Changes 2008 – Part 4

The Resurrection of Faith in Government and Belief in Government Service

FDR brought our parents together to fight a war and they believed “Yes We Can!”

JFK made us believe in Camelot.

But then the Democrats and Republicans got us stuck in a war we really didn’t want to win. And then Bobby also got shot and the young supporters of “Clean Gene” couldn’t get him elected. And we started to despair. In November of 1972 I sat at a fountain at the D.C. Sheraton (McGovern Headquarters) crying and discouraged that a good man would lose in a landslide to Tricky Dick.

“I let down the country. I let down our system of government, and the dreams of all those young people that ought to get into government but now think it too corrupt…” Richard Nixon to David Frost

My days in politics came to an abrupt end. It didn’t seem worth it. My generation was too disillusioned.

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world!” - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961

Kennedy’s dream for my generation did not survive Vietnam and Watergate. We have been slogging along, distrusting and disliking our government ever since. We think very poorly of politicians and government employees.

Again “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans”, the Millennials, perhaps less tempered, disciplined and proud, but perhaps even more “unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights” and even more committed.

Both Obama and McCain have called for a resurrection of faith in government and belief in government service. While McCain lost, his life has been a shining example to us all. And Obama has captured the hearts and hopes of the new generation.

Bobby Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern had captured the hearts of the young generation, but they lost. Barack Obama won and now the Millennials feel they have won also. They feel their voice can be heard, that their votes count and that a desire to change the world is not a lost cause.

They are hopeful. A recent poll shows:

• - Millennials believe that our nation’s leaders – private sector, public sector, and political – are not doing enough to encourage young people to enter public service.
• - Millennials indicate that they would be more likely to vote for someone if they support public service programs for young people – and they would be more likely to engage in service if it was more of a priority for our government.
• - By a margin of more than 7:1, Millennials overwhelmingly support the creation of a U.S. Public Service Academy (an equivalent school to the military academies dedicated to public service.)
• - A majority of all Millennials indicate that they would consider applying to the U.S. Public Service Academy, and 19% say that they would “very likely” consider applying. Those most likely to consider applying include: men (63%), Southerners (63%), African Americans (64%), Latinos (68%), and Asian Americans (70%).
• - Political affiliation did not affect young people’s perception of the Academy – 58% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans say that they would consider applying to the Academy.
• 
  

Don’t be cynical. Encourage young people who feel this way. Volunteer yourself to help out in some way. This opportunity may not come again for some time if we don’t take advantage of it. Young people see themselves as connected, in social communities. Government has an opportunity to be part of that community if we reach out to them the way Barack Obama did.

Here’s to hoping that in 2009 “change that we believe in” becomes the widespread belief that we really can (and must) change. Change is inevitable. Change can be good or bad. Let’s support the hope and belief of the new generation of Millennials.

Changes 2008 – Part 3

Alternative Fuels.

I know, this idea is not new, but I think this is the year we reached the “tipping point” where prices, politics and common sense have come together. There are a million ideas floating around out there, and I don’t think we have the right answer yet. But I think we have reached the point where the search for alternative fuel will lead us to a technological breakthrough. It will be something that will create wholesale change like the internal combustion engine or the silicon chip. I’m sure the work is already underway in some obscure laboratory that we now know nothing about.

There is a huge economic incentive to this search, the discovery will make some people immensely rich. That is a good thing. Just like some benefited greatly from the industrial and computer revolutions, so will some get rich on cheap, clean energy. And then we will all benefit.

This economic incentive will “fuel” the quest, don’t think it will be warm fuzzy environmentalists doing the work. It will be engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, businessmen and venture capitalists who will make energy available on a scale we can not now imagine. Thirty years ago we could not imagine the amount of information that would be available 24/7 to everyone through the internet. What will life be like when cheap, clean energy is equally available? What was life like before the silicon chip or the internal combustion engine? It will be that different. And it will probably occur even faster than the computer revolution, since all change is accelerating.

I don’t know what it is yet, but I know we are all now aware it needs to exist and we are willing to pay for it. I do predict one thing though, it will bring about the end of the internal combustion engine. We will have to stop burning things to get our energy. Wood, coal and petroleum will no longer be burned to power our machines. Nuclear, wind, solar or geothermal might be the source cultivated and distributed by new processes. Or maybe something totally new.

But now we are all looking for it, and that means it is just a matter of time. We are now ready for this change.

