Fall 2008 — Volume 37, Number 3
FEATURE ARTICLE
Why Do Change Efforts Fail? What Can Leaders Do About It?
James Edwin Kee and Kathryn E. Newcomer
A recent study, published by the Center for Creative Leadership, reported that between 66 and 75 percent of all public and private change initiatives fail—a depressing statistic for those who seek to change an organization. The study identified a resistant organizational culture as the chief culprit.
Another recently completed, intensive two-year study of large-scale changes in six public and nonprofit organizations focused on the roles leaders play in initiating and implementing change efforts. The findings suggest that change efforts typically fail as a result of the shortcomings in change leadership, including insufficient advocacy for the change or failure to understand responsibilities in the change initiative, insufficient attention to the complexity of the change itself and the potential risks introduced by the change initiative, inadequate engagement of critical stakeholders affected by the change initiative, inadequate understanding of the organizational culture in the leaders’ own organization as well as in the organizations networked in the change effort, and inadequate understanding of the organizational capacity needed to implement and sustain the change.
This article identifies strategies and tools for leaders entrusted with leading change and transformation initiatives to combat these potential failings. It offers a vision of leadership—transformational stewardship—that calls for leaders to balance the imperative for change with important organizational and stakeholder values, while ensuring that the changes made are in the general public interest. It draws from the author’s work to offer guidance for leaders charged with stewarding public resources as they implement public- and nonprofit-sector change initiatives.
James Edwin Kee is a professor in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, George Washington University (jedkee@gwu.edu). Kathryn E. Newcomer is a professor and associate director of the Trachtenberg School (newcomer@gwu.edu). They also are co-directors of the Midge Smith Center for Evaluation Effectiveness. Their latest book, Transforming Public and Nonprofit Organizations: Stewardship for Leading Change (www.managementconcepts.com/pubs), contains an extensive bibliography for those interested in further reading on this subject.
THEME ARTICLES
NOVEL SOLUTIONS
A New Generation of Change Solutions for Public Bureaucracies
Martin Goldberg and Tracy Haugen
Americans today are facing a crisis in confidence—if not in fact—in the way many of our government institutions function and perform. Skepticism abounds about the effectiveness of federal, state, and local governmental organizations in, for example, conducting war, securing our borders, providing emergency services, and educating our children in inner cities.
This crisis in confidence is not restricted to the general public in opinion polls or at the voting booths. Dedicated public servant leaders, managers, and employees—those who entered the public sector with a higher purpose to serve—also have been frustrated and often stymied by the tremendous difficulty of making the impact they came to make. Daily, they face red tape, administrative burdens, layers of oversight, attitudes of “quiet desperation” from coworkers, and other steep organizational constraints. Such problems have grown in recent years, as organizational stovepipes designed for an earlier era now interfere with the proactive collaboration and quality of interaction needed—within and across agencies—to tackle the scale of today’s problems.
This article looks at three levels of the public enterprise—agency leaders, staff members, and citizens—and explores how each can be empowered to operate effectively within the bureaucratic landscape, overcoming structural traps. A new way of thinking about effecting change in public bureaucracies is required.
Martin Goldberg is managing director and practice leader for BearingPoint’s Public Services Change Solutions Group. Marty brings 25 years of experience developing and leading change management strategies and teams and now leads the next generation of change solutions efforts to empower public managers and citizens in the face of bureaucratic challenges. Tracy Haugen is a managing director in BearingPoint’s Public Services Change Solutions Group. Tracy has worked in both the public and private sectors with domestic and international clients and in almost 15 years of consulting, she has deep experience in organizational change management program leadership and governance. The authors can be reached at martin.goldberg@bearingpoint.com and tracy.haugen@bearingpoint.com, respectively.
