Given what we have learned from experience and careful research, the performance management approach the Obama Administration lays out in the Analytic Perspectives section of the FY 2011 budget is very promising and represents a more aggressive, more coherent, and more comprehensive approach than that of past Administrations. We know that when leaders focus on a few priority goals, we see tremendous performance improvement on those goals.
The latest issue of FastCompany magazine has a terrific piece by Chip and Dan Heath, “Find a Bright Spot and Clone It.” While it uses private sector examples, their insights apply equally to government.
Profile of Inés R. Triay, Assistant Secretary, Environmental Management at the U.S. Department of Energy
During the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear stockpile reached more than 30,000 nuclear weapons. Research and production of these weapons resulted in large volumes of nuclear waste—some of the most dangerous materials known to mankind—posing significant environmental risks and challenges. “The U.S. Department of Energy has under its purview the Environmental Management program, which is responsible for cleaning up the legacy of the Cold War,” says Dr.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, like HUD, is undertaking significant transformation efforts with congressional support. Its initial “Transformation 21” plan was framed around its fiscal year 2010 budget. Subsequently, more is on the way, but it has not yet been fully released.
The White House sponsored a forum last week of about 50 corporate executives to seek insights about how to successfully transform large organizations. These included the leaders of Facebook, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, and Whirlpool. Listening to the videos, it was quite reminiscent of a similar forum, sponsored by Vice President Gore’s reinventing government initiative almost 17 years ago.
The new administrator of the long-rudderless U.S. Agency for International Development is a real-time case study of how leadership matters. Rajiv Shah, 36, stepped into the job just five days before the devastating earthquake shattered Haiti. According to the Washington Post, Shah suddenly found himself designated the "unified disaster coordinator" and in meetings with the President in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House.
A "twofer" is when you get two of something at once - sort of two for the price of one. That's what you would have gotten if you were at the National Press Club yesterday morning.
On Wednesday, January 13, approaching the first year anniversary of the Obama administration, the Partnership for Public Service will release a report titled, Ready to Govern: Improving the Presidential Transition, on improving the presidential transition. Based on exclusive interviews with key transition officials from both the Obama and McCain campaigns, and the Bush White House, this report examines the transition beginning early 2008 through the President’s first year in office.
As mentioned here a few days ago in blog entry on innovation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been given in fiscal year 2010, what seems to be a large pot of money and new authority to conduct a transformation initiative in four areas that have been historically underfunded in HUD as well as most other agencies:
