is more challenging. We have found that the most effective way to transmit this kind of information is through seminars or meetings with former political appointees who have been there. These individuals are very willing to share their experiences with new appointees. Former appointees can discuss what worked for them and what did not work.

Next Steps

The new Administration must quickly begin preparing for new political appointees who will start arriving in January and continue to arrive throughout the remainder of 2017. Agencies must prepare now to onboard new appointees.

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Your Guide to a Presidential Appointment in the Next Administration

Paul R. Lawrence, Mark A. Abramson, G. Edward DeSeve, and Daniel Griffith — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 09:03:44 -0400

In a recent article (“Thousands of Federal Jobs Are About to Come Open, but You’re Probably Not Going to Get One”), we pointed out that the number of political appointees can be misleading. You often hear 3,000, 6,000, and even 8,000 positions on occasion. For those seeking a presidential appointment, numbers can indeed be deceiving. Many of the jobs listed in the “Plum Book” (officially known as United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions) go to career senior executives in government and thus are “off the table” for political appointees.

In this article, we focus on the PAS positions (Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation) and delve deeply into the 1,217 positions listed in the 2012 Prune Book. Since then, over 100 jobs have been reclassified to PA positions (Presidential Appointment without Senate Confirmation) bringing the total down to over 1,100. Other positions have been reorganized or eliminated, making it difficult to have a precise current number until the 2016 Plum Book is published later this year. Based on research conducted by the National Academy of Public Administration and the EY Initiative on Leadership, we can now dig deeper into the 1,100 PAS positions to gain a better understanding of the components of that number. Based on our extensive review, the 1,100 PAS position break down into the following types of positions, each of which are discussed below:

Management positions (289 positions)
Ambassadorial positions (190 positions)
Commission and Board positions (145 positions)
Policy positions (121 positions)
Part-time trustee positions (109 positions)
C-suite positions, (94 positions)
United States Attorneys (93 positions)
United States Marshals (94 positions)

For those seeking a PAS position, the numbers of jobs are fairly limited and require specialized skills and experience.

Management positions (25 percent). These include cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, and agency heads. Many require (or should require) extensive management and substantive experience in leading large organizations. When managing agencies such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Veterans Health Administration, there is no place for amateurs. Relevant managerial experience is required.

Ambassadorial positions (17 percent). There are many surprises when one looks closely at ambassadorial positions. The first is that they are the second biggest category of PAS positions. The second is that nearly 70 percent go to career Foreign Service Officers in the State Department. Based on figures prepared by the American Foreign Service Association, the third surprise is that of the 30 percent non-State department appointees, only about one-third of those positions (23 appointees in 2016) went to individuals who had been fundraisers for the Obama campaigns. While fundraisers are indeed sent to good places (such as France, Morocco, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom), their numbers are not as large as commonly perceived.

Commission and board positions (13 percent). Walking around Washington, one frequently comes across buildings that house such entities as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Communications Commission, Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, and so forth. Each of these bodies have between five and seven members. Interestingly, legislation creating these agencies requires that a minority of each commission consist of members of the opposition party (during the Obama Administration many Commissions have three Democrats and two Republicans—if all slots have been confirmed). Thus, all PAS positions do not go to individuals who belong to the party that won the election. These boards require highly specialized knowledge and experience. Again, amateurs need not apply.

Policy positions (11 percent). It is fair to say that these are the dream jobs for the policy wonks who inhabit think tanks all across Washington (and throughout the nation). The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the Department of Health and Human Services is an example of this type position, which has been held by a variety of academics and think tankers over the years. There are, however, few of these positions and competition is intense.

Part-time trustee positions (10 percent). Another surprise from our analysis is the large number of part-time trustee positions available to a president. There are more than 30 trustees positions for the Kennedy Center, as well numerous positions on the Council of the National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities. Nearly all are part-time positions requiring just several council meetings throughout the year. Those looking for full-time employment in government need not apply.

C-Suite positions (8 percent). Just as in major corporations, government today has an extensive c-suite, consisting of positions such as chief financial officer, chief information officer, general counsel, and legislative affairs officer. Appropriate specialized knowledge and experience is clearly needed in each of these positions. Managing the nation’s spending and accounting is no place for beginners.

U. S. Attorneys (8 percent). U.S. Attorneys represent the federal government in U.S. district courts and the U.S. court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed through the United States and territories. Each is appointed by the president for a term of four years with Senate confirmation (as with all PAS positions) and can continue to serve in office until a successor is appointed and confirmed. No recent law school graduates need apply. Experience is required.

U.S. Marshals (8 percent). Yes, there are still U.S. Marshals. While they may no longer wear cowboy hats and gun holsters, 94 marshals are selected for each of the 94 judicial districts. Each is traditionally appointed from a list of qualified law enforcement personnel for a district or state, with each state having at least one district. Today, U.S. Marshals are responsible for fugitive operations, prisoner transport, and protection of officers of the court. While a PAS position, these appointments are non-political in nature and require substantial law enforcement experience.

Over the coming months, much of Washington will engage in a kind of parlor game about who will receive the spoils of victory, but it is important to remember that the size of the “spoils” has been substantially reduced over the years. The goal of the famous Pendleton Act of 1883 was to create a large career civil service and much smaller cadre of political appointees. Those interested in seeking an appointment to one of these highly specialized positions should understand, as our analysis demonstrates, how few positions are really available, and the long odds of actually receiving a presidential appointment.

Mark A. Abramson is President, Leadership Inc. His email: mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com. G. Edward DeSeve is Executive in Residence, Brookings Executive Education Program and Chair of the National Academy of Public Administration’s Transition 16 (T16) effort. His e-mail: gedeseve@gmail.com. Daniel Griffith is an intern at the National Academy of Public Administration. His e-mail:dgriffith@napawash.org. Paul R. Lawrence is a Principal in the Government and Public Sector practice of Ernst & Young LLP. His e-mail:paul.lawrence@ey.com.

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Avoiding a Government of Lawyers and Former Congressional Staffers

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Thu, 26 May 2016 07:47:19 -0400

The two presumptive presidential candidates are now vetting vice presidential candidates. Putting together an entire administration is not too far off. Based on our experience over the last seven years in interviewing 65 top level political executives in the Obama Administration, we gained insights about the professional experiences of those we interviewed. We discussed how their prior positions prepared them for their current position. In particular, we looked for management experience that would prepare them to be effective political executives managing large government organizations.

Based on our interviews and observations over the years, we found that the political positions are often filled by people with little relevant managerial experience:

Campaign staff. A major challenge facing all campaigns is placing their loyal workers after the campaign ends. Some campaign staff members end up – appropriately for the most part – in the White House. Many campaign skills are indeed applicable to the “perpetual campaign” of the White House today with its ongoing outreach to the public. For many jobs, there is a problem, however, in transferring the skills of campaigning to the skills of governing. Managing in government requires managerial skills, which potential appointees may not have gained on the campaign trial. Thus, many campaign personnel have had a difficult time in making the transition from campaign to governing. The challenge of a presidential campaign is to keep expectations low among staff that they will be moving into a management position in Washington as part of a new administration.

Congressional staff. Another traditional “feeder” group into a new administration has been congressional staff members, usually from the ranks of committee staff who have expertise about the agencies in which they either had authorization, appropriation, or oversight responsibility. In many ways, it makes sense to recruit these staff members (they have indeed proved their loyalty to the party in power) to serve in the agency in which they are most familiar. While their skills are indeed transferable on an expertise basis, many congressional staff often lack managerial experience. Serving as majority or minority staff director does build some management experience but that experience may not be adequate preparation for the challenges of managing in a large organization. The scope and size of a government organization are much larger than those of a committee staff. In managing a congressional committee, one can rely on one-to-one managerial skills—something not easily done in a large government organization. The challenge of a new administration is matching the experience of former congressional staffs to an appropriate job in an agency, such as placing them in offices of congressional relations where their professional contacts and experience can be invaluable. For the most part, placing them in managerial positions is a riskier proposition.

