Federal Coach: Among Senior Executive Service, little job mobility

Events like Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have brought to the fore the need for government leaders to work together, and share information and resources across agencies.
 
A new report, “Mission-Driven Mobility,” by my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, and McKinsey & Company examines the benefits of mobility within the Senior Executive Service (SES) — the elite corps of civil servants charged with overseeing and operating nearly every government activity in about 75 federal agencies.

The report revealed that only 8 percent of the 7,100 members of the SES have worked at more than one agency, and almost half have stayed in the same position in the same agency their entire SES career. Many senior executives interviewed said they want the experience of working at different agencies, but find it difficult because of system impediments, a negative perception of job mobility and a lack of financial and leadership support.

These leaders know that executive mobility increases government’s ability to fulfill cross-agency missions and allows agencies to build executive management skills and infuse new thinking into an organization. As a member of the SES, or an aspiring federal executive, here are a few steps you can take now to help you break through the system.

· Don’t hide your interest. According to the feedback gathered during the research, many federal executives have negative perceptions of mobility, seeing it as an unrewarding career move and as punishment, not advancement. While I can sympathize with that perspective, the most successful executives I’ve met have moved across agency program offices, management functions and even sectors. Don’t be a prisoner to conventional wisdom. Talk with your supervisors about your interests and the best opportunities for enhancing your career.

· Try different models. While it can be difficult to make the first move, the idea of mobility becomes far less daunting if you run a 5K before you tackle the marathon. Pursue a detail to another agency. Join a government-wide task force. Whatever your starting point, each opportunity will allow you the chance to gain a broader perspective, exchange ideas and improve collaboration.

· If experimentation is not your thing, try a more formal route. If you’re more comfortable with a predictable path, you might consider participating in a formal candidate development program (CDP) where a rotation is part of a broader leadership development strategy. Similarly, there is a group of agency pilot programs being administered through the President’s Management Council. Our nation’s military services get this right. To reach the top levels of leadership within the Department of Defense (DOD), you must complete “joint-duty” assignments — rotations into positions with other military services or parts of DOD. More recently, the intelligence community has established a similar joint-duty requirement for its top leadership.
 
Have you moved around agencies and sectors? What experience has helped you become a better leader? What more can leaders do to build these skills? I encourage you to share your ideas or experience by leaving comments below or sending an e-mail to fedcoach@ourpublicservice.org.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Mar 26, 2012 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Talking leadership with Commissioner Margaret Hamburg

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Margaret A. Hamburg, an experienced medical doctor, scientist and public health executive, has been the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration since 2009, helping the agency carry out its mission to protect and promote the public health. Hamburg graduated from Harvard Medical School and has served as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Hamburg spoke with Tom Fox, who writes the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog and is the director of the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Government Leadership.

What’s your advice for other federal leaders looking for ways to bring innovation to their organizations?

Begin by focusing on the mission of the agency. At FDA, our mission is to promote and protect the health of the public. As commissioner, I’ve worked hard to galvanize people around that idea. I want employees to be thinking about the unique and essential contribution they are making to our mission.

Once an organization has a strong sense of mission, leaders can focus on trying new things. In these challenging times, sometimes the only way to accomplish your mission is by doing something in a different way. It’s very been important for us to respond to the extraordinary advances in science and technology that are constantly unfolding around us.

We’ve also had to respond to changes in our environment. We understand that we live in a globalized world and can no longer behave as an exclusively domestic agency. The world is moving so fast around us that we certainly can’t stand still.

How have you been able to keep the folks at FDA motivated and engaged in the agency’s mission?

It’s been critically important to remind our employees that their work is appreciated, understood and respected. I would be a total fool to believe that I could this job effectively without the kind of talented, knowledgeable people we have at FDA. I have a responsibility to let them know that I understand their importance to the institution and appreciate what they bring to it.

I support them in their work, intellectually and scientifically, and am an advocate for their work-life needs and the advancement of their professional careers. I am committed to making sure our employees have career development pathways, ongoing education, as well as engagement with the broader scientific community, which will inspire them to do their jobs better. This ability to continue learning from, and interacting with, colleagues — inside and outside of the FDA — is essential to keeping everyone motivated and engaged. And they need to be rewarded for the important work they do.

What are you doing to attract new talent?

One of the things we’re trying to do is broaden understanding of the agency. We are unique in that we are a science-based regulatory agency with an exciting and important public health mission. However, many young people pursuing careers in science or medicine or public health still don’t think of the FDA.

We’re creating more opportunities for individuals at the beginning of their careers to do important, meaningful work and engage in cutting-edge science. We’re working in collaborative ways with colleges and universities and have introduced Centers of Excellence in Regulatory Science, including in this region at the University of Maryland and Georgetown University. There, students can contribute to important research projects that support critical issues in medical product development and regulation. They can learn more about what it’s like to work at the FDA before graduating and searching for their first jobs. We’ve also created fellowship programs, for both early- and mid-level professionals.

Why is it important for traditionally male-dominated fields to have female leaders?

I don’t want to overgeneralize, but I believe that women are typically drawn to leadership styles that focus on consensus building, effective listening and working in teams. That’s certainly been my leadership style, and I think it’s been very successful. I’ve been a medical and public health professional as well as a mother. I became skilled at juggling a number of priorities and competing interests. Like many other female leaders, I’ve tried to serve as a role model for the young women at my organization who are trying to balance a high-level leadership position anda family. While there is no magic formula for finding that balance, those who are determined can create a system for managing it all.

How have you grown as a leader?

When I came to Washington, I had just completed my training in medicine. I was interested in health policy because I was watching the AIDS epidemic emerge and seeing how medicine and the care that I was delivering in the hospital was just one piece of a broader set of overlapping issues — social, political, economic, legal. I wanted to explore how to make a larger difference.

Coming to Washington was like doing a fellowship in health policy. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at HHS was a wonderful perch. I was special assistant to the director, and it was my first deep exposure to health policy and the role of government in health. I found it quite compelling. I’ve grown in the sense that I had not anticipated taking on these kinds of leadership roles. I found myself presented with extraordinary opportunities. I hesitated before I said yes, but with each door that opened and I walked through, I found more exciting opportunities and the enormous reward of feeling like I could make a difference.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Mar 26, 2012 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Readers advice on workplace bullying

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

I received many responses to my “Bullying at work” column, including some excellent advice on how to put an end to workplace bulling. Here’s what one reader had to say.
 
“The optimal solution is a cultural one within the organization and the society. We have to find a way to say that workplace bullying is simply not acceptable. Often employers deny that bullying is going on in their organization despite evidence to the contrary…           

Engaging in discussions about this problem is one way to help more folks become aware of the problem. The process of trying to pass Healthy Workplace Bills in statehouses is another way to raise the issue to enable cultural change. Often the process of passing laws is the catalyst for change in public opinion on a topic. We hope that is true of workplace bullying.” - Retired federal employee
 
A number of federal employees shared their personal stories on the effects of bullying. Here’s one comment that reinforces the fact that bullying cannot be condoned in the workplace.

“I have been bullied and lived to tell the tale. Two years ago, seven of us in one federal branch (a majority of the branch employees) filed a bullying/harassment complaint within my federal agency. To make a long story short, the manager is still there and the majority of us are gone. The bottom line seemed to be that he had ingratiated himself enough with superiors (doing their job and making them beholding to him) so that there was no way he was going to be removed…The damage that was done to the employees’ psyche and self-confidence and performance appraisals is beyond words. This man has been abusing selected employees for many years and will surely continue.”  - Former federal employee
 
This next comment explains the extent to which bullying can have serious consequences on morale and worker productivity. It comes from a reader who says she was bullied for more than ten years.

“Yes, I was bullied. For 10 years. (And so were the majority of my colleagues in the division.)

I was repeatedly belittled, humiliated in front of colleagues and contractors, and told I didn’t know what I was doing. Everything possible was done to make it as difficult as possible for me to do my job.  As a result of the bullying, I lost my assignment (which I loved) and was essentially given tasks that had nothing to do with my background, experience, or expertise. I was pretty much a glorified secretary – underutilized and overpaid.
 
But I was hardly alone. Quite a few of my colleagues were gotten rid of, at least temporarily, by being sent to work in other places. All at government expense.” - Former federal worker
 
Another reader shared the tactics she used to stop her bullying problem.

“Twice in the last month, my manager has aimed angry outbursts at our staff — one time humiliating me in front of others. Each time, I talked to him privately and told him that it was unacceptable to me. I proceeded more or less as you said, focusing on how it made me feel. I asked him to consider creating the possibility of treating employees in a professional manner, with respect, and that if he has an issue with me, to discuss it with me privately, in a way that doesn’t leave me feeling diminished. He did apologize. It’s quite possible that he is not fully aware of the impact of his behavior.” – Federal Coach  reader
 
This reader shared her thoughts on the origins of workplace bullying. 

“The bullying problem is growing and going to become worse because we are now seeing so much of it through the elementary, middle, and high schools. This means that our children are receiving "on the job" training now in how to do bullying and why it works...they are not being taught a better skill set for managing and negotiating.”  – Federal Coach reader
 
Are there other problem workplace issues, like bullying, that you or your colleagues are experiencing on the job? Please send your thoughts to fedcoach@ourpublicservice.org.
 

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Mar 26, 2012 at 11:00 AM5 comments

How to attract the best young graduates to your agency, despite the government bashing

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

The steady negative drumbeat regarding government appears to be taking its toll on student attitudes toward federal service.

Working with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), my organization – the Partnership for Public Service – analyzed a survey of more than 35,000 students from nearly 600 colleges and universities, asking about everything from their expectations about their first job to whether they would consider a career in public service. The results were troubling.

Only 2.3 percent of college students surveyed said they plan to work for the federal government, and just 6 percent of students plan to work in any level of government — the lowest percentage since the question regarding government employment was first asked in 2008. This suggests that getting the very best young talent, and in particular those in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, will be a major challenge.

Based on recent federal hiring patterns, my organization estimates that our government will need to hire between 50,000 to 60,000 entry-level employees over the next 12 months even with the budget cutbacks. Most of the hires will fill in behind employees who are leaving government. Federal managers need to better understand students’ expectations and desires, and to tailor recruitment efforts to meet those needs.

I consulted with federal workforce expert John Palguta, my colleague here at the Partnership, on steps you can take to attract top college graduates:

· You can’t sit on your hands, get out there. Sure, you may not be hiring in the same numbers you were a few years ago, but you cannot allow your campus outreach to wither and die as it did for many agencies in the 1990s. Top candidates, especially for STEM occupations, expect high tech, but also high touch. Use your field offices to reach out to local colleges and universities and use executives’ trips into the field as opportunities to visit with students. Don’t just send someone from HR, send someone who is in the type of job you’re trying to fill and who is enthusiastic and articulate.

· Know your audience before making a pitch. Most of the working world is full of stereotypes about what this latest generation wants in their first job – high salary, a flexible work environment and a lot of recognition. That’s wrong, according to the students surveyed. At the top of their list are personal growth opportunities, job security and good benefits. Our federal government is strong on many of these characteristics – even in these tough times – relative to employers in other sectors. Don’t convince yourself that government cannot compete. Use your strengths to make a compelling case for public service.

· Give applicants the big picture. Federal starting salaries may be below those of competing employers, but show applicants what they are likely to be earning in four to five years and how much they could accumulate in their government thrift savings plans, and they may well see that they can largely catch up with their private sector counterparts. 

· Focus on great hires – not just warm bodies. Your goal is to find the very best candidate out there at doing the type of job you are filling. Don’t settle for anything less. If you are doing college recruiting, talk to the faculty and ask them to identify their best students and do active outreach to those students.

· Deliver on the promise. Of course, you need to give newly hired employees the experience you’ve outlined in your recruiting pitch. With little or no resources, you can develop mentoring programs, a speakers’ series or other events focused on supporting new hires’ personal growth. Remember, great hires aren’t useful if they don’t stay.

Have you succeeded in recruiting the best and brightest despite hard times in the past? What are you doing now to overcome negative stereotypes about federal employment? Please share your ideas by leaving a comment or emailing me at fedcoach@ourpublicservice.org.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Feb 08, 2012 at 8:24 AM1 comments

The science of leading scientists: An interview with the National Science Foundation's Subra Suresh

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Subra Suresh, an engineer and scientist, became director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in September 2010. The independent federal agency provides about $7 billion a year for basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities in fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences. Before joining the NSF, Suresh was the dean of the School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, who writes the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

NSF consistently performs among the top federal agencies in the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings produced by the Partnership for Public Service. How do you keep your employees motivated and engaged?

NSF is unique. When compared to science and engineering academic institutions, we are very large. But as a federal agency, we’re relatively small. We have about 1,400 employees in-house. Last year, we were able to fund about 250,000 individuals in the U.S. and 2,000 institutions. Our employees are people who are passionate about service, people who are passionate about science and engineering, people who are curious about understanding nature through science, and people who are passionate about education. What keeps the agency and the staff at the cutting edge is that they have an opportunity to engage with leading scientific discoveries, which form the backbone of innovation in this country.

What prepared you to lead the National Science Foundation?

I started with mechanical engineering, became a materials scientist and then slowly took to biology and biomedical engineering. That has given me a flavor for the broad scientific community; a flavor for different people and different perspectives. In addition to being a scientist, researcher and an educator, I’ve had administrative roles. I led an effort by MIT to establish a large research center in Singapore. It was a very good experience in international engagement, research management, global collaboration and multidisciplinary research. And because MIT receives a lot of federal funding, I had a lot of engagement with people who worked in government.

What are your biggest day-to-day challenges?

The number of truly outstanding proposals we receive seeking funding are far more than the number of proposals we can possibly finance. With the increase in the number of proposals, our staff has very severe workloads. Dealing with it is a great challenge. As a result, I set up a working group to figure out how we can improve the workload issue and how we can improve the way we can handle proposals. It’s not only for NSF staff, but also for the research community. We’re looking at updating the hardware and software we use and looking at technology to help solve the problem.

Have you taken steps to foster communication with and among employees?

There are multiple levels of conversation going on within the foundation and from the foundation to the outside world. All of these conversations are very healthy, but coordinating it is a major challenge. There are a number of things we have done. We’ve launched an electronic, two-way communication forum within NSF called IdeaShare. NSF staff can propose ideas, raise issues or comment. This is a way to foster greater communication, in addition to face-to-face communication. We also started an all-hands town hall meeting twice a year. We held our first one last fall. We find it useful for fostering internal communications.

What do you do to ensure that NSF remains open to fresh, innovative ideas?

Allowing the best ideas to bubble up is fundamental to our mission. A young, 25-year-old assistant professor at a university may have a brilliant idea. We want to hear about it, and we want to support it. A person who may be very junior in the academic hierarchy has the opportunity to provide information to the National Science Foundation. We ensure ideas are vetted with the larger research community.

What has most contributed to your ability to be a leader?

The thing that has helped shaped me as a human being, broadly, is the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to sample a variety of life experiences. I was born and raised in Asia. I came to the U.S. — to Ames, Iowa — so I lived in the Midwest for two years. I did my Ph.D. at MIT, so I lived in New England. Then, I went to California. I lived there for two years, working at the University of California. Then, I taught at Brown University for ten years. Then, I moved back to MIT. We also lived in Europe twice, once in France and once in Sweden. I’ve traveled all over the world. And my family is multicultural. My wife was born and raised here. So even at home, we have dealt with different religions, different backgrounds, different food habits, different skin colors. It’s been part and parcel of my professional and my family life. That has shaped my views and thinking more than any one particular aspect of my life.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Feb 08, 2012 at 8:25 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: How to manage a millennial

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

This week we have a question about younger folks in the workplace:

How do I motivate millennials who believe they know everything? - Federal supervisor

To many generation X and baby boomer supervisors, the millennial generation can seem like a mystery to manage. It’s a challenge to live up to the expectations they’ve developed having been reared in an online, on-demand world.

While there are certainly social and cultural differences among millennials and other generations, I’m concerned that we too often fall into stereotypes that cause us to focus on solving the wrong problems.

When you think back to earlier points in your career, were you really all that different from the millennials you’re leading now? Sure, they’re different in any number of superficial ways. At the end of the day, however, they’re looking for the same opportunities to make a difference, develop their skills and grow into leadership positions – albeit more quickly than you!

I’m reading a book by Bruce Tulgan called Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y . After working with thousands of leaders and millennials, who are also known as generation Y, he outlines the major misperceptions many of us have about them. He also offers some strategies for successfully managing – and getting the most from – your millennials.

According to Tulgan, it’s not that millennials think they know everything or that they’re entitled to the top job on day one. Rather, he said, “they want to hit the ground running on day one. They want to identify problems that nobody else has identified, solve problems that nobody else has solved, make existing things better, invent new things. They want to make an impact.”

This sounds like an ideal public servant. We need more folks who can figure out new ways of meeting the public’s high expectations even with budgets on the decline.

The challenge comes in marshaling that energy and enthusiasm from a still inexperienced workforce. The federal leaders who are maximizing their millennials don’t embrace any flashy new “flavor of the month” management techniques. They perform the basics of leadership and management exceptionally well.

Here are some ideas for managing millennials:

· Paint a picture of the not-too-distant future – While entry-level jobs can be less than glamorous, they contribute to the agency’s mission and to an individuals’ professional development. I spent the early part of my career answering phones on Capitol Hill. I wanted to be drafting legislation, but the job allowed me to learn about the issues, while also teaching me patience, customer service and calm under pressure – skills I frequently draw upon today. Help your folks understand that the experience and skills they’re building will be invaluable later on. 

· Satisfy their hunger for learning – Accustomed to finding any piece of information at a moment’s notice (whether through Google, Facebook or Twitter), millennials are eager to learn quickly. An even more rapid approach to learning new facts, not to mention the best ways of navigating our federal government, is through conversations with those who’ve been there and done that. Encourage your young guns to look for learning opportunities every time they interact with their colleagues, functional experts or senior leaders. And be certain that your senior leaders make the time to answer their questions.

· Channel their problem-solving capacity – The next time you’re handed a special assignment, asked to submit names for a special task force or simply need to solve a complex management problem, reach out to your millennials as well as to your experts. Your millennials’ energy and fresh perspective are likely to generate ideas others with more experience may not have considered. Your longer-tenured employees can then determine the best ways of making the new initiatives happen by virtue of their experience.

· Give them what they want: feedback – Regularly sit down with the individuals on your team to process their experience and other on-the-job learning to ensure that they’re mining the opportunities around them. Ask provocative questions about how they’re learning to be a leader based on the examples in the agency. See whether they would act differently if confronted with similar issues to those of the leaders in your agency. Recognize that their experience will help position them to be better leaders when their time comes. 

What are you doing to engage your millennials or prepare them for future leadership opportunities? If you’re one of those up-and-comers ready to make a difference, how are you maximizing your learning opportunities? Please share your ideas by leaving a comment or emailing me at fedcoach@ourpublicservice.org.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Feb 06, 2012 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Catching a financial thief

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

James H. Freis, Jr. was appointed in 2007 as director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), an agency that establishes and implements regulatory policies, and analyzes financial transactions, to help detect and deter money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes. He previously served as deputy assistant general counsel for enforcement and intelligence at the Treasury Department, worked as senior counsel in the legal service of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland and at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, who writes the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

What are some of the leadership lessons you gained during your time in government?

I have learned the importance of building consensus and generating buy-in from different groups of stakeholders. When I came to Treasury, I started dealing with national security matters and law enforcement cases and instantly the stakes became much higher. Today, as the director of FinCEN, part of finding the right answer is working with people who have important pieces of information, opinions or experience that will help us come to the correct conclusions.

How do you keep your employees motivated?

The most consistent and gratifying aspect of working with the people here is how overwhelmingly motivated they are by FinCEN’s mission. Again and again, day after day, it’s what’s brought them here and what keeps them here. One of the most fundamental aspects of our mission is to “follow the money.” By following the money, we help catch the criminals. We have only a small component, so we are handing that information over to criminal investigative officers and they have to do the rest. But seeing that we gave the investigators and prosecutors the tools to put bad guys away shows us that we’ve achieved our mission. The other part is the preventative side. By looking at the vulnerabilities to criminal abuse in our financial systems, we use our regulatory authorities to work with the financial industry to help them mitigate the risks that criminals would otherwise exploit. To close that vulnerability, to mitigate that risk, is extremely gratifying.

What are the challenges you face on the workforce management front?

As a small agency, we have to determine our priorities. We have to continually reevaluate where we want to bring to bear our legal authorities, specialized talents and unique resources. In approaching that challenge, we engage with our law enforcement counterparts, regulators, financial institutions and others focused on their specialized areas of respective responsibility. FinCEN must then step back to see the broader picture of risk and criminal activity, and try to find the right balance among the sometimes differing interests among our stakeholders, to further the one common goal of protecting against criminal abuse. We’re continually trying to find ways to engage with others and depend heavily on their cooperation. We need to see what might be coming down the pike, and that affects how we focus and manage our challenges.

What do you do to encourage cooperation within your agency?

One of the most important things is to make sure people never lose sight of the common purpose. When I bring people together at our quarterly town hall meetings with either the entire agency or smaller groups, the questions that I personally try to throw out there are: Why are we here? What are we trying to achieve? I never let them forget that we are strongest when we work together.

What tricks or methods have you developed to manage your time more effectively?

I am very decisive. Once we have the information that we need, we make a decision and move swiftly toward implementation. One of the things I try to do when I’m flooded with new tasks or decisions, is to prioritize my time and my order of responses to the questions coming in. I put first those items to which other people are waiting on my response. If they need the decision to take path A or path B, and they might otherwise have downtime waiting for that response, I immediately put forward those items.

When you think about your path to leadership, what has helped you the most?

The life experience that I’ve found most influential is the international exposure that I’ve had. I’ve had the privilege of working abroad for almost eight years and dealing with people from around the world. It has brought a whole other dimension of additional experiences and alternative viewpoints.

If you could find one additional hour in your busy day, how is it you might spend your time?

I’d love an additional hour just to talk with people. We want to learn from the experiences of others, and we have to build relationships of trust. So, being out there and talking with counterparts is critical.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Feb 01, 2012 at 11:33 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Leadership lessons from the US Coast Guard

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Admiral Robert J. Papp, Jr., is the 24th Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, the largest component of the Department of Homeland Security and the nation’s oldest continuous seagoing service. He is responsible for world-wide Coast Guard activities and oversees approximately 42,000 active-duty military, 7,000 reserve military and 8,000 civilian full-time employees. He served previously as operational commander in the Atlantic area for all U.S. Coast Guard missions in the eastern half of the world. This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, who writes the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

How are you applying the lessons you learned on the front lines to your current role as commandant?

Being a sailor formed my view of the world. There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from going to sea. It’s a unique human experience. That’s really why I joined the Coast Guard, to go to sea and ultimately become the captain of a ship. For most people, when there are storms or other calamities, you are still firmly rooted to the ground and familiar surroundings. Out at sea, you’re disconnected from everything you’re familiar with. You’ve got to rely on the people with you out there.

I’ve found that even in the worst conditions, things get better. I use that as a corollary for life. Even in the worst of circumstances, if you keep on working and surround yourself with good people, eventually conditions will improve. Being a captain of a ship has set how I view the world as well. I can’t get the job done by myself. I have to train other people and rely upon my crew and my officers. Even though my breadth of responsibility is much greater as commandant, the same simple tried-and-true rules still apply to running an organization. You give people authority and responsibilities and hold them accountable for performance and most good people respond.

How do you keep your folks focused on the mission?

The first is that we have great missions. Whether it’s our defense, security, our search-and-rescue or humanitarian missions, the missions provide variety and excitement and inspire people to serve.

Second, I think there is great impact in giving them credit for doing their jobs. The positive benefits of recognizing good behavior and great performance helps keep people motivated. We present medals and awards to people who have made significant achievements. Sometimes it’s just a pat on the back or other small, personal recognition that motivates people. There are times I send emails to individuals who I see or who pop up in news stories.

How do you maintain effective contact given that distance is such a challenge?

In our travels and when we do events, I take the time to meet our crews at the units. Sometimes it’s just a small search-and-rescue station with 30 people. Sometimes it’s an entire Atlantic or Pacific Area staff, where I’m talking to 400 or 500 people. I think I’ve probably stood in front of 30,000 people over the last year and a half and talked to them directly. However, I’ve learned it’s more important to let them ask me questions. You then can address their concerns directly and find out what’s on their minds. But that doesn’t reach everybody. I can do almost the same thing using social media. We have a Coast Guard website where we have senior leadership columns and all my speeches and messages to the troops are carried. And we have a blog. We’re trying to use all methods out there.

What are your biggest day-to-day challenges and how do you overcome them?

We know we’re going to be limited in these years of austerity and we have to make judgment calls. People are our most important resource. If there are fewer resources, the public, the Congress and the administration can expect fewer Coast Guard services. We’ve got to be reasonable. If we’re not reasonable, not only do we wear out our people, we wear out our ships and aircraft as well. My main job is to make sure we don’t overstress the workforce or our equipment, so we’re there when the public expects us, when emergency hits. The largest challenge is trying to do everything that the public, our citizens, the Congress and our allies in other countries expect. There’s never any day where we can do 100 percent of what is expected of us. We have this culture in the Coast Guard of doing more with less. It’s a great strength, but also a weakness. You ultimately end up taking it out on your people.

We meet the challenges by training leaders and giving them the responsibility for making decisions at the operational field level on how they employ their limited resources. Whether it’s the commanding officer or chief petty officer running a search-and-rescue station, they know they can’t do all the missions on any given day. So they make prudent, reasoned, experienced decisions on how they employ their people, their cutters, boats and aircraft.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jan 19, 2012 at 3:16 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Leadership the US Marshals way

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Stacia A. Hylton is director of the U.S. Marshals Service, the law enforcement agency within the Department of Justice responsible for federal judicial security, fugitive apprehension, witness security, asset forfeiture, and prisoner transportation, custody and safety.

Hylton has 30 years of law enforcement experience, including 10 years on the Elite Special Operations Group. She was an instructor at the training academy, teaching firearms, physical fitness and kinesic interrogation interviewing techniques, and an incident commander for assignments such as Ground Zero after 9/11.

How did serving in the Special Operations Group prepare you for your position?

I always reflect back on the basic selection school. It was grueling. One hundred deputies applied; only sixty were chosen; and only eleven graduated. It showed the intensity of that training. It’s like a military boot camp, focused on tactical training with some of the most advanced equipment available to law enforcement and on strategic operation planning, designed to test your ability to accomplish missions in the most adverse situations. This is the group that we pull in for missions, whether to Afghanistan or when we have significant fugitive hunts.

Once we made it through Special Operations Group Training, we were called on, sometimes at two in the morning. One time it was to respond to Hurricane Hugo to support and protect FEMA. You never know what you’re going into, what the assignment is or where you’re going to be deployed. That’s true for leadership. You’re running a national organizational, responding at all hours. Usually, you’re at a level with high potential impact on operations or administration. You have to be on the cutting edge. You have to be able to work well in stressful situations.

What lessons did you learn from being in crisis mode?

Although we have to react to life-and-death situations, there’s the administrative side of the job—the fact you might be facing a 20-percent funding cut. How do you make sure you can meet your law enforcement responsibilities and achieve those reductions? Making sure you’re strategic is key. Leading your people through the crisis requires steadiness, strength and compassion. You must also connect to people. In government now, we face pay freezes, potential furloughs and reductions of workforce. You have to be with them even when it’s difficult. You’re gaining strength from the workforce and engaging them by being close to them, furthering your ability to lead.

How do you keep people engaged in this critically important mission?

Those that commit to protect and serve have it in their basic DNA to put themselves out there. They’re highly motivated. Any leader has to communicate the goals and objectives effectively to the workforce in a national organization and unite the leadership team by keeping them informed of current challenges, engaging them in solutions and leveraging technology. We’re always looking ahead to achieve results. I’m a strong believer in crafting the vision and the mission statement and making sure there’s a five-year strategic plan that drives results. Most people write a strategic plan and put it on the shelf. I’m all about, “Nope, we’re going to link it to a business plan and put it in people’s performance work plans. Then we’ll have a metric to measure.” We can’t survive on the fact that we arrest 122,000 fugitives. We need to show our performance metrics. You have to think like private industry today.

