Sometimes I wonder why good people suffer so in organizational life. For example: Messengers of doom are punished or ignored rather than rewarded. Computer glitches, safety lapses, ineffective leadership; employees who show every sign of endangering the workplace. All of these are routinely reported by attentive people, and frequently just as swiftly disregarded. StrategicRead… Read more »
DO YOU THINK YOU CAN’T GET FIRED? Don’t tell me that it’s never crossed your mind. When you become a tenured government employee, after around five years of service in most agencies, it’s natural to heave a great sigh of relief that you won’t be cashing unemployment checks any time soon. Urban legend says it’s impossibleRead… Read more »
Stocks resumed their downward slide early last week but finally stabilized on Thursday morning and rallied strongly into Friday. The week ended with losses, but it could have been a lot worse if not for the big reversal, and Friday morning’s better than expected jobs report helped complete what looks like a potential “V” bottom.Read… Read more »
By Jennifer Belissent, Ph.D., Forrester Research When I was in high school – and admittedly that was quite a while ago – my neighbor quit his job as an insurance salesman to go into the car phone business. My mother couldn’t understand why someone would give up a good, stable job to sell something thatRead… Read more »
Every year on October 1st the Federal performance cycle resets itself. Combined with the Jewish High Holidays (Yom Kippur and the accompanying fast just ended) the amount of navel-gazing can literally make your stomach hurt, as well as your eyes. But it also helps you to grow. So, here’s to distilling some simple things-you-already-knew fromRead… Read more »
1. Consistency / follow established processes 2. Integrity 3. Empathy 4. Action (not just talk) 5. Followup 6. Communication about what affects them / resources where needed / help prioritizing and eliminating busywork /deconflicting areas of confusion 7. Detail orientation 8. Technical proficiency 9. Reliability 10. Read… Read more »
This series began discussing fostering relationships through contracting. This idea underpins all discussions about contracting because if you keep the relationship in mind while conducting contract negotiations, where both sides are heard and concerns are addressed, then there is a greater likelihood that the outcome will be beneficial to both parties. In the previous post,Read… Read more »
Next-gen air sensors can provide a network of affordable, portable devices that relay data in real time. But the science and application of these sensors needs an equivalent human network. We’ve found that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a played a significant role in convening the community. A wide-ranging collaboration resulted in a parkRead… Read more »
Quad charts…ugh. Stakeholder mapping…blah. Precedence Diagramming …don’t even get me started. If you work anywhere near the field of Project Management you have most likely heard of and probably executed these traditional “proven methodologies.” And if you’re like me and the majority of project management professionals I know, you probably groan/sigh/roll your eyes/{insert any otherRead… Read more »
We all know the government is home to troves of data. But here’s the thing, citizens only want the data they want and need at any given time. For example, if you are looking to renew your drivers license online, you don’t want to have to go to eight different government websites and track downRead… Read more »