A major advantage of the legal profession is that lawyers can relatively easily move in and out of government. They can leave and return to the legal professional without much disruption to their career. In fact, time in government will generally enhance the professional credibility of a lawyer. The caution here is where to place these very smart “in and outers.” While their professional career has indeed prepared them to serve in legal positions in government, problems often arise when they are placed in senior managerial positions. Unless one has been the managing partner of a large law firm, lawyers usually work in small teams with colleagues and have little or no organizational management responsibility. In contrast, managing in government requires working in large, hierarchical, bureaucratic organizations for which their legal careers have usually not prepared them. Placing lawyers in significant management positions can also be risky.

Beyond the Usual Suspects: Achieving Diversity

By diversity, we mean putting together an administration of different career experiences and background, including relevant managerial experience. One does not want a government comprised overwhelmingly of lawyers or former congressional staffers. This diversity of experiences would include managerial experience at different levels of government and in different sectors. Based on our observations and experience over the years, we believe that following sources of talent have been underrepresented in previous administrations. The next administration can change that.

State government. While every administration has some political executives, including cabinet secretaries, from state government, the numbers of high-level executives with state government experience continues to be small. State government experience, however, clearly provides transferable skills and knowledge of best public sector practices. During his tenure as head of the Arizona Department of Transportation, Victor Mendez (now Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary) received much praise for overseeing the building of a Regional Freeway System in the Phoenix area six years ahead of schedule. As Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, Mendez developed the Every Day Counts program, which emphasized innovation in dramatically speeding up the completion of transportation projects. In addition to the transfer of knowledge, state government officials also can bring highly relevant managerial experience to the federal government.

Private sector. While there are often calls for government to be “more like business,” the number of political executives from the private sector varies from administration to administration. In many ways, managing in a large business is very much like managing in a large government organization – hierarchical and bureaucratic as noted earlier. (The transition for an individual from a small entrepreneurial start-up is likely to be more difficult than from a large business.) Individuals who have served in both large government organizations and large businesses bring a unique perspective to their positions, including the ability to compare organizations. After assuming his position as Chief Operating Officer of the Office of Federal Student Aid, James Runcie observed, “I thought the agency did not compare well to the private sector in regard to customer service. I had come from the private sector . . . Things are moving fast in the private sector, especially in areas like call centers.”

Career service and military. Another overlooked sector is the government itself. On the civilian side of government, there are many outstanding career Deputy Administrators who have also served as Acting Administrators. In 2009, the Obama Administration nominated Patrick Gallagher to serve as director of the National Institutes of Standard and Technology after he served for 13 months as acting director. Gallagher subsequently served as acting deputy secretary of the Commerce Department.

There are also many talented individuals in law enforcement agencies whose skills are transferable to other agencies. In 2010, the Obama Administration selected John Pistole, former career number two at the FBI, to serve as administrator of the Transportation Security Administration. On the military side, there are many talented flag officers with much relevant experience. The George W. Bush Administration selected Adm. James Loy to serve as deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security after he retired as commandant of the Coast Guard. Gallagher, Pistole and Loy all had managerial experience in large organizations that fully equipped them to take on challenging positions in other agencies.

There are clearly many talented people all over the United States who can contribute to the success of the next administration. The challenge will be to look beyond the usual suspects to find individuals from sectors traditionally underrepresented among senior political appointees.

Paul R. Lawrence is a principal in the Government and Public Sector practice of Ernst & Young LLP. His e-mail: paul.lawrence@ey.com. Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. His email: mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com. They are authors of the forthcoming book Succeeding as a Political Executive: 50 Insights from Experience (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016).

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Do You Have What It Takes To Be a Political Appointee?

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Mon, 02 May 2016 13:29:00 -0400

The start of a new Administration is still months away, but planning for 2017 has already begun. The New York Times recently presented an in-depth article on the forthcoming transition, highlighting a recent transition planning meeting held in New York. Vetting for the first personnel decision is already underway—both the Washington Post and the New York Times report that the presidential candidates have begun reviewing potential vice presidents.

So it is only natural that political donors and campaign workers outside Washington might start to exhibit symptoms of Potomac Fever as they dream about the possibility of a presidential appointment. Inside the beltway, veteran “in and outers” naturally begin thinking about one more rotation “in.”

A recent article focused on the relatively small number of presidential appointments that are actually available to a new administration. If you think you can beat the odds and are interested in an appointment, this article aims to assist in your deliberations. There are many reasons why an individual should be attracted to public service. There are, however, reasons why public service may not be suited to everyone, and there are some real downsides to public service. Anyone thinking about an impressive Washington title and big office overlooking the National Mall needs to take these things into consideration.

Reasons to Seek and Accept an Appointment

During the past seven years, we conducted interviews with 65 high-level Obama Administration political executives, many of whom we interviewed several times. We were impressed with the reasons interviewees gave for coming (or coming back) to Washington. Most said that the job offered an opportunity to make a difference and they felt they had a unique opportunity to contribute to the organization they were asked to lead.

In many cases, these individuals had previously served in government and were part of the professional community surrounding the agency they were being asked to lead. In the case of John Thompson, director of the U.S. Census Bureau at the Commerce Department, he had previously served at the Census from 1975 to 2002 in senior positions, including leading the 2000 Census. When offered the position of director in 2013, Thompson recalls, “I wanted to see what changes I could bring to the Census. I believed we could save money on the 2020 Census. I felt that the 2020 Census clearly needed a conceptual vision.”

Michael Huerta, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, had a similar experience. After having served as deputy administrator from June 2010 to December 2011, and acting administrator starting in December 2011, Huerta recalls, “In the spring of 2012, former Secretary Ray LaHood asked me to consider being nominated as administrator. We had a good conversation. I had to talk to my wife about accepting the nomination. I knew that this was an important time for the agency. I viewed it as a ‘call to serve.’”

In addition to meeting the challenges of a specific agency during a specific period of time, there is also the call to public service as cited by Administrator Huerta. Nearly all of the political executives we interviewed strongly endorsed answering the call to service. Margaret Hamburg, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, says she would encourage people enter public service. John Morton, former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says, “Public service is very rewarding. You are motivated every day. You are doing right and serving people.”

Reasons to Turn Down an Appointment

Thompson, Huerta, Hamburg and Morton all believed they were the right person at the right time, that they each could make a contribution to their organization. But it does not always work out that way. Individuals may not be offered their first choice (or even their second or third) and thus face the dilemma of taking a job that might not be a good fit.

Not enough attention is given to why someone should not to seek or accept a position. In deciding whether to pursue a presidential appointment, an individual must answer the following questions:

Does my experience prepare me for the job?
Is this the right job for me?
Does the job fit my personality and work style?
Am I willing to subject myself (and my family) to the scrutiny of the nomination process?

Experience

Some people are unwilling to admit that their experience does not prepare them for the job they are seeking or have taken. Nonetheless, we believe that anyone considering an appointment should ask themselves the following questions:

What is your experience dealing with the mission of the organization to which you are seeking an appointment?
What is your relevant management experience?
Do you have management and leadership experiences that will instill confidence in your agency?
Do you have a plan to be successful in the job?
Are you prepared if something goes horribly wrong?
Do you have experience dealing with a crisis that could happen during your tenure?

We interviewed political executives who regularly drew on prior experiences to help them do their jobs. Their prior experience put them much further ahead than those who lacked experience. If you are considering a position for which your answers to the previous questions are “no” and you believe you will be able learn it all on the job, be advised that this is a high-risk path.

The Right Job

If you do decide that your experience fits the job, the next key question is whether the specific position offered is the right job for you. While past and present position appointees often are reluctant to admit that they were appointed to the “wrong” position, there is much anecdotal evidence of people changing jobs to find the right fit. After serving for four years as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, R. Gil Kerlikowske was asked for recommendations to head the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection. Kerlikowske recalls, “After being asked for recommendations, I volunteered myself to head CBP. I was eager to get back into operations and get away from policy. I was familiar with Southwest border issues.” Kerlikowske had spent his career in law enforcement, including serving as chief of police in Seattle, Washington, prior to accepting the position at ONDCP. He was pleased to be returning to a front-line position.