How has your experience on the front lines helped you in your current role?

Dealing with life-and-death situations every day requires unique self-discipline. It’s critical to be focused on what you’re doing and train constantly. That means physically, mentally, practically and especially strategically. You’re not in an eight-to-five job. We carry a great deal of authority with that badge and it comes with a great deal of responsibility.

I try to create a work environment for employees that instills pride and one that reflects the principles and standards of the U.S. Marshals Service. I also try to make a direct correlation to how they contribute to our success. You don’t have to be in law enforcement, carrying a badge.  You can be an administrative employee or an analyst in intel, but you contribute every day. Others also have instilled in me the desire to volunteer for everything. Every experience contributes to your learning and learning is the foundation you pull from as a leader.

Any other insights into your leadership role?

You have to be cognizant that there are political ramifications of what you do in a government leadership job. How does this action impact the workforce, or the department and its leadership? How will it reflect upon the White House? How will Congress react? You have to stop, no matter how quickly things are moving. You have to figure out, how do I need to maneuver so there’s a successful resolution without a negative impact on anyone?

Can you point to one critical event made you the leader you are today?

In addition to being a competitive athlete, being a member of the special operations group— learning the tactics and tactical operations—formed my self-discipline and that concept of teamwork. Bosses challenged me with difficult and high-visibility responsibilities. They cultivated me to be a problem solver and accomplish the missions. That helped me to be able to lead more effectively.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jan 04, 2012 at 2:09 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: How government leaders can take more risks

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Senior government leaders appear hesitant to make decisions or convert risks into opportunity even when presented with data that justifies a certain decision. Why?-Supervisor (GS-14), U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Decision-making is difficult in any organization given incomplete information, competing stakeholder demands and tight timeframes bearing down on leaders who are responsible for making any final call. And when you consider the impact, scrutiny and other constraints in government, it’s not surprising that they are hesitant to make decisions.

As a federal leader, or an adviser who is supporting one, the challenge comes in embracing the technique employed by some of our world’s best innovators – shrinking the risks associated with any decision. In his book, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries, Peter Sims offers valuable insights from the world of innovation and describes how federal leaders can avoid the pitfalls while moving in a positive direction.

Using examples as diverse as comedian Chris Rock’s process for developing new jokes, architect Frank Gehry’s approach to designing new buildings and Army Brigadier General H.R. McMaster’s strategies for effectively engaging Iraqi citizens in securing the country, Sims shows that successful innovators shrink their problems and risks to a manageable size as a means of improving the outcomes of their final decisions.

For example, Sims examines McMaster’s experiment to diverge from the military’s traditional strategy of operating from large bases and raiding cities in search of insurgents. The traditional strategy often produced mixed results, and McMaster had a new approach to improve the military’s performance – living among Iraqi citizens to gain their trust, collect better intelligence and engage them in securing their own country.

Before changing the military’s strategy entirely, however, McMaster tried his new approach in one city, Tal Afar. After a lot of trial and error, he took the new approach to a larger city. After a series of successes, the Army implemented the strategy on a bigger scale and now uses it as a part of their training program before troops are deployed.

As a federal leader, it may seem impossible to shrink the risk associated with your decisions. However, the key is to look for small opportunities to test your favored approach. Next, collect feedback and refine your plan. Then take it to a broader audience. In the end, you should find that decision-making is both easier and more effective.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Dec 09, 2011 at 10:15 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Steven Knapp on fostering leadership at George Washington University

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Steven Knapp became the 16th president of the George Washington University in August 2007 after a career in academia that included teaching English literature at the University of California, Berkeley and serving as dean of arts and sciences and then provost of the Johns Hopkins University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Modern Language Association. His priorities include increasing student opportunities for public service. The interview was conducted by Tom Fox, author of the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

How are you helping to foster leadership among George Washington University students?

Our Center for Student Engagement has an internal mentoring program that matches first-year students with students who already are involved in service. Our Office of Civic Engagement and Public Service focuses on students who are not just seeking to become engaged in the community but are also thinking about public service careers. We also have a program called Presidential Administrative Fellows. Seniors complete a two-year, fully funded graduate fellowship that enables them to work in university offices while they pursue their graduate studies. This program provides them with tremendous opportunities to develop leadership skills.

What do you think are the obstacles to attracting young folks to public service?

Our students are probably a bit unusual; they often come with an interest in service that is part of what attracts them to Washington. They really hit the ground running in many ways. We’re responding to their initiatives as much as they’re responding to ours. I’ll have students show up with a new idea for a service project and I’ll say, “Have you thought about the details?” And, they’ll hand me a business plan. It’s pretty extraordinary sometimes.

Can you identify experiences that helped shape your leadership abilities?

I think that my role as a teacher helped, particularly teaching seminars. If you’re running a seminar discussion, your job is to get a group of people together and listen carefully to what they’re saying so you can make sense of the discussion as a collective activity. You ask a question, listen to the responses and try to see what those responses have in common. That kind of feedback and circulation and dialogue is really important when it comes to pulling people together from various parts of a complex organization. But, come to think of it, my first, very instructive experience of leadership probably came when I was the drum captain in a high-school marching band!

What leadership lesson you have learned from being president of the George Washington University?

At any university, faculty members often know more about and have closer relations with colleagues in the same field outside the institution than they do with people in offices right across the hall. So communication and understanding of what’s going on within the institution is a constant challenge. I have a number of vice presidents who have different areas of responsibility. I asked them to meet on a weekly basis just to talk about communication and to discover what they have in common and could do more collaboratively. I also started having the deans meet on a regular basis to talk about fundraising. There were opportunities for things they could do together that they weren’t necessarily aware of.

Do you have leadership role models?

Given the university I’m currently serving, it would be hard for me not to mention George Washington. Washington is an extraordinary role model because, first of all, he put on hold his private aspirations to serve the country he was bringing into being. He is also a model of persistence. The Revolutionary War was a very uncertain proposition for much of its duration; it was almost miraculous that he was eventually successful, but a lot of that had to do with Washington’s personal character and tenacity. He was also a tremendous builder of consensus.

There were also people in my family who were pretty tenacious characters. I often mention my paternal grandmother in that regard. She came out of a farming background in upstate New York and was one of the toughest people I’ve ever encountered.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Dec 08, 2011 at 6:36 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Using data to make better decisions in your agency

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

“Moneyball” is a highly entertaining movie that showed how Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane used data to improve his baseball team’s performance.

It turned out, for example, that on-base percentages were more important than batting averages as an indicator of a hitter’s effectiveness because a walk can also get a player on base.

Government agencies also collect data that can be valuable to managers who oversee teams trying to achieve their agencies’ goals and missions. And government leaders, like baseball executives, can use this data to pinpoint problems, highlight successes and figure out better or more efficient ways to run programs.

With the nation facing fiscal uncertainty and public attitudes toward government at unpleasant lows, it is crucial that federal leaders base decisions on accurate data and not anecdotes, assumptions or Hail Mary passes. Oh wait, wrong sport. But you get the idea.

My organization, the Partnership for Public Service, recently released a report titled “From Data to Decisions: The Power of Analytics,” which focused on agencies not just collecting data, but gathering the correct data and using it to drive change. We found vivid examples of government managers making programs more effective by quantifying information and learning how improvements could best be made.

Obviously, every agency is different and leaders will have to figure out the best ways to collect and crunch their agencies’ data, but all organizations are likely to gain insights from doing so. The report also points out agencies really don’t need to have the latest technology to do data analysis and not everything needs to be measured.

Below are some examples of how several agencies have used data to revamp or advance their programs.

Getting veterans into homes - In analyzing the effectiveness of a program to end veterans’ homelessness by 2015, run jointly by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing, HUD changed how it gauged success. Instead of measuring the number of housing vouchers issued, the agency started looking at the percentage of vouchers homeless veterans actually used to get a roof over their heads—a more precise indicator of who took advantage of the program. In addition, the agencies used data to analyze where the bottlenecks were in the housing process so they could focus attention on them.

Better patient care - For a long time, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services concentrated on how well nursing homes, hospitals and transplant centers complied with regulations and whether they were staffed properly, rather than focusing on the quality of the patient care. The agency changed its perspective and now mines its data to look at trends in the quality of health care at these facilities. They use that data to direct scare resources to where they will have the most impact.

Safety in the skies - The Federal Aviation Administration has always been able to investigate accidents after they’ve happened. Think “black box.” The goal now is to reduce risk by analyzing flight-related processes and identifying problems and hazards so they can be avoided. An agency-wide safety management approach includes an employee-reporting system that collects information from people closest to the hazards, such as someone who witnessed an error by an air-traffic controller. Those employees can report safety issues and have their identities protected and not face punishment for revealing vulnerabilities. The agency uses the important data they receive to understand what factors contribute to flight risks and how to address them.

Click it or ticket - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) helped increase seat belt use in this country to 85 percent in 2010, up from 11 percent in 1985. It was not an easy sell. NHTSA had early evidence that seat belts saved lives, but it didn’t have the authority to decree their use. By doing controlled experiments on what motivated people to change their behavior, NHTSA was able to gather the data that showed media campaigns highlighting enforcement rather than safety, combined with actual enforcement, did the trick to influence people’s behavior.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Dec 05, 2011 at 5:53 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: How to handle the person who questions everything

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Dec 02, 2011 at 8:18 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Sheila Bair: The former FDIC chairman’s 20-20 foresight

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Sheila Bair is one of seven recipients of the 2011 Top American Leaders awards, bestowed by The Washington Post’s On Leadership section and the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership. This year’s recipients were chosen by a selection committee convened by the Center for Public Leadership, and will be honored at Ford’s Theatre on December 5, 2011.

Sometimes, people in government have 20-20 foresight.

Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 2006 until July of this year, warned as early as 2001 about abuses in subprime lending. She continued to sound the alarm about the mortgage industry and foreclosure practices as the country headed into the mortgage crisis in 2008.

Bair’s outspokenness didn’t make her a favorite with members of the banking industry, but she wasn’t concerned about making nice with Wall Street. Her job was to protect depositors and help shore up the financial system. She pushed hard for an aggressive mortgage-refinancing program to help homeowners in financial straits, managed a number of very large failed institutions at the height of the crisis, and played a key role in crafting financial reforms eventually approved by Congress.

Although Bair rose to a powerful position in the financial world, she remembered well what it was like to toil at lower-level jobs. She was a bank teller before heading to law school at the University of Kansas and started in the federal government as a GS-11 attorney.

As FDIC chairman, she made sure to encourage input from front-line employees. “I do understand how people feel lost in the shuffle or not appreciated as much as they should be, and I try to bring those things to my management style,” she said.

During quarterly conference calls with employees, anyone was able to ask questions and do so anonymously if they chose. She started a culture-change initiative at the agency so that executives would engage with employees, solicit feedback and listen to their views. She believed that by empowering those employees, management would receive insights that could influence positive changes at the agency.

Born in the town of Independence, Kan., Bair admits that she can be “brutally direct,” a trait she says she picked up in the 1980s while working with another Kansan, Bob Dole, the state’s former senator and a fellow Republican. But she believes that people appreciate the clarity that comes along with that bluntness.

The FDIC, normally a low-profile agency, held a prime spot during the financial crisis. They were tough years, but Bair impressed upon her staff the importance of the agency’s mission —protecting customers’ deposits.

When dozens of banks were failing and other sectors were destabilizing, the FDIC worked to keep savings safe and maintain confidence in the banking system. In October 2008, Congress raised the amount of savings the agency would guarantee to $250,000 from $100,000 per depositor, a change that was extended in July 2010 when President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank bill instituting Wall Street reforms and consumer protections.

“The FDIC has a long history of stability and safety,” said Bair. “No one has ever lost a penny of insured deposits.”

Bair, who was once an “answer” on the TV quiz show “Jeopardy,” now has taken the opportunity to step away from her role in a world of financial upheaval. She has said she plans to write a book. She already is a published author of the children’s book, Rock, Brock and the Savings Shock, about—what else?—saving money.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 29, 2011 at 6:19 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: With Ken Salazar, peering into the Department of the Interior

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Ken Salazar is the 50th secretary of the Department of the Interior. Previously, he served as a U.S. senator from Colorado, Colorado’s state attorney general and the executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Salazar has also been a farmer and a small businessman. This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, author of the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

What life experiences have helped shape your views on leadership?

Growing up in a very rural and remote area in Colorado’s San Luis Valley – one of the poorest counties in the United States – essentially created the framework of values from which I operate. I stand up for the little guy. I fight discrimination at all levels. I fight for an inclusive America. I recognize that my own American dream was one which eluded my parents, but they gave it to me because of education. I don’t believe that the American dream should be reserved for those who are born into the elite or somehow have been given an advantage over others. My growing-up experience is probably the most important thing that guides my priorities and my work today.

How do you approach your job as the head of a large federal department?

The ability for us to get our job done here at Interior depends on the people that we work with. I can’t do my job as secretary if I don’t have the full engagement of the more than 70,000 employees of the department. One of the things I try to do as I travel around the country is to regularly meet with our career employees so they can hear from me what’s going on. It’s also important for me to hear from them. The second thing that’s important is hearing the advice and the counsel of my team. None of the decisions we make are so clear cut one way or another that you can be absolutist. I’m the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers.

How do you keep your career federal employees motivated and engaged?

It has been a very uncertain time for federal employees, and so I acknowledge the pain that brings to people. For some in Washington, it’s become sport to pick on the federal workforce. I think they do so unjustly. The very foundation of a stable America is having a government that functions well. Many countries have dysfunctional governments, because they don’t have a good government workforce. I reject the notion that federal employees are the problem or that government is the problem. It’s important for me to remind our employees of that. It’s also important for them to know that I also remind Congress about that whenever I get an opportunity to do so.

How do you prioritize your challenges and your time?

From day one, I’ve had three very clear goals. They guide how I spend my time and they guide where I prioritize the work that I do. They are energy, conservation and Native Americans. On the energy front, we’ve created a virtual revolution on renewable energy on public lands where nothing existed before. On the conservation side, we are moving forward in a very difficult environment because of funding issues to continue a conservation and preservation agenda that will be a very robust one. And on the Native American front, we have turned a new page in the 400-year history of the interface between the American settlers of this country and the nation’s first Americans. That’s included a new relationship where the sovereignty of tribes is in fact recognized.

Have you had any role models or mentors?

My father and my mother are the most important mentors for me, because they were the ones who gave me the values that I have. My mother is 89. She’s still on the ranch. I talk to her every night. Sometimes I’ll spend ten minutes with her and sometimes it’ll be a two-minute conversation. She’s still very bright and very alert and knows what’s going on in the world.

Outside of my family, there have been many people who have influenced what I do and how I see the world. Former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer taught me a lot about politics, policy and public service. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is probably my best friend in Washington, D.C. I see him as a fighter, a boxer. He is tougher than nails.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 28, 2011 at 10:22 AM1 comments

Federal Coach: What it's like to run the TSA

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

John S. Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration since July 2010, oversees the management of a workforce of 60,000; security operations at more than 450 U.S. airports; the Federal Air Marshal Service; and the security of highways, railroads, ports, mass transit systems and pipelines. As a national security and counterterrorism expert during his 26-year career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pistole headed the agency’s expanded counterterrorism program after 9/11 and was named deputy director in 2004. He has worked on several high-profile investigations, including the attempted car bombing in Times Square in 2010; the attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253 by the so-called “underwear bomber” in 2009; and the plot against New York City subways that same year. This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, author of the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

What management challenges do you face and what are you doing to overcome them?

One of the challenges I faced when I arrived was how to craft a vision for TSA that makes sense for people who have been taught they are here to make sure that 9/11 does not happen again, and to treat everyone the same during the screening process. It was a one-size-fits-all construct. I saw opportunities to redefine the agency’s work and look for ways to provide the most effective security in the most efficient manner by not focusing as much on those we know more about.

Across the country, TSA conducts security screenings for almost 1.8 million people every day. That’s over 50 million people a month. We are looking at how we can be more risk-based in our security approach, the core of which is trying to differentiate passengers and the requisite screening they should be afforded, based on the information and intelligence we have about them. I start out every day with an intelligence briefing that informs me about what the terrorists are thinking. This information plays a key role as we determine how we should change our protocol while still providing the best customer service possible and respecting privacy issues.

In the face of recent criticism, how do you keep employees motivated and engaged in TSA’s mission?

We try to be proactive in supporting the workforce when there is criticism. For example, I will personally call individual security officers to thank them for their professionalism when I know they have dealt with a challenging situation or had what we call a good catch. I also visit airports and have town halls with security officers and hold separate meetings with the general managers and senior leadership, and empower them to focus on our role as a U.S. counterterrorism agency fulfilling a national security mission. It’s about looking at the little things that can cause catastrophic failures in aircraft, not just looking for common prohibited items like a small knife. Our approach is about using more common sense and doesn’t have to be one-size-fits-all. That message is resonating with the workforce from the feedback I’m getting.

But it is an ongoing challenge to effectively communicate with a large, diverse and dispersed workforce. It is definitely not a perfect system so that’s something we continue to work on. It’s doubly important to have effective communication and I’m focused on it every day. Our workforce does not sit at a desk, so we face the unique challenges of reaching our employees in new and different ways. We do send out routine email messages, but also distribute videotape messages and establish local communications channels to reach frontline employees. The videotaped messages are used to inform officers of a policy change, like our recently implemented changes for screening passengers 12 and under, and they are delivered to all the security officers before they start their shift to make sure we brief everybody.

What tools or techniques do you use to make sure employees bring ideas and problems to your attention?

One is called the “Idea Factory,” which is a web-based tool where employees can offer suggestions to leadership. It was founded by my predecessor. Employees with suggestions or ideas on how to do things better are encouraged to submit those, and many of those ideas have gone on to become policies. We also have a local and a national advisory council. I meet with the national advisory council several times a year and we go over things they’re hearing at their local airports and issues they’re dealing with. I get their feedback and run ideas past them. I also meet periodically with the federal security directors in charge of the airports. I recognize the importance of being collaborative and getting input, but also being clear when making a decision. I want to be sure there’s a sense of urgency, because terrorists try to come up with new and creative ways to harm us and we focus on preventing that.

What critical event led to you becoming the leader you are today?

There have been two defining moments. As a high school senior I was in a serious car accident and had a broken neck. I had an opportunity to think a lot. After a spinal fusion, and months in a body cast and a neck brace, I got back some physical strength and felt I was given a second chance. I wanted to make sure I was doing everything I could for good. I wake up every day being thankful for being alive and able to give something back.

The second one was several months after 9/11. The FBI director asked me to help run the recently expanded counterterrorism program. I was unsure given my background was not in counterterrorism, but he had confidence in me and others I worked for, so I was thrown into a new milieu of national security counterterrorism work. That helped equip me for running TSA. It was really sink or swim, but, again, thanks to some great coworkers and mentors, I was able not only to survive but thrive.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 24, 2011 at 6:53 PM1 comments

Federal Coach: Getting federal employees and managers on the same page

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), listed No. 1 in this year’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings, had been rated 25th out of 30 large agencies six years ago.

After initiating a set of management reforms geared toward improving employee culture and morale, the FDIC has seen their scores skyrocket – a good reminder to federal leaders that doing the hard work can improve employee job satisfaction, commitment and ultimately performance.

To help federal leaders turn their agencies around, the Best Places to Work analysis produced by my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, includes staff/manager alignment data that provides insights into how the employees and the leaders each perceive the work environment.

Have you ever thought, “My colleagues just don’t seem to get it?” You’re not alone. Whether you are a leader or an employee, research across sectors shows that managers often respond to workplace surveys more positively than staff. If the gap between managers’ and employees’ views of an agency is too large, however, mission and performance may suffer.

Based on a set of 50 questions selected from the Federal Employee Viewpoint survey, we can assess the degree of alignment – or disconnect – between an agency’s staff and managers. Because we can also benchmark the findings against government-wide results, agency leaders can determine whether they are above, at or below the norm.

To find out your agency’s staff/manager alignment score, you can visit bestplacestowork.org to download your agency’s Best Places to Work report. Based on your agency’s results, you may want to consider pursuing steps to make a greater connection with employees, and get everyone on the same page.

· Mind the gap. This may sound like a self-help program, but the first thing to do is admit to your employees that there’s a problem. Your employees already know there’s an issue. They’re the ones who completed the survey. Telling them that you recognize the problem demonstrates that you’re taking their feedback seriously, and it’s the first step toward bringing about some positive change.

· Identify the root causes. Next, you’ll need to understand the source of the problems. Organize separate focus groups for senior leaders, managers and staff to allow each group to honestly and anonymously share their opinions. The agency’s senior leaders can then compare notes, identify opportunities to improve and develop a plan of action.

· Just do it (and measure the results). Any plan to foster better synergy between managers and staff should be shared with employees and put in motion. Make sure you provide periodic updates, and don’t wait until the next survey to measure your progress. Successful agencies administer shorter, targeted pulse surveys focused on specific issues to ensure that their plans are on track. If agencies are receiving negative feedback, they have an opportunity to improve their plans before the next Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey is administered.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 21, 2011 at 12:41 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: How to motivate and engage federal employees

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Martin Gruenberg is the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Prior to his tenure at the FDIC, Gruenberg served as senior counsel to Senator Paul Sarbanes and also served as staff director of the Banking Committee's Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy. For the first time, the FDIC was ranked number one on this year’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government list of 33 large agencies, moving up two slots from 2010. Most notably, the FDIC’s Best Places to Work score increased 8.5 percent since 2010, which is the largest improvement for any large agency. This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, author of the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

How do you to keep your employees engaged in FDIC’s mission and work?

The great strength of the agency is that it has a very clear and understandable mission, and that mission is to insure the deposits that people have in federally insured financial institutions. If you look back over this crisis, the role that the FDIC and deposit insurance played in maintaining public confidence in the banking system, even during the most stressful times, was really quite critical. I think our employees really do understand the mission and how what they do relates to it.

Looking through the responses to the survey, over 90 percent of our employees said they understood the mission and goals of the agency and how their work relates to it. Also, over 90 percent of our employees said they felt that the work they do is important. As a motivation for people to work hard and with a real sense of dedication and purpose, that’s really critical.

How will you continue to maintain your gains in the Best Places to Work rankings moving forward?

Most fundamentally, the mission and the commitment of our employees to the mission remain. That’s what I think will help to maintain our performance. We have also made very significant efforts in the past two years to improve communication with all employees from top down and sustaining that two-way communication. Giving clear direction so that employees know what we’re doing and why we’re trying to do it—and to make sure there’s a two-way street so we can get feedback from employees—is the real, ongoing challenge to sustain.

What other initiatives have you undertaken that will help sustain FDIC’s performance?

We’ve had a whole culture change initiative here at the FDIC, and as part of that initiative, we established the Culture Change Council, which is made up of employees from all divisions and levels of the agency, and is charged with developing ideas. It focuses on communication and empowerment of employees. They have the task of developing initiatives to address those issues, as well as serving as a vehicle for employees to communicate with the council to help generate ideas. We’ve created an institution made up of employees from all levels to take in our ideas and generate new ideas. I think it has proven effective and is highly valued by the employees.

What did you learn about leadership working on the Hill, and how have you applied this knowledge at FDIC?

I spent most of my career before joining the FDIC on the Hill, and what I learned was very applicable here. Working on the Senate committee with the other members on both sides of the aisle, there was a real emphasis in trying to find common ground that could produce legislation. [You also had to work] with the interest groups, industry and consumer groups, as well as with the regulatory agencies and executive branch agencies, all of which had interests to be considered and developed in legislation. All through the process, you’re trying to work with those parties to find the basis for common ground, in order to move legislation forward. It’s really the critical challenge in working for the committee. Those lessons were very applicable here at the FDIC, both in working with different divisions to find solutions to problems and then working effectively with the other regulatory agencies as well as the interests of outside parties.

What do you consider to be a critical event, educational or experiential, that contributed to making you the leader you are today?

If I had to point to one thing, it was the opportunity to work for Senator Sarbanes for an extended period of time. He was a remarkable public servant, and I learned so many lessons from him that I’ve been able to apply at the FDIC. The key lessons were: the importance of preparation and knowing the issues that you’re responsible for; listening carefully to others that you interact with so that you understand their concerns well; and then using that understanding to find common ground for making solutions to problems.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 18, 2011 at 10:05 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Improving your agency's Best Places to Work in the Federal Government ranking

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

I’m a big believer in the old adage, “Everything that needs to be done to improve government is being done somewhere, just not everywhere.” The key, of course, is sharing those lessons across agencies to improve performance government-wide.

Here’s a case in point. A few agencies have seen considerable improvements in the just released 2011 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings by directly addressing employee satisfaction, commitment and performance issues. The rankings, produced by my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, are the most comprehensive assessment of federal employee perceptions of their jobs and agencies, and are based on a government-wide survey conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Organizations struggling to improve their rankings would be wise to understand what successful agencies have done, and then adopt those strategies to build a more engaged and, ultimately, a more effective workforce.

I consulted with my colleague Erika Kaneko, our Best Places to Work agency services manager, on how agencies can make progress in improving their employee satisfaction and commitment. She noted that many of the biggest movers have followed some basic principles. They have engaged employees, managers and union leaders to better understand the story behind their Best Places to Work numbers, and to get feedback and ideas for change. They have followed through with action plans, have monitored progress, and have communicated with employees about what is taking place and the reasons for decisions. In addition, they have celebrated successes and recognized exceptional employees.

As part of the 2011 Best Places to Work rankings, the Partnership interviewed officials at agencies that increased their scores over last year. In talking with those agencies, we’ve collected some lessons learned that may benefit agencies still looking to move on up the rankings.

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) – The FDIC rose to the No. 1 spot as a result of instituting a series of cultural change initiatives three years ago. The FDIC devoted time, energy and resources to supporting employees and creating a positive work environment even in the midst of the financial crisis. The agency leaders communicated the importance of employee engagement, held regular town hall meetings and conference calls with employees to open lines of communication, and invested in training for front-line employees while also investing in their own continuous learning as leaders. In an effort to develop new ideas over time, they appointed a manager to coordinate cultural change initiatives and created a culture change council with responsibility for proposing workplace improvements.
• OPM – To improve employee engagement, OPM’s top leaders made it clear that the agency’s senior executives, human resource leaders and office supervisors would be held accountable for their survey results. Teams analyzed their survey data and came up with plans to address problem areas. In addition, OPM’s Director John Berry convened free-flowing town hall meetings every month to solicit employees’ ideas from across the agency. In response, OPM increased its investment in employee training and the use of telework. It revamped employee awards programs, making the process more open and employee driven. In addition, OPM instituted Idea Factory – an innovation process and tool developed with much success by the Transportation Security Administration to provide an ongoing forum for employee-driven ideas about improving the agency.
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) – PTO Director Dave Kappos made workplace improvements a top priority. The PTO reengineered the patent examination system with input from employees, the union, managers and stakeholders to increase productivity. It initiated a series of training programs. One helped patent examiners better understand new technologies. Other programs focused on developing leaders – starting with top managers – all of whom must create executive development plans and chart their progress against those plans.
• Department of Treasury – Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) – While the Treasury launched several department-wide initiatives to improve performance, there were particular bright spots in components like the BEP. Department-wide, Treasury began embedding workplace goals into all of the senior leaders’ performance plans. In addition to those efforts, the BEP went a step farther when senior executives launched a “Walking in Your Shoes” program that involves spending a day doing line work in the printing plants to better understand the nature and stresses of the jobs, and to get suggestions on ways to improve the workplace.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 16, 2011 at 9:25 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Worried about your agency's Best Places to Work rankings? Here's how to prepare

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

On Wednesday, my organization – the Partnership for Public Service – will be releasing our 2011 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings.

