Leadership

This report offers case studies of five current federal career executives, each of whom accomplished major changes in several different federal agencies. The study identifies common factors in their experiences that led to their inter-agency mobility. These factors provide useful guidelines for creating incentives to encourage more widespread mobility in the future and allow federal executives to consciously plan for greater career mobility to ensure a more flexible and responsive government. Human Capital Management Leadership

Will the federal government be able to recruit and retain employees with the qualities needed for leaders in the future? To help answer that question, the IBM Center for The Business of Government surveyed career and noncareer members of the federal Senior Executive Service (SES). Survey results showed that federal executives have a new vision of leadership and think that changes in current leadership systems will help make the vision a reality. Human Capital ManagementLeadership

This project examines the implementation of the innovative Defense Leadership Management Program (DLAMP) and draws conclusions about its strengths and weaknesses. DLAMP is an innovation in the public sector's management of human resources and an attempt by the federal government to provide a program of systematic career development for it's civilian employees. Programs such as DLAMP are an important component of the public sector’s efforts to shore up its workforce for the challenges of the new century and make government service an attractive career option for generations to come.

This report examines how public school leaders affect change by transforming the environment and culture of schools, turning rule bound organizations, often more concerned with the needs of staff, into responsive organizations more concerned with student needs and performance. The study identifies high performing schools and conduct a series of interviews to understand the leadership tools and service delivery techniques that lead to higher performance.Leadership

The IBM Endowment for The Business of Government supported a series of forums to examine the future of the civil service: (1) Two Federal Summit Conferences; (2) Thought Leaders Forum on -A New American Diplomacy: Requirements for the 21st Century, hosted by the National Policy Association; and (3) Thought Leaders Forum on -People and Performance: Challenges from the Future of Public Service- hosted by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.

This report describes and analyzes the transformation of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), one of the country’s largest organizational transformations in recent years. The goal of the transformation was to create an organization that could provide care as efficiently as leading private-sector health care organizations and that would embrace innovation and continuous quality improvement.

This report focuses on the government leaders within the Pentagon and the White House who transformed the weapons procurement process from a rule-bound, inflexible, and inefficient system to a more subjective, cost-effective, and innovative public acquisition process. The study seeks to discover how these public sector leaders injected private sector business methodologies into the traditional federal bureaucracy and offers an illustration of how this government team exemplified leading widespread change and instilling innovation. Organizational Transformation

This report provides a case study of a leading change agent, Daniel Goldin, Administrator of NASA. Goldin has been a change agent in an extremely austere and political environment. The study examines how Goldin initiated and carried through an organizational change process. Specifically, the report discusses how Goldin met his goals, where he fell short, and the lessons learned from his strategies and approach to change. Organizational Transformation

This report investigates the effectiveness and efficiency of the disaster assistance programs of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In particular, the study explores the evolution of disaster management from the Bush Administration to the Clinton Administration and compares FEMA responses to Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Andrew with agency responses to more recent disaster such as the Northridge Earthquake. Organizational Transformation

A part of the larger report, "Becoming an Effective Political Executive: 7 Lessons from Experienced Appointees," this essay, "Working to Transform Your Organization," describes how political appointees can successfully transform organizations. Four organizations were chosen as case studies and eight common lessons emerged about how leaders successfully undertake large-scale transformation initiatives.