Learning or experiencing leadership can be daunting. Every day a myriad of new theories and articles appear on what leadership skills a manager should exhibit, or what key phases or words a leader should use to motivate a team, or how better understanding strategies of a long-dead samurai warriors can help make you an exceptionalRead… Read more »
Returning from long holiday weekends and vacation get-a-ways can often remind us of the places in our lives we feel stuck: in a job, a community or a relationship. Are you feeling like this little turtle? A few month’s ago, a dear friend and I were walking along a lake shore when we stumbled uponRead… Read more »
As I get ready to head back overseas after spending three years in the U.S., I am already wondering about the technological advances (or lack thereof) that I will encounter as I re-enter Embassy life. As an example, I curiously posted a question in an online forum whether our medical records (which are required toRead… Read more »
The workplace can be a minefield of communication problems. You need to be in constant touch with your teammates and coworkers in order to finish projects – but beyond just needing to get your point across clearly, you also need to navigate a whole collection of personalities and expectations. To survive, you must practice theRead… Read more »
On July 1, 2014 I was honored to be a presenter at the “Work Smarter, Faster, and With Less Stress: 20 Government Productivity Tips” webinar. I presented 21 tips from my featured blogs posts here on GovLoop. They featured productivity tips for individuals and group (meetings and the Briggs/Myers personality types). I wanted to takeRead… Read more »
Pay freezes, budget cuts, furloughs – it shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, but after years of record low employee satisfaction, government’s senior executives are leaving the civil service at a rapidly increasing rate. According to a new report from the Senior Executive Service and George Washington University, this gap is creating the possibilityRead… Read more »
Government employees have faced a number of “downers” in recent years: sequestration and budget cuts, furloughs, and pay freezes, just to name a few. Federal employees hired today are required to contribute a greater proportion of their salaries to their pensions than those hired just a few years ago. Travel budgets have been cut downRead… Read more »
Last week, we here at GovLoop hosted an online NextGen training called “Work Smarter, Faster and With Less Stress” where I and GovLoop Featured Blogger Chaeny Emanavin shared our best tools, tricks and advice for better office productivity. We expected the training to be popular — after all, who doesn’t want to be more effectiveRead… Read more »
Over the past 3 years, GovLoop has hosted a Graduate Fellowship Program in which current or recent graduate students and recent graduates have joined us for a semester or more to contribute to our mission to “connect government to improve government.” More than 40 Fellows have worked on several of our core projects, including ourRead… Read more »
You’ve got ideas! You want to change your office/unit/department for the better and know how to do it! You’ve worked it all out! But no one is listening. Or if they listened, things remain at the status-quo. Or if they want do implement change, it’s happening with the efficiency of the Pony Express. Has thisRead… Read more »