Of course, word that the rankings will be made public usually sparks one of two reactions among federal leaders: excitement from those who have excelled in the past and expect another round of great returns, or dread at the thought of being listed at, or near, the bottom yet again.

The Best Places to Work rankings measure federal employee satisfaction and commitment and are based on responses from more than 276,000 federal workers. The 2011 rankings include 308 federal agencies and subcomponents – representing 97 percent of the 2.1 million person federal workforce. Scores and rankings are revealed for all agencies and subcomponents, from first to worst. The rankings provide a roadmap for agency leaders to build a more committed workforce and, ultimately, more effective agencies.

Whether your agency is succeeding or struggling around issues of employee satisfaction and commitment, what matters now is your response to the results.

While agencies are understandably hesitant about doing too much work until they see the rankings and underlying data, previous experience shows that those who respond quickly and decisively enjoy improved results. Based on my observations, here are a few things you should consider doing to best prepare.

• Analyze your data, including unlikely data points.Start by checking out your agency’s ranking, which measures overall employee job satisfaction and commitment, and then take a look at other issues around senior leadership, supervisors, work-life balance, sense of empowerment, and opportunities for training and development. In addition, I would suggest you look at your agency’s overall response rate and your employees’ answer to the question: “I believe the results of this survey will be used to make my agency a better place to work.” If your results on either one are lower than average or on the decline, this is a red flag.
• Celebrate your success and admit your mistakes. At every level of an agency, the leaders need to directly address the results. Everyone will see the rankings, so why not begin the dialogue with a frank message to employees from the top of the house? The message should touch on the positive signs from the rankings and reinforce the policies and programs in place that may be the reason for the progress. It is important to be honest about addressing the poor performing areas and commit to making things better. Those who run and hide or rationalize their poor results will certainly achieve similar or worse outcomes next year.
• Engage the front lines to solve your problems. Use town halls, action-planning workshops and innovation/employee suggestion programs to collect ideas. Then take this feedback to develop a set of next steps, get stakeholder buy-in and set expectations for change. Even agencies with high rankings need to maintain the goodwill and improve. Just be sure to communicate the plan of action to your employees as soon as possible.
• Make it happen! Follow through on your promises by being transparent with employees and take responsibility when you cannot take action on an idea. Given the current operating environment, you’ll undoubtedly need to maintain maximum flexibility. Your employees will be forgiving if you keep up with the communication and you trust them with the truth.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 14, 2011 at 8:02 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Honoring Veterans Day with leadership lessons from the military

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Veterans’ Day holds special significance for me because my dad served in post-World War II Germany with the Army and my uncle died in combat during World War II.

Whether or not you or your family have a personal experience serving in the military, all of us should stop to thank our nation’s veterans this Friday.

Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I thought it would be timely to share some lessons learned from our best military leaders and how they can be applied to the civilian side of our federal government.

In part, these lessons come from the insights and experiences of such military leaders as Eric Shinseki, a former general and now secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs; Ret. Gen. Colin Powell; former Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen; Ret. Gen and now CIA director David Petraeus; Ret. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf; and the late Gen. George S. Patton.

• Build teamwork above all else.
• Create a clear vision for your team and stay focused on the goal at hand.
• Lead from the front and take personal responsibility for the success or the failure of your team.
• Never put yourself before your team.
• Have the back of your employees. Defend them publicly, and if you have a problem with an employee’s performance, deal with the issue privately.
• Stay ahead of the competition.
• Learn to take risks.
• Have a “can do” attitude. Find ways to work around obstacles that may get in the way of achieving your mission.
• Be a continuous learner. Create a personal development plan and seek out opportunities for professional growth.
• Find a mentor.

If I’ve learned anything from friends and family serving in the military, though, it’s that laughter can help alleviate the burdens that come with such significant responsibility. My dad’s stories from serving overseas always remind me that you can still have fun while working hard.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 11, 2011 at 10:01 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: With the Chesapeake Bay, solving a complex leadership problem

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Katherine Antos is a water-quality team leader in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Chesapeake Bay Program Office, where she led the creation and evaluation of state plans to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest estuary, and one of the planet's first identified "marine dead zones." She previously worked for a private environmental consulting firm and for non-governmental organizations that work on land conservation and nature conservation issues. Antos was a 2011 Service to America Medal finalist in the Call to Service category. Tom Fox, author of the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog, conducted the interview.

What aspects of this project appeal to you?

Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay is a complex problem, and that really appeals to me because I honestly love problem-solving. I enjoy working on water-quality issues because water flows through communities and creates a sense of place. It’s also a basic need, in terms of ensuring public health and providing recreation opportunities. The most exciting aspect of working on a high-profile, complex project with many partners was that it brought together people who are leaders in their field, including scientists, decision-makers, practitioners and lawyers, for one common goal: creating a rigorous and accountable strategy for reducing pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay.

How do leadership skills come into play when working with states, especially if there is resistance from those who will be affected?

Much of the work the federal government does relies on effective partnerships, and cleaning up the river and streams that flow into the Chesapeake Bay is no exception. Six states and the District of Columbia make up the 64,000 square miles that drain into the bay, so it’s important we’re working closely with all of them. The good news is that every state in the Chesapeake watershed wants clean water, and they’re willing to work for it. That makes it easy, and personally inspiring, to work closely with these teams of federal and state agencies.

Leadership involves recognizing that each state has its own strengths, priorities and needs. We have to set clear expectations of what needs to be done, how much pollution needs to be reduced and what are the elements of a credible clean-up strategy. Then we give the states and the District of Columbia the space to tailor their own clean-up strategies, based on their unique opportunities and challenges.

How do you work with the folks who may be lagging?

It involves clearly explaining what will happen if goals are not achieved. These partners have to know there are no surprises and we’re honest brokers. I was speaking with about a hundred storm water managers and local government employees a couple of months ago, who asked to meet with me because they didn’t fully understand what EPA was asking for. They had been hearing a lot of information third hand.

I explained how much pollution needed to be reduced and provided them with different ideas on how to work together to achieve the reductions. Once they understood what needed to be done, they were quick to jump in and suggest ideas for tailoring strategies in their communities that would also lower costs, reduce flooding and protect their local waterways. They became enthusiastic partners who felt empowered to clean up the Bay in a better way.

How do you communicate with stakeholders to make sure things are moving in the right direction?

It never makes sense to wait until there is a crisis. It’s important to have frequent communication at many levels. I hold forums with our states and local partners in a way that interested members of the public can participate. I also create opportunities where we can have conference calls for states to bounce ideas off EPA as a group. It’s important to establish an element of trust and truly listen to partners that are reaching out, even when we might disagree. I try to put myself in their shoes to see what challenges they’re facing and what objectives they need to accomplish. Just as importantly, I work with the senior management in my agency and help them reach out regularly to their senior manager counterparts in the states so we have conversations at multiple levels. I can be the air traffic controller with all those communications happening rather than do it myself.

What influenced you to contribute to this field?

I rowed on my crew team in college. Seeing the red flags that would go up after any substantial rainfall, I learned that when it rained a certain amount of raw sewage was flowing into the river where I rowed. Water splashed in my face for three hours a day, eight months a year. It sent one of my teammates to the hospital with a staph infection. Experiencing that first hand got me interested in ensuring that the public had access to clean and safe water.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 10, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Inside President Obama's West Wing

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Chris Lu is assistant to the president and White House Cabinet Secretary. Prior to serving in the White House, he worked for then-Senator Obama as legislative director and acting chief of staff, and consequently served as executive director of the presidential transition. He previously worked as deputy chief counsel for a House committee and as a litigation attorney at a D.C. law firm. This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, author of the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

How do you motivate and engage your staff?

I believe in sharing as much information as possible with my staff. I don’t think they can do their jobs effectively if they don’t know the larger picture. Every morning, I hold a meeting with my entire staff and our interns so they know what I’m working on and what their colleagues are working on. That way, they will clearly know the game plan for the day and the week.

I also strongly believe you can never say “thank you” enough. There’s a tendency in politics to think that folks are jaded and that thanking them isn’t necessary. Even in a competitive, highly charged environment like the White House, just showing people that you appreciate their work goes a long way. And of course, keeping your staff well fed is never a bad thing. I try to bring doughnuts to the office every now and then.

What leadership lessons did you learn as Barack Obama’s legislative director and acting chief in the Senate, and now as the White House Cabinet Secretary?

I learned in the Senate that I couldn’t be an expert on everything, so the key is to hire good people, set clear expectations and goals, and then trust them to do their jobs. I’m available for my staff as they have questions, but I don’t micromanage what they do.

The second point is to always make sure I have their backs. When former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel offered me my job right after election day, he told me, “I might chew you out in private, but I’ll always have your back in public.” That meant a lot to me. And that’s something the president believes in, as does our current Chief of Staff Bill Daley. I try to follow the same principle with my staff.

What skills and qualities do you look for in the people that you hire?

I need people who pay attention to details. If you don’t do the little things well, you’re probably not going to do the big things well. I look for people who can multi-task. Our office often serves as the traffic cop on issues that go back and forth between the White House and the agencies. I prefer people who can juggle multiple projects and prioritize, and more importantly, people who can sort out the issues that need to be elevated to me and others in the West Wing. I also look for people who are aggressive and entrepreneurial, and who are willing to think outside the box. The pace in the White House is fast, so we need people who can get things done.

What advice do you give to new political appointees?

I tell new appointees that you can’t be successful as a political appointee unless you collaborate with career staff. Career federal personnel have institutional knowledge and wisdom. They are deeply committed to the missions of their agencies. They know how to get things done.

But I also tell political appointees to remember that they are appointees of President Obama and the Secretary of their agency. The job of an appointee is to advocate for the changes and reforms that further the administration’s broader goals. Change, quite frankly, isn’t always easy. On occasion, that means you’re going to encounter resistance from career staff. When that happens, you need to push the envelope. You can’t accept no for an answer. You can’t accept business as usual.

The last piece of advice I’d give to them is to be nice and respectful to everyone, regardless of someone else’s position in the organization. You never know who you’re going to need to help you out in a pinch. And in politics, you never know who’s going to be your boss one day.

Were there any critical events that helped you become a leader?

My upbringing shaped who I am as a person and how I approach my work. My parents both came to this country as immigrants. They didn’t have a lot of money. They didn’t know much English. It’s amazing to think that in one generation, their son is now working in the West Wing. Given where my family started, I never take for granted where I am in my life professionally, and I never forget how lucky I am to be where I am.

In terms of leadership, observing and working with the president for the last seven years has been the best training to be a leader. Watching the way he inspires all of us in the White House and the country as a whole, it makes you realize that no matter how good a leader you think you are, there’s still a long way to go.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Nov 02, 2011 at 10:22 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Leading on the dotted line

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

In September, I held an online training for GovLoop members around the three key secrets for rising up to the challenge of leadership. For today’s column, I wanted to share a question from a participant of this training.

Do you have the same recommendations for dotted-line managers—for people who must pull together different teams, perhaps from different offices or agencies, depending on the issue at hand?

Solid-line management refers to a clear chain-of-command based on organizational structures. Dotted-line management, on the other hand, applies to organizations that supplement a traditional chain-of-command with reporting structures based on collaboration around shared functional expertise, special projects or other circumstances.

We’re all dotted-line managers to some extent. While positions and titles offer some authority, the best leaders understand that success depends on building relationships and understanding agency culture and politics when working with people from different areas who have other supervisors for many day-to-day activities.

Here are a few ideas to help assess your current success pulling different teams together while also identifying some concrete next steps to become an even stronger leader.

· Take stock of your solid and dotted lines. If you’re a dotted-line manager, it can be difficult to keep track of your various relationships across your agency. I recommend keeping a list, drawing a chart, or perhaps even putting together an internal Facebook of everyone.

· Assess the strength of your relationships. Are you working well with everyone on your diverse team? Do some of your relationships flourish while others languish? Can you identify any patterns or trends that may be affecting those relationships? You’ll only succeed through influence, and influence requires understanding others’ motives, styles and preferences.

· Restart your relationships. A friend who is a certified program manager once said that 90 percent of project management is communication. For dotted-line managers, this may be actually closer to 100 percent. You need to set about building rock-solid relationships with every member of your team. Schedule one-on-one meetings to discuss what’s working and what’s not, and then work with each team member to establish a plan that will help you build a foundation of trust and an even better relationship.

· Don’t neglect team building. Even if all of the members of your team don’t always recognize themselves as teammates, you should find opportunities to reinforce a sense of team and recognize their results. A team lunch to review plans or an email celebrating a job well done can go a long way to establishing a stronger team across the dotted lines.

Dotted-line management is a trend that I see on the rise in every sector.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 28, 2011 at 12:26 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: How to be happy at work

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage and one of the world's leading experts in human potential, has lectured on his research in 48 countries. After more than a decade at Harvard University, Achor founded Good Think Inc. to share this research with organizations worldwide. This interview was conducted by Tom Fox, author of the Washington Post’s Federal Coach blog.

How can leaders create a culture of happiness?

First, take time for yourself. We have the greatest amount of control over our own mindset. Create a positive habit that takes about two minutes a day and do that for 21 days in a row. In trainings we have people journal about one positive experience, writing about every detail they can remember about a positive experience over the past 24 hours. Or meditate, exercise or write a kind letter to a friend. All these habits increase happiness and retrain the brain to get stuck in a positive pattern for evaluating work.

Sometimes managers get so focused on problems they miss seeing successes and finding the meaning in their work. These positive activities change that pattern and return power to the individual. Along with higher levels of happiness, the success rates on your team start to improve, which is where it starts to move from an individual to leadership.

We all work for money, but money only gets us in the room. It doesn’t mean we’re engaged once we’re there. Praise motivates us and improves productivity, but it has to be frequent and specific and based on reality. You can’t say, “I’m happy you work on this team.” It has to be, “I’m so grateful for the work you did on that project, getting it in by 9 o’clock yesterday.” That encourages specific behavior. Some leaders sugarcoat the present and then make bad decisions in the future and that causes people to mistrust positive leaders. We’re trying to create rational optimists, which means you start with a realistic assessment of the present but believe your behavior matters.

What are the characteristics of successful leaders?

Positive leaders do the opposite of what you expect in the midst of their challenges. They invest more in social support networks and spend more time thanking people and having face-to-face conversations with their employees. When I was working with Harvard students, I found many spent 18 hours a day in the library when they got stressed. They’d come out bleary eyed and depressed. Their grades were dropping and they hated Harvard.

I told them they were cutting themselves off from the greatest predictors of happiness and success. Social support is the greatest buffer against depression and predictor of success, according to research I did on 1,600 individuals. Positive leaders also recognize it’s not just intelligence that creates success. Seventy-five percent of employees’ job performance is predicted by three factors: belief that their behavior matters; their social support network at work and at home; and seeing stress as a challenge rather than a threat.

How does happiness lead to better performance?

Positive mindset is the precursor to greater levels of success. If we can raise the levels of positivity in the midst of challenges, we find productivity and engagement rises and creativity triples. Every business outcome improves when an employee feels positive. We started to see that when it wasn’t working. We assumed employees at successful companies would be happy. We thought we could work harder and then we would be successful and happier and that is how we manage, how we see and even how we think in a down economy. We found the formula was backwards. Happiness led to higher success rates, but higher success rates did not necessarily lead to happiness.

How do you know if you’re the right kind of optimist?

If you are only seeing the good things, you’ve got a distorted view of the world. If you recognize both strengths and weaknesses of your team and yourself, you are starting in a rational place. The trouble is when a manager thinks that a person is negative or underperforms and will never change. That can create problems. We’ve found that hospitals that report the greatest number of medical errors have some of the lowest malpractice rates. It’s completely counterintuitive, but the positive leaders created the psychological thinking to bring up problems that could fixed. On teams without the psychological safety, people felt they couldn’t make mistakes or bring up negatives—and problems never got fixed and even got worse.

If you had one more hour a day, how would you use it?

I’d make it completely altruistic. It’s actually selfish. If I wrote emails or called friends, I’d feel like I’m spreading positivity and happiness. When you do kind things for other people, it creates a longer happiness effect than if you do something for yourself. Eating a chocolate bar makes us happy for five minutes. Donating money to charity keeps that cycle of feeling good going because you’re making positive change in the world.

We found that people who gave social support at work and asked friends to lunch or helped someone with their work are far and away the happiest people. They were 40 percent more likely to receive a promotion and had significantly less burnout. The more you give, the more you get in terms of meaning, happiness and success rates.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 26, 2011 at 9:58 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Preparing for what the supercommittee has in store for federal agencies

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often called the Supercommittee, is examining a wide-range of options that could dramatically affect federal employees, such as huge cuts in agency budgets and programs, workforce reductions, extension of the federal employee pay freeze and increased contributions to the retirement system.

As this difficult and tension-filled political process unfolds, many senior leaders across our federal government are busy preparing contingency plans. One leader – Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, the head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) – recently announced that he will furlough employees rather than shutter regional offices or lay off employees as a result of budget cutbacks. Other agencies are already offering buy-outs and beginning the downsizing process.

As a federal manager in this environment, you are faced with a serious challenge: trying to keep your employees focused and motivated despite the changes coming that may affect them personally and programmatically.

While there is no easy way to deal with the pain and difficult choices that lie ahead, it may be a good time to dust off some of those old books – or discover new ones – about leading change.

Three of my favorites on the topic are: Leading Changeby John Kotter; Influencer: The Power to Change Anythingby Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillian and Al Switzler; and Switch: How to Change When Change is Hardby Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

Each book makes for easy, accessible reading, and the Heath brothers have even developed some tools to help readers act on the ideas presented in their book. Here are a few ideas from these books to help you prepare your team for the changes that lie ahead.

· Keep the connection to mission. It can sometimes be hard to keep a line-of-sight between your employees’ work and your agency’s mission when results only become apparent over the long term. Many successful leaders have been able to make a clear and lasting connection to mission through their communication and by setting performance expectations. One of my favorite stories, featured in Influencer, is an anecdote about President Kennedy visiting NASA during the space race and meeting custodial staff. When the president asked one of the custodians about his job, the man replied, “I’m putting a man on the moon.” Given the many challenges confronting our country and your agencies, it’s imperative to remind your employees about the importance of their roles and your agency’s mission.

· Don’t forget about practical matters. In addition to reminding your folks of their mission impact, it’s also important to keep them updated about the situation. Even with all the uncertainty, you can minimize the rumor mill by offering regular updates and maintaining an open-door policy to address individual concerns.

In his book Leading Change, Kotter says that you cannot hold a meeting once and think that everyone’s on board. To help keep your team apprised of the situation, consider dedicating a portion of your regular staff meeting to providing any information you can offer about internal agency planning, as well as a review of legislative activities. You might also consider inviting some of your congressional affairs staff for a brief update. If you’re transparent about what you know and what you don’t know, your team will worry less about might lie ahead.

· Outline the team’s basic direction even before there’s full clarity. It may seem premature, but you should begin laying out the team’s next steps once Congress has made its decisions and your agency begins implementation. A great story from Switch features Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Don Berwick and the incredible work he initiated when he was the president and CEO at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). The IHI challenged hospitals to save 100,000 lives in 18 months by reducing the rate of accidental deaths.

Even as a small nonprofit, they succeeded – in fact exceeded their goals – by making the hospitals a part of the change. To do so, IHI provided hospitals with research, step-by-step instructions and training, as well as networking and mentoring. The lesson learned from this story is that while confronting a still undefined set of changes can be overwhelming, it’s important as a manager to outline some concrete times and venues where your team members can influence and affect your decision making. By doing so, you will help give your employees some measure of control over their futures.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 24, 2011 at 9:18 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Can’t promote someone who deserves it?

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

In September, I held an online training for GovLoop members around the three key secrets for rising up to the challenge of leadership. I received a lot of great questions during the training, and I wanted to share this timely one from a government employee:

How can I inspire a staff person who is angry about not getting a promotion? I know he deserves it, but I have no control over getting an upgrade during these hard fiscal times.

It can be difficult to motivate someone who – whether rightly or wrongly – has been passed over for a promotion. The same is true for motivating your high-performing employees given the possibility of pay freezes and limited, if any, promotions in the foreseeable future.

To start, have an honest conversation with your employee. Begin the conversation by expressing your sincere appreciation for his hard work and results, before going into the reasons underlying the decision not to promote him.

Next, provide your employee with the reasons why he may have been passed over for a promotion. Was it due to fiscal constraints? Are there things – despite his high performance – that he still needs to work on that surfaced during your panel conversations with other senior leaders? By providing him with an understanding of the circumstances, you will allow him not only a chance to vent his frustrations but also a chance to be proactive about working to achieve the goals established by you and the other senior leaders when making these promotion decisions.

Before wrapping up the conversation, let him know that, while promotion decisions are made by the organization, you want to find other creative ways of rewarding him to help sustain his performance and cultivate ongoing professional development.

Ask this employee if you can help him find a senior leader mentor in your agency. Or, identify a conference or other training opportunity. You might also consider offering him more flexibility on the job.

As you talk with your employee about what motivates him beyond the promotion, make every effort to find at least one positive step you can take to demonstrate your commitment and appreciation. Of course, you then need to follow through.

And remember, as a supervisor, it’s your job to be your employee’s advocate 24/7, not just during the performance cycle. Even in these hard economic times, the best folks can always find other opportunities. As a result, try engaging your senior leaders in a conversation around your concerns and solicit their ideas about motivating and retaining your very best folks.

I also wanted to share the following comment from a retired federal employee in response to my column on poor performers.

“My conclusion is in agreement with the title of Wednesday's column – the objective must be to get the most out of all employees – but I have concluded that in our system it has become more cost-effective to figure out a way to work around poor performers. A more effective approach to getting the most out of poor performers might be to figure out how to give these square pegs something within their capabilities and motivation, rather than trying to fit square pegs into round holes or trying to get rid of the square pegs. I was once skeptical of the advice of a former boss who counseled that, in government, you are not often given the choice of who works for you and the challenge is not to get them to do what you want, it’s to find the job that they can do and get them to do it well. Reflecting on my subsequent experience, he had a point. If only all government managers had the luxury of managing that way.

This is an inexhaustible subject but I’ll just stop here wishing I had time to articulate some of this more clearly. Thanks for focusing on the issues facing our workforce. It will never be perfectly efficient but we need good people to hang in there.”

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 21, 2011 at 9:56 AM2 comments

Federal Coach: Poor performers — Dealing with performance issues in federal government

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

In the newest season of NBC’s The Office, Andy Bernard – self-admittedly the worst paper salesman at Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton branch – has been promoted to office manager.

As a fan of the show, I find his unorthodox management style pretty hilarious. To motivate the crew and impress his superiors, Andy recently promised the employees that they could tattoo whatever they wanted on his derriere if they met brand new and extremely high company sales goals. The tactic was a huge success, with even the primary office slacker and the most disgruntled employee jumping on the bandwagon.

In real life, no executive would expect a supervisor to go to such an extreme or sanction this type of management approach. But senior leaders are expected to motivate their employees and they are also expected to take action when employees are not doing their jobs and efforts to bring about change fail.

In the federal workplace, unfortunately, employees believe that their leaders too often turn a blind eye to those who are not meeting basic performance standards, and that is no laughing matter. According to the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data just released, only 30 percent of federal employees believe that their leaders take steps to deal with poor performers.

It’s a supervisor’s responsibility to take action regarding poor performers – both as a team leader and as a steward of taxpayer dollars – even as difficult and cumbersome as the process may be. The percentage of poor performers in the federal government is small, but they have a disproportionately large and negative impact on an organization if unaddressed.

Many of the federal leaders I come into contact with accept responsibility, and also acknowledge that they should do more but say they need more support from their senior leaders and human resources. They add that they have tried to do the right thing around dealing with poor performers but have not been supported. As result, they’re left scarred by the experience even when they prevail.

To help federal managers deal with poor performers effectively, here are a few ideas for senior leaders on how to best support their subordinate supervisors in this effort:

• Let employees know help is available for individuals with performance issues. The first goal in dealing with poor performance is not to remove employees but to help them be successful in the job. It should be clear to all employees that help is available if needed to perform well. It should be equally clear, however, that if ultimately an employee cannot or will not perform at an acceptable level, they cannot remain in the job.
• Tell your supervisors, “I’ve got your back. Tell me what you need.” As a senior federal leader, if you want to effectively address the issue of poor performers once and for all, you need to understand your supervisors’ challenges. Is there a knowledge gap on the part of the supervisor? Is it a fear of complaints or lawsuits? Is it about time constraints? Do they need help from HR or the General Counsel’s office? Find out what types of situations and obstacles they are facing, and provide them with support.
• Educate your supervisors on the process. Even experienced federal managers can find the process of dealing with a poor performer difficult to understand. Take time and resources to bust the myths that circulate in every agency. Give your supervisors concrete knowledge and practical tools that they can use throughout the process. Provide access to subject matter experts and/or other leaders who’ve successfully dealt with poor performers and can share their experience and stories.
• Be ready to step in with direct support. There’s a difference between words and actions, and you need to support your supervisors in taking action. Find the very best experts on dealing with performance issues in your agency and staff who have a reputation for providing concrete assistance to line managers. If needed, bring them together as a SWAT team dedicated to helping your supervisors deal with performance issues. You might also dedicate an email address and a voicemail line that they can contact 24/7, and ensure that they will begin receiving assistance within the next business day. This approach will send a clear signal to your supervisors that their agency’s senior leadership is taking the matter of poor performers seriously.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 17, 2011 at 9:15 AM6 comments

Federal Coach: Jacqueline Berrien on leading the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Jacqueline A. Berrien has been the chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) since April 2010. A Harvard Law School graduate, Berrien practiced civil rights law for many years, assisted underrepresented groups as a program officer for the Ford Foundation, and came to the EEOC from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she served as associate director-counsel.

How do you keep your employees engaged and motivated?

One of my favorite books on leadership is The Mentor Leader , by former football coach Tony Dungy, that takes the position that the best leaders are always thinking about how to develop the best in others and how that is contagious. As you invest in others and their development, they are more likely to invest in others around them and that’s what builds really strong teams.

I also try to make a connection between the origin of this agency and its mission. For me, that is a tremendous motivating force. I recognize the EEOC was born in the civil rights movement. I was also born in the civil rights movement. In many ways, I gauge the work of the agency and its contributions not just in an abstract way, but in a very personal way. I believe my life today is different because an agency like this was created and because the civil rights movement was launched to create it.

What do you see as your primary goal at the EEOC?

The ultimate measure of our work is a very long-term measure. Will the workplace be more inclusive and discrimination less common when my children, my godchildren, or my nieces and nephews enter it? It is the kind of long view that is responsible for the fact that my education, my career, my life opportunities, and chances and choices were all better and more expansive that those of my parents and grandparents. The essence of the work of advancing and protecting civil rights in this country is very much something where our ultimate success will manifest in decades. It will be measured by how different life is for someone who is a child today.

Do you have advice about managing an agency with many locations outside of Washington?

In my first year and few months here, I have visited almost half of our 53 offices. My goal is to visit them all during my tenure. The work being done across the country is just as important to the agency and the ability to serve the public as the work done in headquarters. I think it is important that they hear and see the leader of the agency, not only the Charlie’s Angels voice on the other end.

That said, obviously budget constraints and scheduling make it difficult to spend as much time as one might want, so technology is important and we make as much use of it as we can. It’s not unusual for me to have a meeting with senior staff in the headquarters and have on the phone the leadership of our field offices as well. I am committed to trying to continue to do that, because I think there is a benefit in having all of our leaders hear the same things at the same time from me directly.

What leadership lessons did you derive from your experience at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund?

I learned from a very experienced lawyer at the Fund who was known for being a tremendous lawyer and teacher. He believed that you can learn something from everybody and it’s important to never stop learning. Even though he had decades of legal experience, he was receptive to the ideas of legal interns who were still in school. He was widely recognized as just having this incredible depth and knowledge of civil rights and yet he didn’t think he had all the answers.

Can you identify a critical event that contributed to helping you become a better leader?

