Review by Allan Schweyer

Kill the Company is among the most practical and applicable guides to innovation you’ll find. The advice is straight-forward and useful; and the many tools can be implemented by leaders at all levels in the organization. You'll find detailed techniques and exercises that Lisa Bodell and other consultants make their livings delivering. The tools are tried and true, Bodell has developed a system that can turn a tired, risk-averse corporate culture into a creative juggernaut in relatively short order. For companies, agencies and organizations of all kinds, she urges what at first seems like radical ideas “Kill the Company”, “Kill the Department” but in reality, the ideas are sensible, actionable at all levels in the organization, and bound to uncover hidden opportunities and threats.

In government, you can focus on your entire agency or just a group within. What would an antagonist do to shut you down (kill you)? What are your weaknesses and vulnerabilities? You and your team can answer these questions better than anyone if you're honest. 

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Review by Allan Schweyer

Can you compete in today’s ultra-competitive and demanding world while being a person of values and character? Will you ever be satisfied and happy if your only goals are extrinsic goals? Jim Loehr argues convincingly that you’ll win more often and achieve more if you lead a character-driven life and connect your work and life to a purpose. By winning the right way, you’ll feel the satisfaction that eludes winners who achieve only to acquire more, impress others, or earn external acclaim. 

From the time we’re young and trying to make a sports team or gain acceptance into college, we’re under tremendous pressure to succeed. The stakes are high, the rewards can be enormous and the cost of failure is sometimes devastating. Dr. Jim Loehr, best-selling author, sports psychologist and acclaimed executive coach, points out that ‘winning is the only thing’ for too many people. More to the point, he argues that competing vigorously and winning is good, but if we win the wrong way we always lose. 

“The Only Way to Win” might be the most important book of the year for anyone who questions what our society has become and wants to achieve to a different, better and more sustainable standard. Loehr reveals that 80 percent of high school and college students admit to cheating to attain higher grades. Most high-level athletes admit that they would take performance-enhancing drugs if they knew they would not get caught and would attain their goals by doing so. Incredibly more than half would still take those drugs even if they were told it would cause their certain death in five years!

The best thing about Dr. Loehr’s book is that it does not preach ethics for goodness sake alone. Instead, he tells us how we can strive to win the right way and still win our share. He points out that the goals we’re most often measured against are not our own, but society’s goals – the nice house, fancy car, job title and corner office. There’s nothing wrong with those things but when those goals are also your “ends,” you’ll be unsatisfied even if you accomplish them. 

Whether you work in high finance, lead armies into battle or make decisions about how to spend public money, you’ll have plenty of opportunity along the way to lie, cheat or otherwise make unethical choices in order to further your goals. If you don’t have a greater purpose – one based on values and character – you’ll have very little reason not to cheat and lie. Indeed, as Loehr infers, cheating in those circumstances might only be logical.

Even with all the unethical behavior around us, you can compete while being a person of character. Indeed, as Loehr illustrates convincingly, you’ll actually win more often and in a way that sticks. Better yet, you’ll finally feel fulfilled and happy because you will have won the right way.

Winning does not “Take Care of Everything,” not even if you’re Tiger Woods, or the best in the world in your own field. All the rewards – wealth, fame, power, influence or material possessions you can imagine – won’t bring the happiness you might expect absent a meaningful purpose.

TMGov strongly recommends this book to anyone who seeks more meaning from their work; to leaders that hope to build a sustainable culture, to students about to embark on their careers, and to any parent that hopes to raise a child with a greater chance at real success and happiness.

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by Allan Schweyer

Linda Sharkey, Ph.D, is an internationally renowned executive who for decades led in the selection and development of leaders for global organizations, including General Electric and Hewlett Packard. Dr. Sharkey and her co-authors, Nazneen Razi, Robert Cooke and Peter Barge have nearly a century of collective global talent management experience. Their new book, “Winning with Transglobal Leadership,” is based on a meta-analysis of past research and original research, including a survey and interviews with approximately 150 proven global leaders. The book offers new insights, a few surprises and a potentially break-through construct for identifying and developing great global leaders.

The authors remind us of the importance of leaders throughout organizations but quickly zero in on that very small cadre of "transglobal leaders". They are the stars that more and more organizations of all sizes – including government − need even if they don't yet know it. Good global leaders are rare because the requirements are extraordinary and take years if not decades to develop. The authors have long and impressive track records building global organizations and have tapped that knowledge as well as data from the extensive primary research they did for the book. The result is a very engaging read, laced with real examples. It is a useful, practical and sometimes surprising guide to identifying, nurturing, developing and deploying global leaders. The tools, including the authors' framework for assessing global talent are worth many times the cost of the book.

While this is a book for several government audiences, the obvious ones are those, like DoD, the State Department, the Intelligence Community, the VA, and others that operate globally.  Agency leadership and learning executives − really, any SES in an agency that does business internationally − ought to be interested. The book is also an excellent guide for anyone who aspires to a global leadership position, and the sooner in their career they read it, the better.

