IBM Center for The Business of Government

John Kamensky

Exciting Opportunities. Government Executive reports: “Though their written plans remain shrouded from public view, agency officials charged by the Trump White House with making government more efficient say they are “excited” about what they see as a rare opportunity for systemic and lasting change to government operations.”

The common perception is that, as a group, federal managers tend to be risk adverse.  However, new research based on data from the annual federal employee viewpoint survey concludes that the answer is: it depends.  Managers in both high-performing and low-performing organizations tend to be risk takers.  They probably feel they have little to lose by trying something new.  In contrast, managers in stable, middle-of-the-road organizations tend to be risk adverse and do not want to rock the boat by taking risks.

Greg Greben, Vice President and Client Group Leader, Federal Civilian & Healthcare Agencies, IBM Global Business Services, authored this article

Most governments around the world are working on improving the performance of their government agencies. It is clear that the ‘performance’ of a country’s government has emerged as a key determinant of the competitive advantage of nations. The race among nations is being won not by those nations that have more resources or ideas. Rather, the outcome of this race among nations is largely determined by how effectively nations use their resources and how well they implement good ideas and policies. This task is usually achieved by a performance management system in the government.