I started studying music when I was a child. Eventually I went from piano lessons and emphasis on solo performance to playing and studying flute and singing in ensemble. After a long hiatus from music, I came back to join the church choir about eight years ago and what I realized over time is that, in music, even the best soloist is not able to stand alone. There is an ensemble accompanying them or there is an individual accompanying the soloist and then there’s a conductor. I really think there are a lot of analogies and lessons that apply to leading an organization, to leading a team.

Music taught me the importance of striking a balance between being a soloist and being part of an ensemble. It taught me the importance of the conductor being knowledgeable but using that knowledge to lead others to their best collective product. It taught me to fully appreciate diversity, because at this point in my life, I appreciate just about every kind of music and it has to do with listening to all kinds of music. It made me comfortable with being in front of the room for solo performances and the beauty of working together well. I think there are a lot of lessons I learned from being a part of music ensembles and learning how to work with other people in that way.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 12, 2011 at 9:36 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Robert Reich on bringing tenacity to public leadership

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Robert Reich is a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Under his leadership, the Department of Labor won more than 30 awards for innovation. He has written 12 books, numerous articles for national magazines and newspapers, and provided commentary for public radio.

What leadership lessons did you learn during your tenure as the secretary of labor?

There is a difference between leadership and formal authority. Many people have formal positions of authority, but do not exert leadership. A Cabinet officer has a lot of formal authority, but can only exert leadership indirectly, usually through working with Congress, other Cabinet officers, White House staff, and countless organizations in the private and non-profit sectors, as well as, of course, with career civil servants.

In your position, you were focused on policy and management responsibilities. How did you deal with the management issues?

I hired first-rate assistant secretaries and deputy assistant secretaries and located the very best and most experienced career professionals. Then I relied on all of them.

How did you identify the best career executives and how did you go about working with them?

I interviewed many people in the department to get their assessment of which career people were the very best. I made a few adjustments; but by and large, the top career people who were already in leadership positions proved to be exceptionally good. When they had major victories, we celebrated those victories. I also held meetings with almost all of the career people seeking their ideas — and when a good idea emerged at those meetings, I had the deputy secretary with me and on many occasions we decided to implement those ideas on the spot. We gave the career people visible, palpable proof that we were not only listening to them, but we were eager for their ideas.

Agencies are likely to undergo significant downsizing. What advice do you have for federal leaders given your experience in the 1990s?

We downsized considerably from 16,000 to 14,000 at the Department of Labor, but we did it without any layoffs. We did it primarily through attrition and some buy-outs. Lay-offs have a demoralizing effect on employees. Secondly, it’s important to give people an adequate understanding of the goals. I spent a lot of time, as did the deputy secretary, communicating with career employees about what we were doing and why we were doing it. Our budget was being cut. We had to do much more with less. That was something that the career employees participated in. They came up with many of the ideas. They were on the front lines. They were the ones that knew best where there is waste and where there are opportunities.

Do you encourage your students to consider government service?

College students are deeply committed to public service. The problem is that too many of them look at politics and at the federal government and recoil. I encourage them to enter politics and to think seriously about a career in the civil service. I try to explain to them how it’s possible to make a huge difference in this country with enough energy and tenacity. The biggest enemy we have right now is cynicism about government. I try to encourage them to get over their cynicism and understand that without an effective federal government, we can’t possibly have a good and just society.

Can you give examples you draw on to demonstrate what’s possible?

One simple example came in 1996 when many at the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division thought it was important to increase the minimum wage. I took the evidence to the president and to Congress. In 1996, Republicans were in control of the House and the Senate. We were victorious. We raised the minimum wage, and 30 million people got a pay raise. I remember coming back to the Department of Labor and there were hundreds of career people who had worked so long on the issue who felt validated. Similarly, this happened with the Family Medical Leave Act. Many in the department had been working on it many years. We got it passed and, here again, people felt that their work was justified and that their work had a positive influence on people’s lives — and it has.

Looking back over your life, what has most influenced your work?

I do think back to my growing up. I was always very short for my age and always bullied by kids who were tougher and stronger and bigger. That led me to make alliances with other kids who would help me ward off the bullies. One of those kinder, older friends was named Michael Schwerner. In the summer of 1964, Michael was murdered along with two other civil rights workers for trying to register voters in Mississippi. I think that event more than anything else caused me to want to protect people with little power from being bullied by people with lots of it.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 07, 2011 at 8:55 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Looking to grow as a leader? Then look to the past

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

No time has been more turbulent for leaders than the present. At least that’s what we like to think.

Even a superficial review of our nation’s history, however, will show that we’ve encountered plenty of tough times. For developing leaders – often eager to move forward quickly – it’s important to slow down and study our history to avoid committing the sins of the past.

For example, my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, examined the lessons learned from the Battle of Antietam as a part of our Excellence in Government Fellows program.

Now even your most difficult day at work cannot compare to what’s considered the bloodiest single day in American history. About this time of year, nearly 150 years ago, some 4,000 Americans lost their lives and another 18,000 were wounded in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Now we may not have to worry about cannons and muskets as much as we worry about emails and stock markets, but many of the lessons still apply.

· Especially in times of crisis, put your people first. Robert E. Lee, leading his army of Northern Virginia, assumed that his forces would be motivated to invade Maryland and that as many as 20,000 sympathetic Marylanders would join the cause. He was wrong. Many of Lee’s troops refused to invade. Previously, they were defending their states, not attacking others. Only about 200 Marylanders joined his side of the fight. As developing leaders, you need to be as concerned about others’ goals as much as your own. Take the time to understand how you might help your direct reports, peers and your supervisor, and you’re all more likely to enjoy success.

· Communicate individually and with your team as a whole. Lee’s counterpart in the Battle of Antietam was George McClellan. As part of his strategy, he set up the headquarters of the Union Army more than a mile away from the action. While he issued orders to each of his subordinate commanders for their individual units, he failed to communicate the big picture. As a result, their efforts were uncoordinated and McClellan was unable to respond to the changing circumstances quickly. As leaders, even developing leaders, you must be able to draw a clear line of site between you, your team’s efforts and the agency’s mission. Plus, you need to listen to your colleagues on the front lines to learn how you need to adapt.

· Don’t worry about winning every battle, worry about the war. The Battle of Antietam was a draw – McClellan failed to fully defeat Lee and Lee withdrew back to Virginia. Although this was no victory for the Union, it was enough for President Abraham Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation and abolish slavery. Those actions discouraged the French and English from providing aide to the Confederacy. Even as you lost some “battles” while working on a project or leading your team, try to see beyond the immediate consequences of your actions and focus on the big-picture results. Set your team’s expectations accordingly so they don’t feel like every set-back is defeat. It’s just part of the journey.

Using history as a guide, you may find yourself developing new ideas and applying the lessons learned in unexpected ways.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Oct 06, 2011 at 6:53 PM1 comments

Federal Coach: Alfonso Batres: A leadership veteran

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Alfonso Batres has spent nearly three decades working with the community-based Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Readjustment Counseling Vet Centers, starting in the field offices and heading the national program since 1994. The program, which provides counseling, family services, job assistance, medical and benefit referrals, has expanded from 200 to 300 centers in the last six years, and added 50 mobile units to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of combat veterans. Batres is the 2011 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals Career Achievement medal recipient.

What is your approach to helping combat veterans and their families?

Vet Centers provide a safe confidential environment where combat veterans and their families can receive prompt professional services. Many of our Vet Center staff are veterans themselves and understand and appreciate the veteran’s service to country. We are the main access point for many veterans to overcome the barriers that stigma and bureaucracy can present. We also will travel to where the veterans are and provide outreach in or near their communities. We understand what the veterans have gone through and offer veteran centric care in a personal fashion in a cost effective fashion.

How do you continue to learn as a leader?

Staying in touch with the challenges that veterans and their families face is critical. Listening to what the veterans say is critical, so I learn from the veterans that I serve. I review the literature on research effecting veterans and have an adjunct appointment at the Medical School at Bethesda for the military. I am a strong believer in education and see that as a life long journey.

Is there one particular story about a veteran that has stayed with you?

When I worked at the regional office in Denver, I got a phone call on a Saturday morning from a police department about 90 miles away. They had an emergent case of a jailed veteran who was being combative and asking the police officers to shoot him. I got in a vehicle and drove up to the rural area and met with the police officer, who was a Vietnam vet. He filled me in on the case, walked in and met the veteran who was totally despondent because he had lost his wife and his house. I worked with him and to let him know that I was there to help him, as well as with the police officers who were doing their best to assist him. The officers allowed me to drive him back to Denver to admit him to the VA psychiatric facility where they could help him decompress and deal with the alcohol problems and the anger in a structured support setting.

The veteran was cold and shaking as we were processing him into the VA hospital, and he asked if he could have a cigarette. I told him that I could not buy them for him but would give him a few dollars so he could and he did. After his care, the local Vet Center transported him back to his home via contributions by a Veterans Service Organization. He met one of our Vet Center employees there and began the process of recovery. A few years later he wrote back to me thanking the Vet Center for saving his life and included the money I gave him for cigarettes.

What is approach do you take toward your employees at the Vet Centers?

We are the gold standard in employee satisfaction. We are also the gold standard in client satisfaction. I became very interested in that fact that if you really want to provide quality care to veterans, than you better have a top notch, happy, satisfied staff that is well-trained and well-organized. I think that has helped me a lot to make the organization work more effectively. It’s a work group that is very close and tied into the mission, and we promote the kinds of things that facilitate a good organization. In the survey, we’re ranked high on everything except bureaucracy. So that to me is an ideal profile for an organization. We also provide opportunities for employees to go and learn more about their skills and leadership and things like that.

Who has provided you with inspiration and ideas?

I had a professor named O.J. Harvey at the University of Colorado when I was doing my doctoral work. He actually took time to sit down with me and personally discuss ideas and help me translate my military and growing up experience, and re-enforce my dad’s lesson of education as being the way out. He believed in me and gave me the time to develop into a good psychologist and person, which has had a great impact on me. I also have personally inspired Senator Max Cleland from Georgia, who is currently the Secretary of the Battle and Monuments Commission. He is a great leader, a national hero, and an inspiration for all veterans in this country.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Sep 28, 2011 at 12:44 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Mission impossible? Not for some federal leaders

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Later this year, Tom Cruise will be starring in his fourth Mission: Impossible movie about a fictional federal agent saving the world from all sorts of extraordinary threats.

While I love an action movie as much as the next guy, the real-life federal employees tackling our country’s seemingly impossible missions are deserving of their own Hollywood blockbuster.

Some of you reading this column may think I’m joking, but anyone who attended the tenth annual Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals (Sammies) last week, an event hosted by my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, understands exactly what I mean.

The award winners included a U.S. Geological Service (USGS) scientist who helped stop one of our country’s worst environmental disasters just when all seemed lost. There was a young fed who helped disrupt narcotics traffickers from funneling illicit cash from Mexican to U. S. banks, and a physician who is saving the lives of people suffering from disease so rare they don’t even have names.

Given all of the bad news confronting our federal government this year, it’s worth celebrating the work of these public servants and looking to their stories as a source of inspiration.

While the accomplishments were significant, the nine winners and the 25 award finalists almost to a person talked about their work as being part of a group effort. In some cases, it was an agency team responsible for the accomplishment. In other instances, it was cross-agency collaboration or work with foreign and private sector partners that made the difference.

As we look to improve government performance and do more with less in this increasingly complex and interconnected world, improving collaboration within agencies, and building relationships across government, across the globe and with the private sector will be more important than ever.

Paul A. Hsieh, the winner of the federal employee of the year award, Hsieh provided critical scientific information to convince federal officials that the containment cap on a ruptured Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was working, thereby helping end the environmental disaster. But Hsieh worked for weeks with a USGS team of experienced scientists in Houston and was part of much a larger federal effort.

Twenty-nine year old award winner Ann Martin not only had a team at her side from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in Washington, but she worked closely with counterparts sin Mexico to study cross-border currency flows to disrupt the laundering of billions of dollars derived from illicit U.S. drug sales. The work would have meant little without the cooperation of the Mexican officials.

William A. Gahl, the founding director of the Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the National Institutes of Health, has saved patient lives and solved medical mysteries that have eluded diagnosis. But Gahl has not done it alone. He brings together a unique combination of elite medical specialists, researchers and federal resources to assist the patients

Brian Nilsson, part of the White House National Security Council staff, brought together key players from the Departments of Commerce, Treasury and State to begin reforming an outmoded and ineffective export control system.

At the Department of Justice, Charles Heurich created an innovative database that allows law enforcement, families and others to share information and potentially solve missing and unidentified person cases nationwide. Heurich worked with a team in Washington and a private contractor, but also had to gain cooperation and input from law enforcement and other officials from across the country to get the job done.

The lesson from these stories is rather straightforward. Each of these federal employees exhibited strong leadership qualities and was innovative. But they also needed and embraced their team members, and many found constructive ways to work with others outside their own agencies to accomplish their goals.

As Heurich said, “Leadership involves creating an environment where people are comfortable working together to meet a common goal.” A simple thought, but not always easily achieved.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Sep 21, 2011 at 8:59 AM1 comments

Federal Coach: Young and in government

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

How can young leaders provide more support to their agencies without being in senior-level management positions? -Federal Supervisors (GS-14), Environmental Protection Agency

This question reflects the can-do attitude and energetic approach that we need in government.

Here’s the good news. Smart, senior leaders will be looking for people like you given the ever-expanding mission demands, the decreasing budgets and the increasing pace of change.

Here’s the challenge. How do you make the connection with senior leaders?

There is no single answer, but there are several efforts you can take.

First, I would recommend that you think about the interests and the talents you might bring to solving any problem. Are you interested in finding new, less costly ways of performing your agency’s work? Do you want to help your senior leaders make smart cuts? Do you have any experience in process improvement and reengineering? Have you done budgeting in your agency, other agencies or other organizations?

Next, you should have a conversation with your direct supervisor about your interest and ideas in supporting the agency right now. Your supervisor should be aware of any ongoing or planned efforts to address agency challenges, and can outline those efforts for you and make some suggestions for outreach to different executives or agency working groups. Your supervisor also might have some ideas for things you can do to support the team.

If that conversation proves fruitful, I recommend that you follow up on your supervisor’s suggestions as soon as possible, while still meeting your current obligations. If that conversation doesn’t turn out like you and I hope, there’s at least one more thing you might consider.

I would recommend you activate your network within the agency. Too often, folks are reticent to share their interests and ideas. I’d suggest grabbing coffee or lunch with a few close colleagues in other parts of the agency to talk about the current environment and ideas for supporting the agency right now. Close friends should offer a safe space where you can test whether you’re crazy. During the conversation, you could also learn about other agency initiatives you may know nothing about or even generate completely new ideas.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Sep 20, 2011 at 9:40 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: The FDA’s Dr. Lawrence Deyton on the tests of leadership

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Dr. Lawrence Deyton is director of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products. In his long public service career, Deyton established community programs for clinical research on AIDS at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) where he was chief public health officer and oversaw VA programs aimed at HIV, hepatitis C, bioterrorism, military environmental exposure, women veterans health tobacco use and employee occupational health. He is a 2011 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals finalist in the Career Achievement category.

You have been at the forefront of tackling some significant and difficult issues. When have you really seen your leadership skills tested?

One thing that comes to mind was back early in the HIV era. I was at the National Institutes of Health. We were just beginning the early HIV clinical research. We were learning a lot, but not fast enough. People were dying, and we didn't have the knowledge or the medicines to effectively treat HIV infection. We were just beginning to test the first antiviral drugs, and people living with HIV and their advocates were upset because they weren’t hearing as much as they wanted to hear from NIH or from government. There were demonstrations at FDA, at NIH, downtown on the National Mall. During one of those demonstrations, an effigy of me was burned. Yes, a straw figure with my name was hoisted in the air and set on fire. That was hard because we were trying so hard to get answers, but the answers weren’t there yet.

What that made me and a lot of us realize is that we could do better at communicating. We could do better talking to people who had good reason to know what we were doing, what we knew and what we didn’t know. We had to take a hard look at how we involved patients in clinical research and ask, “How can we do better here?” I think that led to extraordinary changes at NIH in terms of how we communicate with and involve people affected by diseases in the research on those diseases. I think NIH today is a better place for some of those early demonstrations and early realizations by the research community. We now do a better job at asking for advice and bringing patients into the decision-making. I thank the activists who had the courage to make those very bold statements. They were scared, rightfully so, and we needed to listen to them more carefully.

How do you find committed employees and build a productive, cohesive work environment?

In my experience, when you have a clear and compelling mission, there are usually more people who want to contribute than you need. So the key is choosing the people who both have the right skills but, as importantly, people who fit together to create the right culture inside an organization. It means choosing people who will contribute to both the work and the culture of engagement and collaboration. In my experience these are usually people you want to spend time with, people who want to spend time with each other and to particularly learn from each other. I have seen over and over the power in diversity – bringing in people who have a commitment to the mission of the organization, but also diverse enough so the organization’s culture gets expanded and broadened.

What do you do to keep folks on an even keel in the midst of change?

I think being very transparent and very open and honest will help people feel trust and safe in the midst of change. It’s okay to be confused sometimes. And it’s particularly okay to express your confusion, as long as you commit to exploring what that confusion is about so you can resolve it and move on. I think part of that is creating a culture where you respect everyone’s voice. Different people have different perspectives and everyone deals with change differently. Allowing that to come out and honoring it makes a stronger organization.

What is your view of public service?

I think public service is a noble calling. I learned that early on from one of my first mentors, a congressman named Jim Symington. I saw him as a really smart, savvy, connected guy who could do anything in life he wanted. He chose public service because he felt he had a responsibility to “get it right” and make the best decisions for “the people.” And I thought, “Wow, that’s cool – he’s not working for a boss or a lot of money; he’s working for everyone.” From Congressman Symington and others, I learned about the covenant public servants have with the people we serve, and the importance of speaking truth and speaking clearly.

What’s some of the best leadership advice you’ve ever received?

One of the sayings that I’ve used for a long time comes from Eric K. Shinseki, the secretary of the VA. It goes something like this: “If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevancy even more.” To me, that advice means you either need to lead change or change will lead you.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Sep 14, 2011 at 8:01 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Susan Grundmann on protecting merit systems in the federal government

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Susan Tsui Grundmann is the chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an independent, quasi-judicial agency that protects the federal merit systems and promotes governmentwide merit system principles. Grundmann previously served as general counsel to the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union which represents 100,000 federal workers nationwide.

How difficult was it to transition from representing federal workers to being an arbiter between employees and managers?

It was quite easy because as an advocate, you’re required not only to know the law and the facts of your case, but to be able address the strengths and weaknesses in a hearing setting. As an adjudicator, you are pretty much doing the same thing, which is surveying strengths and weaknesses within the boundaries of the law and the rules.

I was lucky to come from a federal law employment background, having a fundamental knowledge of the types of issues that crop up. When I first got here, my fellow board members and I engaged in outreach with our stakeholders from all different walks of life—agency representatives, private attorneys, union leaders, representatives of management, the affinity groups and the good government groups—and gained some understanding of how they viewed the MSPB. The purpose was to see what we were doing well and maybe what things we could do better. Outreach to stakeholders is ongoing and has now become an element of our strategic plan.

MSPB has two core functions, adjudication and conducting studies of the civil service. Does that ever represent a conflict for you?

It’s actually complimentary. But it can be challenging at times. The board must remain neutral. However, the study function has the responsibility to inform Congress, the president and our stakeholders of the health and well-being of the civil service system. What's interesting is that we haven't actually seen any conflict in these two roles in our more than thirty years of history. The studies are also significant because they present a series of best practices or lessons learned, which if ignored could result in litigation.

What’s your opinion about the widely held belief that it’s impossible to remove a federal employee?

Yes, the perception exists and it saddens me to hear it. There really aren’t that many poor performers in government, so perception is not reality. Both the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and MSPB have found that poor performance is not as widespread as people think. Our studies and OPM studies find that approximately 4 percent to 6 percent of federal employees are poor performers.

The other aspect is privacy. It’s important to recognize that much of what happens to an employee is protected, and workers may not always be aware what steps management is taking to address poor performers that they can’t talk about publicly. The critical issue is how agencies are dealing with performance management and training supervisors on when and how to address performance issues. They should articulate standards and expectations, objectively measuring and holding people accountable for their performance, and communicating and providing frequent feedback when the employee is not performing.

What do you believe are critical factors in building a high-performing workforce?

In 2008, we did a study on the power of federal employee engagement. The definition of this is a heightened connection between employees, their organizations, their work and the people they work for and with. We found that when employees are engaged in the mission, the goals and the policy, the agency derives positive, measurable results— employees use less sick leave, people come back to work quickly from injury—in other words, more productive time. Why? Because employees like being at work. They’re committed to their work.

What has helped shape your leadership views?

I’d have to say the experiences I had working with a coalition of organizations—professional management, executive, labor and affinity groups. We were all working to address the issues raised by the Defense Department’s national personnel system. Everybody had their own interests based on their own particular constituency, but they were able to put aside their differences for a common purpose. It was a collaborative and participatory event. Tasks were assigned to each member. People volunteered and they gave up their time without complaining. They were committed to a certain result. Everything was done out in the open. We debated, we argued, we considered and we agreed on a course of action and language.

That’s the kind of the collaborative environment that has emerged at MSPB. We’ve called on our stakeholders and the public to comment on significant legal issues and how they think they should be interpreted. We resurrected our practice of oral argument with the public and stakeholders participating. We’ve invited stakeholders to comment on our suggested research agenda for the next three to five years and to suggest other studies, which we have adopted.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Sep 08, 2011 at 9:40 AM3 comments

Federal Coach: How to be a great boss

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Linda A. Hill is professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School and chair of the university’s Leadership Initiative. Her most recent book is Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives of Becoming a Great Leader. Hill’s consulting and executive education activities include areas such as innovation, change management, leadership development and talent management.

What advice do you have for new federal managers?

The challenge for new managers is understanding you are no longer an individual contributor but responsible for the performance of others. You've got to think about things differently. That transformation of your identity and “unlearning” the individual contributor mindset is what people find most difficult. They underestimate how big the change is going to be. There's a lot more to learn than they think and they feel overwhelmed. Managing your emotions as you work through that, and as you're working through learning what this new job is, while you are also doing the job, is a major piece of the puzzle.

You are in a situation of much more responsibility. There's nothing unusual about what you're going through. It is a journey. You need to figure out how to constructively ask for assistance to get up that learning curve as quickly as possible because others are counting on you. When you don't do a good job it has a negative impact on a whole range of people. Too often, new managers think about the acquisition of competencies as opposed to understanding what they're going to be asked to do. Pay attention to whether people are engaged and feel fulfilled at work, because that's a large piece of what they're looking for from their job. We also need to let go of the myth of formal authority. It’s more effective to think about being in a role of interdependence. People are highly dependent on you being successful so they can get their work done, and you are highly dependent on them for getting your new work done.

What are the characteristics of successful leaders, and how do they maintain focus on continuous learning despite time constraints and competing priorities?

It’s a process of self-development. The way people learn to lead is through their experiences and their relationships. We have this idea of “plan, do, review,” because we see experienced managers take two minutes to do a little bit of reflecting to make sure that they have consolidated the lessons of the experience. They also seek out experiences proactively that will help them learn. One of the misconceptions people have is that learning happens over here and work happens over there. They actually happen at the same time because people are very practical learners. It’s critical to understand that learning and work aren't separate. People need to figure out how to learn as they're doing their daily work. They tend to learn things when they have to.

One of the challenges we face is that the world moves much more quickly now. People have jobs that are much bigger than they used to be because organizations are leaner. People need to proactively take charge of their own development, understanding what they’d like to be, what the organization needs from them and where they are. How are they going to get where they need to be? What sorts of experiences do they need to have and what people do they need to know? How do they proactively begin to do that to prepare themselves so they’ll have the expertise they need to have the kind of impact they want to have?

How should federal managers build and maintain effective networks that are beyond their sphere of influence in the agency?

In my book Being the Boss there are three imperatives. The first is managing yourself. The second is managing the network. The third imperative is managing your team. Often when people think about being the boss or the manager, they think about their own team. But if you don't manage your network, your team cannot be effective. You're not going to know the priorities, capabilities and constraints of your particular agency. More importantly, you won’t be able to match those up with the opportunities and challenges that you face and build a coalition necessary to actually get those things done. Many people think of managing your network as being politics or something they find distasteful, and they don't want to deal with that. The problem is, you will become powerless—and there's nothing worse than working for a powerless boss.

What traits make for an innovative leader?

It's not about setting direction for people to follow. It's about building communities that encourage bottom-up initiative. Those good at leading for innovation answer the question, “Who are we?” more often than, “Where are we going?” The willingness to innovate comes from feeling like you're part of a community with a shared sense of purpose and leads to collaboration with diverse groups across an organization. You want people to understand, "What are we really trying to get done?" A good example is the story of the janitor who's been cleaning in a hospital for years. When someone says to the janitor, "You're a member of the infectious control team,” it gives meaning to that work.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Sep 01, 2011 at 10:22 AM1 comments

Federal Coach: Take a break! To disconnect or not to disconnect on vacation

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

As he headed off on vacation to Martha's Vineyard with his family last week, President Obama was criticized by political opponents and pundits for taking time off with the economy in such precarious shape and so many people on the unemployment line.

While we may want our leaders - we may even want ourselves - to power through and resolve pressing problems as soon as possible, leaders at all levels need a chance to take time away, recharge and come back with fresh energy and perhaps a fresh perspective.

It may be even more important to take a break during the most difficult and stressful times. You can look to scholarly publications to find the latest research on the effects of fatigue on decision-making. In practice, you only really need to consider whether you've made your best choices when exhausted.

I'm preparing for my own break shortly - paternity leave. Because caring for a screaming infant may sound more like torture than a break, I've been looking for strategies on how to disconnect as much as possible from work. I've organized those lessons into a few key questions leaders should answer to make the most of their breaks, whether it's for a couple of days or a few weeks.

• Is it better to unplug completely or remain tethered? There's no right answer to this question since we're all different, and the circumstances often dictate the response. Some people need to check out of work completely to relax. Others prefer to triage their email every day so that they don't have any unwanted surprises awaiting them on return to work. When I go on vacation, I like to leave everything behind. I've usually had time to plan and prep my colleagues for the departure. The birth of a new baby, on the other hand, gives our new, unborn little one complete control of those plans. After he's born, I will look at my email every day when the family is asleep.
• What will you do to get your mind off of work? Even if you remain connected to work, you'll need some distance in order to return refreshed. Some folks may enjoy spending time on a hobby, while others may prefer taking time to learn something new. For my part, I enjoy catching up on reading books and spending more time with my kids. Seeing the world through a child's eyes will certainly give you a fresh perspective.
• What will you do when you think of work? Do you want to completely avoid thoughts of work, or will more relaxed, unstructured time give you the flexibility needed to develop new, innovative ideas to problems you've been unable to solve? Here's my advice. If thoughts of work are interfering with the time you have with family and friends, you need to knock it off. However, I've found that I often have my best ideas when taking a road trip back to Ohio to visit family. That time on the road while others are reading, playing games or watching movies allows my mind to wander back into work when it won't affect my quality time with others.
• How will you handle your return? It's worth planning your return in advance. Block out time on your calendar to handle emails, voicemails and other issues that have piled up. Otherwise, your stress and fatigue will return quickly as the mountain of messages piles up even higher once folks know you've returned to the office.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 22, 2011 at 11:04 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Pitching young employees on your federal agency

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

The average age of my agency's employees is high. With retirements increasing, we will need to recruit and hire younger employees. What is the recruiting pitch that will appeal to younger employees? How do you entice them to join your agency? - Federal Manager (GS-15), Department of Veterans Affairs

This is a great question. Recruiting a new generation to public service and getting top-flight talent in the process is essential to the vibrancy and effectiveness of our government.

Let's start with the recruiting pitch. You should have a clear message about your organization and mission, as well as a straightforward description of the job to be filled.

In particular, you need to speak to the interests of young job seekers on making a difference, workplace flexibilities, relative job stability, and the opportunity that a government job can provide as a possible stepping stone. If you really wanted to push your message forward, you could reinforce that federal employment is an opportunity to be of service of the American people. The folks you want will jump at the chance.