Do You Have the Personality?

Some people are not well-suited for bureaucracy. Bureaucracies move slowly, with many obstacles standing in the way of a specific goal. In reflecting on his government service, Michael Whitaker, deputy administrator of FAA, advises, “For some people, they will find that government does not move fast enough for them. Some people should not come to government if they are not going to like the speed of it.”

You get the idea. While a crisis might speed up the bureaucracy, government requires patience and a long time frame. Quick hits are possible, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Prospective appointees need to understand their temperament and style. There is room for some entrepreneurship in government, but again it is the exception rather than the norm.

Are You Prepared for Scrutiny?

Finally, prospective appointees have to decide whether they wish to make their lives an open book—both literally and figuratively. An FBI investigation is required for all appointees, as well as intense scrutiny of an individual’s financial situation. All financial forms required by the Office of Government Ethics and congressional committees are made public. In addition, the entire career of an individual being nominated for a position also comes under the microscope. It is now common for controversial statements or incidents from the past to receive renewed attention. In the age of the Internet, it is not very difficult to find past speeches and comments that can be raised in a congressional hearing.

Know What You Are Getting Into

The stakes are high in accepting a presidential appointment. While many appointees leave Washington with their reputations enhanced, there is also the risk of leaving Washington with a damaged reputation. This (usually) occurs not based on personal misbehavior but instead on management failure happening on one’s watch.

We are strong proponents of public service, but we recognize that an appointee position is not for everyone. Those interested in seeking an appointment must first ask themselves some hard questions. If they are comfortable that they are well suited, we wish them the best in their public service.

Paul R. Lawrence is a principal in the government and public sector practice of Ernst & Young LLP. His e-mail: paul.lawrence@ey.com. Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. His email: mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com. This article is adopted from their forthcoming book Succeeding as a Political Executive: 50 Insights from Experience (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016).

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Leon Panetta’s Hard Lessons in Leadership

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:00:00 -0400

A host of memoirs by former Obama administration Cabinet chiefs have been arriving in bookstores, offering valuable management lessons for political appointees and career civil servants. This is the last in a series on the experiences of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Stress Test), Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Duty), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Hard Choices), and Defense and intelligence chief Leon Panetta (Worthy Fights).

In Worthy Fights, Leon Panetta chronicles his tenure during the first term of the Obama administration as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (February 2009 to June 2011) and as secretary of Defense (July 2011 to February 2013). He also served as a member of the House and as budget director and chief of staff for President Clinton. While Panetta’s memoir is stirring controversy over his criticism of President Obama’s leadership style, the management insights for government leaders have received far less attention:

Involve key staff in decision-making. Panetta acknowledges that his credentials for the CIA position were not based on prior experience in covert action or intelligence gathering, and says he got the job because he knew something about running organizations. Based on his work in the Clinton administration, Panetta had seen the value of including all key staff members in decision-making. He expanded the number of people attending his daily staff meeting, which was a major cultural change for the agency.

“At first staff was aghast that I would discuss sensitive operational details in front of the comptroller or public affairs chief,” he writes. “But I knew from my (Clinton) White House days that the most important thing I could do was to get the senior team on the same page.” Panetta told his staff, “I need you to be honest with me. The last thing I want is for something to be going on in the bowels of this place that I don’t know about.” This approach enhanced communication by engaging more staff members and encouraging discussion among the various components of the agency.

Make accountability clear. In overseeing the effort to track down Osama bin Laden in 2009, Panetta recalls his frustrations over the lack of leads. In one meeting with senior staffers, he asked who at the CIA was responsible for finding bin Laden. Four or five officials raised their hands. “If I’ve learned one lesson in management over the past 40 years, it’s that if everyone is in charge, nobody is,” Panetta writes. He settled on two people from the National Counterterrorism Center who would take the lead and report to him weekly with updates on the search. The search for bin Laden picked up steam and his capture ranks as the major accomplishment during Panetta’s tenure at the agency.

Push back and ask for more options. In parts of his book, Panetta expresses frustration with the bureaucracy. In attempting to verify bin Laden was hiding inside the infamous Abbottabad compound, Panetta recalls staffers reporting they had already used every tool in the agency’s toolbox to confirm bin Laden’s location and could not imagine what else to try. “I would not accept that we were out of ideas,” he writes. “Frustrated, I told them I wanted 10 new thoughts at our next meeting. I was openly angry, furious at their seeming acceptance that we had done all we could.” Instead of 10 ideas, they came back with 38 ideas. Panetta adds that his team was energized by the effort.

Understand your organization. This was clearly a goal of Panetta at DOD, but it is unclear whether he succeeded. He describes getting to know the CIA pretty well during this tenure, but notes that the CIA and DOD aren’t comparable in scale. “It was, I said at the time, like moving from the local hardware store to Home Depot,” Panetta recalls.

“My greatest fear was that the size of the Defense Department would overwhelm me, that I would never be able to truly take command of it,” he writes. “Many a secretary of defense had been swallowed up by the job, and I was determined to fight against the pull. It was a concern that dogged me throughout my tenure at the department.” His predecessor, Robert Gates, had similar concerns at DOD, but his longer tenure there offered more opportunities to tackle the challenges. While it is easy for executives to get caught up in the policy game, they must allocate substantial time developing and overseeing management improvements.

Be prepared to manage up. Panetta voices annoyance at what he viewed as White House micromanagement and laments the trend toward more White House involvement in departmental business. “I had to submit speeches for the White House approval, and when I would forward requests for interviews, the White House would take weeks to respond, effectively killing the idea without ever saying so directly,” he writes, noting that the White House also discouraged his interactions with Congress.

This oversight had “the effect of reducing the importance of the Cabinet members who actually oversaw their agencies,” he says. “Those agency heads were rarely encouraged to take their own initiative or lobby for priorities. In fact, several times when I reached out to Congress or the press without prior White House approval, I was chastised for it.” Gates, Timothy Geithner and Hillary Clinton all wrote of similar experiences in their memoirs. The lesson is clear: Executives must carefully pick their battles. Deciding when to take on the White House and fight back on issues that are crucial to agency operations is perhaps the biggest challenge of all.

Mark A. Abramson is president of the management consulting firm Leadership Inc., and Paul R. Lawrence is a principal in Ernst & Young LLP’s Government Practice. They are the authors of What Government Does: How Political Executives Manage.

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Hillary Clinton's Lessons in Executive Diplomacy

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 09:00:00 -0400

A host of memoirs by former Obama administration Cabinet chiefs have been arriving in bookstores, offering valuable management lessons for political appointees and career civil servants. This is the third in a series on the experiences of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Stress Test), Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Duty), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Hard Choices), and Defense and intelligence chief Leon Panetta (Worthy Fights).

In Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton chronicles her four years as secretary of State under President Obama, in which she visited 112 countries and traveled nearly 1 million miles. Among insights for government leaders:

Building personal relationships. In Hard Choices, Clinton notes the value of her visits to numerous countries and the importance of developing relationships with foreign leaders. Both Hillary Clinton are well known for cultivating relationships. As secretary of State, Clinton continued to build on the relationships that she developed as first lady and as a New York senator earlier in her career.

Relations between nations are based on shared interests and values, but Clinton notes they are also about personal bonds. “The personal element matters more in international affairs than many would expect, for good or ill,” she writes. Clinton describes her relationship with China State Councilor Dai Bingaggo, for example. “Dai and I hit it off right away, we talked often over the years,” she writes. This rapport proved critical in negotiations over China’s position on a United Nation’s resolution involving sanctions on Iran.