Creating a “Super” Agency in San Diego County
Jackie Werth and Dale Fleming
Ten years ago, six different departments in the County of San Diego government did not communicate well with each other, much less collaborate; often pursued different agendas; and rarely shared resources. These various departments and programs often served the same clients. Two were very large—the Departments of Health Services and Social Services—and four were smaller—the Area Agency on Aging, Commission on Children, Youth and Families, Veteran’s Service Office; and Public Administrator/Public Guardian.
Today, the Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) is organized as a regional service delivery system, which enables regional general managers to better know their individual communities and develop partnerships to meet their unique needs. In practice, this means that public health nurses, social workers, and eligibility staff members (called human services assistants) report to one general manager with a vision for that community. The staff provides services in an integrated fashion, often alongside other public and private-sector providers, treating families and individuals as customers, not clients.
This article looks at the evolution of this new business model for HHSA, which called for bringing health and social services together to create a more efficient, effective, and client-focused organization. The agency’s transformation reflects the recognition of the importance of putting services close to families and communities and seeking to create a “no wrong door” approach, with multiple points of entry for families with different needs.
Jackie Werth is a project coordinator in the Office of Strategy Management, Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), County of San Diego, where she facilitates a variety of strategic management projects. She was formerly a senior evaluator for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and can be reached at Jackie.Werth@sdcounty.ca.gov. Dale Fleming is the director of the Strategic Planning and Operational Support Division), HHSA, County of San Diego. Ms. Fleming started with HHSA as a public assistance eligibility worker and currently serves as a member of the HHSA executive team. The division she leads provides services to improve access to health care, advance individual self-sufficiency, and strengthen children and families. It also provides analytical and management support services agency-wide—such as policy development, program integrity, and strategic management. She can be reached at Dale.Fleming@sdcounty.ca.gov.
Transforming the Military Health System
Perry R. Cooper, Roger E. Miller, Donald L. Faust, and Daniel Kachenchai
The Military Health System (MHS) is the nation’s largest and most complex integrated health care delivery network, offering worldwide support for more than 8.5 million beneficiaries through sixty-three direct care hospitals, several hundred outpatient clinics, and multibillion dollar, multiyear contracts with privately run health plans. Through the military services, the MHS also provides state-of-the-art battlefield medical treatment to troops deployed overseas.
As in most delivery networks, personnel costs are the single largest expense in the $32 billion-per-year Defense Health Program (DHP) budget used to finance MHS peacetime operations. Medical materiel costs are the second largest expense. Pharmaceuticals, medical-surgical supplies, and biomedical equipment items cost the MHS $4.14 billion in fiscal year 2007. Improved cost control in this area could benefit the DHP and military services overall.
This article describes the current and possible future processes the MHS uses to identify, assess, and select the medical-surgical products used to treat patients in peacetime and wartime. It outlines processes used in other government and private health care delivery networks, proposes a number of “best practices” that the MHS could potentially adapt to its needs, and suggests the scope and kinds of benefits such adaptation might produce. Increasing costs and stagnant efficiency in an environment of increased geopolitical entanglements point to the need for improvement of the system. Increased standardization of medical materiel is a best practice to improve cost control and efficiency.
Col. Perry R. Cooper is the Director, Medical Logistics Programs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Health Affairs, Force Health Protection and Readiness. Roger E. Miller is a health care systems and logistics specialist at LMI. Lt. Col. Donald L. Faust is an Air Force resident research fellow in the Training with Industry Program at LMI. LT Daniel Kachenchai is a Navy resident research fellow in the Training with Industry Program at LMI.
Transforming Government through Collaborative Innovation
Satish Nambisan
The performance of the next administration and more broadly, the American government in the twenty-first century, will be shaped by how well it adopts collaborative innovation and problem-solving approaches to harness external resources and creativity for addressing the nation’s most challenging issues. Many of the issues we currently face—ranging from education and health care to homeland security and environmental conservation—are often ill-defined or emergent in nature, involve diverse sets of stakeholders, and cross organizational and geographic boundaries.