Putting all this into action will require that every agency and every office develop its elevator speech - that 30-second, plain-English pitch that explains your role and mission. You also need what I call a "Metro ad": a short, catchy written pitch that's capable of drawing someone's interest even if they're standing on a hot, crowded Metro full of tourists.

This means agencies must stop posting vacancies on USAJobs.gov that contain mind-numbing job descriptions and instead read more like incredible opportunities.

After a quick search on USAJobs.gov, I found agencies that have not yet developed that pitch. The first line of one job announcement read: "Reviews and assess the efficiency, effectiveness, and impact of programs...."

Others, like the Department of Treasury's inspector general made a more enticing pitch: "Treasury OIG is looking for people capable of taking initiative and exercising independent judgment, with a strong desire to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government programs, and the intellectual capacity and drive to make that happen."

Of course, a great pitch that no one hears is useless. So the answer to your question is incomplete without some mention of the best ways of delivering your message to those young job seekers.

One federal recruiter, Amanda Perry at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,just posted a great blog on the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) website outlining the best communication techniques she's uncovered in her experience.

Among her many great ideas, she outlines enlisting campus ambassadors (former interns) to serve as advocates for your organization; hosting educational seminars on campus for students to support their professional development; and organizing webinars to reach a wider audience without incurring travel costs.

If you're interested, you might also check out a tool my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, has developed, What's My Role: A Step-by-Step Hiring Guide for Federal Managers, that covers Amanda's ideas and others such as using social media like LinkedIn to get your message out to job seekers.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 19, 2011 at 10:13 AM1 comments

Federal Coach: Librarian of Congress James Hadley Billington on leading the nation's library

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

James Hadley Billington has been the Librarian of Congress for nearly a quarter of a century and is the 13th person in the position since 1800, when the institution was created. He has championed the Library of Congress' "American Memory" National Digital Library program, which makes available online millions of American historical items from the Library of Congress' collections and other research institutions. His proposal for a World Digital Library became a reality in 2009 with an online site containing cultural materials from all 192 countries in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with expert commentary in seven languages.

How do you keep employees motivated and engaged in the Library of Congress' work?

It's only possible, at the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, if you really believe in the mission and have no other agenda but its success. You become an advocate recognized as sincere and not merely using the position as a stepping stone to other things or a way of establishing yourself as a personality.

There are two elements in advocating the basic mission. First, choose innovative ways to advance that mission - something nobody else is doing or can do as well as your institution can. The other is to emphasize people. Nearly two-thirds of our budget is for our own people who are bringing to life knowledge that other people everywhere have recorded and are preserving. We are promoting the closest thing anywhere to a mint record of the cultural creativity of the American people. We have set up leadership development programs, and I try to participate in their graduation ceremonies, at events recognizing lengths of service, and in community programs such as our National Book Festival and the Combined Federal Campaign.

What are the most important elements of success for a federal leader?

You have to convey that you are interested in what people are doing and appreciate their work whenever you get the chance. Our work is all service, to both Congress and the American people, but our employees don't always get the thanks that they deserve. On the elevator, I typically ask two questions: What's your greatest satisfaction? What's your biggest frustration? People have to know you really believe passionately in them and their work.

The Library of Congress has a slightly aging workforce and many one-of-a-kind jobs. In planning for this, we hosted a National Mentoring Society conference, and we are trying to adopt techniques so that the unique knowledge stored in a staff member over a long period of service to the Library is not lost or translated into some cookie-cutter bureaucratic category. Experience needs to be imparted to someone who is just beginning by someone who has worked for a number of years.

What benefits can federal leaders realize from working with private-sector partners?

The Congress of the United States has been the greatest patron of a library in human history. For 211 years, Congress has supported and sustained what has become the largest and most wide-range library in the world. But if you want to innovate and move quickly in changing times, private-sector support is very important. The Library had received donations, but never substantially raised funds or had a development office until we created the James Madison Council in the 1990s, the Library's first-ever national private-sector advisory and support group. It is not a substitute for congressional support, but a way of supplementing it.

When we set up the National Digital Library, which now has online 16 million primary documents of American history and culture, our Madison Council helped to fund it and to ensure that it had measurable results and an educational impact. The council also helped us launch the National Book Festival and major exhibitions. The Madison Council helped us to get started rapidly on innovation. We get good advice, feedback and considerable strategic support from its members.

How have you incorporated Web 2.0 into the Library of Congress?

A famous French saying translates to, "You engage and then you're able to see." We jump in before we have all the answers, because there's no point in having endless theoretical discussions without being involved. We were among the first federal organizations to have a blog site. We've had considerable success identifying photographs by putting them on Flickr. We reach out through Twitter, Facebook and iTunes U. The digital world represents an extension, not a revision, of our historic mission. It is absolutely essential that we maintain and promote the values of the book culture even as we add new media to the national collection and to our outreach services.

Who have been your leadership role models and what have you learned?

The most important is my father, who never had the benefit of a higher education, but imparted to me the importance of learning and the love of reading. It is a privilege to do some things that your father might be proud of even if he never got to see them. When National Geographic asked about the seven libraries that influenced me most, I said that the most important in my life was the Nelson Billington Library: the random books that my father bought, read and shared in the house that he loved. His library and his own way of using language set me off on everything else.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 18, 2011 at 10:13 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Developing the leadership skills of high-potential employees

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Should government offer more leadership opportunities to junior-level employees with high potential? - Federal Manager (YF-03), Department of the Army

Despite the lean times that lie ahead, the great challenges facing our nation and the need for more effective government call out for investing in the development of a new generation of leaders.

Of course, knowing you need to invest in a future leadership corps is not enough. You also need to determine the best approach so that you see a real return in the form of cost savings, employee engagement and agency performance.

Last week, my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, hosted a conversation with agency leaders and public and private sector experts about effectively developing high-potential employees. The group included authorities from the Office of Personnel Management, the Merit Systems Protection Board and PDRI, a research and consulting firm in the field of industrial-organizational psychology.

Here are some of the insights discussed by the group to provide you with a starting point for taking the next steps to support the leadership development of your future leaders.

1. Look at the return on investment. - Start by showing your senior leadership the costs and benefits of assessing, identifying and developing high-potential employees for leadership positions. The private sector has great data about the benefits, including higher employee engagement, sales and profit. These data points offer great insights, but you may want to develop more relevant measures for your agency. You need to determine how much time and money you spend on employee assessment, development programs and recruiting. Then you must demonstrate how this investment has benefited your agency and its mission, and, if possible, show how increasing this commitment for junior-level employees may have an even bigger and long-term impact.

2. Define "high-potential." - Once you gain support to invest in your agency's high-potential employees, you need to define the term "high-potential." As the experts from PDRI noted, you need to look beyond high-performance in a current job to see which of your employees have the interpersonal and cognitive skills as well as the capacity to lead and an ability to continuously learn. And to ensure that you are using a definition consistent with all of your agency's relevant rules and regulations, turn to your internal HR colleagues for help.

3. Find the diamonds in the rough. - To help identify high-potential employees, consider using cognitive tests and simulations, including online or live action and assessment centers in addition to the typical interview process. Of course, the challenge will be cost, so you'll need to account for these evaluations in your notional return on investment calculations.

4. Invest your time and resources in supporting high-potentials. - Once you find your future leaders, you need to commit to their development. As I've noted in previous columns, formal leadership development programs are an important foundation, but you should also encourage your high-potential employees to go beyond the classroom and participate in peer coaching, mentoring, executive coaching and stretch assignments. And remember, the most significant investment should be the time your current leaders are spending developing your agency's future leaders. This is one area that won't require new appropriations, but it will require a renewed commitment on the part of your senior leadership.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 15, 2011 at 10:54 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Want to drive innovation in your federal agency? Start with leaders at the top

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Whether you're a leader in the public, private or nonprofit sector, you are undoubtedly facing the same challenge. It may be described as 'the need to innovate', 'continuous improvement', 'process reengineering' or some other buzzword. Whatever the label, the definition is the same: Do more with less and do it better.

Last month, Forbes magazine published the results of a study examining the world's most innovative companies. It should come as no surprise that companies like Amazon, Apple and Google were among the top 10.

And the driver behind those innovative companies and results? Leadership. As the innovation experts Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton Christensen, who completed the research underlying the article noted, "a leader's everyday actions are one of the most powerful signals to their team and organization that innovation truly matters."

Making the leap from the private sector workplace to the public sector can sometimes be a challenge, but my organization - the Partnership for Public Service - just completed some research with the Hay Group examining the drivers of innovation in government.

Examining six key questions from the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, we found the same insight: Leadership is the key to employee commitment, and ultimately to innovation and results. Unfortunately, there’s a big gap between federal employees’ interest in innovation and the extent to which their leaders actually encourage and reward those who show creativity.

On the bright side, we can look to those achieving some success to derive lessons for the rest of government. One example is the good work at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Last year, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, and a small coalition of the willing launched a new innovation awards program – HHSInnovates. Running twice a year, the program encourages, identifies and celebrates HHS employees’ innovations around improving service delivery to Americans. Even better, the program shares best practices and lessons learned across the department.

The HHS employees honored earlier this year should serve as a source of inspiration within HHS and across our federal government. Those honored found new ways of using electronic health records to provide near real-time surveillance of the H1N1 flu in American Indian/Alaska Native populations, and developed a web-based tool for tracking progress on key activities at the Food and Drug Administration and making the information available both internally and to external stakeholders and the public.

Similar to other agencies, the HHS employees faced resource constraints, organizational silos and packed schedules, but they overcame those obstacles. Consistent with our research, the HHS program appears to place a heavy emphasis on investing leaders’ time in these efforts – particularly the secretary’s and the chief technology officer’s.

Before you launch your own agency innovation program, start by working with your human resources team to analyze your agency’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results relative to the six innovation questions identified in the new report. From there, you can work with your leadership team and employees to determine the best strategies.

Based on our research, I suggest that as a federal manager you might also think about how best to foster an environment that encourages creativity and the freedom to do good work. There are a number of basic but essential steps, and they include giving employees a sense of personal empowerment over their work processes; providing employees with opportunities to demonstrate their leadership skills; giving them respect; and recognizing those who providing high-quality products and services.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 12, 2011 at 11:48 AM1 comments

Federal Coach: What are battered feds to do? Don't worry, be happy

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

There's been a steady drumbeat of bad news for federal employees for more than a year, and the stories are likely to get worse before they get better as the drama over the budget deficit and the weak economy continue to unfold.

What are federal leaders supposed to do to maintain employee engagement and productivity in the face of all of the adversity? It turns out that one-hit wonder Bobby McFerrin had the right advice years ago: "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

I admit to making this a little too simple. Let me explain.

Last week, a friend shared an article by Shawn Achor on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network titled What Giving Gets You at the Office. Achor's research examines what he calls "social support" - working with people who genuinely care for one another - and its effect on employee engagement and productivity.

The research makes sense intuitively, but he makes a more counterintuitive point that I wanted to share:

"In an era of do-more-with-less, we need to stop lamenting how little social support we feel from managers, coworkers and friends, and start focusing our brain's resources upon how we can increase the amount of social support we provide to the people in our lives. The greatest predictor of success and happiness at work is social support. And the greatest way to increase social support is to provide it to others."

While Achor doesn't specifically look at the public sector, he sounds like he's speaking directly to federal employees. As a result, I thought it would be worth examining strategies for providing social support to help your employees.

Stay positive - There's an old saying: "When faced with adversity, you can choose to laugh or cry." Leaders obviously set the tone, and whether you choose to stay focused on solving problems or sulk about the circumstances will have an impact on your employees. I'm not advocating that you stroll along whistling past the graveyard, but you should give your team a sense of hope that together you will find a way forward amid the tough times.

Build relationships - At one point or another,we're all guilty of using, "How are you?" as another form of "hello" when passing colleagues in the hallway. We rarely expect more than "I'm fine" as a response, and we almost never stop for conversation. When you have a chance for a one-on-one conversation, be sure to check in to assess how they're really doing regarding workload, stress on the job, worries about the future or other appropriate topics.

Establish a fun team - Bad news doesn't have to dominate the workplace. Enlist the help of your most outgoing colleagues and ask them to organize a few low-cost to no-cost social events like a bagel breakfast, a potluck cook-off competition at lunch or an ice cream social. The ideas may sound a little hokey, but it will give your team a chance to lighten up given all of the heavy news.

Fight for your team - You can never forget about achieving your agency's goals. You'll undoubtedly need to make sacrifices, but make sure the cuts are strategic and that you're thinking of your team - collectively and individually. If budget reductions will adversely affect your team's performance, you have a responsibility to speak up. If some cuts are inevitable, be sure to help members of your team land on their feet in another position, at another agency or another sector.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 12, 2011 at 6:53 PM3 comments

Federal Coach: Michele Leonhart on leading the DEA

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Michele M. Leonhart, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), has spent more than 30 years in law enforcement. As a DEA special agent, she commanded the Los Angeles Field Division, one of DEA's largest field divisions; served in San Francisco, where she became the first woman within DEA promoted to the position of special agent in charge; and initiated major drug investigations and conspiracy cases in Minneapolis and St. Louis. Leonhart began her law enforcement career as a Baltimore City Police Officer.

How do you keep more than 10,000 DEA employees motivated and engaged?

Everybody who comes to work for DEA believes in our one mission to wipe out drug abuse and the supply to our country; and to assist other countries in taking the biggest and the baddest kingpins, and the largest organizations operating, off the face of this earth. Whether it's filing paper, answering phones or serving on the front lines in Mexico or Afghanistan, every employee is in this for the same reason-making our country and our world safer. We've never had to worry about keeping employees motivated or engaged. If anything, it's making sure everybody's moving at the same pace and sharing what we're learning. We're able to move information and our workforce quickly and react overnight to emerging threats.

Communication is everything. We're in more than 200 offices and laboratories across the country and in 63 other countries. Thousands of state and local task-force offices work with us on investigations. It's important that we don't believe one piece of information, type of technology or good idea is only good for one part of the agency.

What communication vehicles are most effective?

When I became acting administrator, I thought we could do a better job of getting accurate information out quicker. Our public affairs office came up with an internal website that acts as a daily newspaper that employees see when they turn on their computers. I can immediately communicate anything that's important for our workforce to know. That has served us well, especially in emergency situations. For instance, we were able to react quickly to the tornadoes in the South, letting our employees know everybody was safe and what we needed, such as generators and supplies. On the enforcement front, we would be able to post new policies, address rumors out there or anything that was causing confusion because of lack of information.

There's teleconferencing and email, but we are a small agency and there's nothing like picking up the phone and talking to people. That's what DEA does so well. We stay connected on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. We are ranked the highest of the federal law enforcement agencies in a human capital study and one reason, we think, is our open-door policies with managers and supervisors and great ways to communicate within the agency.

Are there things you do at DEA that have a disproportionate impact?

It's important that families that have lost loved ones over the years hear from me every year so they know that even 60 or 70 years later the DEA cares about them. We found an agent that had been killed on a drug deal back in 1928. It's making sure we remember those who have lost their lives in the line of duty. We gather the families once a year at our memorial service and it's almost like having a family reunion.

What lessons have you learned from previous positions?

I thought as you go up the ladder your management style needs to be tweaked a bit and that things change. They really don't. As a group supervisor in San Diego, I led 12 agents the same way I led the Los Angeles field division, one of DEA's largest divisions; and I lead DEA the same way I led in San Diego. In transitioning from acting director to DEA administrator, it was a challenge learning that within the Beltway you have to deal with politics. As a career employee you don't. But in general, leadership is about the little things-staying close and listening to your people. It's being the role model and walking the talk. You don't have all the answers and the more you ask questions and the more people you bring to the table, the better the result.

Being a Baltimore city police officer was an experience. In a patrol car, you have to assess the situation quickly and be confident that the decision you make is right. You learn to use your gut. It's the same thing leading an agency. You have to make a decision, but you also learn that you want to get all the facts and take into consideration everything going on around you and all the ramifications.

Really, I learned about leadership very young. I was the oldest of seven kids growing up in the Midwest and my parents worked full time. I always say I was the Special Child in Charge. Everything I learned then about disputes and keeping people motivated and showing people how fun a hard task can be, I've done all my life. I was a leader then, and that's how I came to be the leader I am today.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 10, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Young federal leader development

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

What can young federal leaders do to continue developing their skills after completing a formal leadership training program? - Federal Manager (GS-14), Environmental Protection Agency

The most successful federal executives are exceptionally self-aware, confident in their ability to get things done, and constantly seeking feedback and learning opportunities to grow as leaders.

Formal leadership development programs are an essential foundation to help federal managers become more effective leaders. However, the conclusion of a program does not mean that you’re done learning. Here are a few strategies to support your continued professional development:

Phone a friend – Use the colleagues that you met in your formal leadership program as a source of peer coaching after the program is finished. While your program may have a formal alumni network, it’s often the informal network that proves most effective. Next time you need some expertise around a situation, think of your colleagues in that program and make a few calls. You’ll inevitably find the insight that you’re seeking even by simply talking through your problem with a friend.

Find a mentor – While formal training can provide an invaluable starting point to becoming a better federal leader, most of your long-term development will occur on the job. As a result, it’s worth identifying a mentor – or mentors – who can help you navigate the ins and outs of leadership in your agency. To develop the best mentoring relationships, identify the outstanding executives you admire, and invite them out to coffee. Don’t even call it mentoring. Instead, look for the most experienced, high-performing leaders you believe are willing and able to help.

Look for the learning opportunities all around you – Use every opportunity available to support your continued growth and development as a leader. Make time to read professional journals. Follow interesting leadership experts and resources on Twitter. Whenever you’re in a meeting with exceptional leaders, take note of their characteristics, style and approach. On the way to your next meeting, consider what you learned and how you can integrate that into your own leadership approach.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 05, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: HUD Chief of Staff Laurel Blatchford on risk taking and engaging employees

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Laurel A. Blatchford, chief of staff of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) since 2009, previously worked for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg first at City Hall and then at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). During her time in city government, Blatchford worked with agencies and private partners on mayoral initiatives that included the redevelopment of the Far West Side of Manhattan, the transformation of the High Line park, and the Mayor’s affordable housing plan.

Was there a critical event that led to your becoming the leader you are today?

There are two: one professional and one personal. 9/11 was an enormously significant experience for me, as it was for so many people in New York. Following the attacks, the city was in terrible shape – but it represented an enormous opportunity for collaboration. People wanted to work for the mayor to help rebuild New York and were working together like never before. This was a lesson about uniting around a common goal.

Also, I'm a mom, so I have a much greater tolerance for chaos than I used to, but I also know when to be decisive and pull the plug. The mix of patience and impatience you have to have as a parent is definitely applicable to my job. You have to learn to trust your instincts in the moment. That has been enormously valuable as well.

How did you overcome risk-averse cultures in City Hall and the federal government?

The mayor and deputy mayor always said, "Set a goal, make it public." At HPD, we set out a 165,000-unit housing plan and used that as a target. We told people this is our goal, and we stuck to it. It had a new construction component and a housing preservation component – all those pieces were totally transparent. It was a very useful tool for getting people not only to take risks and think differently about how to accomplish their goals, but it also served us well in budget negotiations and in communities across the city. People wanted to see the plan fulfilled.

What leadership lessons did you learn by working with Mayor Bloomberg, and how have you applied those at HUD?

It goes back to risk taking. If an employee in the private sector takes risks and some of those risks lead to good outcomes, you reward them and give them more resources. All too often, the opposite is true in the public sector and people don’t feel like they can take risks. So the idea of letting people take risks and providing support from leadership – even when they fail – is really important.

The other thing is focusing on data. Something I think has been successful here is HUDStat, a data-driven performance-management system instituted by Secretary Donovan that was modeled on COMPstat in New York City. Program leaders make a regular presentation of performance data to the senior team and the group uses it to understand program successes and problems. It’s about our biggest goals; it makes them very public and leads to a lot of information sharing and discussion that is useful in managing our agency.

How do you and the secretary keep employees motivated and engaged in HUD’s work day to day?

Last year's Best Places to Work was a wake-up call to us. To not only see that we had suffered in some of the indicators but also that other agencies had been moving ahead spurred some healthy competition and a desire to refocus and reinvest. Through our strategic planning process we refocused in three main areas: investing in people, increasing accountability and busting bureaucracy. We ran a campaign called, "I Believe in HUD," using things as simple as posters, bumper stickers and T-shirts to spread the word. We did a town hall in Atlanta that was video-conferenced to find out what is on employees’ minds. We hold coffees where randomly selected employees sit down with Secretary Donovan. It’s a way to communicate what we're doing and get feedback.

We found, for all its challenges, HUD has an enormous reserve of connection to the mission. I don't mean to minimize some very substantial issues that people have raised, but there's also this larger kind of passion that is a great motivator.

What techniques do you use to identify and manage agency problems?

I try to understand the larger context of the problems. Is the burning issue the tip of an iceberg or an isolated event? What is the larger, long-term significance? The struggle is to maintain strategic focus while digging deep into the problem solving needed.

You can never learn too much from people. The challenge is making sure I'm in the right conversations and they keep happening. I talk to people in the elevator, in the HUD gym, anywhere. I always welcome feedback and problem solving. There is so much I have to fix, so making sure I understand what we’re doing right, as well, is important.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 03, 2011 at 11:45 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Preparing for new talent? Leadership lessons from the family stork

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Any day now, my wife and I are expecting our third child. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a baby, and we’re trying to remember the keys to successfully dealing with an infant. My wife, being much smarter and with a much better memory, remembers all of the “dos” and “don’ts.”

I, on the other hand, have sought help from the experts – my older kids Jack and Ella.

While leading a team is vastly different than leading a family, I’m beginning to see some similarities for senior federal leaders preparing for the entry of new talent. Smart senior managers tap into experienced employees to help.

Just as my kids have the best memories of the things I’m doing well and not as well as a father, those experienced federal employees have the best memories, the best advice for getting things done, and countless lessons learned that could help bring new employees into the fold.

There are many ways to capture and share their knowledge. Here are some ideas to help you get started:

Build a coalition of the willing. You’ll need folks with a deep understanding of the organization who are willing to help compile and memorialize information that can span a variety of issues, including everything from the agency’s history and evolution, its programs, what has worked and what has failed to the internal culture and how to operate successfully within the workplace environment. If you position this as an opportunity to help the organization, and to provide new employees and others with a deeper appreciation of the agency and its mission, I wouldn’t be surprised if you have more help than you actually need.

Let your inner Oprah free. Interviewing your most experienced, high-performing employees is the best place to start. You can build a consistent set of questions that anyone can ask – from specific technical questions to more general topics such as: (1) winning support for new ideas; (2) taking ideas to implementation; (3) the three best pieces of advice you ever received for succeeding in the agency; (4) your best on-the-job professional development experiences; and (5) the best ways of gaining additional responsibility. In fact, I spoke with leaders in one agency at the Department of Health and Human Services that made a habit of capturing employees’ reflections as part of their exit interviews.

Mine for the gold. Not all advice is good advice – the first thing my son Jack wanted to teach our new son was basketball – so you and your team will need to sift through the interviews. Consider scheduling a lunchtime session once a month or once every two weeks when you can sort the good advice from the bad advice, and place them into specific categories that anyone in the agency could recognize.

Share the wealth. Finally, find a place to share the advice you’ve collected. Rather than building an expensive new platform, look at some existing tools: your agency Intranet, online innovation platforms or other avenues for storing and accessing the information.

And of course, this isn’t a field of dreams – you can’t just build it and hope people will come. You also need to draw people to that location. Use agency newsletters and other avenues to share stories and encourage your employees to learn more. Hold brown bag lunches to have discussions with the veterans and new employees, and assign mentors to new employees who can share their insider information in a more informal way.

I know that this may seem like a lot of work, but it will pay dividends over the long term for your new employees and your entire team if experienced employees can share their lessons learned, important insights and institutional knowledge.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Aug 02, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Keeping the 40-hour work week from feeling part time

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

I recently read a blog that posed this question: Based on recent workforce trends, is the 40-hour work week considered part time for white-collar professionals? How does this play out among the federal workforce? What are the implications of these trends if true? - Two under-40 female Department of Energy employees (GS-9 and GS-13)

Like private and nonprofit sector leaders, federal leaders are experiencing increased workloads that often make a 40-hour work week nearly impossible to keep. The greater expectations, demands and pace of change affect the public sector just as much, if not more so, than other sectors.

Federal leaders and employees are working on issues that directly affect all of us, from shoring up the economy and the financial system to providing better health care, guarding our borders, protecting the environment, caring for veterans and keeping our food safe. In doing so, many are having a difficult time finding a balance between their work and personal lives.

As a result, it’s important that federal leaders establish workplace expectations that enable both their employees and themselves to get their work done while also allowing for time to consistently recharge their batteries.

Based on my experience working with federal leaders, here are a few ideas to help you and your employees best manage today’s fast-paced environment.

Discover what works. To help you better understand how you’re wired, are you satisfied rather than exhausted after a long day? Or, do you need to balance periods of intense work with periods of intense relaxation? Reflect on the times when you most felt on top of your game, and then work to recreate that experience.

Share your insights with colleagues, family and friends. Next, be intentional and transparent about resetting workplace expectations with yourself, your colleagues and family. If you decide to shift your hours in the office, but maintain availability via a smart phone, let your employees know about the change and your reasoning behind it. You should also encourage your team to do the same within federal rules and regulations.

Schedule time to recharge. To help maintain a work-life balance, it’s important that you find ways to schedule personal time to help you recharge. Whether it’s spending time with your family, going out with friends, or reading a good book, you’re the only one who can set aside that time and commit to fulfilling your personal as well as your professional goals.

Solicit feedback and try new efforts. Make certain you solicit feedback from colleagues, family and friends to learn what changes are working and which ones are not. Be prepared to change your tactics based on their feedback while also remaining resolute to your goals.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 29, 2011 at 8:58 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Admiral John Acton, director of DHS' Leader Development, on lessons from crises

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

John C. Acton , a retired United States Coast Guard rear admiral, serves as the executive director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Leader Development, where he is building an integrated, department-wide program to enhance DHS’s leadership bench strength at all levels. Acton previously served as DHS’s director of operations coordination and planning where he dealt with events such as the Zazi NYC subway plot and responses to the Haiti earthquake and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

What advice can you offer federal leaders for motivating staff during a crisis?

Keep a level head. I've found that you can really get a glimpse of a person’s character when they’re under stress. During a crisis, if you can retain your passion for the mission and diffuse some of the raw emotion, that's helpful. Take a step back and do what you've been trained to do: engage, assess the situation, prioritize the actions needed, assign resources and then execute.

It's important to stay focused on the mission at hand. You want to be as efficient as possible, but in government it’s critical be effective. Key to effectiveness is building trust and credibility through transparency and collaboration. It’s dangerous to push a hidden agenda or predetermined outcome; as a leader you simply want to drive to the best solution for the American people.

Another thought is to lead by example. I know that's cliché, but it’s important. People will watch what you do more than they’ll listen to what you say. You've got to have the moral courage to do the right thing, even when it's difficult.

How has your Coast Guard training prepared you to lead effectively within a civilian agency?

The Coast Guard places a premium on leadership, which they begin developing on day one. One thing I heard in the Coast Guard, and have used since, is a speech given by Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, who was the author of Lee's Lieutenants back in the 1940s. He viewed leadership into three elements: watch after your people; be a competent professional; and have honor (meaning, do the right things in the right way). I continue to use this perspective at DHS.

The Coast Guard has a very clear and well-defined set of core values that underlie their culture and guide their operations. After a 33-year career, they’re certainly part of me and what I've been doing at DHS. Everyone is encouraged to take initiative. They push initiative way down into the organization, which I think is a good thing. Leaders not only encourage initiative, but provide air cover for the staff when needed.