We are fortunate to have Dr. Linda Sharkey on the HCLU faculty. She will be hosting her first learning webinar on April 9 at 2pm ET. We hope you will join us, it’s free, it’s for credit, and is guaranteed to give you new ideas about who should be representing your agency abroad.

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By Angela Nuñez

Logan Harper is the community manager for MPA@UNC, a top Masters of Public Administration program offered through University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as a contributor to Online MPA Degrees. In addition to public administration, he is also passionate about travel, cooking, and international politics. Follow him on Twitter @harperlogan.

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In May 2012, the Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel issued the Digital Government Strategy, which promotes cross-agency information sharing and accelerated adoption of mobile workforce solutions.

The Digital Strategy boldly supports the use of digital information management “to better leverage government data to improve the quality of services to the American people”. In the nine months since the report, government agencies from the USDA to the U.S. Department of Defense have followed up with various pilot programs and full rollouts of the “Bring Your Own Device” policy.

In theory, allowing federal workers to access information from mobile devices would support increased information sharing and coordinated efforts across all agencies.

The Digital Government Strategy and ensuing BYOD policy promotion are the results of a global increase in accessible technology and information. For example, the Digital Strategy notes that when an earthquake hit Virginia in August 2011, residents in New York City read about the quake on Twitter feeds 30 seconds before they experienced the quake themselves. Not surprisingly, 46 percent of American adults were owners of smartphones in March 2012, which is an 11 percent increase from the previous year. These statistics will continue to increase, as will the amount of public data accessible via mobile.

Federal Government agencies must adapt internal policies to capitalize on the opportunity to collect, manage and act on applicable data insights.

To properly weigh the effectiveness of any policy, we must clearly analyze the opportunities and challenges. We are in the midst of a global recession - where public and private enterprises must cut costs. Many organizations have allowed employee access to email and internal sites that were previously only attainable within the physical office.

This modernized business strategy not only promotes working remotely, but also reduces daily administrative expenses and the need for organization technology purchases. Additionally, remote-work access increases employee flexibility and promotes productivity outside the office.

It should be noted that while allowing employees to use their own devices reduces the need for upgrades and training, the policy also assumes that employees already own an appropriate device. The most serious concern of the BYOD policy is managing security throughout a myriad of devices and operating systems. This is a concern for any organization, but even more so for a government agency like the DoD.

To properly design and implement a BYOD policy, organizations must rigorously evaluate security concerns and current information management systems, while implementing pilot programs will provide real-time and tangible results within specific organizations.

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By Meredith Camp

Last Friday, December 14^th, I attended the first annual Human Capital Congress hosted by the Center for Human Capital Innovation.  As a member of this team and the day’s event, I was able to hear the many great speakers in attendance as well as network with many of the fine government-employed attendees.  Overall, it was a wonderful event that offered insights from senior members of industry, government, and the military, which was free to all public servants.  I was thoroughly impressed with our host, Lockheed Martin, and their speaker, Stephanie Hill, who kicked off the day-long event.  Her discussion on how Lockheed Martin is moving forward to innovate change and improve recruiting, hiring, career pathing, training, and overall communication between staff and supervisors was inspiring and enlightening.  My hope is to collect a few video snippets of her speech to share with everyone here on this page so those who weren’t able to attend can get a taste of what they missed (and hopefully attend next year’s event) and for those who did join us, refresh your memories and ignite inspiration for 2013.

Did you attend last Friday’s Congress event?  If so, what inspired you the most?  If not, what would you like to get out of an event of this caliber next year?

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By Allan Schweyer

Those of us who are big Dan Pink fans―and I know many of you are―have been waiting for well over a year to see what topic he would explain for us next. If you’re like me, Free Agent Nation, A Whole New Mind and Drive made you see things a little (or a lot) differently at work and in life. Dan Pink is a master at two important things: 

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Like many programs deemed “nonessential,” training is often one of the first in a long line of things cut when government budgets take a hit. But what does this actually mean for those who remain in their public sector positions? According to a recent survey done by Federal News Radio, ninety percent of government workers say that employee training will be affected by looming budget cuts and fifty-three percent of those indicated that training budgets have already been moderately impacted. This means that a majority of federal employees believe that training, in some capacity, will be eliminated. It also means that unless there is a mandated training to update policy or procedure in order to remain in compliance, training may not exist for quite some time across the government space. That translates to the growth and betterment of the employees who remain, meaning that they are on their own when it comes to improving upon their skill sets or renewing their nonessential certifications. But is this fair to the loyal public servants? Will a lack of learning opportunities reduce morale across the board or will we just become more creative in our capacity to seek out and harness non-traditional training opportunities? With this ongoing challenge in place, is it better to get out before all perks get eliminated, or does this offer up the opening for creative learning?

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By Angela Nuñez

There are numerous traits that make up a great leader, but first we need to define leadership. Undoubtedly, more than one type of leadership exists, from various forms of fear-based leadership to the inspiring leadership style of figures like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. Inspiring others to do good works and to be engaged in their work is what great leaders do. I think most would agree that striving for a leadership style like Nelson Mandela’s is far better than fear-based leadership. So the question is, what makes great leaders great?

