The Public Manager articles from March 2005

The Public Manager archives from March 2005

The manager's musings.(public manager roles)
March 22, 2005... End Views After seven years of contributing the stimulating and informative department "Views You Can Use," A. C. Hyde and Hyong Yi are sunsetting the venture in this issue, with an emphasis on the end of performance management--if there...

Pay for performance: how pay for performance has emerged as the new model for federal human resources pay practice and how executives and managers will be challenged to solve its complexities.(MANAGEMENT FAD OF THE YEAR--2004)
March 22, 2005... This year's public Management Fad of the Year proves that a past record of futility does not preclude ultimate triumph. Pay for performance has been proposed, debated, and dismissed for over fifty years in public personnel management. And now,...

Synergy in the nonprofit sector: highlights of a recent conference in Fairfax County, Virginia, on the good things that can happen when practitioners share learning, solutions, and inspiration.(MINI-FORUM: NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT)
March 22, 2005... For the second time in the last few years, Fairfax County, Virginia, convened a conference for nonprofit organizations in the Northern Virginia area to enhance the management capabilities of nonprofit service providers that serve county...

Think "results," not "evaluation": before learning the "nuts and bolts" of how to do evaluation, nonprofit professionals must make a shift from viewing it as a negative to viewing it as a valuable aspect of organizational effectiveness.(MINI-FORUM: NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT)
March 22, 2005... When I say "evaluation" to nonprofit professionals, I often see cringes and scowls. Some think back to statistics classes and number crunching. Others speak of the challenges of not enough time, money, or capacity to do evaluation. All are wary...

Prospecting for gold: finding financial resources for your organization; Securing financial resources is central to the nonprofit world, and this article demonstrates that the process of identifying, cultivating, and soliciting donor prospects need not be as troublesome as it seems.(MINI-FORUM: NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT)
March 22, 2005... Securing private financial resources to support your cause is central to the nonprofit world. Nonprofit and charitable organizations turn to the community in search of contributions as a way to engage the public in their missions and to secure...

Ready, set, fundraise! Five steps to success in fundraising from the private sector: review the basic steps in the fundraising process--readiness, research, reality, relationships, and the request. Then pick up tips to assist in developing and refining a broad-based list of funding prospects, establishing cultivation plans to help ensure success, and preparing a written funding request.(MINI-FORUM: NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT)
March 22, 2005... It takes more than a compelling cause to be successful in today's competitive funding environment. It takes time, an understanding of the grant-seeking process, and the right attitude. Following the five steps to success in...

Developing an effective fundraising board: a senior development professional shares tips on how to motivate even the most reluctant board members to become successful fundraisers.(MINI-FORUM: NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT)
March 22, 2005... Fundraising is not a one-person job--even though there are still nonprofit boards of directors that believe that fundraising is the responsibility of the executive director or the director of development if the organization has one. It never...

Best practices in communications: ten tips for improving communications and setting the stage for your success; With competing priorities and busy schedules, agencies and nonprofit organizations alike are discovering that strategic and effective communications are essential to setting their organizations apart. Acquire some simple tips for improving your organization's communications.(MINI-FORUM: NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT)
March 22, 2005... With competing priorities and busy schedules, agencies and nonprofit organizations alike are discovering that strategic and effective communications are essential to setting their organizations apart. While it is not uncommon for organizations...

Spreadsheet errors: are they undermining decision making in your organization? By prioritizing a set of important spreadsheets and developing review procedures, public managers can lower the risks of errors, and scaling the intensity of quality control efforts to the level of risk provides an economical approach to avoiding disastrous consequences.(ARTICLE)
March 22, 2005... Almost all public managers use spreadsheets to contemplate important decisions, yet audits routinely show that many if not most contain errors. Even conservative estimates find that almost a quarter of operational spreadsheets have errors,...

ASPA'S National Capital Area Chapter holds annual awards ceremony.(American Society of Public Administration)
March 22, 2005... Yet most of you... were truly motivated by the belief that, as hard as it is, you could do something to enhance the lives of ordinary Americans. You share the view... that our days are for something more than making money and...