Personal relationships also played a key role in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in January 2012. Two days after the earthquake, Haiti’s President Rene Preval told the Clinton’s staff that the secretary was the only outsider he trusted. “I need Hillary,” Preval said. “I need her. And no one else.” Clinton reflects, “It was a reminder of how important personal relationships can be, even at the highest levels of diplomacy and government.” After their face-to-face meeting, Preval signed an agreement that gave temporary responsibility for the airport and ports to the U.S. military so planes could land and supplies could be distributed.

International diplomacy is not a typical responsibility of a government executive, but personal relationships are crucial in most agency business. It has been a constant theme during our interviews with Obama administration political executives during the past four years. One executive responsible for working with the business community said, “I spent a lot of time during my first year on the road building relationships. You need to build good relationships with corporate America. Building those relationships is crucial.” Others told us of the importance of their relationships with Congress, the White House, and the Office of Management and Budget.

Enlisting people outside the organization to accomplish the mission. During her four years as secretary, Clinton spent much of her time working with other federal departments, corporations, international organizations, foundations and nongovernmental organizations. The public often overestimates the extent of foreign aid and the size of the State Department, yet it is one of the smaller federal departments, employing just 20,000 public servants.~~Americans~~ It is thus essential that the department leverage its limited resources. In 2009, the department created an Office of Global Partnerships, headed by a special representative for global partnerships, to serve as the entry point for collaboration between State and other organizations.

Hard Choices details numerous examples of such partnerships. Based on discussions with like-minded governments about what could be done about the risks of climate change and carbon emissions, Clinton took the lead in forming a public-private partnership consisting of governments, businesses, scientists and foundations. At an event in 2012, Clinton announced the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. Participants at the event included the environmental ministers from Bangladesh, Canada, Mexico and Sweden, the ambassador from Ghana, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator. By 2014, the coalition had signed on 37 country partners and 44 nonstate partners. Clinton writes, “The coalition is making important strides toward reducing methane emissions from oil and gas production and black carbon from diesel fumes and other sources.”

Another interesting partnership she formed addresses health problems caused by cooking over open fires and dirty stoves. Clinton notes it was important to “tackle this under-the-radar but deeply troubling and consequential challenge.” In 2012, she launched the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves with 19 founding partners from government, business, international, academic and philanthropic entities. Clinton writes, “The alliance decided to pursue a market-based approach to persuade companies to build clean, efficient and affordable stoves and fuels.” After leaving State, Clinton became honorary chairwoman of the alliance, which has started projects in Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, with planning under way for additional projects in India and Guatemala.

Looking ahead, it is likely federal agencies will need to develop more partnerships with other governments and organizations. The State Department’s initiatives under Clinton offer a model from which other agencies can learn.

Finding new ways to communicate. One of the most interesting chapters in Hard Choices is Clinton’s description of the 21^st Century Statecraft agenda, which she calls “digital diplomacy in a networked world.” Like many government executives, Clinton sought to figure out the best way the department could communicate with its various audiences. The State’s audience is worldwide, but all government organizations face the challenge of effectively communicating with stakeholders. At State, the Bureau of Public Affairs created a digital division to amplify the department’s messages across a wide range of platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and Google+. Clinton writes, “By 2013 more than 2.6 million Twitter users followed 301 official feeds in 11 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Russian, Turkish and Urdu.” While most agencies don’t face the language challenge, the message from Clinton is clear: Government must find and use the most appropriate tools to connect with citizens and industry partners.

Having respect for career public servants. Like former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in Stress Test and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Duty, Clinton is highly complimentary of the public servants she worked with. Hard Choices is dedicated to “America’s diplomats and development experts, who represent our country and our values so well in places large and small, peaceful and perilous all over the world.” She movingly describes her farewell speech in the lobby of the State Department: “Filling the large lobby were so many people I had come to love and respect. I was glad they would continue serving the United States with intelligence, persistence and courage.”

Secretary of State is clearly a unique role, but there are lessons to be learned from Clinton’s experience that are applicable to executive positions across government.

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What Agency Executives Can Learn From Robert Gates

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 09:00:00 -0400

A host of memoirs by former Obama administration Cabinet chiefs have been arriving in bookstores, offering valuable management lessons for political appointees and career civil servants. This is the second in a series on the experiences of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Stress Test), Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Duty), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Hard Choices), and Defense and intelligence chief Leon Panetta (Worthy Fights).

In Duty, Robert Gates chronicles his four and a half years as secretary of Defense under Presidents Bush and Obama, in which the nation fought two wars. Among insights for government leaders:

Know whether you are accepting a policy or operational position. There are two basically two types of leadership positions in Washington: policy jobs and operational jobs. It is crucial that government leaders know which type job they are accepting and understand the challenges of each. In his memoir Stress Test, Timothy Geithner fully understood that he was accepting a policy job and he describes the challenge of working to get agreement on the “right” policies. In contrast, Robert Gates knew he was accepting an operational position and that most of his time as Defense secretary would be spent executing policy. “I participated in the development of our strategies both within the Pentagon and in the White House,” he writes, “and then had primary responsibility for implementing them: selecting, promoting—and when necessary, firing—field commanders and other military leaders; for getting the commanders and troops the equipment they needed to be successful; for taking care of our troops and their families.” While many come to Washington to make policy, Gates knew his success was in implementing policy.

The bureaucracy is a special challenge. Gates was one of the most qualified Defense secretaries in recent history. He brought extensive experience to the Pentagon after his previous positions in the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency. But even with his vast knowledge of government, Gates found the Pentagon bureaucracy to be painfully slow moving. “Even though the nation was waging two wars, neither of which we were winning, life in the Pentagon was largely business as usual when I arrived,” he writes. “I found little sense of urgency, concern, or passion about a very grim situation.” At the end of his tenure, Gates was still frustrated by his inability to reform the Defense machine. Chapter Four, “Waging War on the Pentagon,” should be required reading for civil servants to better understand the perspective of a political appointee coming into the bureaucracy with an urgent agenda. There is a wide gap in the time perspective of appointees and career civil servants. Appointees sprint to get as much done as possible during their tenure, which is tied to political shifts in presidential administrations. In contrast, civil servants often view themselves as marathon runners pacing themselves for a long race.

When necessary, go outside the bureaucracy. When Gates saw an intractable problem, he went outside the bureaucracy to address it. A prime example is the troubled procurement of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles. There were numerous delays in getting MRAPs to the field in Iraq. Describing his workaround, Gates writes, “I approved putting the MRAP in a special, very small category of Defense procurement, effectively setting aside many bureaucratic hurdles typical of military programs . . . I also directed establishment of a department-wide MRAP task force and asked to be briefed every two weeks.” If Gates had stayed in his role longer, it would have been interesting to see whether he would have tried to institutionalize fast track procurement and worked to change the internal operations of the Pentagon instead of having to go outside the bureaucracy to accomplish his priority objectives. When political appointees implement such initiatives, civil servants have the opportunity to streamline the way they do business internally.

Be selective and specific about your agenda. Gates advises that an appointee who intends to run a department or agency—rather than preside over it—should “be selective in identifying his agenda, and both realistic and single-minded in developing strategies for achieving each specific goal.” Otherwise, he says, “exhortations to be more efficient or to achieve some broad goal are akin to shouting down a well.” In pointing to his experience with MRAPs, Gates writes, “The organization must understand that the secretary is personally invested in these issues and determined to drive the process to specific outcomes.” Gates says he gave very specific objectives with tight deadlines and required regular in-person reports. He argues that getting personally involved in select issues was the only way he could get people focused and ensure they were performing. He also believed that his agenda for change could not be delegated to the deputy secretary. “The secretary has to master the details and fully understand the issues and problems,” Gates writes. “The challenge is to maintain a high-level broad perspective, understand enough details to make sensible and executable decisions.”

