“What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

Do self confident, optimistic leaders ask this question often enough, at the right time? Risk experts Doug Webster and Tom Stanton think not.  Writing in a new report for the IBM Center for The Business of Government, they observe: “The front pages of national newspapers constantly report on actions by private companies, federal leaders, orRead… Read more »

(Your Job Is To) Follow The Conversation

In the age of the empowered citizen, the age of trying to “control the conversation” is over. Well over. It’s taken us a long time to actually get that memo, and some of us are still processing the digital ink it’s printed on. What it means. Instead, there’s still a lot of focus on “brand-building”. Where a message is transmitted,Read… Read more »

How to Give Difficult Feedback Constructively

As a manager, giving difficult feedback to an employee can be one of the hardest parts of your job. The conversation can be fraught with peril. If done well, giving tough feedback can help your team member grow – but if done poorly, you risk consequences like straining your relationship, or demoralizing him or her. SometimesRead… Read more »

TSP Talk Weekly Wrap Up

Stocks opened higher on Monday but the early gains began deteriorating into the close and by mid-Tuesday stocks were falling steadily into red territory. The sell-off continued through to the late trading hours of Wednesday where the bulls stepped back in to buy the dip. The buying continued and modest gains were posted Thursday. TheRead… Read more »

Do You Have Some Free Time?

Working for the government is the most rewarding career choice one could have made but can also keep you quite busy with very little down time. Every branch of the government involves customer service, whether it be face to face, or behind the scenes. That would make us the largest customer service agency in America!!! Now with that beingRead… Read more »

New Zealand’s Govt.nz: What We Did Right

In earlier blog posts, I mentioned Govt.nz, which is the New Zealand Government’s flagship website. The new website was launched in July 2014 but things didn’t actually stop there. That requires a little explanation: we launched a minimal viable product or MVP. If you Google that term, you’ll get either a definition that includes return-on-investmentRead… Read more »