Changes 2008 – Part 2

In my last post I said I would be commenting on things that I believe may change our lives in the near future. Here is another:

Cloud Computing

One reason computers are getting smaller and smaller (becoming big phones) is that they won’t need the software or storage to reside on the machine. The programs live on the web and your documents can be stored there also. This will allow computer makers to put small, solid state drives in the new computers instead of the old bulky mechanical ones. Computer storage (personal variety) will not be an issue, programs and documents will live on the internet servers “in the cloud.”

We have been used to playing online games for some time, but now word processing, spreadsheets, databases, etc. are now also available through Google Docs, Zoho and other providers. (I have been experimenting with these and now there are some days when I don’t use MS Word at all.) GMail is the defacto email writing and storage solution for the masses already. So far, most of these programs are free.

There are comparable business solutions being offered, incorporating software as a service (SaaS), and other recent, well-known technology trends. Their common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users, for example, Google Apps. A big benefit here is that IT only has to update the program on the Web, not on individual computers, saving a great deal of time and expense. Traditional software vendors are starting to hurt already.

The web is no longer a bunch of static pages. It is now an interactive medium known as Web 2.0 . As we interact with others more and more on the web, the web will increasingly be a place that we truly live, a real place where real people work and meet. You might want to stake out a piece of web real estate and make yourself comfortable. We are going to be here for a long time.

Changes 2008 – Part 1

I sometimes get obsessive about change. I often speak and write about how it is coming faster and faster, sometimes in incremental steps, sometimes in bursts. This year’s presidential election put “change” on everyone’s lips, it remains to be seen if it in our hearts, particularly, the hearts of those who work in government. Time will tell. It will take more than a new federal executive branch with a charismatic leader to change a country, but it can certainly be helpful. I am full of hope (and a little fear) for 2009. Those at the top now embrace inevitable change. We will see if they can make major, positive changes. That was why they were elected.

2008 brought about, or increased awareness of, other things that I believe may change our lives in the near future. I will be writing about some of them in the next few posts.

Change #1 - The Rise of Social Networking

The early web allowed us to access almost limitless static information (web pages) and cell phones allowed us to reach any single person at any given time no matter where we or they were located. Now the line between computers and telephones is blurring.

Sprint is now bundling all their mobile services including internet, GPS and unlimited voice for $99.99 a month. Radio Shack is teaming with AT&T to sell a small “netbook” computer that will allow you to 24/7 access the web anywhere in the AT&T area, the computer will only cost $99 and the wireless internet contract will be $60 a month. The concept of affordable bundled services and low cost computers (effectively big phones with a screen and usable keyboard) is huge.

However we will not just be looking at web pages and sending emails. We will be social networking anywhere and anytime. People will not just communicate one at a time but in groups, social networks. Blogging, podcasting, FaceBook and it’s professional sibling Linkedin LinkedIn , virtual worlds like Second_Life and the increasingly popular micro-blog Twitter (think of texting over the internet to groups) connect millions all day every day. Even that which we know to be true, “knowledge,” will be determined less and less by books and professorial lectures that by what the Wikipedia network of contributors determines to be true. (Read about Steven Colbert’s take on “Wikiality”, a subspecies of “Truthiness.”)

Like it or not, there will be less alone time, that is why every young person is nearly literally on the phone all the time. They live in another world (a very real world with very real people) where everyone is constantly in touch, not only with each other but with the entire network (think Borg). We will all live there too, eventually. Then it will no longer be another world but part of the only world we all know. That will be a major change in human communication and perception.

Next: Cloud Computing, Alternative Fuels, and The Resurrection of Faith in Government and Belief in Government Service.

What Can We Learn from the Automakers?

Detroit was headed for collapse, but it looks like the government will step in to loan them the money needed to keep going despite their mismanagement and short-sightedness. Who will step in to help the government bureaucracy that suffers from some of the same types of mismanagement and short-sightedness?

Justin Pinkerman, writing for “Leadership Wired” has some suggestions in Leadership Lessons Driven Home by the Struggles of U.S. Automakers. These run contrary to a bureaucrat’s natural instinct, but are useful nonetheless.

1. Wealth Makes Waste, Fight to Stay Lean
2. Once Broken, Trust Must Be Restored at a Premium
3. During Downturns, Leaders Model the Way of Frugality

“Wealth Makes Waste, Fight to Stay Lean” Getting lean or leaner must be a priority, an ongoing ACTION, not a REACTION to current problems.

