Thad Allen | IBM Center for the Business of Government

Leadership: It Depends on the Deck You've Been Dealt (Part 4)

Monday, March 25th, 2013 - 17:43

By:

John M. Kamensky

Monday, March 25, 2013 - 17:39

But as the context – the workplace, the workers, and the work – change (because we are in more of a knowledge-based economy) -- a different type of leader tends to be more successful, especially when the challenge is cross-agency and/or cross-sector. The “lone hero” isn’t always the most effective leader in this new world. In fact, the best leaders tend to share leadership in any large-scale change effort. For example:

1 comments

I find your leadership blogs refreshing and interesting. I learn something each time. And I agree, leadership is both lonely and a team sport. I heard a bunch of folks the other day saying how they don’t know why any private sector firm would want an SES to work with them (in an exchange type program), because other than our contacts for them to get more business, they didn’t see where we could provide anything of value. While I remained calm…I wish I would have had your latest blog: What the Best Leaders Know: Context Matters—because you gave some great examples of Federal employees, including Thad Allen—who were called upon to do great things…something I think private sector could learn from some of us. We do really large scale, impactful things and an exchange with industry I believe would allow us both to learn something.

04/03/2013 - 14:03

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Passionate About Collaboration

Friday, April 23rd, 2010 - 21:07

Collaboration is one of the key elements of President Obama’s signature Open Government Initiative. However, federal agencies’ Open Government Plans don’t seem to address it very well. But collaboration expert Russ Linden says “collaboration is vital, difficult, and learnable.” And he’s written a book that makes all three of these points.

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Doing Big Things in Government

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 - 23:54

The release of a new book, “If We Can Put a Man on the Moon . . . ,” by Bill Eggers and John O’Leary, helped set the stage for the National Academy of Public Administration’s annual meeting that centered on management issues related to health care reform.

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The Business of Government Magazine- Fall/Winter 2009 Edition

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 - 11:39

Posted by:

Michael J. Keegan

Flip through the pages of this magazine by viewing our new digital format. Articles for this issue include: From the Executive Director: "What Does the IBM Center Do?" From the Managing Editor's Keyboard Conversations with Leaders, which include:

The Next Government

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 - 7:17

3 comments

Norman M. Macdonald

What the next administration will be facing is a Civil Service that has had it's human and material infrastructures gutted to a point of no return. We should be talking on how and what the rebuilding should be based on not on reinventing or cosmic ideas. I am a 75 year old retired Federal Civil Servant who spent 47 years in the DC area and was involved in a number of cross departmental project including a long term detail to the National Performance Review (reinventing government). I have lived for the last four years in the Verde Valley of Northern Arizona and have been active with a number of nonprofits plus keeping contact with folks I worked with on reinvention.
What I have observed is a movement towards collaboration between the local feds, nonprofits and local governments which is aided by various interest specific electronic networks. It is a ground up approach that is being feed by sheer necessity. Web 2.0 seems to be part of the equation. This is the basis for a ground up approach that would move the Federal Government toward the "radical center"

07/29/2008 - 18:10

Alan Feinberg

I am working on an initiative to send an open letter to Vivek Kundra,

President Obama's new information technology advisor, about the

Department of Homeland Security plan for St Elizabeths. Will you join

me in this?

The letter will argue thoughtfully and succinctly that this plan,

which would concentrate DHS staff in a massive and costly new

Anacostia headquarters, is a bad idea in terms of national security as

well as financially and environmentally.

It will urge instead a fiberoptic-connected dispersal of DHS around

the Capital Region in offices located near where staff already live.

The letter will criticize obsolete government thinking that favors

enormous, centralized structures. It will contend that forced

centralization is unlikely to solve the organizational-culture

problems that have prevented security agencies from collaborating

better. Instead, DHS leaders must instead manage smarter and share

information better.

The letter will criticize the idea that the DHS plan is an economic

solution for the District, arguing instead that Ward 8, DC’s poorest

ward, won’t be revitalized until it's made part of a real solution,

which is a creative regional economic development plan. It will also

take issue with the immense financial cost of the proposed compound

and its environmental cost as a com
muter magnet.

A major aim of the document will be to elevate the DHS discussion from

a local issue to the national issue (at White House level) that it

deserves to be. There is more to this important matter than the

District issues that have been dominating recent discussion of it.

I believe an appropriately crafted document may be able to help save

the Government from a costly mistake which, once made, will be very

difficult and expensive to fix.

I have asked my friend the writer N.J. Slabbert to produce a first

draft of the letter for discussion with concerned associates. He has

previously published well-researched articles about this matter in The

Washington Post, The Harvard International Review, Homeland Security

Today and Urban Land Magazine.

Please let me know whether you are interested to work with us on this,

and to co-sign an appropriately worded letter aimed at helping the

Government make a wise decision, and at elevating this into a White

House matter as it deserves to be.

Sincerely Yours,

Alan Feinberg, RA, AICP

Frederick, MD

(301) 606.6717

03/09/2009 - 11:50

John Kamensky

Hi Alan -- Thanks for the invite. We at the IBM Center cannot join you in drafting your letter, but there may be other readers who may see merit in your idea that a distributed homeland security effort may be more effective than a centralized homeland security effort!

03/09/2009 - 12:43

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