Another concept that the Coast Guard understands and I've found critical in responses, is the difference between a military concept of unity of command versus a civilian agency concept of unity of effort. Since the Coast Guard is “bilingual” (speaking both military and civilian agency), we're able to do both. At DHS, I've found the concept of unity of effort and being able to marshal organizations and resources to achieving a single effect is essential. That's what DHS does every day.

Does one particular crisis stand out as crystalizing those leadership elements?

I was commanding officer of a search-and-rescue patrol boat in Alaska as a young junior officer. Being in a job like that, with some life-and-death situations, gives you a unique perspective on what's really important and what isn't. That's something that I've carried with me through my entire career.

Another was the response to Katrina. As a flag officer, I was deployed down range as a Coast Guard liaison officer. I worked with the governors and their staffs from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, as well as with the DOD. The Coast Guard had a heavy hand in Katrina, which for the service is a casebook study on how to turn around a difficult situation and get to a good resolution.

What is your vision for the department you lead at DHS and what obstacles have you faced?

My vision is an integrated program that provides a seamless continuum of leadership development opportunities for everybody, from day one until the day they leave the department. I would say the first big challenge was getting component buy-in. We've done that by having them actively participate in every step of the process through working groups, advisory board, etc.

The next big challenge I have in this budget environment is resources. I'm working to pull together funding from different organizations that have a common interest in making that happen.

Another challenge is to balance the need for departmental consistency with our components’ need for flexibility. Secret Service or TSA or FEMA may have some component-specific things they want train their supervisors to do. Both perspectives are important, and that’ll be an ongoing challenge.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 27, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Shaking a nightmarish political appointee

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

We have a political appointee who just doesn’t care about anything except her own self-aggrandizement. She kicked out or encouraged many of our fantastic management and operations support team to leave, and directly hired her nephew and friends. Now, people are doing work previously done by two or even three people. [Also,] she’s only met with staff twice for a total of 20 minutes over the last two years.

Morale is at rock-bottom. The good professionals left are staying only because they believe in the mission so strongly. What can we do? –Anonymous federal employee

With stories like this, it can be hard to remember that most political appointees are well intentioned and hard working.

But, that doesn’t mean that we can ignore the stories about bad leadership. What can you and others like you do if a nightmare scenario like this federal worker’s becomes reality?

First, determine whether the political appointee is actually engaging in illegal or unethical behavior or whether she’s just a bad leader.

If she’s actually done something illegal – like hiring family members inappropriately – you can request a review by your agency’s inspector general or the Office of the Special Council. She might be in violation of the law if she’s hired family, but if another official hired her relatives without any influence by the appointee, that may be perfectly acceptable.

If she is not violating a law or regulations and she’s just a bad leader, here are some next steps that you and your colleagues can take:

Extend an olive branch. Your appointee may be so overwhelmed by her various responsibilities from spearheading new policies to tackling internal management issues that she is not thinking through decisions. Consider reaching out to the appointee directly or indirectly through some of her closest colleagues to share feedback about implementing best practices or providing assistance. This political may simply be unaware that there’s an issue.

Phone a friend. But if you suspect she may not take kindly to the feedback, rather than approaching her directly, try consulting with another trusted political appointee or career leader who you believe might influence the situation. They may be able to initiate some changes, such as granting her management responsibilities to other leaders on the team, reassigning her, or perhaps removing her or advising you on concrete coping mechanisms.

Wait it out. It’s important to remember that most political appointees remain for about 18 to 24 months, so she may be on her way. In that case, you may see a quick turnaround with new political leadership in place.

Exit stage right. If all else fails, consider looking for an opportunity with another team, office or agency depending on your specific circumstances.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 25, 2011 at 8:58 AM2 comments

Federal Coach: Debt ceiling uncertainty for federal workers

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Once again federal employees must keep plowing ahead with their jobs as they wait for the proverbial shoe to drop.

As was the case earlier this year when the White House and Congress went to the brink before finalizing a 2011 budget, government workers are again facing great uncertainty about their work and their future amid the high-stakes political negotiations over raising the debt limit.

At this point, no one is saying what will happen to federal workers if a timely agreement is not reached on the debt limit. And when a deal is eventually struck extending the debt limit and presumably reducing the long-term deficit, how will federal pay and benefits be affected, and what impact will it have a government programs?

I’m again hearing that federal leaders are leaving their employees’ questions unaddressed, but what are you supposed to say? We’ve never had to confront a government default; and until the deal is drafted and the ink is dry, it’s unclear what it will mean for agency operations and employees.

Lest we forget, I wanted to build on some of the lessons learned from the springtime budget debates to offer concrete suggestions for communicating with your employees when information is limited.

Tell your employees what you know and don’t know. Even though you may not have much more clarity about what’s happening than what is being reported in the news, your employees believe that you do. And they may think that you’re withholding information. So it’s worth sitting down with your team or otherwise reaching out to your agency’s employees through email, an ‘all hands’ or a video message and giving them your best information.

Invite employees to share their concerns. Next, provide your employees with a forum for asking questions. Don’t let the water cooler or coffee club be the only outlet. Immediately answer any questions you can in real time, and let them know when you don’t have all of the facts or answers. You might even use some of the online innovation tools agencies use to collect great ideas from the front lines.

Answer their questions publicly as the answers emerge. After any exchange with employees when you are unable to answer specific questions, make sure you follow up when the information is available. If agency cutbacks are in store, as will likely be the case in many agencies, at least let the employees know the decision-making process that will take place even if the final outcome is unclear.

Federal leaders and employees, what are the lessons you learned from the budget debate earlier this year that should be applied to the current uncertainties for employees around the debt limit? Is anyone seeing a real case study in leadership they can highlight for our readers?

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 22, 2011 at 6:53 PM2 comments

Federal Coach: Richard Riley, former U.S. secretary of education, on his leadership lessons

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Richard W. Riley was the U.S. secretary of education under President Bill Clinton and a former two-term governor of South Carolina. He is currently a distinguished professor at Furman University, and serves as advisory board chair of the Richard W. Riley Institute of Government, Politics and Public Leadership at Furman. Riley was named one of the top 10 Cabinet members of the 20th century by Time magazine.

How is government service an opportunity for the next generation to make a difference?

In our free democracy, if you really want to impact a lot of a people in a meaningful way, government service is the way to do it. When I got to Washington, it was amazing to sit around with eight to ten people and realize the decision we would send to the president would impact literally 50 million children. That is overwhelming to a person who really is into public service, this idea of having input on children in such a significant way.

What is your leadership style?

I really study things. Some people think that we spend too much time deliberating, but I have never seen that as a problem. Hearing all sides and thinking things out is a way to bring about good decisions. However, when critical events happen and you need to make quick decisions, you have to make it very clear to the public that you are committed to seeing that a resolve is reached. I always went all out and never looked back. I never consider defeat as an option.

The most important thing is to believe in what you're doing; people can tell if you believe in what you're doing or not. I would encourage young people interested in public service to be prepared, surround yourself with competent people, think things out, then decide what's best, get committed to it and don't look back.

How did you communicate and connect with your employees at the Education Department?

I had a lot of personal contact at the Education Department. For example, I never made a major decision in Washington dealing with education without a teacher in the room. Normally that was Dr. Terry Dozier, who was Teacher of the Year in South Carolina and National Teacher of the Year, and had a phenomenal record as a social studies teacher. I enjoyed having people there who disagreed with me. I welcomed that and people knew that.

It was not uncommon for me to shift my feelings about things in a significant way when advised by very competent people. Many times we would have something worked out that we were going to recommend and Dr. Dozier or whoever was in there would say, "You know, that sounds good, but it simply won't work." Then they proceeded to tell you why it wouldn’t work. They are professional educators, and I paid a lot of attention to that. That was part of my modus operandi.

How should federal leaders keep employees engaged and motivated?

It's very important to develop a common vision among your key advisors, staff, and the leaders in government with whom you're dealing. Excite them about where you're trying to move things to make a difference. To keep that alive, it's important to have research-driven policies and careful benchmarks to measure your progress. In education, reform is always underway. You reach certain benchmarks and then you develop another area to reach other benchmarks. You can tell if you're moving in the right direction if your benchmarks are moving upward.

What were your key accomplishments as secretary of education?

We were very much involved in setting up national goals. Goals 2000 was a major piece of legislation passed in 1994. Also, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1994 set in motion the development of educational standards. President Clinton and I were very determined to do that. We had to work with governors and local school officials to develop standards for each state — that is, what a child should know in fifth grade about science or third grade about math.

With incentives from the federal government, technical help and political leadership, the president and I were able to get all 50 states to develop standards in major core subjects — a big job. The states themselves started coming together to develop what they call “common core standards,” that was state driven and not federal-government driven which is the proper way to do that. We still have a long way to go, but everybody is tuned in and knowledgeable about the idea of standards and curriculum to reach those standards.

Other major national priorities were to help economically disadvantaged kids afford college through Pell Grants and college incentive programs and the e-rate, a way of developing funds for public schools and libraries to connect to the Internet and get support for those systems. We now have every public school connected.

What leadership lessons did you learn as governor of South Carolina?

Success in any major position depends on the people that you bring in to advise you — the professional paid staff as well as volunteers. I always prided myself on bringing in top people and making sure I had a diverse group. My staff as governor and as secretary of education were diverse, just like the country is, and they were the best staff of any body by comparison. I was very proud of that.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 21, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: No-cost leadership training ideas

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Leadership development is an important investment in employees and a means to improve the performance of federal agencies.

Considering the current budgetary constraints, there are a number of no-cost or low-cost training and development options that you can use to help educate and develop your managers and team members to fill in any gaps.

As noted in books like The Innovator’s DNA, The Art of Innovation and The Accidental Creative, some of the most successful leaders find inspiration by networking with and learning from leaders in other organizations and other fields. Apple’s famously innovative products have been informed by the experience of the company’s CEO, Steve Jobs, with everything from a visit to a calligraphy class in college to a stay at in India.

One development option to consider for your team is scheduling site visits with leaders in other high-performing private sector companies, nonprofit organizations or government agencies. Here at the Center for Government Leadership our fellows benchmark a wide-range of successful organizations for a behind-the-scenes look at strategies for delivering results.

I consulted with our benchmarking expert Abigail Bell, who has coordinated more than 200 site visits with organizations ranging from Home Depot and Starbucks to the San Diego Zoo and Make-A-Wish Foundation.

On a recent visit to CSX Corporation, our fellows learned how the freight railroad was forced to redesign its business model due to environmental restrictions and competition from other modes of transportation. In the process, they learned a number of lessons regarding workplace change, including the need to simplify the mission and core values—that way all employees understand the new direction and the need to both acknowledge when things go wrong and make readjustments when needed.

Here are some steps to introduce your team to thought-provoking experiences right in your own city.

Reach out to potential role models. Find local leaders willing to share their experiences with your team. Look in your local news sources for leadership profiles and inspiring stories about local nonprofit and business leaders. When you find enticing and willing prospects, reach out to them and make sure the lessons they seek to impart are relevant leadership stories and best practices, rather than an overview of their organization.

Do your homework. Prepare your team before any site visit. Use a team meeting or a lunchtime session to engage in conversation about the organization you will be visiting and the questions you might want to ask. Once there, it can be just as important to observe the surroundings. A group of our fellows recently visited the headquarters for Groupon, and according to them it was the fun, non-hierarchical workplace environment that was most impressive. 

Identify what’s applicable. After the visit,discuss the experience with your team to find the lessons that can be applied to your group, your programs and your agency. Be sure to look for unusual opportunities and intangible lessons you may wish to bring back to the office. I still remember a visit I made to the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco – a residential center that helps substance abusers, ex-convicts and others. Although the visit was years ago, I still retain the optimism in the face of adversity thanks to my conversations with the residents who turned their lives around.

Commit to action. Finally, and most importantly, find concrete opportunities to implement the best ideas uncovered during your site visit and debrief.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 19, 2011 at 9:06 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Sick of unclear sick-leave policies?

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

This week’s question comes from a congressional staffer who’s frustrated by the unclear policies around sick leave and vacation days.

I work on the Hill so the rules on sick days and vacation days may be different from the rest of the known universe. Despite asking our chief of staff in the beginning of the year about sick days and vacation days, we never received a specific number of days we were allocated.

Recently, we were asked to submit the number of sick and vacation days we've taken. We have one employee who, for about two to three months, was leaving early two or three times a week with food-poisoning-like symptoms. She decided that all of the times she left early would equal one sick day. Her argument is that she continued to work while at home.

I have taken three sick days. However, I worked via Blackberry and my personal computer, took phone calls, and performed work functions while at home on those days. Is it fair that I am expected to count my days as full days despite working from home? Should I expect that I can "roll" those days into one like my colleague since there were never guidelines for the office? -A frustrated Congressional staffer

To start, I suggest having a conversation with your chief of staff. Without implicating your colleague, ask for clarity around your office’s sick-day policy given that you’re spending some portion of that time working. As a reminder, Congress sets its own rules and does not follow the same regulations as the executive branch when it comes to leave.

You raise an important question, and one that is likely to come up more frequently as all branches of government expand their use of telework, flex time and technology.

For federal employees, there is no set of written regulations that covers all scenarios regarding leave. It’s up to federal supervisors to provide their employees with guidance and clarity around the use of sick and vacation leave.

As a supervisor, it’s important that you set clear rules and expectations with your employees from day one about your policy regarding leave. By not doing so, you can create an environment of uncertainty and frustration similar to the situation described by this congressional staffer.

I suggest federal managers use critical events throughout the year as a natural way of offering refreshers. For example, when the cold season hits their office and virtually everyone misses at least one day, federal leaders can use their weekly team meeting to provide a refresher on the best way for their employees to account for their sick leave.

Whether you’re a frustrated employee or a manager, it’s important that you open the lines of communication around your office’s leave policy.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 15, 2011 at 9:05 AM4 comments

Federal Coach: John Kotter on leading change in your organization

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Dr. John P. Kotter, the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School, speaks on how organizations can successfully transform themselves. Author of 18 books, he cofounded Kotter International, an organization helping Global 5000 company executives develop skills to lead change in large, complex business environments.

How should federal leaders deal with change?

The place to start with your own team is to get over moaning about the problems. It's not just the government. Everybody does that. You're trying to create a sense of urgency for the change, not around the little pitter-patter stuff that's happening every day, but around a big opportunity for the agency or organization. Focus on what it demands from Congress or constituencies. Where is the big opportunity for doing something that makes sense in light of our mission and what we personally care about? It takes strong feelings to make something challenging happen.

How should leaders engage employees during times of change?

Don’t just assign a task force of employees to work on the change effort. Ask people from all across the organization to volunteer to be part of the group that leads it. For this “guiding coalition” you want the idealist with a good reputation and relationships in different parts of the organization. Some other members might have expertise in technical aspects of what you're doing. If you're geographically spread out, you want somebody from each area, and you want young and old. You need diversity to help the overall group become the center of any big change effort. One client of mine put together a team to come up with 100 ideas to get the organization rolling. It’s amazing how many ideas they came up with in this one-day meeting.

As this group of volunteers makes progress, displays more confidence and has evidence something real is being achieved, that will help bring along some of the more skeptical employees who didn’t believe something significant was possible.

How can federal leaders motivate employees during a major transformation?

Set up mechanisms to help these volunteers spread the message. We worked with a division of the U.S. Army and helped them put together volunteers on an “urgency team” – this is a cross-functional group that helps senior leaders communicate the organization’s opportunity and get buy-in from everyone to help achieve it. People on this team aren’t necessarily powerful in the hierarchy of the organization, but they’re considered leaders by their peers.

The Army team used all kinds of techniques. We created kits for supervisors to help them understand how to talk about the big opportunity. The urgency team created inspiring videos with messages about the change effort that were played in meetings, on an Army cable channel and an intranet site they created. We wanted the creative juices to flow so people would get excited and help others get excited. We didn’t want to have a flip-chart session about strategy and plans. We wanted to exponentially increase the sense of urgency in the organization around its one big opportunity.

What are the benefits of change?

The wonderful thing about change is it’s both a good news and a bad news story. The bad news is, if you don't see it, you don't react to it or handle it well and then you've got six bullets in you. The good news is that change always opens opportunities to do things that you personally care about that relate to the organization’s mission. With no change, the system is stable. In a perfectly stable system, there are no windows of opportunity opening out there.

What errors do organizations make during times of change?

The number one error is that people don’t know the right methods to use today – they don’t know what they don’t know. That’s the killer. Change is happening today in a more rapidly moving world with much more uncertainty and volatility. People think they know what the change game is all about because they worked on an initiative six years ago, but it’s a different game now.

Have you seen major change occur in government?

Yes. In one government organization we advised, we were told nothing had changed since about 1957. They were being hammered by Washington to increase their development and deployment of trained employees by 25 percent, among other things. They'd spent a year making all kinds of incremental improvements and increased it by about 2 percent with lots of excuses why you couldn't go faster than 50 miles an hour because of the fundamental nature of what they did. After 18 months they eliminated this “braking system,” if you will. They're up to 25 percent even though they thought that was impossible. For the first time, they've got people talking about how it is possible to make relatively dramatic changes and get results, like reducing the training backlog, not over ten years but over two.

What advice do you have for the mid-level managers who often feel powerless to effect change?

Don’t get pessimistic. Talk about what you think the big opportunities are for your organization in every meeting, even ones about mundane things. Look each day for even a little thing you can do to push the agenda along. It’s hard to lead by yourself, so get others involved; make it a group effort. Once things start rolling, the key thing you can do from the middle or the bottom is stick up your hand and say, "I'm in the game coach, if you want me."

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 13, 2011 at 10:49 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: The best leadership movies to get you inspired

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

There are many ways for federal managers to absorb the lessons of leadership—training courses, management books, advice columns like this one, conversations with peers and the on-the-job school of hard knocks.

But it’s the summertime and living should be easy. So sit back and consider watching an entertaining movie that can perhaps impart some insightful leadership lessons.

I thought I would share some of my own movie recommendations along with those of other leadership experts— movies that illustrate a wide variety of leadership challenges and approaches. You may not face the same kind of drama as these characters or achieve the same results, but the stories are inspiring and some of the lessons can be applied to the federal space.

At the top of my list is Miracle, which tells the true story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team led coach Herb Brooks. Brooks’ ability to find the right talent and bring the players together to work toward a common goal brought an unlikely victory over the heavily favored Soviet Union. Brooks was a demanding disciplinarian. While his style may not fit the average workplace, he had a vision, demanded excellence, got buy-in and inspired his team to perform far above expectations. Not a bad outcome!

Also on my list is Apollo 13, which embodies the leadership lesson that failure is not an option. Based on the true story of the 1970 Apollo lunar mission, Gene Kranz (played by Ed Harris) is in charge of flight operations in Houston while astronaut Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) is the in-flight commander when there's an explosion aboard the spacecraft. The two men, facing the most stressful of circumstances, display teamwork, ingenuity, inventiveness and clearheaded direction.

Another must-see leadership movie is this year’s Best Picture winner, The King’s Speech, the story of King George VI of England who overcame a debilitating speech impediment to inspire the British during the darkest days of World War II. There are many lessons from this movie—a leader who admitted he had a problem, reached out for help and trusted people around him in order to succeed. It also is a story of perseverance and of keeping focused on a goal.

And of course, a leadership movie list is not complete without an example of what NOT to do as a leader. The best movie in this category by far is Office Space, the comedy about disgruntled IT workers who conspire to embezzle money from their uncaring and abusive boss. The movie is a clear illustration of a boss who doesn’t capitalize on the talent of his employees, doesn’t know how to handle poor performers and doesn’t provide his employees with meaningful work.

Duke University professor and leadership expert Joseph Leboeuf, Jr., also weighed in with some of his favorite leadership movies. He recommended Remember the Titans for its lessons on organizational change, transformational leadership and team building, and Gladiator, for its lessons on the power of duty, personal integrity and commitment to something outside of self.

The Partnership for Public Service’s Excellence in Government Fellows Coach Leah Kedar also offered the following recommendations for top leadership movies: Braveheart, Dead Poet’s Society, Working Girl, In Good Company, The Firm, Wall Street and Hoosiers.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 12, 2011 at 9:26 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: The human resources black hole

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Human resources (HR) seems like a black box. Once we submit our paperwork for action, sometimes it sits there forever. In several cases, an action has taken several months to a year! What takes so long? Why can’t HR be more transparent? - Federal manager, U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Transparency requires clarity from both sides, and as a result, I’m going to challenge you by asking: Might you be part of the problem?

Next time you have an HR action or you need to work with another management function within your agency, I suggest taking the following approach.

First, don’t just simply complete the paperwork and send it their way. Instead, take a moment to sit down with your HR colleagues and explain why your request is time sensitive and critical to your team’s performance and results.

Next, let your colleagues know that you are willing to invest your time – and that of your team – to help them complete the action as quickly as possible. Try shifting this “us vs. them” mentality, and work to create a sense that you’re one team working to achieve a common goal.

Finally, set some common expectations for regular updates and then put them on your calendar to initiate the follow-up. While you may be focused on completing your one action, your agency’s HR folks will be processing multiple actions simultaneously. Therefore, it would be a good idea for you to contact them regularly to assess progress and ask where you and your team can be helpful.

If you use this approach and find that the situation has not changed, contact the head of the office and explain that you’re willing to work together, but you need better support from their team operating on the front lines.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 08, 2011 at 7:35 AM4 comments

Federal Coach: Ending homelessness: A leadership conversation with Rosanne Haggerty of Community Solutions

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Rosanne Haggerty, an Amherst College Life Trustee, founded Common Ground Community, a not-for-profit organization started in 1990 that develops strategies to end homelessness in New York City. Haggerty, a MacArthur and Ashoka fellow, is currently president of Community Solutions, a new organization aimed at strengthening communities to end homelessness nationwide.

What challenges did you face in starting your nonprofit?

I had an idea for what could be done with this troubled building in Times Square that would bring together housing for low-income people and historic rehabilitation of an important asset, deal with a serious crime problem and contribute to a Times Square revitalization plan. The challenge was how to make this all come together and work in a real place in real time. Making the puzzle pieces fit was the hard thing. I couldn't find a not-for-profit to take it on. I had to start Common Ground to make the idea happen. The first step was the basic outline of the plan and getting funding. Next was meeting with whoever would help improve the idea and anticipate questions from a diverse array of people in the community — the property owners, business leaders, civic leaders, public officials, people at various agencies, not-for-profits, churches. It was an intense consultation process.

The Center for Urban Community Services was a key first partner who has assisted tenants with mental health, social services and employment needs. Ben & Jerry’s was another early partner. This first project had to weave in employment and the need for a different type of retail environment. Times Square was a chaotic and dangerous place then with a lot of X-rated places. I met with someone from Ben & Jerry's board. We were surrounded by people walking down 8th Avenue to the Port Authority bus terminal. He said, “There are a lot of people here and nowhere for them to stop." They were willing to take a leap and take over the first of the commercial spaces we converted. They actually donated the franchise to us.

How did you learn how to lead change?

I'm a cautious person, but I’m comfortable getting my hands dirty right away as a way of learning to get a sense of how to take the next step. You've got to get close to the problem to see its dimensions. It may appear we take on big things, but our progress has been a series of incremental steps. I often find I'm committed to staying with something before ever having made a big "I'm going to take this on" move. It's a steady unpeeling. I have moments when I think, "Boy, this is complicated." We're also pretty good at identifying who is willing to be part of this exploration with us. That builds confidence and expands your toolkit.

What is an example of a great relationship with a public sector agency?

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. People there definitely thought the Times Square idea was nuts. But they hung in there. It challenged their assumptions, as in, "We haven't done anything like this, but if it worked it would be game changing." They stuck with the project when there are all sorts of reasons for the government not to take risks. Folks worked hard to make the case once they were satisfied the numbers worked and the project could happen the way we described.

In 1995, we moved to buy the Prince George Hotel. It was a complicated situation with the mortgage, foreclosure and an uncooperative seller. The housing agency stepped forward in collaboration with two banks, JPMorgan and Bankers Trust, at the time. That was amazing. We got them to provide a buy-sell agreement. The banks came up with financing to buy the mortgage from the Resolution Trust Corporation. A wonderful 416-unit building for formerly homeless and low-income people reopened in 1999 because a public agency was willing to work creatively with a not-for-profit.

What elements lead to an effective partnership?

Being a good team player, sharing the vision, sharing credit, being attuned to other people's needs and what they're trying to accomplish and looking at the world through their eyes. The most important thing is having a clear goal and helping everyone around the table see how they benefit from the group reaching that goal. Without that, you can have all the meetings and good will in the world and you won't move anything.

What lessons did you learn from working at Covenant House (a privately funded child-care agency) and how are you applying them?

The biggest lesson was learning to ask the right questions. Early in what was the modern wave of homelessness, we had young people coming in and out of a well-run and thoughtfully managed shelter, but it was clear that we were not solving the problem. Many people who were persistently on the street didn’t want shelter. But it didn't mean they didn't want permanent housing. That misjudgment really stalled progress in many places for many years.

What lessons can federal leaders adopt from social entrepreneurs?

There's too rigid a culture around risk. Certain elements of government excel at working flexibly and adaptably. Think about recent disasters in Alabama, or the military. How do you take the sensibilities and creative discipline from operating in urgent situations and pull those into the ongoing work of government? Perhaps we need to protect government employees willing to take reasonable risks to test ideas. Make it transparent what you're trying, and what you're trying to learn, as a tool for risk mitigation.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 06, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Measuring your leadership success

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

What are the measures of success for a leader? - Federal manager from the U.S. Department of the Air Force

While the specific approach will vary based on a federal leader’s agency, position and personal and professional goals, I believe there are three broad measures of success that a leader can use: program measures, people measures and personal measures.

Program measures

Although it can be difficult, you need to capture your team’s results. As a federal leader, it’s important that you and your team are delivering the very best results possible for the American public — whether you are managing research and analysis, customer service or regulation.

In addition to your team’s primary outcomes, consider examining your team’s operational efficiency using measures such as on-time and on-budget delivery of your work. This information will not only tell you whether you’re doing a good job, but it will help you make the same case to your senior leaders and external stakeholders.

People measures

Too often leaders overlook ways to measure employee satisfaction, commitment and engagement at work in favor of program measures. While program measures may capture the attention of your agency’s senior leaders, inspectors general, the Government Accountability Office and Congress, it’s important to remember that good government starts with good people. If you want to deliver program results, you need to put your people first.

There are some pretty good people measures that you can use, including the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) annual survey of federal employees and the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings. Both provide insights into employee engagement and satisfaction, and the workforce views of agency leadership.

You also can use a 360-degree assessment, which is a targeted, anonymous survey collecting feedback from your employees, colleagues and superiors. This is a particularly helpful tool since it measures both the strength of your working relationship with employees and with some of your key stakeholders. As a federal leader you need to be aware of your employees’ and colleagues’ perceptions of you and the organization, as effective leadership requires building working relationships with others, persuading them to support your initiatives and using your personal credibility to overcome obstacles.

Personal measures

Part of being a good leader is being a good person — to yourself, your friends and family, as well as your colleagues. It’s vital to your health and your effectiveness as a leader that you find the time to refresh yourself whether it’s through exercise, a hobby, vacation or a combination of them all. By taking time to have better work-life balance, you are not only helping yourself as a leader, but you are also sending a positive message to your employees about the importance of finding balance in their lives.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jul 02, 2011 at 1:09 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes on his organizations atmosphere

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

John L. "Jack" Hayes is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assistant administrator for weather services and National Weather Service director, responsible for an integrated weather services program supporting the delivery of weather, water and climate services to government, industry and the general public.

What’s it like to work for an organization that millions of people rely on daily?

Think about the awesome power and mystery of the atmosphere and the elements out there and being able to deliver forecasts to fundamentally protect life and property. What can be more fulfilling than that? I spent 28 years in the Air Force and swore to defend our nation against its enemies. In a certain way, one can consider severe weather as an enemy of the United States. I might have changed uniforms, but it's the same job—to protect Americans.