Be patient when working with Congress. While showing respect for Congress as an institution, Gates is highly critical of the many lawmakers he dealt with as Defense chief. “I was exceptionally offended by the constant adversarial, inquisition-like treatment of executive branch officials by too many members of Congress across the political spectrum—a kangaroo-court environment in hearings, especially when the press and televisions cameras were present,” he writes. “Sharp questioning of witnesses should be expected and is entirely appropriate. But rude, insulting, belittling, bullying and all too often highly personal attacks by members of Congress violated nearly every norm of civil behavior as they postured and acted as a judge, jury and executioner.” Future political appointees stand warned. On the advice of his staff, Gates says, “the clenched teeth behind my smile when on the Hill remained well hidden . . . I dutifully marched to the Hill to meet with the leadership, party caucuses, committee leaders, and individual members . . . I behaved myself in hearings, letting my respectful demeanor implicitly draw the contrast with the boorishness of members.”

Political appointees must collaborate with career civil servants. While Gates is candidly critical of the bureaucracy, he writes, “I have not given due credit in these pages to those civilians who played a key role in everything I did—and accomplished—as secretary. Career professionals and political appointees, men and women, worked countless hours to prepare me for meetings and helped shape decisions, then saw to their implementation. I depended on these civilians to help me frame the agenda to change, to help me come up with specific strategies for accomplishing each initiative. Their insights, dedication, and skills are critical assets that any secretary of Defense and the American public must always value.” The message from Gates is clear: Any future secretary who wants to reform the Pentagon must remember that the civil service is essential to success. Duty also points out, however, how hard political appointees must work to speed up the bureaucracy and create a greater sense of urgency.

Gates is frank about the many rough patches during his tenure as Defense secretary. He frequently had difficulties with the White House, as well as his department’s bureaucracy. He often considered resigning, but he didn’t because of his commitment to supporting the troops. “The troops were the reason I took the job, and they became the reason I stayed,” he writes. The power of commitment to mission is perhaps Gates’ greatest lesson for both political appointees and career civil servants.

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What Agency Executives Can Learn From Timothy Geithner

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 10:51:37 -0400

A host of memoirs by former Obama administration Cabinet chiefs have been arriving in bookstores, offering valuable management lessons for political appointees and career civil servants. This is the first in a series on the experiences of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Stress Test), Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Duty), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Hard Choices), and Defense and intelligence chief Leon Panetta (Worthy Fights).

In Stress Test, Timothy Geithner chronicles his challenging path as Treasury Department secretary during one of the nation’s most crippling economic crises since the Great Depression. Among insights for government leaders:

There are two Washingtons—one a “policy city” and the other an “operations city.” Geithner spent his government career focused on policy as opposed to the operations of government. In Stress Test, he describes the enormous challenge of getting policy right. In his positions as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then Treasury secretary, Geithner spent his time deploying the tools of monetary and fiscal policy to lessen the impact of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. In reflecting on his career in public service, Geithner writes of his love of “the craft of economic policy.”

Of the 10 bureaus within Treasury (where 98 percent of its employees are located), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is the only one mentioned in Geithner’s 600-page book. He was not thinking much about the operations of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the U.S. Mint, or the Internal Revenue Service during his time at Treasury. This is not a criticism. In fact, many political executives spend their time almost exclusively on policy, not operations. The key insight for future political appointees is to understand what type of position they being appointed to. An operational position would not have been an effective use of Geithner’s talents and experience, which were clearly rooted in policy. Implementers are not policy folks and policymakers are not implementers.

Government service is a team sport. In his memoir, Geithner is generous in his praise of colleagues at the Federal Reserve and Treasury. The dedication reads: “For the intrepid public servants at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve who worked with great skill and devotion to help guide their country through the crisis.” The final chapter, “Tribute to a Crisis Team,” is devoted to the accomplishments of those he served with at the Federal Reserve, the New York Fed, and Treasury. Geithner writes, “Exceptional were the people involved in the (crisis) response and their spirit of cooperation. I wanted to recognize them and give you a sense of their contributions.” Geithner realized that his effectiveness as secretary largely depended on his ability to mobilize and unify the array of public servants working to respond to the economic crisis.

You have to communicate what you are doing. Geithner is critical of himself for his poor communication skills during the financial crisis and his entire tenure. While proud of the decisions he made to try to rescue the economy, he writes, “I never found an effective way to explain to the public what we were doing and why.” He expresses deep regrets about not having done a better job of explaining the administration’s strategy. Numerous political executives have stressed the importance of communicating to stakeholders, including the public. Appointees and career civil servants need to understand that their challenge is not only to do their job effectively, but also to communicate what they are doing.

Appointees will need patience in working with Congress. Geithner does not mince words about his difficulty in dealing with Congress. “I witnessed some appalling behavior in the political arena—selfishness and grandstanding, shameless hypocrisy and mindless partisanship,” he writes. “Dealing with Congress, to put it mildly, did not feel like a careful deliberative journey in search of the best public policy.” Future appointees need to be prepared to operate in this increasingly partisan environment.

Public service is worthwhile. Throughout his tenure, Geithner had to refute the incorrect assertion that he was a Wall Street banker (many thought he was a Goldman Sachs alumnus). In fact, Geithner started his career as a GS-13 civil servant in Treasury’s International Trade Office and spent 12 years at the department. He became a career deputy assistant secretary and then accepted a political appointment late in the Clinton administration. Chapter 2, “An Education in Crisis,” details his time as a career civil servant—required reading for those considering a career in public service. “I didn’t go into government to be a reforming crusader,” Geithner writes. “I just wanted to do interesting and consequential work. I wanted to be part of something larger than myself.”

Geithner hopes that reflecting on the crisis “encourages Americans to reconsider the value of strong public institutions and capable public servants.” By describing his own experiences in government, his memoir might serve to attract future generations to public service.

Mark A. Abramson is president of management consulting firm Leadership Inc., and Paul R. Lawrence is a principal in Ernst & Young LLP’s Government Practice. They are the authors of What Government Does: How Political Executives Manage.

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Leadership Lessons: Inez Moore Tenenbaum, Consumer Product Safety Commission

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:49:00 -0500

This is the fifth in a series of profiles based on interviews for the book Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) by Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson, which highlights the management lessons of 24 political executives during their first 18 months in the Obama administration.

When Inez Moore Tenenbaum became the ninth chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission in June 2009, she was greeted by a mandate to issue new industry regulations as well as a backlog of unfinished business. Her immediate goals were to improve communication and transparency at the agency, which is charged with protecting the public against risks of injury or death from consumer products. With a background in state government, Tenenbaum came to the position with experience in education, public health and social services.

Tenenbaum’s experience at CPSC offers three leadership lessons for all government executives on breaking down barriers to success.

Lesson One: Assess Where Your Organization Is

During her initial days on the job, Tenenbaum assessed where the agency stood and what needed to be done first. She did not start off with a clean slate. When she arrived in 2009, CPSC was still reeling after recalling millions of Chinese-made toys that were contaminated with lead paint and cracking down on sales of dangerous baby cribs. These widespread consumer hazards had led Congress to pass the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August 2008, which expanded the agency’s regulatory mandate.

Tenenbaum faced the challenge of issuing regulations mandated by the new law while clearing a backlog of rules that had not been finalized. During her first year she focused on responding to the unfinished agenda so CPSC could begin to shift its attention away from rule-making toward greater outreach, education and partnerships.

Lesson Two: Speed Up the Organization

Like many of the political executives interviewed for this project, Tenenbaum wanted to speed up the pace at her agency. “I found a lack of a sense of urgency,” she recalls. “I told our staff and the Office of General Counsel to pick up the pace. Everything was simply taking too long. The delays were burdensome on industry. Industry needed to know what we were going to do so they could be ready to respond. We started to give deadlines and schedules to our folks, and we then followed up. We had three major rules to get done, and I wanted them done by the fall.”

To foster efficiency, Tenenbaum created teams of lawyers, compliance staff and engineers to work jointly on a rule instead of sequentially, as in the past. CPSC moved to a new structure organized by types of goods -- such as children’s merchandise, household products and appliances. “We would then create teams with all the right people on it,” she says. “We wanted people working together. The old way was taking years to get things done, and it shouldn’t have taken us that long.”

