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Obama Breaks Ranks With Senior Executives

June 14, 2013 In April, I had the privilege of attending the Senior Executives Association’s annual Presidential Distinguished Rank Award banquet, honoring the recipients of the highest awards to civil servants for on-the-job performance. I’ve attended the annual event several times, and as usual it was a classy, dignified affair, held at the ...

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Meeting Your Goals in a Time of Austerity

June 6, 2013 In the May/June issue of Government Executive, Kellie Lunney explores how the tight budgets that are in place across government actually are driving innovation at certain agencies. Sequestration, personnel reductions and pay freezes have led them to seek creative solutions to meeting long-term goals. How are they doing it? That's ...

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Management and the Romney Transition That Wasn't

May 30, 2013 This week, my colleague Charlie Clark told the story of the Romney transition that wasn't. The 2012 Republican contender's campaign, the first to operate under a 2010 law designed to smooth the presidential transition process by facilitating advance planning, had a remarkably robust operation. By late summer 2012, some 500 ...

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An Audacious Endeavor

May 28, 2013 In mid-May, hundreds of federal managers and executives gathered in Washington for our annual Excellence in Government event. This year, with across-the-board budget cuts in place, further reductions looming, and agencies still facing the prospect of widespread furloughs, it was an audacious time to even be thinking about the concept ...

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A New Publication for New Challenges in Defense

May 15, 2013 The Defense Department is facing more than its share of challenges these days, from implementing the sequester to transitioning out of Afghanistan to dealing with the shift to the Asia-Pacific region. It's a time of transformation in national defense, and the hunger for information about the challenges the nation's defense ...

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Van Halen, Brown M&Ms, and the Bureaucracy

May 3, 2013 How does a rock band's famed contract rider requiring that its members be served M&Ms with all of the brown ones removed explain seemingly inexplicable bureaucratic decisions? Ezra Klein provides the answer in the Washington Post's Wonkblog. "Call it the Van Halen Principle," he writes. "Tales of someone doing something ...

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Pete Williams, Government Operations and Getting it Right

April 19, 2013 Brian Resnick of National Journal has a fascinating piece up about why Pete Williams of NBC News is winning plaudits for consistently getting it right (and being measured in his reporting) during the Boston bombing aftermath. Part of it is simply taking time and care before you broadcast anything. But ...

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A Framework for Response to Boston Explosions

April 15, 2013 While details of what happened in Boston today, with multiple explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, are just beginning to emerge, there is a framework in place for federal, state and local officials to respond to such situations -- and try to prevent them from occurring in ...

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Obama Lauds Berry -- and Feds

April 12, 2013 Many people in the federal community have stepped up this week to offer words of praise for John Berry as he leaves his post as head of the Office of Personnel Management. Now you can add one more name to the list: President Obama. In a statement issued Friday, Obama ...

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The Boldest Leaders in Government

April 11, 2013 Those who have dedicated their careers to public service often get little in the way of recognition. That's especially true in the case of risk-takers who go out of their way to bring innovation to the federal sector. Our sister publication, Nextgov, which focuses on how technology is transforming the ...