The Public Manager articles from June 2003

The Public Manager archives from June 2003

Who is a public manager?(The Manager Musings)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
June 22, 2003... FOR MOST OF THE 30 YEARS I spent in government, I thought the answer to this question was: any government agency employee. Well, as I neared retirement from public service in the mid-1990S, it dawned on me that with all the downsizing and...

Mini-forum on community-based nonprofits.(The Manager's Musings)
June 22, 2003... Attempting to keep pace with this transformation, the Summer issue of The Public Manager kicks off a new feature series on the role of nonprofits in public management. To get us started, we offer a mini-forum on an ambitious capacity-building...

State and local waves.(The Manager's Musings)
June 22, 2003... Turning to the state and local level, Marsha Guffey offers an article on how (and how not) to establish an effective network structure in Arkansas. Nick Samuels provides a perspective from the National Association of State Budget Officers on...

Culture of public management.(The Manager's Musings)
June 22, 2003... In the human capital area, Joe Colantuoni contributes a case illustration of how the US Department of Agriculture is supporting the goals of the President's Management Agenda by transforming an organization with 340 different occupations....

Local government helps build capacity of community-based organizations: an introduction to the mini-forum and an overview of how Fairfax County, VA has pooled federal, state, and local resources to strengthen its grassroots community services infrastructure.(Mini-forum: public nonprofit management)
June 22, 2003... State and local governments rely heavily on nonprofit organizations to provide a broad range of human services to the communities that they serve. These organizations are typically community-based or faith-based organizations that depend on...

Beyond the language barrier: what managers should know about laws that govern language assistance for immigrants in publicly-funded programs and how to meet these service delivery challenges.(Mini-forum: public nonprofit management)
June 22, 2003... Every day across America, common scenes take place in publicly-funded services. A Vietnamese immigrant needs social services. She brings her son, who is 10 years old, to interpret for her. A Hispanic patient who cannot read English must sign a...

Branding for nonprofits: how a community nonprofit can establish a presence among those it serves and those it depends on for support by linking its name to a very recognizable symbol.(Mini-forum: nonprofit management)
June 22, 2003... Let's start with a question: What's big and gray and flies silently over sporting events? It's the blimp of course. And who owns the blimp, Virgin Airlines, Metropolitan Life Insurance, or Sanyo? While the answer is actually "all of the above,"...

eCOACh: easier HR planning on the Web: how nonprofits and state and local agencies can improve their bottom line by ensuring that training funds and resources are channeled effectively and efficiently.(Mini-forum: public nonprofit management)
June 22, 2003... Using the power of the Web, Career Opportunity Advancement Champion (eCOACh) is a new digital tool designed to help human resources (HR) managers track training costs and identify skills gaps of their personnel. Training plan priorities thereby...

Essential Tools of the Internet: using E-mail and the Web for Effective Communication: a public sector consultant shares ideas, guidance, and best-practice examples on how community--based nonprofits are using these tools to integrate technology into their communications plans.(Mini-forum: public nonprofit management)
June 22, 2003... Public management practitioners, along with professionals of many community-based organizations, are seeking practical strategies for integrating technology into their communications plans. Their goal is to reach a greater audience, with an eye...

Managing executive leadership transitions in nonprofits: field-tested advice to turn leadership change into a pivotal opportunity.(Mini-forum: public nonprofit management)
June 22, 2003... In the coming year, about one in 10 nonprofit boards will face the challenge of searching for a new executive director. This rate of turnover is projected to climb by 15 percent or more as the bulk of the baby-boomer generation reaches...

Organizational values and leadership: learn more about the importance of aligning core and operational values in the strategic planning process and the bottom-line benefits of investing in a performance-oriented organizational culture.(Mini-forum: public nonprofit management)
June 22, 2003... We live in a time when more than ever our values, our core beliefs, are being challenged and questioned. Our governmental, economic, philanthropic, and religious institutions are facing harsh and often justified scrutiny for fraudulent and...

Getting to the bottom line in local government: how San Diego county's Health and Human Services Agency uses decision support techniques to help agency executives make better decisions all around.
June 22, 2003... This is a story of what one very complex local agency, part of one of the largest county governments in the United States, did in order to enhance the effectiveness of its operations and to position itself for the future. The County of San...

The followership continuum: a model for fine tuning the workforce: a seasoned public manager draws on her experience at the federal and local levels and offers a case illustration from Anne Arundel County, MD, on how to identify opportunities for improving organizational performance.(Culture of Bureaucracy)
June 22, 2003... Listen to the conversations of employees in the workplace: on the elevator, in the cafeteria, on the subway, or in other public areas, like gathering at the water cooler. What do they talk about when they discuss their work? Do you hear...

Bringing human capital to the forefront at USDA: the HR director of a major federal department offers a case illustration of how human capital management is supporting the goals of the President's management agenda.(Human Capital Management)
June 22, 2003... Imagine a 100,000-person organization that is composed of 340 different occupations being transformed into a cohesive, nimble agency ready to respond quickly and strategically to change. This was our vision at the Department of Agriculture...