Tenenbaum believes results come from leading by example. “I think organizations respond to the speed of the leader,” she says. “Agency personnel can see that my staff and I are working very hard. I try hard to let everybody know what is expected.”

Lesson Three: Improve Communications

Other problems at the agency included poor internal communications, even among commissioners, and a lack of transparency in operations. “I tried to open up the agency,” she recalls. “I started to meet with all my key managers about how we were going to operate. I started weekly meetings with the other commissioners. I also started holding votes at our meetings and broadcasting those meetings on the Web.”

Tenenbaum also sought better ways to communicate with the public, and pushed to expand the agency’s use of social media. The resulting initiative, CPSC 2.0, included launching the OnSafety website, which features blogs, product updates and recall alerts.

Social networking also makes the agency more visible, she says. “We are getting increased attention. We are reaching out to the national media. We also receive a lot of attention from local media,” Tenenbaum says. “This is part of educational role. The morning talk shows frequently want us to appear. They want information on recalls and what people can do about recalls.”

Paul R. Lawrence is a principal at Ernst & Young LLP (paul.lawrence@ey.com). Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. (mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com).

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Leadership Lessons: Patrick Gallagher, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:34:00 -0500

This is the fourth in a series of profiles based on interviews for the book Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) by Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson, which highlights the management lessons of 24 political executives during their first 18 months in the Obama administration.

Patrick Gallagher brought an inside perspective to his role as director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the agency's only political appointee. After 15 years as a career scientist at NIST, Gallagher knew the agency was in need of a better management structure for its mission of promoting U.S. innovation, and advancing scientific metrics and technology. Even before his appointment in 2009, Gallagher had begun to set the stage for organizational change as acting director.

His experience at NIST offers three leadership lessons for all government executives looking to realign their agencies for the future.

Lesson One: Reorganize When Necessary

The conventional wisdom is to avoid reorganization whenever possible. Upon assuming leadership at NIST, Gallagher came to the opposite conclusion. "I knew that the agency had to be better organized and more effective," he recalls. "I wanted to improve the stability of NIST. I thought it was unstable with a single presidential appointee and a single deputy director. The previous NIST management structure had upwards of 18 line organizations all reporting to the director or deputy director. In addition, NIST is like a national laboratory in many ways, but it wasn't organized that way. The director of NIST was like a weak mayor. It wasn't working. We needed to remap the organization and we needed to improve customer service."

The plan required approval from the Commerce Department, NIST's parent agency, and congressional appropriations committees. Reorganization is a cumbersome and lengthy process that usually discourages leaders from undertaking such efforts. But Gallagher made it a top priority for NIST. "The organization was supportive of the change," he says. "It had been talked about for years and there was general recognition that the time had come to make the change. In the private sector, you can just come up with a plan, announce it and then do it. Government is different. You need to invite participation. I shared our reorganization plan and met with NIST managers to discuss the reorganization. I invited everybody to comment on the plan. Things moved pretty quickly after this. I did learn the importance of engaging people on reorganizations. Nobody likes to be surprised. My rule was no surprises and we engaged people on it -- including Congress, which was very supportive."

Lesson Two: Focus on Alignment and Mission

The reorganization was not just an add-on for Gallagher. It was central to his strategy to change NIST's culture and to strengthen the organization to survive the fast pace of change in the 21st century. "The reorganization was never just about organizational structure or who reports to whom. It wasn't about boxes," he says. "It was about getting the organization better aligned. We wanted to get the right people and align them in the new organization. Alignment was our larger goal. We need to reset the agency."

The management agenda involved moving away from an activity-based structure for the agency's laboratories, which were organized like a university. "In that structure, our managers acted much like chairs of academic departments," Gallagher recalls. "We wanted to move toward a mission approach. Our historic mission is the metric system, and we needed to align our activities with the mission."

The mission focus and reorganization were part of Gallagher's goal to make NIST a better workplace and to enhance the agency's image among federal agencies and the research community. "NIST is a very special place," he says. "Researchers at NIST like their work and their mission. I wanted to restore the old sense of mission that [NIST's predecessor] the National Bureau of Standards had. Our efforts have brought more visibility to the organization."

Lesson Three: Always Be Prepared to Change

In the summer of 2011, Gallagher started work on two scenarios for the future -- one focused on growth, the other on retrenchment. Resources likely will become tighter for NIST and government's other science organizations. "I've never managed in such a changing environment," he says. "Two years ago, everything was on the upswing. Our budget was increasing, and innovation was receiving a lot of attention. That turned out to be a snapshot in time. It's hard to set direction when there is so much uncertainty." While all federal agencies will face the same uncertainty, Gallagher is convinced that NIST is better positioned to face that future, given the organizational and cultural changes that have taken place during the past two years.

Paul R. Lawrence is a principal at Ernst & Young LLP (paul.lawrence@ey.com). Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. (mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com).

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Leadership Lessons: Joseph Main, Mine Safety and Health Administration

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Suzanne Glassman

This is the third in a series of profiles based on interviews for the book Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) by Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson, which highlights the management lessons of 24 political executives during their first 18 months in the Obama administration.

Joseph Main, who became head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration in October 2009, has worked closely with miners for more than four decades. Main got his start in 1967 as a coal miner and spent much of his career with the safety division at the United Mine Workers of America. Now as head of MSHA, he is responsible for protecting nearly 90,000 workers who labor in the nation's mines. Reflecting back on his first day on the job, Main says, "I was struck by the weight of my new responsibilities and the realization that I was going to have to run this place."

The agency's goal first and foremost is to reduce mining-related illness, injuries and fatalities. But when major accidents occur, MSHA moves into an emergency management role, conducting investigations and addressing possible safety violations. After an explosion in April 2010 killed 29 workers in Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, Main faced the competing demands of disaster management and day-to-day operations. His experience provides three leadership lessons for all executives responding to a crisis.

Lesson One: Stay Focused

While the instinct might be to shift all of an agency's resources into responding to a major event like the Upper Branch mine explosion, Main knew MSHA's routine operations must continue without interruption. "I've lived through these experiences before, so I knew what to expect," he says. "You have to be careful not to let everyone run into the fire. I knew I had to leave some people here in headquarters in order to keep the place running."

Looking back, Main says, "I'm proud that I was able to keep the agency running in spite of Upper Big Branch. We had a successful strategy in place and we kept it going. We kept doing our work . . . The key thing is to stay focused."

Lesson Two: Know Your Role

Main knew there was much to be done, and the many people gathered at Upper Big Branch expected a coordinated response. "I got there as fast as I could," he says. "I first found out about it at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. We set up a command center. I left for the mine at about 4 a.m. and got there about 9 a.m. Tuesday morning was hectic."

Based on his experience with similar situations, Main was conscious of the role he should play as agency chief, and what functions he should stay away from. "You didn't want too many people upfront," he says. "Kevin Stricklin, administrator of the Office of Coal Mine Safety and Health, had gotten there first. He was doing a good job, and he told me, 'I need to do this.' So I let him continue as our lead spokesperson. I didn't need to do it. There were plenty of other things to do."

Lesson Three: Understand What Happened

Starting on the day of the tragedy and during the months that followed, MSHA took a close look at its operations, Main says. "You have to ask yourself and the agency, 'What did we miss? How did this happen? What have we learned?' he says. "And finally, 'What changes do we need to make?' "

Such a review is crucial to determining an organization's next steps. "After the incident, we had to figure out what went wrong, and we had to make corrections," he says. "We did find that there was a computer error in the pattern of violations software . . . All the violations [at the Upper Branch mine] didn't show up because some of the violations were being appealed under the old process. We clearly had to improve our pattern of violations procedures, which date back to 1977."

Paul R. Lawrence is a principal at Ernst & Young LLP (paul.lawrence@ey.com). Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. (mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com).