“Once Broken, Trust Must Be Restored at a Premium” Unfortunately Government is very low in current public perception. Government improvements will not be enough, public relations efforts must be established (innovative and frugal, of course.) But it is going to have a cost.

“During Downturns, Leaders Model the Way of Frugality” The corner office, large desk and leather chair are the bureaucrat’s status symbols (admittedly, few travel around in their own jets.) Still, a message of frugality sits better with the rank and file if the administrators practice it also.

Times are tough and getting tougher. Can we learn from the hard lessons of others or will we just plow ahead until disaster strikes us in the same way?

Resistance Is a Vital Necessity

Thing are gonna change soon. There is not enough money now to keep the government bureaucracies operating as they are now. Change as inevitable and imminent. Sooner not later.

The bureaucrats and government workers are going to kick and scream but change is going to happen anyway. How can a person working in the bureaucracy deal with the resistance to change?

Embrace it, says Babak Armajani, chair of The Public Strategies Group. In Dealing with Resistance he outlines how. It’s a quick read and worthwhile. If we want to make things better we need to learn how to work with those who wish to keep things the same. His 3 main points are:

· Talk to your resistors.

· Give people choices.

· Invest in change.

Check it out, and see what is coming.

LeaderSHIP

We should all be involved in leaderSHIP. Even if we don’t think of ourselves as leaders, or even if we don’t WANT to be leaders, we still can (and should) be involved in leaderSHIP. Huh? Confused?

I read an article recently called “The New Face of Leadership: Implications for Higher Education.” While it was written for educators, it applies to everyone. Here is the main point:

“Contrary to popular thinking, the term "leadership" is a recent addition to the English language. In fact the word did not come into usage until the late 19th Century. Although the words "lead" and "leader" have a much longer history, they usually referred only to authority figures. The birth and evolution of the idea of "leaderSHIP" focuses on a much more complex concept that reaches beyond the single leader. In fact, contemporary definitions most often reject the idea that leadership revolves around the leader's ability, behaviors, styles or charisma. Today, scholars discuss the basic nature of leadership in terms of the "interaction" among the people involved in the process: both leaders and followers. Thus, leadership is not the work of a single person, rather it can be explained and defined as a "collaborative endeavor" among group members. Therefore, the essence of leadership is not the leader, but the relationship.

… leadership is not what leaders do. Rather, leadership is what leaders and followers do together for the collective good. In today's society, leaders operate in a shared-powered environment with followers. No longer does a single leader have all the answers and the power to make substantial changes. Instead, today we live in world where many people participate in leadership, some as leaders and others as followers. Only when we all work together can we bring about successful changes for our mutual purposes.”

Be Like Rowan

“If you work for a man, in Heaven's name work for him. If he pays wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him, speak well of him, think well of him, and stand by him, and stand by the institution he represents. I think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of his time, but all of his time. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.” - Elbert Hubbard

I saw this passage on the wall of a School Principal I once worked for. I found it interesting but could not locate it again for many years. I wish I had and learned its lesson earlier in my life.

"A Message To Garcia is an inspirational essay [that] celebrates the initiative of a soldier [Rowan] who is assigned and accomplishes a daunting mission. He asks no questions, makes no objections, requests no help, but accomplishes the mission. The essay exhorts the reader to apply this attitude to his own life as an avenue to success… It was wildly popular, selling over 40 million copies, and being translated into 37 languages. It also became a well-known allusion in American popular and business culture until the middle of the twentieth century… It was given to every U.S. Navy enlistee and U.S. Marine in both world wars, and often memorized by schoolchildren. A copy of it is often given to Marine Non-Commissioned Officers upon their promotion. It is estimated to be one of the highest-selling books in history, essentially due to American employers purchasing copies in bulk to distribute to their employees." (from Wikipedia)

While this essay is dated, if you take it in the cultural context of the times it still bears a relevant message. It also tells us a lot about the mindset of Americans of the first half of the 20^th century. It’s worth reading.

Service at Change.Gov

I just signed up on Change.gov to let the Obama-Biden Transition Team know I'm interested in service and volunteer opportunities. I thought you might be interested, too:

http://change.gov/service

Thanks.

Find out more about the proposed service plans at http://www.change.gov/agenda/service_agenda/.