The first step in addressing such issues is to pursue a policy agenda focused more on the problems than on the structures of the agencies charged with solving them. However, the transformational innovation—in business models, operations, and services offered by government agencies—needed to address such problems is unlikely to always originate from within the four walls of the government. Indeed, government agencies need to “look outside” to harness the needed creative talent and expertise.
This article identifies four different roles that government agencies can pursue in network-based collaborative innovation and problem-solving: innovation integrator, innovation seeker, innovation champion, and innovation catalyst. It draws on examples to elaborate on these four roles. It also briefly considers the organizational competencies and capabilities that government agencies would need to succeed in such network-based collaborative innovation initiatives.
Satish Nambisan is a widely recognized researcher and thought leader in technology and innovation management and an associate professor of technology management and strategy in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. His new book, The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World, was published by Wharton School Publishing in October 2007. He can be reached at nambis@rpi.edu. This article is an abridged version of his report on collaborative innovation in government published by the IBM Center for the Business of Government, which can be accessed from www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/NambisanReport.pdf.
FORUM
MANAGING THE FEDERAL BRAIN DRAIN
Introduction and Overview
Rosslyn Kleeman
This short piece introduces a collection of articles from the Coalition for Effective Change (CEC) that shares the coalition members’ thoughts on how to manage with the increasing number of federal employees retiring, causing the so-called “brain drain.” The thirty CEC member associations are dedicated to improving government operations and facilitating efficient and effective management of the civil service for the betterment of all Americans.
Rosslyn Kleeman, a long-time and former career civil servant and current fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, serves as the CEC chairperson. She can be reached at rosslyn.kleeman@gmail.com. Matthew Crouch, a member of the CEC representing the Environmental Protection Agency, also contributed to this introduction.
Civil Service Changes for a Better Future
William L. Bransford
In 1978, the last comprehensive civil service reform of the federal government provided structure for a generally uniform, somewhat monolithic government. A General Schedule (GS)-13 at the Department of Agriculture was pretty much the same thing as a GS-13 at the Department of Defense, or even at the Central Intelligence Agency. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was created to manage this enormous entity, and for about 15 years did so with a uniform, quite detailed Federal Personnel Manual (FPM). Everybody knew the rules, and, more important, it was easy to tell when the rules were broken.
This article examines how the changes made in the years following 1978 affect the sustainability of the federal government today as the “brain drain” becomes a reality. The government now has more difficulty recruiting new employees. A laborious application process and pay system, with questionable fairness and adequacy, have created barriers to entry to the Senior Executive Service, where much of the brain drain will occur. OPM is a shadow of its former self: with no FPM, a limited merit system oversight role, and a fee charged for many services, from training to security clearances and background checks. A multitude of different personnel systems—from banking agencies to the Securities and Exchange Commission to the new National Security Personnel System—make it more difficult for OPM to manage the government and for Congress to oversee it.
William L. Bransford is the general counsel of the Senior Executives Association.
Administrative Law Judges—Giving Process Its Due
Steven A. Glazer
When federal agencies like the Social Security Administration, National Labor Relations Board, Medicare, and others decide cases in their areas of expertise, the public wants to know that the decisions are fair and impartial. No one wants to challenge a denial of a Medicare or Social Security claim or bring an unfair labor practice or other type of case to an administrative agency for a decision if the decision maker is biased or a tool of some political agenda. To ensure that this does not happen, the law has provided for the last half-century that many of these agency decisions are to be made by independent, impartial government employees known as administrative law judges (ALJs).
ALJs are adjudicators who support their agencies by holding hearings, gathering and ruling on evidence, hearing and evaluating witnesses, issuing subpoenas, regulating the course of the legal proceedings, and preparing an initial or recommended decision for final agency action in an individual case. To ensure their impartiality in decision making, ALJs are statutorily assured of decisional independence within their agencies. This article makes the case that, in a polarized political environment, the government needs this professional corps of broadly experienced adjudicators whose behavior is impartial and independent.
Steven A. Glazer is an administrative law judge with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and president of the Federal Administrative Law Judges Conference (FALJC), a professional association of ALJs. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of FERC, the United States, or FALJC.