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Leadership Lessons: Arun Majumdar, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Suzanne Glassman

This is the second in a series of profiles based on interviews for the book Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) by Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson, which highlights the management lessons of 24 political executives during their first 18 months in the Obama administration.

Arun Majumdar, who became the first director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy in October 2009, knows what it's like to build a new federal organization from the ground up. Formerly a member of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's executive team, Majumdar was tapped to lead the new agency on a mission to revolutionize the nation's energy efficiency and economy.

Created by the 2007 America COMPETES Act, ARPA-E invests in projects aimed at developing new energy technologies and reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil. The agency awarded its first contract in 2009 after receiving $400 million in funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As of summer 2011, the agency had invested in 121 projects ranging in size from $400,000 to $9 million.

Majumdar has since been nominated to serve as undersecretary at the Energy Department. His experience at ARPA-E provides three leadership lessons on launching new organizations.

Lesson One: Build Relationships

Majumdar's first order of business was to form relationships that would be central to the agency's success. "During my first days, I reached out to key people in the Department of Energy. It was a new agency and I needed to reach out," he recalls. "I put together an advisory committee of notable individuals in the field to get their feedback. I wanted to know if we were doing the right things. I also spent time reaching out to the Office of Management and Budget during my first months on the job. I found that understanding Congress was really crucial. I was learning on the job."

The outreach activities proved crucial. "I reached out to other relevant government agencies to see if there is synergy with what we do. I reached out to universities. I set up informal meetings to just chat with experts to find out their issues and thoughts. I wanted to know what people were already doing," he says. "We decided to have a big meeting in Washington, D.C., in which we would bring together all of our stakeholders . . . It was quite an impressive event. People were engaged. We want to be a catalyst for change."

Based on his outreach activities, Majumdar concludes, "There is no substitute for retailing. You have to go see people one-on-one and get to meet them. You also have to meet the right people."

Lesson Two: Recruit the Right People

During his confirmation hearings to become undersecretary for Energy, Majumdar told Senate committee members that people were one of the five core values instrumental to ARPA-E. In describing his early days at ARPA-E, Majumdar told us, "I started recruiting people. I wanted to get the right people. Putting together your team is critical. As a new agency with special hiring authorities, we had the flexibility to recruit outside of the civil service system. People didn't have to wait for six months. We have proved that good people will come here. We were able to get nearly all the people we wanted."

Lesson Three: Create the Right Culture

Majumdar placed an emphasis on creating and reinforcing a culture of flexibility. He was very aware of the opportunities inherent in standing up a new organization. "We came in with a clean slate," he says. "There was no 30-year history to overcome. I think it is difficult to change existing organizations. The pace of change in older organizations is much slower. The pace here is really fast. We have a 'let's get it done' attitude. We have a sense of urgency. We are, in fact, building the plane while we are flying it."

According to Majumdar, the next step after hiring the right people is to create the right culture in which they can flourish. "I want innovation to be the DNA of ARPA-E. It is part of our core strategy. Once you get people here, you have to give them the freedom to solve problems. We want people who like being challenged," he says. "You have to create an atmosphere to allow them to have a real impact. You need to create a culture of openness and discussion. You don't want a top-down environment. What I have done is to create a culture that empowers people at ARPA-E, while also holding them accountable. I want people to succeed and want to create an environment for success. So the key elements to creating a culture are getting talent, creating an open dialogue and allowing people to realize their potential."

Paul R. Lawrence is a principal at Ernst & Young LLP (paul.lawrence@ey.com). Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. (mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com).

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Leadership Lessons: David Kappos, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Suzanne Glassman

This is the first in a series of profiles based on interviews for the book Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) by Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson, which highlights the management lessons of 24 political executives during their first 18 months in the Obama administration.

Since becoming director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in August 2009, David Kappos has transformed the agency's technology systems, reduced a persistent backlog of applications, and worked with the Obama administration and Congress to launch the first major reform of the patent system in 60 years. The 2011 America Invents Act is aimed at streamlining the patent process, promoting innovation and creating jobs. Kappos' experience offers three major lessons for all government executives.

Lesson One: Preparation Matters

In some positions, executives can take a crash course to get up to speed on their new organization. But in others, such as head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, preparation can involve nearly a lifetime in the field learning about the agency's critical issues.

"I was well aware of several key issues based on my prior experience and impressions of the agency. I had been working on intellectual property issues my whole career, so I came into the job with a sense that I knew the agency and the challenges it was facing," says Kappos. "I knew we had to improve the application process and workload issues, including the backlog problem. I also knew we had to improve the IT infrastructure, as well as improve the agency's workforce and work processes. The agency manual for its patent attorneys had not been updated for the 21st century." In the private sector, Kappos worked at IBM as vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property law. He came to USPTO fully prepared and up to speed on Day One.

Lesson Two: Master the Metrics

"We understand our inputs and outputs at PTO," says Kappos. In attacking the challenge of reducing the paperwork backlog, he knew it was important to track the agency's progress -- to provide transparency for the public and a management tool inside the organization.

"The USPTO has a critical role to play in our economic recovery," Kappos told us in 2010. "That's why people really care about the backlog, which hinders innovation and economic growth. In response, we set specific targets. Our goal is to get the backlog under 700,000 [filings]. We haven't been under that figure for many years. The goal is to get it down to a backlog of 325,000. That would be about 70 dockets per examiner, which is about right … we set 699,000 for FY 2011. Getting under 700,000 would be a major accomplishment."

He accomplished the goal in July 2011 when patents pending fell to 689,226. Since then, it has continued to fall and reached an all-time low in September when patents pending dipped to 669,625. Kappos created the PTO Dashboard , which is updated monthly on the agency's website to track progress on key performance indicators, such as patents pending.

Lesson Three: Change Is Continuous

While reducing the backlog and attaining new legislation for USPTO were crucial accomplishments, Kappos also realized that an executive must work on many fronts simultaneously. "The job of leadership is to work on all the challenges. You need to do it all," he said. "There is no one single thing that you have to do; you have to do a hundred things. Change is the sum of a lot of little things. I don't believe there is a magic bullet or a single fix. I believe it is about making day-by-day changes and continuously working toward improvement. I believe philosophically that you are never done. Change goes on forever."

Paul R. Lawrence is a principal at Ernst & Young LLP (paul.lawrence@ey.com). Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc. (mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com).

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Picking Appointees

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

In the push to make government work more effectively, much attention has been devoted to attracting top talent to career civil service jobs. But it's just as crucial to bring in political appointees who have the right experience for agencies' unique management challenges.

Political executives are the quarterbacks of government. They call the plays (with some help from their coaches at the White House and department headquarters). Their organizations look to them for leadership. In January 2013, regardless of who wins the presidential election, a new set of appointees will be arriving in Washington, and they will be key to the success of government as a whole.

The Office of Presidential Personnel, which identifies candidates for political jobs, faces a major challenge in selecting the right people for the right position. Too often the presumption is that all political positions are the same and that any smart person could fill them. But the specs for appointee positions are varied, and each demands a particular professional background. There is no doubt that nearly everyone on the long list of candidates for presidential appointments has a distinguished career and impressive academic credentials. The question is whether they have the right set of skills for the organization they are selected to lead. Instead of basing the selection process on department or policy issues-such as health, defense or natural resources- the search process should focus on an agency's management challenges.

When politicians talk about running government like a business, they generally are talking about production agencies like the Social Security Administration, the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Education Department's Office of Federal Student Aid. These agencies produce clear outputs and outcomes, such as applications processing and benefits disbursement.

Leading a production agency requires interaction with front-line staff and an understanding of what they do. Just ask Bill Taggart, who left the banking industry to become chief operating officer at FSA in 2009. It was Taggart's challenge to implement new legislation that shifted responsibility for administering federally insured student loans from private entities to FSA. "We needed to think like a manufacturing plant," says Taggart, who recently left the agency and is now chief executive officer at Atlanta Life Financial Group. "You have to get down on the floor, wander around, see folks and engage them . . . I visited FSA regional offices. I was the first COO that many of the regional office staff had ever seen."