One of the key traits of great leaders is active listening—one simple action that leads to a myriad of positive results. When an employee feels like his manager is truly listening, that employee is more likely to feel appreciated by the organization and, therefore, to be more engaged in his work. A workforce is unlikely to be proud of the organization it works for if that organization never listens to its needs. A recent Forbes article (please make “article” link to http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghanbiro/2012/10/07/5-ways-to-rock-star-hr-leadership/) on HR Leadership points out how important it is to “Listen to what people say…how often they repeat what others say, what verbs they use (active or passive), how many first-person pronouns they use…who mimics the cadence of another’s speech patterns.” All of this is part of active listening and will enable a manager to “pick out the leaders in a group quickly and be able to determine the tenor of their contributions to the health of the organization.”

Active listening also needs to be a non-discriminatory act; don’t just listen to higher-ranking employees, listen to everyone. The most successful organizations have a workforce that is engaged on every level, from CEO to janitor. Each employee is a piece of the whole that makes up an organization and should be valued equally. Active listening is an easy, powerful way to make people feel valued, while simultaneously making the listener aware of issues that need to be resolved and areas that can be improved. One of the greatest active listeners is Captain Abrashoff of the Navy, who took the USS Benfold from being the worst ship in the Navy to the best by simply listening to his crew. His story is one worth reading, especially if you’re ready to make the commitment to becoming a great leader through active listening.

 

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Last week I had the pleasure of attending our very own ROI course and Foundations of Human Capital Management for Government course at Lockheed Martin, taught by TMGov President Allan Schweyer, CHCI Founder and President Dr. Allen Zeman, and CHCI Senior Human Capital Consultant Dr. Rita Hilton. The folks at Lockheed Martin were wonderful, smart, engaging hosts. Both courses received highly positive reviews and were a great success. The HCM course talked a lot about employee engagement—what it means, why it matters, and how to make it happen. In these difficult economic times, responsible human capital management practices are vital to helping the federal government bounce back successfully and efficiently. Engaging the workforce has proven ROI and numerous other benefits, both tangible and intangible. According to Gallup, about 70% of the federal workforce is disengaged. This insight provides a tremendous opportunity to turn government around. Imagine what the federal government would look like with a 20%, 30%, or 40% increase in employee engagement—productivity, creativity, and innovation would soar. Ideally, of course, we want a 100% engaged workforce, and it’s possible, it just needs to be made the number one priority.

One of the best ways to help workers become more engaged is to focus and build on their strengths. Does this mean their weaknesses should never be addressed? Absolutely not! Awareness of one’s own weaknesses is important, but building on one’s strengths is much more productive, which is why more time needs to be spent on building on strengths than on fixing weaknesses. There’s an interesting parallel between engaging workers and engaging horses. I’ve been riding and training horses nearly my whole life, and I’ve learned that the best thing to do is to build on their strengths; I never ask a horse to do a job it hates, because it’s just not productive to do so, like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Managers need to be cognizant of setting their workers up for success. That doesn’t mean everyone will love every minute of his or her job, but becoming engaged overall will make any unpleasant aspects of a job a lot easier to handle. Engaging the federal workforce would enable the government to overcome looming obstacles and to think of innovative ways to be successful and efficient in today’s ever-changing world. Like a horse soaring over a jump well above its own height, the government has the potential to soar gracefully through these times of change. If engagement levels fail to improve, however, the government will end up like the rider on the ground, wondering what disconnect led to the separation of seat and saddle.

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Health and wellness have been on my mind a lot lately as I prepare for the launch of a new Health and Wellness Community of Practice that will soon join TMGov’s other communities of practice as a leading edge place for discussion, learning, and connection. A major lifestyle shift has occurred over the past few decades as jobs have become more sedentary and work hours have become longer. Not only does this change mean less physical activity, but also greater mental and emotional stress as the work-life balance tips toward the work side of the scale. Adding to this imbalance are smartphones, which enable emails to be read as soon as they arrive in your inbox. While reading and responding to that email right away can be tempting, a recent Government Executive article states that many companies “are instituting e-mail rules instructing employees to stay off after close of business and, if they can't stay away, to read and not reply.” Failing to set limits on your workday can actually make you less productive, as discussed in a previous blog post. Working longer hours also means less time to stay fit; but, as Dr. Jack Groppel of the Human Performance Institute said, “In the business world, if we’re not taking care of the body, we’re making mistakes.” Many businesses are starting to realize how vital their employees’ health and wellness are to their engagement and productivity in the workplace, and this is just as true for those working in the public sector.

Investing in the health and wellness of an organization’s employees means investing in an asset, because that’s what human capital really is. Businesses and government can no longer care only about employees’ brains; they must care about the whole package. I like the analogy Dr. Jim Loehr, of the Human Performance Institute, uses: think of the brain as a software program and the body as the operating system or power supply—the software program is going to be faulty if the power supply is not running at its best. An individual is not merely his or her brain; we must have healthy minds and bodies. Lower healthcare costs, fewer sick days, higher productivity, and less stress are all benefits of having healthy workers. Dr. Loehr’s insight on healthy employees applies just as relevantly to government: “Taking care of the body is taking care of business.”

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