Will the Retirement Tsunami Leave Government High and Dry?
Joe Mancias Jr.
“The question, my good Watson,” Sherlock Holmes might muse, “is not whether the federal workforce is facing a ‘brain drain’ in the exodus of retiring public servants but what to do about it.” The answer rests with a host of parties—in political and career leadership—who need to start asking questions soon, before they are left high and dry.
This article describes how the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) recognized that it faced the eventual loss of the ability to deliver services when it projected retirements. It set about identifying the impact they would have by developing a list of questions on its prospective loss of knowledge through attrition. The TVA simply wanted to know from those about to leave their jobs, “What will happen when you leave?”
Joe Mancias Jr. is a former 25-year member of the Senior Executive Service, a former Captain in the Naval Reserve, the immediate past chairman of the board of the Senior Executives Association, cofounder of the Executive Networking Forum and Association of Naval Services Officers, and a principal in the consulting firm of NashNogales, LLC. He also serves on the executive committee of the Coalition for Effective Change. He can be contacted at jmancias@ix.netcom.com.
Federal Retirement Crisis: Danger or Opportunity?
Carson K. Eoyang
Much is being written about the impending retirement of the baby boom generation from public service. While there is little debate about the demographics of the federal workforce and the proportion that will be eligible for voluntary retirement over the next five to ten years, there is less consensus on the short- and long-term implications for the efficacy and efficiency of government. It is often said that the Chinese character for the word crisis includes both the words danger and opportunity. So too the aging, and potentially retiring, civil service represents both challenges and openings for transformation, innovation, and adaptation.
On one hand, the alleged “brain drain” of veteran civil servants will cause the loss of valuable work experience, corporate memory, and well-established social networks, which may well impair organizational productivity, at least in the short term. This article, however, looks on the other hand: how the impending retirements offer a historic opportunity to dramatically strengthen federal workforce diversity—especially at senior executive levels.
Carson K. Eoyang, PhD, is executive director of the Asian American Government Executives Network. He can be contacted at ckeoyang@msn.com.
What Is Lost, and So What?
John G. Stone III
With the retirement of the first baby boomer, the so-called retirement “tsunami” has begun to hit the federal government. No matter whose figures you use, the baby boomers are beginning to retire in increasing numbers, and many senior members will leave the federal service over the next few years.
The loss of senior people has been characterized as a “brain drain.” In this case, a brain drain is the loss of knowledge that the retirees have, but their successors don’t have, or at least not enough of them have. It is attributed to mid-level staff reductions during the Clinton administration and since. In any case, the successors to the retirees may not be prepared to carry on as effectively. This article looks at three types of knowledge that will be lost with the departure of these senior employees.
John G. Stone III is a retired DC government executive, past president of the Council of Former Federal Executives, cofounder of the Public Service Academy at Anacostia High School, and officer of the Business Advisory Council of the Health and Medical Sciences Academy at Eastern High School. He can be contacted at JGSTONEIII@aol.com.
ARTICLES
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The PERI Data Exchange: A Government Benchmarking Tool
Mary L. Stewart
The Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) has developed a unique data warehouse of detailed information about public entity liability and workers’ compensation claims and exposures. This program, called the Data Exchange, answers the question frequently asked by board members and government administrators: “How are we doing compared with other governments?”
The Data Exchange offers quantitative information to answer this question by comparing similar exposures of other governments. This database serves as a benchmarking tool for government managers and officials interested in comparing their government’s claims experience with peers to improve their risk management programs, make better-informed decisions, and control their liability and workers’ compensation costs. Any government may participate in the Data Exchange once it fulfills one simple requirement: all participants must submit their claims data quarterly. All the data in the Data Exchange are supplied voluntarily by participating public entities, public risk pools, and third-party claims administrators. The program collects data elements that include financial information (such as the total amount paid for a claim) and dimensional data (such as the cause of loss and nature of injury). This information is then translated into a series of reports designed to promote benchmarking liability and workers’ compensation claim activity.