Tapping unused employee capabilities: how to create a high performance environment by changing the work paradigm and taking a radically different approach to train the next generation of managers and supervisors.(Human Resources Management)
June 22, 2003... Almost everyone is familiar with the movie, Apollo 13, in which the workers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space center work tirelessly to save the astronauts in the crippled spaceship. Many have also seen the old...

Budget instability in the states: dilemmas of process and perception: state budgets are in their worst shape in 50 years, but budget instability does not necessarily mean poor fiscal management.(State and Municipal Management)
June 22, 2003... States currently face a fiscal situation remarkably similar to the downturns of the early 1980s and 1990s. A boiling economy led to booming state gets. As the cyclical economic tide ebbed, state revenues faded too. Simultaneously, spending...

Collaborative networks: the initial design strongly influences the outcome: a practitioner-academic offers a model for how (and how not) to establish an effective network structure from four case studies at the state and local level in Arkansas.(Partnerships and Networks)
June 22, 2003... Increasingly, when public organizations try to solve difficult problems, they turn to collaborative networks to get the job done. The benefit of these collaborative networks is more than just co-laboring together to reach a given end. The...

Federal Executive Boards in the changed world: the chairperson of the Cleveland Federal Executive Board explores the challenges to agency field managers after September 11 and how interagency cooperation and enterprise risk management need a significant change in focus.(Beyond the Beltway)
June 22, 2003... Federal Executive Boards (FEBs) were established by direction of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 via an executive order. A very simple way to describe the mission of the FEBs is to say that we exist to promote a unity of purpose among federal...

National public service award nominations due.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... The American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) proudly established the National Public Service Awards (NPSA) in 1983 to honor individuals who make outstanding contributions and...

Myths of civil service and other fairy tales: a long-time civil servant and former deputy director of the US Office of Personnel Management opines on what we need to know about public service before altering our expectations of government.(Viewpoints)
June 22, 2003... Robert Fagin's letter to the editor in the Fall 2002 issue is one of the best-written assessments of what needs to change for governmental reform that I have ever read. It is candid, concise, and correct. It inspired me to put together some...

Innovation in American e-government: FirstGov.gov: the sole federal agency winner of the prestigious Innovations in American Government award for 2002 offers is an organizational model for individual federal, state, and local Web sites to learn from and adopt.(Image)
June 22, 2003... Think about it. Until two and a half years ago, Internet users needing to get information from government or do business with it had hundreds of federal Web sites at their disposal. But there was no one-stop way to search all of them. There...

David O. "Doc" Cooke memorial.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... The Graduate School, USDA has partnered with the Government Executive Magazine to create an endowment to honor David O. "Doc" Cooke and to recognize his outstanding contributions and public service. This endowment will sponsor the keynote...

Great progress was made.(The Uncivil Servant)
June 22, 2003... How many times have we read a report in our papers that some high-level dignitary is engaged in important talks and "great progress was made?" What does that really mean? Was real progress actually achieved? Was some enduring issue...

ASPA members get new benefit--the public manager.(The Uncivil Servant)(American Society for Public Administration)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... The National Council of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) has adopted The Public Manager as a membership benefit at a greatly reduced subscription rate-45% off. ASPA members may receive this benefit by way of our Web site,...

Wally Keene wins COFFE award.(The Uncivil Servant)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... The late Wallace O. Keene, our associate editor to whom our Spring issue was dedicated, has received the Bun Bray Award from the Council of Former Federal Executives (COFFE). The award, named for COFFE's founder, celebrates a former federal...

Graduates prefer nonprofit jobs over civil service.(The Uncivil Servant)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Future Wally Keenes may be scarce, though interest in public service careers is growing among graduating seniors-their focus is on nonprofit employment rather than government jobs according to a Brookings survey. Though 67 percent of 1,002...

Cost cutting: part II (except there is no part II!).(Views you can use: new ideas for management)
June 22, 2003... Retrenchment doesn't fundamentally transform a company's cost structure; it simply establishes a new, lower equilibrium between revenues and expenses. It doesn't create competitive advantage--not unless you're taking out costs a lot faster than...

Resource maximization: using risk management to rethink budgetary choices in hard times.(Views you can use: new ideas for management)
June 22, 2003... Public sector managers are faced with changes that were not anticipated in the late 1990s. Confronted with declining tax revenues, smaller tax bases, limited resources, and a desire to maintain current service levels, public managers have...

Old ideas about old ideas ...(Urgent Business for America: Revitalizing the Federal Government for the 21st Century, National Commission on the Public Service, January 2003)(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Urgent Business for America: Revitalizing the Federal Government for the 21st Century, National Commission on the Public Service, January 2003. 'The federal government is neither organized nor staffed nor adequately prepared to meet the...

What federal employees say: results of the 2002 federal human capital survey.
June 22, 2003... Surprise! Most federal employees like their jobs, believe they do important work, feel a sense of accomplishment, and think they are held accountable for results. In one of the most ambitious employee surveys undertaken to date, the US Office...

A market eye's view of government ...(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Jennifer Government, Max Barry, Doubleday, New York, 2003 When we talk about reinventing government, the Ash Commission, Volcker I and II, the National Performance Review, and the President's Management Agenda, all come to mind as serious...

Take me out ...(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy, Andrew Zimbalist, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. Competition in baseball, as in other professional sports leagues, is an unusual concept. While Home Depot...