Let’s make sure these campaign promises are realized.

What, Why and How?

Does your bureaucracy have a Mission? Do you have a Mission/Values Statement? Does anyone know about it? Does anyone act on it?

Many bureaucracies cannot answer these questions in the affirmative. Most businesses of any size have them and no good manager can plan and implement without one. If you don’t know where you are going you don’t know where you will end up. Everyone should have a mission.

When I first sat down to develop my personal mission statement I came up with “respect.help.grow.” I’ve been working on it ever since. I recently sat down with my unit which until now didn’t have a mission statement. Now we do. Here it is:

Mission Statement

Our Purpose:

Our mission is to help employers meet the reporting responsibilities that are necessary to enable the State to provide unemployment and disability programs for its citizens.

Our Values:

· Respect

· Service

· Growth

Our Method:

We ask:

· What do we do?

· Why do we do it?

· How do we do it?

· Can we do it better?

· What else can we do?

We act on the answers.

We need reasons to do what we do, reasons better than “That’s just how we do it here” or “That’s how we’ve always done it.” Everything we do should be able to be explained in terms of the mission. Anything else is expendable.

Bureaucratic Counterpoint

Yesterday I went on a bit of a rant on the problems of bureaucracy. Then, today, I read The Case FOR Bureaucracy. I don’t usually recommend articles with a strong political bias, particularly one different from my own, today I’ll make an exception.

Disclaimer: The author, Douglas J. Amy, Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College, concludes with “The negative stereotypes of bureaucracy that we have looked at in this article contribute to a political atmosphere that legitimizes the right-wing attack on government.” Further indications of a certain bias include:

· 20 negative uses of conservative, conservatives, Republicans, right-wing

· 0 uses of the terms liberal, liberals, Democrat or left-wing

· 3 criticisms of the Bush administration regarding Hurricane Katrina

· And 2 positive mentions of Al Gore’s National Performance review

Despite Professor Amy’s partisan tone, there is much good to be gleaned from this article. It examines and tries to refute many commonly held ideas:

· Bureaucracies Are Immensely Wasteful

· Business is Always Better than Bureaucracy

· We Want the Government to Act Like a Business

· Bureaucracy is a Major Cause of Government Growth

· Bureaucracies Usually Provide Poor Service

· It’s Bad that Agencies Don’t Treat Us as Individuals

While there is much material that is debatable, it certainly demonstrates that these ideas should not be taken without question, there are reasonable alternative arguments.

It also offers support for the points of view that there is much good about bureaucracy and that some bureaucrats are true heroes. It briefly discusses needed reforms (serving as a prelude to another article on the site called Revitalizing the Public Sector) and the need to get past stereotypes.

Both of these articles are thorough and well worth reading, regardless of your political stripe. The author and I may disagree on many of the reasons for the universal distain of bureaucracy, but we agree in many areas. Appreciate and develop what it does well and why it does them well. Consider what it does poorly and why and then decide if it needs reform or another structure entirely. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Professor Amy wisely states:

“… it is important to see that the case for bureaucracy is about more than what those agencies can do for us as individuals, it is about the crucial role they play in creating a better society for all of us. As Charles Goodsell has noted, government bureaucracies form the public infrastructure that is essential to maintaining a free and prosperous society:

‘A good bureaucracy is indispensable to a free society, a democratic polity, and a capitalist economy. The freedom to wander the streets at night, for example depends on competent law enforcement. The ability to vote governments out of office without disruption requires a reliable administrative apparatus. A prosperous business community demands good schools, highways, health departments, post offices, and water and sewer systems.’ - The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic

So if you feel that America is a good place to live, at least part of the credit for that must be given to government bureaucracies. Literally, the good life as we know it in the United States could not exist without the numerous and various essential tasks being performed by these public agencies on all levels of government.”

But we will need ways, fair and honest ways, to make the government run more efficiently and frugally so that “good life” can be passed down to future generation without bankrupting them.

Spitting Into The Bureaucratic Wind

Now you know I try to be a positive thinking guy, but do you mind if I complain a little bit about bureaucracy? No? I didn’t think so. Most people don’t mind. However, most people agree that it is useless. Why is that?

Bureaucrats don’t play by the rules. Well not by the rules the rest of the world plays by, and certainly not the rules of most other businesses. Bureaucrats have their own rules, for their own reasons. Unless we can define and change these rules they may go on forever, or at least until bureaucracies come crashing down under the weight of their own outdated system.