This article looks at how public-sector organizations can increase statistical validity, offer better documentation, and reduce costs by incorporating benchmarking metrics into their strategic plans.
Mary L. Stewart, associate in risk management and chartered property casualty underwriter, is the director, research and development, at PERI. She can be reached at mstewart@riskinstitute.org. The institute is a nonprofit, nonmembership organization that provides risk management education and training for local governments, school districts, small businesses, nonprofits, and others. Its Web site serves as a clearinghouse and library, with information on a wide range of topics, including disaster management and hazard mitigation, environmental liability, risk financing and insurance, education, safety and health protection, workers’ compensation, and technology risks.
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
Six Communication Secrets of Top-Performing Organizations
Bill Trahant
What communication best practices set top-performing organizations apart from lower-performing ones? Given the continuing focus in government on improving employee productivity and accelerating federal agency transformation, findings from Watson Wyatt’s 2007/2008 Communication ROI study offer some tantalizing clues as to how government executives and human capital professionals can foster stronger employee engagement and drive improved organizational performance. Although the findings from Secrets of Top Performers: How Companies with Highly Effective Communication Differentiate Themselves are based on private-sector research, they hold tremendous relevance for government agencies that want to improve employee alignment and enhance operating effectiveness.
The study shows a strong correlation between effective employee communication and superior organizational performance. Organizations with the highest scores in effective employee communication (and the strongest organizational results) do many things differently from organizations with lower communication effectiveness scores. In particular, they keep the customer front and center in all employee communication programs, design communication programs that engage employees in “running the business,” work to continuously enhance the communication effectiveness of managers, leverage the talents of internal communicators to manage change effectively, measure the impact of employee communication on key business metrics, and maximize the employee experience “brand.”
This article looks at each of these practices in detail and explores how government executives can apply them in a federal agency context.
Bill Trahant is the national leader of the government consulting practice of Watson Wyatt Worldwide in Arlington, VA. Reach him at William.Trahant@watsonwyatt.com or 703-258-8022. For a free copy of Secrets of Top Performers, Watson Wyatt’s 2007/2008 Communication ROI Study, contact Jill Beidleman at Jill.beidleman@watsonwyatt.com. Watson Wyatt’s Global WorkAttitudes surveys are companions to its Communication ROI studies. A new iteration of the Best Places to Work rankings, produced by PPS in collaboration with American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, will be available to government executives in early 2009.
WORKPLACE LEARNING
The National CPM Program
Howard R. Balanoff and Marilyn K. Balanoff
The Certified Public Manager (CPM) program in the United States is a nationally recognized professional development program. It is designed for federal, state, and local government managers, but the skills, knowledge, and competencies taught are also relevant for managers and supervisors in the nonprofit sector.
The CPM program’s primary goal is to improve the performance of public-sector managers and the organizational performance of federal, state, and local government employees. It is a comprehensive course of study through which public managers can acquire and apply the best practices and theory to their management behaviors and strategies using prescribed sets of professional standards, often referred to as “competencies.”
The curriculum uses theory as the foundation and applies it to practical problems facing the participants, their agencies and departments, and the citizens. Those who complete the program earn a nationally trademarked designation of CPM.
This article looks at how expansion of this model certification program in Texas and across the United States holds promise for public-sector workforces around the world.
Howard R. Balanoff, is a professor and chair, TSU’s William P. Hobby Center for Public Service. He also chairs the ASPA Section on CPM. Marilyn K. Balanoff is a member of the program faculty, Continuing Education, TSU. For additional information on CPM, go to www.cpmconsortium.org or contact the authors at hb02@txstate.edu or mb39@txstate.edu, respectively.
The Talent Factor
Tony Bingham
People—their knowledge, skills, and attitudes—are at the top of the mind of most senior executives because they know that in the knowledge economy, employee capability is the key to success. No longer are systems, processes, and technology the differentiators for organizations: these are becoming commodities. Today, people are the only sustainable competitive advantage. This is one topic on which senior executives and agency leaders universally agree.