Where should we go next on public-service transformation, and how should we get there? The debate on where we should go next on public-service transformation is heating up.
March 22, 2005... President Bush is expected to send legislation to Congress proposing to extend a version of the new MAX-HR personnel system at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) at the Department of...

Our nation's financial condition and fiscal outlook: shaping the future of the federal government.
March 22, 2005... I have been speaking out lately on a subject that deserves far more attention: the U.S. government's worsening financial situation and long-term fiscal imbalance. Despite the current economic recovery and the reassuring messages conveyed by...

The participatory revolution in nonprofit management: nonprofit leaders should be ready for changes brought about by the increasing interest, opportunity, and ability of stakeholders to make decisions in prevailing nonprofit organizational structures and governance, as well as in management and leadership practices.
March 22, 2005... The future that has already happened is not within [the organization]; it is outside: a change in society, knowledge, culture, industry, or economic structure. It is, moreover, a break in the pattern rather than a variation in it....

Achieving strategic change in government: a small group of senior government and private industry executives share their experience and thoughts on strategic change and how to achieve it--including practical tools to get going quickly and keep things moving.(TRANFORMATION MANAGEMENT)
March 22, 2005... Change is certain. Progress is not. --E.H. Carr, From Napoleon to Stalin, and Other Essays Everyone is "transforming" these days, but will these efforts produce a better government? Virtually every federal government agency has a...

Leading with character: what can we learn from a recent federal government human capital survey that found that many employees hold their leaders in low regard and feel they do not generate high levels of motivation and commitment?(CULTURE OF BUREAUCRACY)
March 22, 2005... Leaders who possess qualities of high character stand out from the rest. The phrase "high character" conjures up images of luminaries such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu,...

2005 FEIAA Executive Forum a success! Current and retired federal managers and executives look to the future, focusing on making information technology interactive, leadership challenges and competencies, renewed commitment to health and fitness, and the pecuniary side of retirement planning.(IMAGE OF PUBLIC SERVICE)
March 22, 2005... The Federal Executive Institute (FEI) Alumni Association (FEIAA) organizes an annual Executive Forum to give FEI graduates the opportunity to renew their "FEI experience." The 2005 Executive Forum, "Looking to the Future in Work and Personal...

Social insecurity.(THE UNCIVIL SERVANT)(president Roosevelt's social insurance policy )
March 22, 2005... The Great Depression Once upon a time there was The Great Depression (TGD). No, this wasn't a sinkhole in Florida. And no, it wasn't the mother of invention that spawned Zoloft and Prozac. It was THE GREAT DEPRESSION where the stupidity of...

The end of performance?(NEW IDEAS FOR MANAGEMENT)(performance results management )
March 22, 2005... Surely not. If there's one thing that has bridged the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in public management thought and practice, it is performance. In fact, one might conclude that the seeds planted in 1993 with the passage of the...

MAX-HR: when more may mean less.(FEDLAND)(human resource management)
March 22, 2005... On February 1, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued their final regulations establishing a new human resources management system that would cover most DHS employees. In an effort to be...

"It's the people ... stupid".(Cities and the Creative Class)(review)(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... A Review of Richard Florida's Cities and the Creative Class (New York: Routledge, 2005) Richard Florida's Cities and the Creative Class allows us to revisit themes introduced by the author's 2002 work The Rise of the Creative Class and How...

Strategic thinking for high-performance management.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... A Review of High-Performance Government, Edited by Robert Klitgaard and Paul Light (Rand Corporation, 2005) High-Performance Government is that rare example where the sequel is better than the original. In this case, that's not really fair,...

And in closing ... A "sideways" interview with A. C. Hyde (ACH) and Hyong Yi (HY).(Interview)
March 22, 2005... Seven years of editing "Views" equals 224 pages of The Public Manager (TPM), minus the annual index pages and the random cartoons. We thought we'd reserve the last two pages for an interview of sorts with some reflections on where we started...