Notice I said bureaucracy was outdated. That actually implies that at one time it served a timely purpose. It did. It was a reform movement to correct horrible abuses. But its time is past. Its purpose is to perpetuate itself, like the shark in Jaws who lived only to swim, eat and make little sharks. Part of the solution is to redefine its purpose.

The purpose of business is to make a profit. It appears to me that the purpose of bureaucracy is to survive and grow larger, if possible. Bureaucrats measure success in larger budgets, larger gross revenues without the need to show profit. Secondarily bureaucrats value bodies, the more people working in your agency the better, regardless of need or efficiency. But budgets always trump bodies. Whoever has the bigger budget is the more important bureaucrat. Efficiency and frugality are not valued for their own sake as they are in business, because there is no profit motive.

Performance must become our goal, performance not profit. There is a growing movement among some local and state branches of government called “citistat” or “statestat” (now being attempted in Maryland) that does just that by rewarding agencies that can statistically show improved performance. This first came to prominence in the reformation of the NYC police department in the 1990s called CompStat.

I also believe that, on a personal level, an attitude of respect, helping and growing is essential.

I have one other complaint today. The lack of a flatter organization. The whole world has accepted the 21^st century need for flatter organizations. Flatter means managers are responsible for more people directly, eliminating the many levels of sometimes needless middle management found in bureaucracies. Even the largest multinational businesses have accepted this model as more efficient and frugal, so why are bureaucracies any different. Actually, in many instances, bureaucracies are becoming taller, not flatter, due to a reduced number of workers. Managers have fewer direct reports because of attrition, yet no management levels are being eliminated. Why? Deniability, lack of responsibility. With all those levels, it is always easy to pass the buck up or down and no one ever has to be totally responsible for anything. It’s worked great for 100 years, why change it now?

It is a recipe for disaster, and I honestly believe a disaster is inevitable unless taxpayers, legislators, workers and unions see the tsunami coming and change course. There are alternatives out there, we need to try and find more. Bureaucracy will fall and it would be good to have a 21^st century system in place before it does.

Lions and Tigers and Benefits, Oh My!

Although I have subtitled my Blog “Working for Positive Change in Ourselves and Government Bureaucracy. Working for the Public in the Public Sector.” I have addressed most of my posts to the topic of personal change. Today I want to address a much more controversial topic – government employee benefits.

Taxpayers and government workers have every right to be concerned about the future of benefits such as pensions, healthcare and particularly medical benefits for retirees. Our representatives have let us down, by not confronting the hard financial realities and settling for expedient short-term solutions.

The taxpayers representatives are legislators who have no need to find solutions that extend past the next election cycle. The government workers representatives are the unions who continually accept the legislators promises, even when previous promises have been ignored and distorted and were mathematically unworkable from the start. Legislators and unions play a political game and the taxpayers and workers suffer. Legislators and unions are openly distrustful and antagonistic, that’s politics. If ever there was a time for bipartisanship, this is it. Taxpayers and workers need to understand that this game cannot last forever, it’s time to do the math.

Benefits are just that, benefits, not entitlements. Benefit programs were started as perks to attract workers. Benefits are needed to bring workers into the government, however government workers can not expect taxpayers to fund benefits far in excess of what they receive in the private sector. Government benefits are still based on a 50 year old model developed by big manufacturers. Those companies, even the ones that are still unionized, are radically changing their programs. And 21^st Century companies have adopted totally different models. How can government workers expect taxpayers to continue to finance outdated plans that do not account for current financial realities. Both sides need to work together. The taxpayer has a vested interest in bringing good people into government service and compensating them fairly. And the government employee (who is also a taxpayer) has to accept reality that health care costs skyrocket and underfunded pensions will have to be addressed soon. Fair compromise is necessary but that will probably only happen if legislators and union leaders can stop playing politics long enough to do the long-term math and accept that major changes are necessary.

I am not an economist but the most reasonable solutions I have seen come from Girard Miller. His suggestions will probably upset both sides. He writes for the bureaucrats in charge, who have the unenviable task of being in the middle of the legislators and unions, all the while trying to preserve their own fiefdoms. Check out:

A Taxpayer’s Benefits Bill of Rights

Stop Spiking the Pension Punch

Rx for Sick Leave

Girding for Benefits Battles

How to Audit and Avoid Pension Spiking