For decades, organizations have developed employee capabilities through traditional practices such as succession planning, mentoring, coaching, and training. Now, pressure for improved performance and shorter cycle time raises new questions about old practices. Organizations find they cannot muster the talent they need when they need it to meet key goals. In government agencies, the challenge is amplified by the retirement of large numbers of managers and executives now and in the near future. Some estimates place the number as high as 50 percent by 2010.
One result is that talent management—as an organization-wide approach to leading people—is gaining prominence and growing in scope in the public and private sectors. Formerly, if learning professionals played a role, it was typically related to career planning for individuals and education for particular groups of employees. Processes such as recruiting and succession planning were the responsibilities of human resources (HR) departments. This article examines how today, when know-how is the true competitive advantage, managing talent is taking on new dimensions centered on learning and development.
Tony Bingham is president and CEO of ASTD (American Society for Training & Development), the world’s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals.
DEPARTMENTS
IMAGE OF PUBLIC SERVICE
The Appeal of Public Service
Samantha Donaldson
In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy passionately called on the country to “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” His call was answered by hundreds of thousands of young people in the sixties and seventies. They took jobs in Congress, joined the Peace Corps, and entered the expanding federal workforce.
However, this public-service-minded group, also known as the baby boomers, is reaching retirement age. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimates that 60 percent of the 1.9 million federal employees and 90 percent of the more than six hundred thousand senior executives will be eligible to retire in the next ten years.
In recent years, many of the federal workforce discussions have focused on this “retirement tsunami” and how it will affect the federal government. One of the big questions to come out of these discussions is, “How does the government attract a new generation of workers?” The focus is on the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, also known as the Millennials, which represents more than 80 million potential workers.
Surprisingly, as this article notes, the answer is quite simple. You ask them.
Samantha Donaldson is the communications and outreach director for CEG. She can be reached at sdonaldson@excelgov.org.
A Celebration of Public Service
Myra Howze Shiplett
These are difficult and uncertain times for America. Challenged by a variety of international and domestic issues, we sometimes lose sight of the principles and people that make our nation great. This article looks at how the annual awards program sponsored by the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Society of Public Administration remembers the good deeds and celebrates the accomplishments of citizens who dedicate their lives to making our country a better place for all Americans.
The 2008 awards ceremony, held in May in Washington, DC, recognized the accomplishments of two outstanding individuals and the work of a nonprofit organization that focuses on educating prospective employees about the exciting challenges of a public-service career.
Myra Howze Shiplett is the president of Randolph Morgan Consulting, LLC, a human capital and organizational effectiveness consulting firm. She spent more than 30 years in public service in federal and state government before serving as the director of the Center for Human Resources Management at the National Academy of Public Administration. She currently works with developing countries on judicial reform and improving their merit-based public service capacity, as well as helping federal and state organizations transform their human capital functions. She can be reached at mshiplett@randolphmorganconsulting.com.
BOOK REVIEWS
A Road Map for Improving Federal Human Capital Practices
Timothy M. Dirks
In recent years, much has been written about the importance of effectively designing and deploying human capital management programs in the private and public sectors. Any organization is only as good as its people, and it takes first-rate human resources (HR) planning, recruitment, employee development, performance management, and retention practices to build and maintain a high-performing and dedicated workforce.
Attempts at decoding private-sector practices and effectively applying them to government have failed to recognize the unique culture, laws, and human capital needs inherent in federal employment. As a result, an “implementation gap” sits between these practices and practical guidance that can be used by federal managers and HR professionals to manage the government’s most important resource—its people. This review examines how the authors of Strategic Human Capital Management: A Practical Guide recognize that this gap can be closed and describe how to do so.