Every forecast office I visit I find the same thing—dedicated, passionate, smart people who truly believe in the mission. In Alabama, in the wake of the April 27th tornadoes, a forecaster on duty monitoring the tornadic outbreak on the radar saw a tornado headed for his neighborhood. He called his wife to say, "Make sure you get to a safe location." They had no basement. They were in an inner room in a tub with pillows on top of it. He said, "I couldn't go home to be with my family. I have a responsibility to the community." That's the ethic I saw in the military too. It's an honor and a privilege to work with these people.

One other story will stay with me the rest of my life. That tornado outbreak in Huntsville came in three waves—early morning, late morning and then the big bad one in the afternoon. There was a [pregnant] forecaster who was past due and knew there was a threat. But she knew we were under the gun and needed staffing and she worked over 12 hours that day.

How does leading a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week workforce make your leadership responsibilities unique?

The weather doesn't operate by the clock, so vigilance is required 7 by 24. The perception is that if we’re going to have severe weather tomorrow, you come in early that day and you go home after it's over and you wind down. But that isn’t the case. The forecasting and coordination actually starts as many as five days in advance. [Employees] then work at a feverish pace during the event itself. There can be 12, 15 even 18 hours when they're under the gun. Then for up to several days after an event, such as the Alabama and Joplin tornadoes, we have people on the ground doing storm surveys and service assessments to learn how to do a better job the next time, even if you did everything right this time. When people lose their lives, there's always a way to do something differently.

What are the challenges of your position?

Every day there's a new challenge. For instance, the FAA depends on the weather service to provide aviation-related weather forecasts and services for air traffic management and safety. We had some less than happy customers there. It turned out that the FAA doesn't care what the temperature forecast is unless it affects air traffic safety or management. In an experiment in New York City, we put more employees into the forecast office to focus on the air traffic control center for the five area airports. In three months, we reduced the number of weather-related air traffic delays by 10 percent. There’s a $185 million economic savings right there. I'm now trying to broaden that across all of FAA’s 21 air traffic control centers.

How do you manage a workforce located all over the country?

We pick good people and hire leaders who are strong scientists and have a high sense of integrity. America deserves a weather service that's equipped with the best. Then we treat them the way I'd want to be treated if I were working those long hours trying to protect America. We empower local managers to make the tough decisions. We get to know community leaders and their needs, and the local conditions that might affect the path and intensity of the storm. We partner with emergency managers so the right hand knows what the left hand's doing, critical when severe weather strikes. It saves lives.

I have to defend every hiring decision I make. The reality is the best ballplayers in the world don't bat a thousand. I believe in people fundamentally, so when I have a struggling employee who I sense is trying, I invest time in growing that employee. That's the responsibility a leader has.

How do you keep your employees motivated when forecasting the weather can be a tricky science?

When you have a mission to protect Americans, you don't see much finger-pointing. If we haven't done a good job, rather than point fingers we lock arms and say, "What is it that we could have done better?" I send emails or call the meteorologist in charge when they’ve done a good job. And they’ll say, "Gosh, they noticed," and that does great things. I went to Alabama in part to say thank you for a job well done. That’s very important. The forecast office appreciated that people in D.C. do more than just levy a requirement and demand perfection. It's not the pay that keeps us in this job. It's the feeling of mission and doing something good.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 29, 2011 at 12:45 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Closing the gap between managers and staff at your federal agency

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

The managers and staff of well-run federal agencies are usually on the same page, sharing a common vision and working in sync to carry out government’s policies and provide services to the American people.

But this alignment is sometimes missing, with the leadership and those doing the day-to-day work not seeing eye-to-eye and veering off in different directions.

Sometimes, supervisors may be unable or unwill­ing to properly acknowledge and share staff concerns with top leadership, or not fully understand the nature of the discontent. Agency executives also may be left unaware of what’s happening on the frontlines, issuing policies that risk failure because they aren’t fully informed of how the mission and work is being perceived by the employees. Agency leaders also may miss opportunities to improve the workplace if they are not aware of different challenges facing their staff.

Such situations can obviously lead to dysfunction, unhappiness and decreased employee engagement, resulting in poor performance and bad outcomes, results that no one wants.

If there is a glaring divide at your agency, you need to right the ship. Here are a few options for both senior leaders and frontline supervisors to consider:

Determine if there is a management/employee divide. Knowing whether or not you have a problem is clearly the first and most important step. In some cases, it may be quite obvious. In other instances, it may require use of employee surveys and various other methods of obtaining employee feedback. To start, I suggest looking at your agency’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government Staff/Manager Alignment Score that measures gaps between the views of managers and staff on a range of issues. You might also consider hosting periodic brown bag lunches to address your employee’s questions, and you might try managing by walking around and engaging employees to test the waters.

Articulate agency priorities. Too often, managers assume that employees know or understand the reasons why certain policies or approaches are being taken, when in fact they do not. Be sure to make clear through your verbal and written communications how programs and policies relate to the mission of your agency, and how the day-to-day work is part and parcel of accomplishing your goals. It is important for your employees to understand the big picture and how their work fits in.

Create an action plan to improve the workplace. Agencies across government have successfully in­cluded staff, managers, leaders and union represen­tatives in the action planning process through focus groups, trainings and workshops to solicit ideas and garner buy-in. Employees generally are committed to their jobs and want to succeed, and it is important for their voices to be heard and that they are given a sense of ownership. This will inevitably lead to better performance.

Share employee concerns with agency leaders. Your top leaders may not have the same opportunities to gain insight into the daily challenges that employ­ees at your agency face, but as a manager you are uniquely positioned to receive and share important informa­tion on what’s happening at the frontlines. Sharing new employee information regu­larly is a critical part of getting your entire agency onto the same page.

For additional ideas on how to start closing gaps between managers and staff at your agency, I suggest reading a new agency guide by my organization and the IBM Center for The Business of Government, Best Places to Work in the Federal Government Staff/Manager Alignment Scores . Be sure to check out the step-by-step instructions on using those scores to guide improvement.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 28, 2011 at 8:18 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Rocking the boat in federal agencies

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Thank you for your all of your recent comments this past month. I wanted to share a few of those comments and encourage you to continue sharing your ideas and questions by commenting on these posts or emailing me at fedcoach@ourpublicservice.org.

One reader offered the following book recommendation to my summer reading list, which is also a personal favorite of mine:

“I would add Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by the Heath brothers. Some great, tangible examples of incredible changes in communities/companies/households etc.

“Switch asks the following question: Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle, say the Heaths, is a conflict that's built into our brains. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.” – Federal Coach reader

Next, a GS-14 federal employee emailed a comment in about my recent column on succession planning in government:

“I don't think it focused enough on the critical element of cultivating staff with leadership potential. I say this as a GS-14 with two decades in the government, who is liked and respected by my managers, but who is also regularly taken for granted.

Good staff leave and go elsewhere when they don't see the opportunities for advancement where they are. All the succession planning in the world won't help if you don't put your heart into the fight to retain the best people.” – Federal employee (GS-14)

Finally, I received a lot of interesting responses to my column on horrible bosses, and I wanted to share the following one from a former federal employee:

“There are situations without remedy. The greatest problem I noticed in my federal career was the hands-off management style of upper management. No one is willing to rock the boat and get rid of or move duds. The truth is no one cares that duds are in charge. After multiple OPM interventions and "management consultants" recommendations, no one will act and remove the duds. I was fortunate to qualify for retirement and was glad to depart. Some unfortunate souls cannot do likewise. –Federal Coach reader

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 24, 2011 at 1:17 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Summer reading suggestions for federal leaders

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Now that school’s out, my family and I are headed for a summer vacation. In between eating fried food and riding roller coasters, I plan to catch up on some new leadership books that I have been wanting to read.

What leadership books are at the top of your summer reading list? Here are my five:

Being the Boss by Linda Hill and Kent Lineback – As a federal manager, you know it can be difficult to manage the expectations of your employees, supervisors and peers. In their book Being the Boss, Linda Hill and Kent Lineback offer a mix of research and practical experience to help leaders better manage themselves, build and maintain diverse networks, and lead their teams.

Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz – While there still seems to be a Starbucks on every corner, the company experienced an unprecedented decline just a few years ago; and in response, Howard Schultz decided to return for a second time as CEO of the company. Along the way, Schultz realizes that he needs to change his behavior – the same behavior that led to his success – in the face of new challenges. The lessons that Schultz learns can also apply to federal leaders who are trying to find new ways of inspiring their teams and achieving their agencies’ goals.

Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler – Federal leaders inspired by Schultz’s story should also consider picking up a copy of Change Anything. Written by the authors of other great books like Influencer, Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations, this book outlines the sources of influence that can affect our daily decisions. This book can be a great resource for leaders who are struggling with a personal change or for those who are looking to guide others through a difficult process.

Better Under Pressure: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Themselves and Others by Justin Menkes - This book examines the characteristics that enable great leaders to think and act under the toughest of circumstances. Based on in-depth interviews with 60 CEOs, reviews of performance evaluations and cognitive ability tests, Menkes outlines three traits that distinguish those who excel under pressure and shows how leaders can develop and use those attributes to become more effective managers and better engage their employees.

Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity by Mario Morino – Given that federal agencies can often have difficulty measuring their outcomes, Morino’s book offers a simple approach for helping federal managers identify critical measures and learn from results. In addition, he includes some case studies that help make the translation from theory to practice.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 22, 2011 at 12:53 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Of cigarettes, rats and trans fats: CDC Director Thomas Frieden on leading in public health, when success is what you don't see

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden became the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in June 2009, following a seven-year stint as New York City Health Department Commissioner. He has worked on tuberculosis issues in New York and India and spent 12 years with the CDC earlier in his career.

What management lessons did you learn while serving as New York City Health Commissioner?

One was the importance of data. This is really core. We live and die in public health based on how good our data is. Take tobacco control in New York City. I was surprised to find in the epidemiologic information that tobacco was still, by far, the leading preventable cause of death. When I was approached for the job I said, "I've looked at the epidemiology and it's clear that tobacco is your number one problem and there's a way of addressing tobacco that's not being done. It will be very controversial. Are you willing to do that?" Mayor Bloomberg said, "Absolutely, yes." The first thing he did was increase the tobacco tax.

Next, I proposed we make all workplaces smoke free. Data showed that going smoke-free would save over 10,000 lives. We also showed that the level of pollution in a smoky bar was more than 50 times worse than the level of pollution in the most polluted place that people in New York City can think of: the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. It was a simple study done with a low-cost tool.

In six years, tobacco use went down by 25 percent among adults and 52 percent among kids. When the city started facing huge budget cuts, I was excoriated by the city council for spending so much money on anti-tobacco advertising when we had to reduce our staffing levels. Yet surveys allowed me to say, under oath, with complete certainty, that for every $1 million in anti-tobacco ads we spend, we save at least 1,500 lives. The data at every point in the effort was essential to define the problem, delineate the solution, determine if what we did was working and defend the program. Another example was the community health survey. We did a 10,000-respondent, random digit-dial survey in 43 neighborhoods. We learned that our educational activities about West Nile virus were completely ineffective. Instead, we just handed out mosquito repellant at senior centers. We were able to cut out an ineffective program and pay for the survey by reducing the ineffective educational efforts.

Another lesson was the importance of focus. There is a wide variety of issues in public health — communicable diseases, environmental risks, injuries, chronic diseases. You have to manage them all or they will manage you. You have to focus on where you can make a difference.

Where do you get your program ideas and how do you work to involve employees?

You build on the culture of the organization and support the front-line staff and managers so they’re free to suggest, “I think there's a better or cheaper way to do this.” We opened public health offices in the three sickest, poorest neighborhoods in New York City — Bedford-Stuyvesant, Harlem, including East Harlem and the South Bronx. We canvassed the community asking, “What's your biggest problem?” This may not be the greatest thing to talk about but, resoundingly, we got back something we never would have expected: rat control. Widespread infestations gave people a sense their community was not being attended to or valued. It's not so easy to get rid of rats. But through a multi-year effort, we found the best urban rodentologist in the world and piloted new ways to implement programs. The approach seems to be having significant success.

Great ideas are everywhere. We accomplished a lot in New York, but very little originated with us. California had gone smoke free previously. Denmark had eliminated trans fats. The menu labeling idea was around for a long time. We did a lot of innovative things, but we didn’t have to invent a new mouse trap.

How do you manage and motivate employees, and get their feedback?

I manage by walking around and interacting with staff. We’ve had great feedback resulting in better processes. Cash awards and bonuses are important. We also want to make sure that our evaluation system recognizes excellence. I highlight effective programs from around the agency, things that people may not know about that are exciting. But if managers don't address performance problems, it undermines morale throughout the federal government.

At CDC there's a real sense we're not here to worship what's known, but to question it. If someone gets up and gives a fancy talk they're really proud of, it's not rude to stand up and say, "So what? How is this going to help people?" We're here to have the maximum health impact, so that irreverence is important. We promote an atmosphere of openness and encourage people to bring up issues or problems. We have an internal blog and if people have concerns...bring 'em on, even if they’re challenging. Let's have free and open debate.

What are your top challenges?

Besides the budget, it’s that prevention is often invisible. Each year in the U.S. 40,000 people don't die because of the immunization program. Twenty million infectious disease cases don't happen. Fourteen billion dollars in medical care costs and $69 billion in societal costs are averted. Making that clear and maintaining support for programs are big challenges.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 21, 2011 at 1:42 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: How to become a great federal leader -- without senior leadership support

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

What suggestions do you have for being an effective leader when you don't have support from your leadership? - Federal manager (GS-15), U.S. Department of Homeland Security

I commend you for wanting to grow as a leader and become more effective so that you can engage your team and have a positive effect on their morale and performance even without the support from other leaders around you.

Back in March, I shared the results of research my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, completed with the Hay Group. We examined the characteristics of innovative federal leaders to determine their common leadership traits. Despite varied backgrounds, agencies and results, these leaders demonstrated great resilience and vision. They were all able to network and collaborate effectively across stovepipes within their agency and across sectors.

Perhaps most relevant to your question, they all built strong, diverse teams with a sense of purpose. Our research found that many of these leaders succeeded despite working with some difficult senior leaders. In fact, they excelled in three areas:

1. Team Builder - The leaders we studied intentionally composed teams with the optimal mix of skills, abilities and experience to achieve their goals. In government, as a federal manager you're often leading a team that you didn't build. These folks would work with an existing team to maximize their skills and then secure additional team resources by lobbying their senior leaders. If they were unable to hire new staff, these leaders considered creating rotations or developmental assignments to attract the internal resources they needed.
2. Team Leader - Leaders obviously lead teams, but the exceptional leaders we studied took things a step further. They fostered a shared sense of ownership among everyone on their team by clearly communicating the team's purpose, repeatedly soliciting their ideas, and proactively supporting the team through good times and bad. In a risk-averse culture like our federal government, rank-and-file employees need that support and top-line cover from you to step out of the shadows.
3. Teacher/Mentor - The very best leaders, whether in government or the private sector, invest in the long-term growth of their teammates. They begin by providing constructive feedback - those tough conversations folks typically avoid - and go on to create opportunities and challenges that force their people to stretch and learn beyond their current capabilities. Our research also found that their work as a teacher/mentor did not end when someone left their team. Rather, these federal leaders continued supporting and building those folks long after their formal supervisory relationship ended.

You most likely already possess some if not all of these skills, and you can simply be more intentional about using them to inspire your team despite the lack of senior leadership support. If you think you may need to grow in an area, do a self-assessment of your strengths and weaknesses against the attributes outlined in our report. By doing so, you can then develop targeted next steps for training or finding a mentor who can support your growth in the area that needs improving.

Just remember - you have an incredible opportunity to affect your team's engagement, morale and productivity. Don't let them down despite whatever obstacles you confront. That's your job as a leader.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 17, 2011 at 1:15 AM1 comments

Federal Coach: Alice Rivlin on being aggressively apolitical

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Alice Rivlin, an expert on fiscal and monetary policy, is a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. She was founding director of the Congressional Budget Office, served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget and was vice chair of the Federal Reserve.

What are some of the key leadership lessons from your experience working in the federal government?

You can't start out saying, "I'm going to be a leader." You have to start out saying, "I'm really interested in this problem or in improving how government functions" and get yourself in the position to start doing it. Leadership has to be based on doing solid work and keeping at it.

What were some of the challenges you faced starting the Congressional Budget Office and what did you do to overcome them?

We had to formulate a clear idea of the purpose of the CBO. It was very important that it do good analysis and be non-partisan and serve the leadership of both parties. That meant being aggressively apolitical. I think the decisions that I made, along with the small group that worked with me setting it up, proved to be the right ones. We decided, for example, that the CBO should not make recommendations but should give options or alternatives. We stuck to that even when members of Congress were persistently saying, "Please tell us what you really think we ought to do." It would have undermined the nonpartisan character of the organization if we had given explicit policy recommendations.

Given the recent anti-government sentiment and fiscal uncertainty, are there strategies you would advocate for leaders to keep their employees motivated?

Get employees really engaged in how we can do things better. We did that early in the Clinton Administration at OMB. As deputy director, I led a project called OMB 2000. We looked at the whole structure of the agency, but mostly we operated by getting together groups at the working level to talk about what they were doing and how to do it better, and ways to reorganize the agency that might help. It's really important for somebody at the top of an agency to spend a lot of time with the people who actually do the work. At OMB we had brown bag lunches with groups of working-level employees. I did the same thing at the Federal Reserve. Get people together in an informal setting and talk about their jobs.

How do you see government service as an opportunity for a new generation to make a difference, and what do you think are the barriers to public service?

Government service is a wonderfully exciting career, and I feel very fortunate to have spent time in government and spent the rest of my career on public policy issues. I perceive the younger generation as having quite an idealistic service streak and I hope that it will carry them into public service, including elected office. The barriers are that you have to forgo some possible opportunities to make a lot more money. There's always the idea that, "If I just went into investment banking, I'd be a millionaire very quickly." You have to overcome that and recognize that public service is a good living. Then you have to be prepared to have your life and your private actions and your finances scrutinized. You have to be careful about your personal life, which is a good idea anyway. It's particularly important in government service.

Was there a mentor or a critical event that helped you become the leader you are today?

One critical choice was choosing to major in economics in college rather than history, the track I thought I was on, because economics was more public policy oriented. Eventually a Ph.D. in economics gave me a credential that was important. I had mentors along the way. One was Joe Peckman, who was my boss early at the Brookings Institution. Mentoring just meant his taking me seriously, giving me advice on the things I was writing and then helping me get into positions where I could make a difference. He chaired a White House task force on revenue sharing-this was in the Johnson administration-and he put me on it. It was a great experience. The opportunity to run the CBO certainly changed my life. I got to manage something from the ground up and it was successful. That was a turning point in my career.

To what do you attribute your success as a leader? What do you think other folks can do to foster those elements of success?

Over my career I've experienced a growing sense of self-confidence. At the beginning, and this is partly from being a woman, I was reluctant to speak up. But as I did it, I found people listened and I began doing it more. Suddenly, without actually thinking about it, there I was being a leader. There's a balancing act involved. You don't want to be too outspoken or brash or critical. But I think, especially in government, the main impediment for a woman leader is learning to articulate your ideas and not be afraid to speak up.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 15, 2011 at 1:17 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Avoiding a Weiner scandal Social media tips for federal workers

 (Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons this past week given the news about Rep. Anthony Weiner and his online liaisons.

While this news can be enough to scare federal employees away from social media, digital communication is a potential tool that often times can be the best avenue for federal employees to connect with the people they serve – the American public – anywhere, anytime.

As one experienced federal leader told me, “If you’re not using social media, you’re not connecting with the public. You need to embrace the technology and just realize that as a leader you may become the star of your own reality show. You never know when something you say may be picked up by the media and make a bigger splash than you had expected. If you don’t do anything embarrassing, you’ll be fine.”

To help managers and their teams have a better understanding of social media technologies, the General Services Administration (GSA) recently released guidelines for its employees. These guidelines are a good roadmap for other federal agencies and leaders who are looking for suggestions on how to best navigate the world of social media.

GSA’s The Social Media Navigator starts by making it clear that their leaders are encouraged to use social media, since it enables their employees to share information, start conversations and exchange knowledge both within and outside government. You might also consider following in GSA’s footsteps and having signed agreements with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and others, which will help make it possible for employees to officially use these sites.

Once you’ve made the decision to use social media, GSA proposes the following steps to help federal managers best make use of social media tools:

· Talk with both your Chief Information Officer (CIO) and your public affairs office – and possibly others like your general counsel – about the best social media tools for reaching your targeted audience.

· Be prepared to dedicate the time and people to monitor, engage and respond regularly. As the Navigator says, “social media conversations take place over minutes not months.”

· Understand the difference between the “official” you and the “personal” you. Officially, you can only do what’s authorized by your leadership. Personally, you can do anything that’s not illegal. You’ll just want to steer clear of making any mention of your official capacity.

· Minimize the risk to your agency by checking security standards with your CIO and posting only publicly available information. You also want to avoid endorsing any products, services or organizations.

· Ensure that your information is accessible by using plain English and confirming that it’s available to Americans with disabilities.

· Avoid any political activities that may violate the Hatch Act – the law that prohibits federal employees from being politically active while on duty.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 10, 2011 at 1:40 PM1 comments

Federal Coach: Will you be ready when your leaders hit the road?

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Staff turnover is as inevitable as death and taxes, and for government it looms on the horizon. According to the Office of Personnel Management projections, by the end of 2015 more than 50 percent of the 7,746 senior executives in place at the beginning of 2011 will have left government.

As these executives leave their agencies, they will take with them key institutional knowledge and critical skills, resulting in a brain drain that could have dire consequences for our government and its ability to project the public's health, safety and security.

So, how can federal managers prepare for this looming brain drain? The answer lies in succession planning - the process of projecting vacancies, evaluating talent to fill those vacancies, and then developing strategies for training staff or recruiting new talent as needed.

The hard part comes in finding the time, resources and data to effectively develop succession plans. To help overcome these barriers, my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, published a report last week with Booz Allen Hamilton, which outlines a five-step approach to succession planning for federal managers:

1. List critical positions and project vacancy risk. To start, create a succession-planning committee of senior executives who can identify and evaluate which positions are most critical to the ongoing success of your agency. The committee should consider senior management roles as well as technical roles, and should assess the likelihood of these positions becoming vacant within the next few years due to retirements, operational changes or any other risk factor.
2. Discuss future needs. Predicting staff turnover for the next three to five years can be difficult, but as a federal manager it's important to prepare for the long-term needs of your agency and team. To do so, consider future team functions and activities and any factors that might affect how your team achieves its results.
3. Analyze gaps in the existing talent pool. Within your agency and on your team, you have employees who are looking to advance their careers and possibly move into leadership positions. Using well-established criteria, your succession-planning committee can evaluate employees, assess their readiness to lead, and determine whether your agency has any immediate successors for a given job or whether another solution is needed.
4. Develop strategies to close the gaps. A number of approaches can help close the gaps between the existing workforce and future needs. In addition to formal training, cost-free alternatives include developmental assignments, cross-training, job rotations and short-term transfers to other units or agencies. It's important to avoid appearing like you're hand-picking successors, so make sure to provide open, competitive access to all employees who seek career development opportunities. It is also possible that the gaps are so substantial that it becomes more cost effective to look outside the agency to recruit new talent.
5. Evaluate progress and revisit plans each year. This is your "lather, rinse, repeat" step. Remember, succession planning is an ongoing, fluid process that tracks employees as they continue to develop their leadership skills. Ideally, succession plans should be updated every 6 to 12 months or if there is a triggering event, such as a key vacancy.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 10, 2011 at 10:32 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: NIST Director Patrick Gallagher on leading an organization of scientists

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Dr. Patrick Gallagher is the director of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he helps promote the advancement of measurement science, standards and technology. He previously served as the agency’s deputy director, as well as the director of the NIST Center for Neutron Research. He also worked as an agency representative for the National Science and Technology Council.

How did being a NIST employee shape your leadership as director?

It gave me a great advantage. I had worked here for 16 years at different levels from a scientist to a manager. I have a feel for the organization, knew a lot of the people and had a sense of what kinds of things were important. I'm still learning, because NIST is so diverse. Employees know me and my perspective so they've entrusted me with leading ambitious changes. I don't think a lot of things we’ve done over the past two years would have been possible without that support from the whole agency.

How is leading a scientific-driven federal agency different from leading a traditional one?

I don't have direct experience working in agencies that are not science based, but looking over the fence I imagine some significant differences. We're a research organization and couldn't do our public-service function without scientific research. You don't lead scientists in the conduct of their research. You have to know when to get out of the way. The two things that motivate scientists are interesting work and important work. They want to make a difference. As a leader, you're trying to create alignment between their scientific work and the agency’s needs.

How do you motivate your employees?

I don’t take a lot of credit for it because they're incredibly self-motivated. Being a government scientist has two ingredients. You want the challenge and satisfaction of trying to solve an interesting scientific or engineering research question. That’s just a lot of fun. The other ingredient is making sure your work makes a difference. It sounds corny, but every scientist wants to save the world in some way.  We have a great mission to advance measurement science so the country can outcompete and out-innovate and thrive economically. That’s just really cool. The key part of motivating is letting that alignment happen so you can do great science on behalf of the country. When you do, everyone's excited, from the newest person fresh out of school to somebody who retired 10 years ago and still comes in.

How do you stay focused on the NIST mission?

It's a perpetual challenge. There will be changes in rules or budgets. You solve three problems and you turn around and four new ones have cropped up. That's a big part of what management deals with on a day-to-day basis. We go to a lot of trouble to make this one of the most exciting places in the world to work for top scientists. The last thing we want to do is toxify that experience by having them do a bunch of other things that they don't see as contributing to that role.

What are the most important elements of success?

Leadership is an interesting marriage between personal accountability and organizational success. My success is measured by how I contribute to the agency doing well. You also need important goals. You’re measured by how effective you are in getting your organization to help you work toward those goals. The nuts-and-bolts things managers talk about come into play, but that's the tool box. The real issue is knowing where you're trying to go.

How do you set goals and make sure your employees have the same ones?

It’s not easy. For example, we have a lot of internal information from scientists at the cutting edge of these fields. They are enormous resources for anticipating directions even before industries know. You can't do everything, so how do you decide how to focus? There are things happening day to day and there are things that won't come to fruition for 10 years. We're trying to improve our planning processes and reorganize NIST to make sure our senior leadership is focused on carrying out the mission. The organizational leadership has to pull together to accomplish public benefits, a continuous and important process.

How can federal leaders inspire the next generation to public service?

A scientific organization is almost by definition an elitist organization. You’re not looking for just a competent scientist or engineer. You want the world's best. That you're in a competitive hiring environment is baked into the entire objective. A federal agency has unique challenges that other science and technology organizations don’t. It involves open access to collaborate internationally. We have to be able to work in that global scientific community and allow scientists to follow the scientific process. You want to allow them to fully participate in professional meetings, dialogues and seminars.

Who has been a role model for you?

I confess I'm the world's worst plagiarist. I copy everybody around me. When I see somebody really effective, I'm always changing and modifying my approach. One person in particular is Mike Rowe, my former boss and mentor for 14 years at NIST. He taught me the importance of having a clear goal of what you are trying to accomplish and he had a remarkable ability to work with people.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 08, 2011 at 10:58 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on leadership: “At NASA, we do big things”

Charles Bolden has been the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) since 2009. Bolden’s 34-year career with the Marine Corps included 14 years at NASA’s Astronaut Office, where he was aboard the space shuttle for four missions. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and after his services as an astronaut, Bolden became deputy commandant of the midshipmen at the Naval Academy.

What event helped you become the leader you are today?

My meeting with Astronaut Ron McNair. Like me, he grew up in the segregated South and against his own beliefs applied to MIT. He didn’t think he could do it, but people encouraged him. He ended up at MIT and earned a Ph.D. in laser physics. He came to the astronaut office and was one of the first astronauts selected in the group of 1978 and flew twice. At that time, I was a test pilot not far away. Ron came to a reunion of Navy test pilot graduates. He asked me if I was going to fly for the space program. I said, “They'll never pick me.” He said, “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. How do you know if you don't apply?”