Think of the factory floor, where industrial efficiency conjures up images of Frederick Winslow Taylor and scientific management. Factory managers track inputs, outputs, accuracy and cycle time. Based on his legal career in intellectual property, David Kappos, director of the Patent and Trademark Office, quickly understood the inputs and outputs at his agency. Confirmed in August 2009, Kappos launched an initiative to reduce the backlog of patents pending to less than 700,000. In January 2010, the number of patents pending peaked at 764,352. To track the agency's progress on measures including backlog, production and the time it takes to process patent reviews, Kappos monitors a dashboard of indicators. In July 2011, patents pending dipped to an all-time low of 689,226.

Before coming to PTO, Kappos spent most of his career at IBM working closely with the agency and the intellectual property community. Likewise, Taggart's tenure at Wachovia Corp. proved invaluable in preparing him for guiding student lending operations. Both executives had firsthand experience on the front lines of running a business.

Many political appointees have strong policy backgrounds, but often their experience in the private sector is limited or nonexistent. Business leaders have been selected from time to time, but the sub-Cabinet has been largely dominated by policy types. During the 1990s, political hiring began to shift from policy experts to experienced managers, but more are required. The selection of Charles Rossotti in 1997 to head the Internal Revenue Service, for example, was exactly what was needed at that time to respond to the agency's technology problems and outdated systems. Rossotti, co-founder of a technology consulting firm and a former Defense Department analyst, was ideally suited to reform the IRS through new technology and an increased focus on customer service.

It's not enough for political executives to have distinguished resumes; they should have experience managing operations that relate to their agencies' missions and management challenges. That's the best hope for running government like a business.

Paul R. Lawrence, a principal at Ernst & Young LLP, and Mark A. Abramson, president of Leadership Inc., are co-authors of the forthcoming Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011).

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Picking Appointees

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Not all political positions are the same, and not just any smart person is right for the job.

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Analysis: Getting Appointees Up to Speed

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Under the 2000 Presidential Transition Act, new administrations can allocate $1 million for appointee orientation programs. Presidents Clinton (without Transition Act funding) and George W. Bush conducted a series of sessions for their new executives, as has President Obama. The Presidential Personnel Office hosted a retreat for Cabinet and senior White House staff last summer, and a session for the President's Management Council last fall. Activities for sub-Cabinet appointees will begin in March.

But in its recent report, "Ready to Govern: Improving the Presidential Transition," the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service concluded that too little attention is paid and insufficient resources devoted to preparing and training political appointees.

The rolling appointment process makes the challenge even more daunting. Most political appointees aren't in place at the start of an administration. In mid-February, more than one year after Obama's inauguration, The Washington Post reported that 40 percent of the 515 Senate-approved positions it was tracking had not yet been filled. Of those 209 unfilled positions, 88 individuals had been nominated but not yet confirmed and 121 positions were still open. Some of those confirmed in 2009 likely will begin leaving in 2011, during the administration's third year, and the nomination-confirmation process will begin anew.

In a 2008 survey of departing Bush appointees, the National Academy of Public Administration and the Partnership for Public Service found that nearly 45 percent had received no orientation, and 33 percent rated the orientation they did receive as somewhat effective (17.2 percent), not very effective (12.5 percent) or very poor (3.1 percent).

Appointees have expressed a desire for orientation services, including insight into the workings of Congress and the Office of Management and Budget. They receive numerous briefing books at the start of their tenure, but the materials don't provide much advice on the navigation challenge. In recent interviews with new political appointees, one executive said, "I wish there had been a boot camp -- Washington 101. That would have been helpful. A boot camp would have told me how to navigate in Washington, including working with the Hill."

The White House's orientation programs are highly worthwhile, but more is needed. In addition to ongoing efforts, each department should launch onboarding initiatives to address specific missions and challenges. Many private and public sector onboarding programs could serve as models. Agency-specific programs offer three key advantages:

Speed: Departments and agencies can provide orientation soon after appointees arrive. It takes longer to put together larger, governmentwide sessions.
Customization: Political executives come to their positions with different backgrounds and expertise. Those who come from Capitol Hill, for instance, don't need briefings on the workings of Congress.
Small groups: Departments can gather small groups, perhaps 10 to 12 new appointees, allowing them to focus sessions on specific topics.

To improve the orientation process, chief operating officers should create a small unit of one or two people in their offices to assume responsibility for the onboarding of new executives. Reporting to the COO, often at the deputy secretary level, the team and its mission would have prestige and credibility. The team should meet with new political executives shortly after confirmation, and then lead a series of small group sessions that are tailored to specific roles and missions. The onboarding unit also should facilitate meetings between new executives and those who have been in the department longer.

The Congressional Research Service also should have a role in the onboarding process, conducting background sessions on Congress and the legislative branch. And OMB should offer seminars on the budget process and working with its staff.

Departments should work together and partner with nonprofit organizations, such as the National Academy of Public Administration and the Partnership for Public Service, to convene small groups of former political executives and newcomers. These sessions would provide appointees an opportunity to hear how their predecessors handled similar challenges.

Agency-specific orientation programs would be a vital addition to the White House's offerings. And the success of new political executives and the agencies they serve might depend on it.

Paul R. Lawrence (paul.lawrence@ey.com) is a partner at Ernst & Young focusing on public service, and Mark A. Abramson (mark.abramson@thoughtleadershipinc.com) is president of Leadership Inc.

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Across the Divide

Paul R. Lawrence and Mark A. Abramson — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Washington, we have a problem.

The attitude of institutional Washington (Congress, the media, watchdog organizations and others) about two key components of government-civil servants and contractors-ranges from ambivalence to outright hostility.

In the case of civil servants, the conventional wisdom is that there are too many of them, they are overpaid, and they do not consistently deliver high-quality services. In the case of contractors, the thinking is that they make too much money, some are downright corrupt and many fail to deliver the results promised on projects.

There is mounting criticism that there are too many government contractors and that the services they perform should be returned to civil servants. In March, former comptroller general David M. Walker said about the Defense Department, "There is a need to focus greater attention on what type of functions should be contracted out and which ones should not." Another March report from the Government Accountability Office concluded, "A major concern is the risk of loss of government control over and accountability for mission-related policy and program decisions."

But government employees haven't had a stellar track record. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was blamed for its lack of preparedness and inadequate response. Numerous instances of poor contract management by federal agencies have been cited, ranging from the collapse of the FBI's Virtual Case File project to the Census Bureau's problems with developing handheld computers for data collection. The State Department received considerable negative publicity in 2007 when it was unable to issue passports in a timely manner.

The new administration must sort out the appropriate balance between civil servants and government contractors. Meeting this challenge raises tough questions:

Civil service. Will the next administration commit to recruiting the best and brightest to improve the prestige of federal service? Will there be reforms in pay, benefits, and development and training opportunities to make government a more attractive employer? If the pendulum has swung too far toward the use of contractors, how many federal employees is it prepared to add? The number of executive branch employees (excluding 747,000 U.S. Postal Service workers) stands at 1.89 million. Is the next administration willing to exceed 2 million so government can perform more services currently provided by contractors?
Contractors. Government will continue to rely on contractors. Contract support offers greater flexibility to fulfill immediate and unexpected needs. Will the next administration be willing to devote more time and energy to make contracts work better? This will require hiring more acquisition specialists, training government program managers in managing contractors, and sharing knowledge about effective contract management practices among agencies.
Blended workforce. Operating a blended workforce presents many challenges. Will the new administration train civil servants and contractors so they can work together effectively? Will it develop rules of engagement that better define the relationship between these employees?

The next administration must deal with these issues straight on to assess the problem, improvise and test options, and determine what needs to be done. Only then will government services-and attitudes about the employees who deliver them-improve.

Paul R. Lawrence is a vice president of Accenture's George Group. Mark A. Abramson is president of Leadership Inc.

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