Susan Krup Grunin, PhD, Kerry Joels, EdD, and Myra Howze Shiplett. Strategic Human Capital Management: A Practical Guide (Washington, DC: 2008)
Tim Dirks is a retired federal employee and former director of HR management at the Department of Energy, who continues to work as an HR and management consultant and teach at the college level. He is also former president of the board of directors of The Public Manager and still serves on the board. Tim can be reached at Dirks7171@aol.com.
The Value of Smart Power in a Time of Transition
Patricia McGinnis
This review examines the latest in Joe Nye’s series of books about leadership and power, The Powers to Lead, which builds upon his earlier writing concerning the paradox of power and the increasingly important concept of soft power to define a more advanced resource for leaders in government: smart power. Drawing upon case studies, a review of the vast literature about leadership, and his own experience in government and academia, Nye has produced a valuable primer for students and practitioners on the relationship between leadership and power.
He argues that effective leadership requires smart power—the strategic use of either hard or soft power skills or, in most cases, a combination of the two, depending on the context of the situation. We all recognize hard power—command and control, carrots and sticks to change behavior, and organization of people and process to produce desired outcomes. Soft power skills are more often connected to feminine traits—collaboration, persuasion, empathy, and the ability to attract others and build ownership of visionary change. In a technology-enabled, networked world, the value and use of soft power skills by both women and men in a variety of positions, in all sectors, are on the rise.
Joseph S Nye Jr., The Powers to Lead, Oxford University Press, 2008
Patricia McGinnis is the president and CEO of the Council for Excellence in Government. She can be reached at mcginnis@excelgov.org.
Genocide and the Ethics of Public Management
Warren Master
This review looks at From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi: Our Embassy Years during Genocide, which lays out the context and graphic evidence needed to understand what happened on the ground in Burundi in the last decade of the twentieth century. The story is told from the perspective of Ambassador Robert Krueger and his wife, Kathleen Tobin Krueger.
Universal lessons can be gleaned from the Burundi genocide and analogous humanitarian crises. Given the repeated occurrence of racial and religious persecutions (genocide, ethnic cleansing, and extermination of entire classes of human beings) across the globe in the modern era, what have we learned that can inform a new, universal “code of ethics” for those in public management positions? What is the role of the public servant to prevent and mitigate such human rights abuses and what new skill sets are required in a “truth-and-reconciliation” process?
This insightful memoir of the Kruegers raises questions about the ethics of public service (for the Department of State and others) and offers a road map for our community of practice in the way of an expanded code of conduct.
Ambassador Robert Krueger and Kathleen Tobin Krueger, From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi: Our Embassy Years during Genocide (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007)
Warren Master is the editor-in-chief and chairman of the board, The Public Manager. He can be reached at wciwmaster@aol.com. To read more about related culture of bureaucracy issues, go to his blog at www.thepublicmanager.org/blogs.
THE UNCIVIL SERVANT
Recount, The Movie
Grimaldi
Grimaldi notes that seminal events in our formative years stay with us for life. Ask anyone who was over five years old when JFK or MLK was assassinated. Or ask Hillary about RJK. And for most today, that event is the presidential election of 2000. Both sides claim the other was trying to steal (or continues to complain about) the election. HBO has now made a movie that attempts to chronicle those ninety or so days in the fall of 2000.
As with the daily reporting about the current campaign, Grimaldi finds that we are all able to find “facts” to support our predetermined views of the candidates and the issues. In the movie the general counsel for the Republicans says that the Democrats are trying to steal the election again, as they did in 1960. He refers here to the questionable ballots cast for Kennedy in Chicago in a very close election. Of this there is very little doubt almost fifty years later.
The Democrats are apoplectic about the judgments made by Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who is played brilliantly as a complete ditz by Laura Dern. She (Harris not Dern) looks like an airhead attendee at a cotillion wherein she doesn’t know quite how she got there. Her later campaign for senator from Florida unraveled as her particular brand of insanity destroyed her run. As Grimaldi’s father stated many times, “Truth and justice will prevail; one need only have patience.”