Lo and behold, I got nominated by the Marine Corps to NASA and was invited to Houston. The people I met were incredible—people like Franklin Chang-Diaz, now one of the world's foremost plasma physicists, and [astronaut] Sally Ride. On May 31, 1980, I got a call from Houston asking if I wanted to be an astronaut. That's why I'm sitting here today.

What in your background influenced your leadership style?

The two things that shaped me were my upbringing in South Carolina and my military training. I was privileged to have the most incredible parents anybody could have. They were both schoolteachers and relatively religious folks who made me go to church and Sunday school. I wasn't Beaver Cleaver, but I was raised in a relatively traditional black family in the segregated South. My ethics, morals and having a true north when it comes to behavior are all things I attribute to my mom and dad and the church environment I grew up in.

I think everything else I’ve learned comes from my training at the Naval Academy and my preparation to be a Marine officer. Among the first things I learned was to take responsibility for your actions and don't be afraid to tell people you don't know something. There's a saying there that you always tell people when you don't know something. You tell them, “I'll find out, sir.”

What are the agency’s top three priorities?

One is safely fly out the shuttle. After the Columbia accident, the nation decided to phase out the space shuttle program and move on to something else, so we're trying to get back to the spirit of exploration. We also want to maintain safety and support for astronauts operating on the international space station. Finally, we have to make hard choices and deliver on our commitments.

Do you visit schools to teach young people about NASA, and how do you interact with other agencies?

I do, but I don't get to as much as I used to and would like to. If I could pick a group that I would love to spend most of my time with, it would be elementary school kids, particularly before third grade. Studies have shown us that, particularly in the minority community, we lose young men after third grade. If we don't have them fired up, excited and raring to learn, we probably lose them after that. At NASA, we target middle-school kids with a program called, “A Summer of Innovation.”

I spend a significant amount of time with our partner agencies, such as Peace Corps, USAID and DOD [Department of Defense]. I want them to know what we do and why it is important to them. President Obama wants us to knock down the stovepipes and start working together as a country and a government. Some of that is apple pie and idealism, but it doesn't work if you don't try it.

What advice would you give to other federal leaders who want to encourage employees to think big?

One of the cardinal rules of being a Marine is that you take care of your people and they will take care of you. That's critically important. Some of us forget that, while we work for the president, we must also take care of our workforce. I try to communicate with employees through emails and video messages, but the foremost thing I try to do is visit the nine NASA centers and our federally funded research and development center. I try to be on hand for every shuttle launch and landing. It’s important to stay in touch with people at all levels and let them know my door is always open. Every NASA center is a little city. We depend on every member of that community pulling their share of the load to be successful.

How can federal leaders encourage the next generation to join public service?

Tell people how proud they are to be a part of their organization. There’s no better example than yourself. Tell them why you enjoy what you do. I want my employees to know they're a vital part of this organization and that they make a difference every day.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 07, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Horrible bosses, and how to deal with them

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

A new movie titled Horrible Bosses is coming to theaters next month - a comedy about a trio of employees who devise a hair-brained scheme to rid themselves of their "slave-driving psycho bosses."

While the movie exaggerates reality, there are employees who each and every day endure bosses who make the work environment difficult and, in some cases, downright miserable.

I recently received an email from a federal employee complaining about his manager.

"My problem is a manager that is constantly trying to run me into the ground. It is hard to prove harassment, but this supervisor is definitely doing things that interfere with my career," said the disgruntled federal employee.

Everyone encounters bad days at work and occasional unhappiness with their managers, but it makes no sense to let a perpetually difficult situation fester. Rather than sweeping your feelings and concerns under the rug, you need to approach your supervisor and work to build a more productive relationship.

Confronting your boss may cause some trepidation and fear about putting your job in jeopardy, but in the long run, it will be better to lay your cards on the table and try to resolve the troubling relationship. Every relationship is a two-way street, and the fact is that unless supervisors receive some feedback, they won't realize the effect they are having on you or your colleagues.

Here are a few tactics I've seen others use in building a more productive relationship with a difficult supervisor.

• Remember what your mother said about assumptions. Before you initiate this conversation with your boss, consider his perspective in the supervisor-employee relationship. Don't assume you know what your boss is thinking. The next time your supervisor does something puzzling, try approaching him separately to see whether he can provide some additional explanation. That insight may help you immediately, and it could help you understand his approach to decision-making more generally.
• Understand what makes them tick. Supervisors are people too. They have a lot of competing pressures between employee expectations and their senior leaders' demands. As a result, it's important to understand your manager's priorities, preferences and work styles. Does he prefer to read an email before making a decision? Does he need to "white board" options and possible solutions? With this knowledge, you can alter your behavior to make your supervisor's job easier and have more influence with him as well.
• You need to make the first move. Once you've considered your supervisor's perspective, schedule time for an honest, direct and positive conversation. Let your manager know that you sometimes find work frustrating, and you would like to better meet and exceed his expectations. By staying calm and professional while also avoiding blaming your boss, you'll discover new ways of working together.
• Be prepared to leave if necessary. A bad relationship with a boss will not change overnight. However, if nothing changes after several good faith efforts to improve, you may need to move on to another office or agency. Look for a team with the right leadership, environment and opportunities to succeed. And make sure to do your homework by asking around before jumping ship.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 07, 2011 at 9:35 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Getting a boss to communicate better

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Do you have any suggestions for improving senior leaders’ communication? While communication within my team is good, I want to encourage improved communication on the part of my agency’s senior leaders. -Federal manager, Department of the Army

To start, find a senior leader – particularly one in your chain of command – to share your observations with and also offer your help. Keep in mind that your goal is to find a senior leader who will take your advice further up the chain, and be an advocate who will encourage further action by you.

I’ve seen federal employees achieve great success on issues like improving communication, simply by starting a conversation. For example, a group of newer Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees spoke with some of their senior leaders about their professional development needs, and they eventually received the green light to launch the EPA’s Emerging Leaders Network – an employee organization that provides networking and professional development opportunities for the next generation of EPA leaders. After about five years of existence, the group now includes nearly 300 EPA employees from across the country.

The EPA example leads me to another point – enlist others in your cause wherever possible. A lone voice may be needed to initiate a conversation, but a team of people is often needed to start a movement. Talk with others in your agency network. If others are similarly frustrated, hold a brainstorm over lunch to discuss avenues for improved communication such as town halls, weekly emails or internal senior leaders’ blogs and strategies for implementation. The old cliché is true – there’s strength in numbers.

Whatever your approach, I give you credit for identifying the problem and looking for solutions. It’s likely that your first effort – whether it’s an online suggestion or a conversation with a leader – may not go entirely as planned. That’s okay. Stick with it until you find an approach that works.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Jun 03, 2011 at 6:29 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Work with someone who doesn't understand social norms

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Most people know how to behave in the workplace, but there are always outliers who are aggressive, quirky or who have never figured out the acceptable social norms.

Recently, a colleague shared a rather bizarre story of a federal employee who would burp in the face of a colleague or manager when given a task he didn’t want to perform. Even though the employee’s job performance was fully satisfactory, people complained about this behavior, and saw it as mocking and a sign of deliberate disrespect.

Although this seems like a scene out of the television comedy show Parks and Recreation, uncomfortable issues arise in offices across the country every day. For example, a search on the phrase “body odor in the workplace” on Google yielded over 85,000 articles and blog entries! From improper office attire to offensive emails, inappropriate office behavior can come in many different forms.

Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules on how to deal with awkward and embarrassing situations. Even though it can be tricky, you need to confront unusual behavior quickly since it may be hurting your team’s morale and ability to do their work.

Here is some advice to help you navigate these awkward workplace situations:

• Communicate promptly, clearly and tactfully. Although you may be uncomfortable approaching your employee, it’s important to address the inappropriate behavior as soon as it is recognized. Normally, you may wish to start with a private conversation and focus on the observed behavior, not speculate on the possible motivation. For example, you might say: “You may not be aware of it, but I’ve noticed that (objectively describe the behavior or condition and the impact it is having on the workplace). Be direct. This is not a time for subtly.
• Give employees a chance to tell their side of the story. There could be a medical condition involved or other extenuating circumstances. For example, a gastrointestinal disorder or Tourette’s syndrome could make some behaviors involuntary.
• Make it clear that the behavior needs to change and why. One supervisor told me about an employee who chewed tobacco in the office and carried a cup around so he could spit the tobacco juice out, even during team meetings. The supervisor let the offending employee know that other workers complained and that it actually made some nauseated and less able to concentrate on their work. After some grumbling, the employee agreed to kick the habit, at least in the office.
• Be clear regarding possible negative consequences for poor behaviors. Behavior modification can be helped by making it crystal clear that that being a good co-worker is required, not optional. Even if the offender is a decent performer, disciplinary action can and should be taken if an employee disrupts or impedes others in the work unit. Having this articulated in an employee’s official performance standards is a good idea.
• Let the employee know you are ready to help. Changing behaviors or habits may not be easy. Most federal agencies have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and a counselor may be able to determine if professional assistance or a workplace accommodation is needed.
  
  

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Apr 25, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Why do so many ‘slugs’ keep their jobs?

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

This week’s question comes from a former federal employee who wants to know why so many non-performing federal employees are allowed to keep their jobs. Please continue sharing your questions, ideas and suggestions by commenting below or sending an email to fedcoach@ourpublicservice.org.

While I was surprised to hear about President Obama’s recent comment that some federal workers are slugs and not trying to do their jobs, as a former federal employee I tend to agree with him. Why are so many non-performing employees allowed to stay in their jobs? –Former federal employee, GS-12

While the president’s overheard private remarks were unfortunate, it’s important to hear his whole message about federal employees:

President Obama said, “What's striking when you enter into the federal government is how generally smart and dedicated people are.” The president also noted that some federal employees “are slugs and not trying to do their job. But that's true of any large institution.”

Working with poor performers in any sector is difficult. However, given the decrease in the public's trust in government, I fear that concerns about poor performers have taken on mythical proportions.

In fact, supervisors fire between 8,000 and 10,000 federal employees every year because of poor performance or misconduct, according to government data. This is less than four percent of the total workforce, and that proactive management can help many improve their performance. In addition, a survey of federal managers by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board suggests that besides those who are formally terminated, there are a sizable number of employees who voluntarily leave after they are counseled that their performance is unacceptable.

Although the process is complex, there are rules in place across government allowing for the dismissal of workers not passing muster--and they should be used. You might also consider checking out a column that I wrote last April offering federal supervisors some practical steps for dealing with poor performers.

With Public Service Recognition Week (May 1-7) almost upon us, it’s important to remember that our federal workers are dedicated hardworking Americans. They may be anonymous, but they regularly make a positive difference in the lives of Americans. They are working on issues that directly affect all of us, from shoring up the economy and the financial system to providing better health care, protecting the environment, and keeping our food and drug supplies safe.

During that private conversation, the president also praised feds saying, “Generally speaking, he would put up federal workers against any workers in the private sector.” That’s a key message to deliver to your employees during Public Service Recognition Week.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Apr 25, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: Inspiring a badly battered federal workforce

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

It has not been an easy time for federal employees, with the pay freeze, attacks on the public sector, budget cutbacks and then the threat of a government shutdown.

To add insult to injury, hundreds of thousands of federal workers were told on the eve of the possible shutdown they were non-essential, not exactly an inspiring or motivating message.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among those who tried to take away that sting, sending an email to employees emphasizing the non-essential designation was part of a legal requirement and does not reflect “on the importance of employees’ individual contributions to the U.S. government or the American people whom we serve.”

Such words are certainly appreciated, and there has been great relief that the government remained open for business. But the lack of information leading up to the threatened shutdown, and last-minute instructions from supervisors at many agencies, left federal workers unnerved and has increased concerns about what may happen during the next potential crisis–enacting the fiscal 2012 budget by Oct. 1.

Unfortunately, as a federal manager, you must now clean up a mess that you didn’t create and cannot control. So, where do you start? Here are some ideas for repairing relationships with your employees and inspiring high performance among a badly battered federal workforce.

• Face the music. Based on the experiences of many federal employees I spoke with last week, agency shutdown preparations ranged from the orderly such as a SharePoint shutdown site and regular all-hands conference calls to the chaotic–employees being told on Friday afternoon whether they were furloughed or would stay on the job.  If your agency was one of the less organized, start by admitting the obvious to you team: The planning and the communication around your agency’s possible shutdown were less than ideal. Then give your team an opportunity to voice their opinions on what worked well and what didn’t work.
• Learn from missteps. As your team vents, be sure to work with them to turn their complaints into solutions. Let them know that you’re eager to share their concerns with leaders across your agency. Try to understand the root cause of their concern by asking questions, and propose some actions that you can consider as a group.
• Agree to the next steps. The employees I spoke with last week assessed their leaders based on their communications. Managers who kept their teams informed saw their stock rise. Those who did not are facing questions. You cannot solve all of those problems, but you can try to be more transparent in the future, even with constraints from above. Ask yourself what you can do to keep your employees better informed.
• Focus on the future. Now that there’s some certainty beyond a two- to three-week planning horizon, you have some measure of control. As a result, you can begin shifting your employees’ attention to what lies ahead. How will the 2011 budget affect your programs? Do you need to modify your goals in light of new funding levels? How might you reenergize your programs to exceed expectations even in the face of funding cuts? Tackling these strategic questions together as a team can create a great sense of solidarity in the face of adversity.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Apr 18, 2011 at 10:00 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Gary Locke on reforming a system: Talking leadership with the Secretary of Commerce

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Gary Locke is the 36th U.S. Secretary of Commerce. He previously was a two-term governor of Washington and is the first Chinese-American in history to serve as governor. Secretary Locke is the presidential nominee to become the next U.S. ambassador to China.

What leadership lessons did you learn as governor and how are you applying them as Secretary of Commerce?

We really have to recognize that politicals come and go, but civil servants are the ones that will always outlast us. Whether at the Commerce Department or elsewhere, the top leadership can help sketch out the framework and the objectives, but the details have to be done by the line staff and the people who carry out these duties on a day-to-day basis. By having them involved, it offers greater ownership and buy-in, which will help ensure the success of whatever project you’re working on.

When I came to the Commerce Department, there was a lot of discontent and complaints from employees of the Patent & Trademark Office. So two days on the job, I picked up the phone and dialed the heads of the two labor organizations and said, “I’m Gary Locke, Secretary of Commerce.” They asked, “Are you calling for the Secretary?" and I said, "No, I am the Secretary." They had never talked to the Secretary before. I brought them into my office and said we need their support to make changes, because on average it takes more than three years to get a patent application processed, which is absolutely unacceptable.

We are embarking on wholesale radical change, not just tinkering around the edges. I really believe you need to set super-high stretch goals that will force people to start from a clean sheet of paper and redesign organizations from scratch, as opposed to just making a few changes here and there. We have to involve the employees, and if we're going to be successful, they have to be part of that design and implementation process; it cannot be designed and written out by the top managers.

How do keep your employees motivated and engaged in the mission of the Department of Commerce?

I’ll go to a meeting with all the employees to talk about issues, make announcements and celebrate their accomplishments or progress on programs and initiatives. We celebrate their progress even if they don't reach their goals. Again, I very much believe that we have to set super-high stretch goals, because it's much better to achieve 75 percent of a super-high stretch goal than 90 percent of a mediocre goal.

For instance, we were hoping to reduce the backlog of patent applications to below 700,000 by the end of 2010. We didn't make it, but we still celebrated. We said, “Great job, let's keep going and not give up.” One of my management philosophies is that we will not hang people out to dry, scapegoat or reprimand them for acting in good faith and taking reasonable risks. Not every baseball team can win 100 percent of their games; one team wins, one team loses. We have to recognize that nobody's perfect, but as long as we're really trying hard and acting ethically, it's OK that things don't go the way we want. We just pat each other on the back and say, “Let's try again.”

What are your biggest management challenges and how are you addressing them?

The Commerce Department is an agency that has a variety of different bureaus that are seemingly unrelated. But actually, there is a unified theme to all of our programs and services to help companies be more innovative, at home and around the world. We’re making sure that people are prepared for “Snowmageddon” or hurricanes, promoting trade and helping companies sell more of American-made goods and services, and using the Census information for businesses to decide where they're going to site a big mall or one of the retail outlets.

I’ve noticed that we can be a lot more efficient in what we do and be a lot more responsive to our customers and stakeholders by having the different bureaus collaborate. We have a major project on reforming our acquisition processes and procedures to make sure that we have a unified, more coordinated purchasing program. Everybody is also helping to promote the president's agenda to double exports over the next five years. I've been really pleased at the efficiencies that we've been able to gain and the attention to management issues throughout all of the bureaus.

What do you consider to be a critical event to your becoming the leader you are today?

When I was elected county administrator for the metropolitan area of Seattle, there was a form that came to me for my signature involving a correction of an employee's classification number but no change in pay. It was signed by [six different people] and then I was the next signature. But I refused to sign. I told them six signatures for something that involves no monetary consequence is unnecessary and excessive. We went back and said, “Let's streamline it and get it down to just a couple of signatures.” Everybody fought us, because nobody wanted to be the last person signing the form for fear if something ever went wrong, they would get hung out to dry.

We need to empower people and understand and accept the fact that not everything will go 100 percent according to plan—there will be mistakes along the way. But as long as mistakes are a result of good faith, ethical behavior and people are trying hard, working diligently and acting reasonably, we've got to accept that. Otherwise, we're going to have bureaucracy after bureaucracy, paperwork after paperwork, signature after signature, which takes people away from working on the task at hand and the critical projects.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Apr 06, 2011 at 9:29 AM0 comments

Federal Coach: Obama asks federal employees for their suggestions on government efficiency

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

“What do you think?”

It’s a simple question, but one that federal managers routinely should be asking of their employees if they want an engaged workforce.

Last week, President Obama personally asked federal employees in a video message for their ideas about how to make government more effective and efficient, particularly around efforts to increase trade, exports and our country’s overall competitiveness.

The president’s message is a great example of how federal leaders can involve their employees in solving agency problems. It’s important to ask your employees for help, because as the president said, those on the front lines “know what works and what doesn’t.”

Of course, asking for help is just the start. For this effort to be a success, it’s imperative that you tap into the knowledge and skills of your employees. To do so, let’s examine the president’s initiative as a starting point for creating best practices for your own efforts:

• Ask for help. The president’s video was a powerful message to employees across the federal government, and they responded by offering more than 3,000 ideas after the first day. When asking your employees for ideas on improving your agency’s effectiveness and efficiency, it’s important that you get a broad cross-section of your team offering new ideas (not only ideas from those who tend to speak up). Consider using a team meeting, email or a conference call–especially if you have employees in the field–to deliver your personal request asking for help.
• Collect and select. You need to listen to your employees’ ideas. The White House has set up a website, http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/, where federal employees can offer ideas, vote on the ones they consider the best, or leave comments to improve upon the submissions. From this feedback, those earning the top votes will receive the highest consideration from the White House. While you don’t necessarily need a website, you will need a tool that allows you to collect, consider and select ideas to pursue.
• Implement.This is perhaps the trickiest step, and we have yet to see how the White House will manage this process. The death of any suggestion program occurs when those offering ideas do not see signs of progress. You should also consider having a mechanism for making other great ideas–that for whatever reason did not make the cut–a reality. For example, you could send a personal email to those who submitted ideas, saying that you hope they’ll experiment with a smaller team to gather valuable insight and see if the approach could be viable agency-wide.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Apr 04, 2011 at 1:01 PM1 comments

Federal Coach: Want to engage your federal employees? Just Google it

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

With the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey coming to government workers again next month, now is a great time for federal managers to consider how you’re engaging and motivating your staff.

While you may not have time to affect the results in this year’s survey, that shouldn’t stop you from planning for the long term.

For inspiration, you might look to Fortune Magazine’s most recent 100 Best Companies to Work For. Instead of focusing on the headlines about big paychecks and outrageous perks, I encourage you to look at what’s really driving the employee satisfaction and commitment at these organizations.

Google, which is number four on this year’s list, may make news for its free food and laundry service, as well as its climbing walls and other benefits. But Google’s own analysis showed that even with all of these perks, employee engagement and performance is largely driven by one variable: leadership.

So, is working for Google just like working for the federal government?

In some ways, it is. In the analysis of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data by my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, we have found leadership to be the No. 1 driver of employee satisfaction and commitment in the federal government since our Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings were produced in 2003.

While you may not be able to offer your employees free car washes or other Google-like perks, there are some lessons federal managers can take from Google’s work around building a better boss.

• Use employee feedback data to understand what it means to be an exceptional leader. Google leaders had their statisticians analyze surveys, performance reviews and nominations for internal leadership awards in order to develop a list of eight effective leadership behaviors. The list of positive behaviors is pretty straightforward and includes: be a good coach; express interest in your team members’ success and personal well-being; and be productive and results-oriented. The benefit to this list is that it is based on real-world experience and results.

As a federal leader, it’s important that you look at all of the available employee feedback data. This can include the Best Places to Work rankings, your agency’s exit interview data or even focus-group feedback to help you better understand the essential elements of outstanding leadership in your agency.

• Assess your leaders’ strengths and weaknesses. After defining their leadership rules, Google began using this criteria in their performance reviews and staffing decisions. In one example, a poorly performing Google leader was given the feedback that he worked his folks too hard, was way too bossy and rarely communicated effectively with his team--and as a result was denied a promotion.

We’re seeing more and more agencies integrating clear expectations about employee engagement in their leaders’ performance plans and using data as a measure of performance. As a federal leader, you should consider doing the same in an effort to ensure that your managers are as focused on their management responsibilities as they are on their policy and program responsibilities.

• Invest in helping your leaders succeed. Google has integrated its leadership rules into all leadership and management training programs. In fact, the poorly performing manager received one-on-one coaching to help improve his performance. Google reported that they see about 75 percent of their worst-performing managers significantly improve after training and coaching.

Although times are tough, agencies will fall short of achieving their ambitious goals if they do not prepare their current and future leaders to succeed. Whether it’s a formal candidate development program, action-learning workshops or one-on-one coaching, the investment will pay dividends in the way of agency performance just as it has for Google.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Mar 28, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: What it takes to be an innovative government leader

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

There is a widespread misconception that innovation does not and cannot exist in government.

I often hear complaints from federal employees about bottlenecks, fear of risk-taking and the inability of some federal leaders to adapt to changing circumstances and new ways of thinking.

But I also know many highly committed and resilient public servants who break down barriers and alter the status quo every day to achieve positive outcomes for the American people.

They do so despite facing obstacles not experienced in the private sector, including short-term political leadership; unusual demands imposed by Congress; greater difficulties hiring and firing employees; cumbersome procurement rules; and complications reallocating or getting new resources.

My organization, the Partnership for Public Service, published a study last week in cooperation with the Hay Group, that looked at the characteristics of innovative federal leaders to determine what they have in common and what drives them to deliver results when others have stalled in frustration.

While these leaders came from varied backgrounds and faced many different kinds of challenges, we identified a series of attributes--values, motivations and behaviors--that allow them to overcome hurdles, shape and articulate a vision, and create a path and environment for accomplishing it.

Here are some of the basic characteristics of innovative government leaders that we have identified and that you can use to judge how you measure up as a federal manager. Our research has found that while some of these attributes may come naturally to people, most federal leaders can learn, adapt and change.

 The leaders best equipped to steer our nation tend to have some or all of the following qualities:

•  They are resilient. They aren’t seriously impeded by structural, procedural, cultural or political barriers. And when they do encounter resistance, they don’t give up.
•  They are visionary, self-aware and constantly broadening their perspective.
•  They understand and know how to navigate through and around their organization’s structure, culture and politics. They also understand and respect the roles, boundaries and agendas of other governmental organizations.
•  They purposefully leverage networks and relationships, and use complex influencing skills to collaborate across organizational boundaries.
•  They build strong, diverse teams through their leadership, creating a sense of purpose, fostering a climate that facilitates innovation and developing others as an essential part of their job.

 Now, ask yourself--candidly--how are you living up to those standards? Where are your strengths? Where do you need to improve? If you’re interested in learning more about our research, please visit ourpublicservice.org.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Mar 14, 2011 at 1:01 PM0 comments

Federal Coach: How government can innovate: Lessons from Fred Dust of IDEO

(Fox's Federal Coach column was originally published on The Washington Post On Leadership site.)

Fred Dust is a partner at IDEO, a global design and innovation consulting firm that takes a human-centered approach to helping organizations innovate and grow. At IDEO, Dust and his team assist clients in solving large, systemic challenges. He has recently worked with the U.S. Social Security Administration, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Personnel Management and University of Phoenix.

What are barriers to innovation and how can federal agencies overcome them?

The barriers to innovation are the same in the private sector as in the public sector, such as the fear of failure. The notion that government has more fear of failure than the private sector isn't true--everybody hates to fail.

There are built-in structures within government that make things, in some cases, more difficult to innovate than in the private sector. One example is the two-year fear. Everyone keeps saying, "We have two years," or, "We have twelve months left." It's really interesting in the private sector, because we would typically look at deadlines and the need to move quickly as a great motivator for innovation. But is that actually a good thing in government? Does it become an inhibiting factor to be so aware of the deadlines that are looming around? Because of that, there is a notion of "quick wins" versus "Are we making lasting change?" The question is not whether you can get innovation to happen, but whether you are innovating the things that really matter.

How can federal leaders create an innovative work environment?

When we envision an innovative leader, we often imagine really intense people who are motivating their people forward. However, the places where we've seen great change are places where people are really good at understanding the historical emotional landscape--the brand or culture of the places they're coming into--and beginning to work with that. Innovative leaders are really good at gauging the emotional context of where they are working.

We've seen interesting examples of this within government, such as Director Berry with the Office of Personnel Management. From my perspective, he's an eclectic thinker who brings in an interesting assortment of people to engage in a problem, and that's one of the things that we see as the hallmark of an innovative thinker. We think the best investment around innovation is creating long-term sustainable innovation cultures.

How can an organization, either in the public or private sector, create an innovative culture?

In the private sector, cultures are built on myths--good myths. Whether it's Ritz-Carlton, Wal-Mart or Nike, there's a common myth that allows people to coalesce toward a goal. One of the things I wonder is whether or not we let ourselves explore that myth as much in the world of government, because sometimes those myths are tied to words that we don't like to use, like "brand." But in fact, myths can really make a community move forward in a different way, so a big way of breaking through and building a common culture is creating a common mission.

One of the things we use as a powerful tool of innovation is an incredibly compelling story. One amazing story about how something changes can motivate a group of people way faster than all the rhetoric or nice words that you put out there. That's something I think could be developed further within government: How are we telling the stories internally to ourselves to motivate us and help us move forward?

How can federal leaders use innovation in the midst of budget cuts?

I think there's this kind of commonplace belief that there are innovative companies and non-innovative companies. What we've seen through our history working with companies that want to become innovative is they actually do so at a moment of serious pivotal reflection. They are concerned about whether or not they're going to be viable in the worlds they exist in. It may seem like a cliché, but crisis suggests that you have no choice but to think differently about the ways you do things.

I think with the rapid cycle of change we see happening in business, nonprofit, social and public sectors, that by not innovating, it actually renders you obsolete more quickly. There are changes that must happen to make any business relevant, and I think the same thing applies to government. If you don't make moves now, it will be too late.

Who inspires you to continue to innovate?

One thing my dad still continues to ask me is, "When you're going forward, are you afraid?" His point being, if you're not afraid, you're not doing something that actually feels like you're pushing forward. That's been an incredible point of personal inspiration to continue to say to myself, "Am I just afraid enough to actually feel like I could fail?"--which means I'm actually doing something outside the limits of what I typically do.

I also get to work with so many clients who are trying to make change. It doesn't matter if they're working in the field of luxury, education or social innovation. Most of our clients are trying to stand up and make change, so I sort of fall in love with my clients, because they're doing these incredibly strong, powerful things.

Posted by Tom Fox, VP for Leadership and Innovation, Partnership for Public Service on Mar 02, 2011 at 6:53 PM0 comments