Results of the 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey

by Stan Sinclair, Managing Member

Last week, the Office of Personnel Management published its annual Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey.  More than 500,000 Federal employees were asked to participate in the survey, and more than 266,000 provided responses.  The survey, which you can read in its entirety here, provides a “comprehensive and valuable picture of the opinions of the Federal workforce,” according to OPM.

Among the survey’s findings were that nearly 7 of 10 Federal employees recommend their organizations as good places to work, and 92 percent believe that the work they themselves do is important.   More than 80 percent like the work they do; know how their work relates to agency goals and priorities; believe they are held accountable for achieving results; think their units do high quality work; and feel their supervisor treats them with respect.

On the negative side of the ledger, less than 50 percent of employees felt that their leaders generated high levels of motivation and commitment in the workforce and were satisfied with the policies and practices of their senior leaders.  And although 84 percent of employees feel they are personally held accountable for achieving results, 47 percent believe pay raises do not depend on performance; 41 percent believe poor performers in their organization are not dealt with, and 35 percent believe promotions are not based on merit.

As in every survey, some agencies did very well, while others did less well.  The highest rated agency in the categories of leadership and knowledge management; results-oriented performance culture; talent management and job satisfaction was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which got the highest rating in each of the four areas.  Other “winners” included the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; the State Department; OPM itself; and the National Credit Union Administration.

OPM concluded that “despite potentially adverse scenarios (such as) shutdowns, pay freezes, furloughs, benefit reductions, budget cuts and negative public perceptions, Federal employees’ dedication and commitment remain high.”  This agrees with what we at SAG are seeing in our work with a number of federal agencies—with this caveat: there are places, probably in every agency, where morale is nowhere near what it could, or should be. 

We strongly believe that our training and leadership development programs have significantly improved both morale and performance everywhere they have been given, and that such training is essential for every federal agency if it is to adapt to the needs of the American people in the 21^st century.  As OPM writes, “competent, ethical and dedicated senior leaders who foster the confidence and the respect of the workforce are critical to agency success.”

Interestingly enough, however, while 65 percent of survey respondents feel they have opportunities to improve their skills at work, only 54 percent believe their training needs are properly assessed. If, as OPM also concludes, “leadership is getting better, but still has a ways to go,” the best way to travel this path is through rigorous and intensive leadership training.

We at SAG are curious, though: this survey is the product of 266,000 responses out of nearly 4.5 million federal employees.  If you are a federal employee and were not surveyed, what do you think?  What would you have told the surveyors about your level of job satisfaction, your thoughts about your workplace, and the quality of your organizations leaders?  We promise we’ll maintain your anonymity, unless you’d prefer not to remain anonymous.  Thanks!

Are Great Leaders Disappearing?

by Seth Sinclair, Member

Two weeks ago, I posted a blog entry entitled “Leaders Are Made, Not Born.” My post was based on the four skills the American Management Association believes young leaders must master in order to be successful.  (You can read that entry here.)  I was responding to another blogger, who suggested that most young people aren’t learning critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativity and innovation in school—and, because of this, they don’t have the skills to meet the needs of business and government in the 21^st century.

More recently, the Harvard Business Review’s blog has weighed in on this debate.  In a September 20, 2011 post entitled, “Where Have All the Leaders Gone,” (read it here) consultant and author Ron Ashkenaz discusses the phenomenon that today’s most important leaders don’t seem to measure up to our expectations, and that leaders of previous generations inspired more confidence than our present collection. 

Mr. Ashkenaz offers two reasons for this finding.  First, he says, the velocity and volume of issues today’s leaders are confronted with has increased substantially.  He believes previous generations of leaders had more time between decisions than today’s leaders have.  The instantaneous communication technology has brought allows leaders very little time to think, and forces them to move quickly from issue to issue without the time, as he writes, to “think, reflect and plan.”

His second reason is his belief that many of today’s leaders are overly concerned with their stakeholders’ reactions.  They worry too much about making people “happy”—and as a result, they hesitate to do what they believe is right.  According to Mr. Ashkenaz, “politicians seem to base their policies on polling trends, while corporate leaders worry about the reactions of analysts and traders.”

In my blog on the AMA study, I took issue with the blogger’s conclusion, because I believe that it has never been the sole responsibility of schools to teach the skills good leaders require.  On-the-job training, careful listening, modeling the behaviors of mentors and others, and a commitment to lifelong learning—including learning from the kind of leadership programs SAG provides—all are as important, if not more important, than the lessons an aspiring leader learns at even the finest MBA or MPA program.

I disagree with Mr. Ashkenaz as well, because I believe that today’s great leaders are as skilled, or more so, than those of any previous generation.  Among the leaders of previous generations the author admires were Franklin Roosevelt; Winston Churchill; John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.  None of these great leaders were universally recognized as such during their lifetimes, (Churchill, for example, was turned out of office by the people of Great Britain as soon as World War II ended,) and all of their reputations have benefited significantly from the distance that time, and in some cases tragedy, provides.

We do have great leaders in all walks of life today—and future generations, if not their contemporaries, will recognize them as such.  Steve Jobs has been a controversial figure throughout his career; he even resigned from Apple Inc. in the 1980’s after he lost a power struggle with the company’s board of directors, and spent a decade away from the company before returning.  His resignation for health reasons as CEO of Apple last month was greeted with near-universal dismay, however, and I have little doubt that his legend will grow significantly in the years ahead. 

“Don’t it always seem to go,” Joni Mitchell once sang, “that we don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone?”  Leaders like Jobs, Jeff Immelt and Jack Welch of GE, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and others (I’ll leave it to you to list the present-day politicians you admire) are all great visionaries, and have mastered the leadership challenges of the beginnings of the 21^st century; just as leaders like Andrew Carnegie; Thomas Edison; and Henry Ford mastered the equally-significant business challenges of the beginning of the 20^th century.

These leaders understand the opportunities faster communications provide; they carve out the time they need to think and plan (and hire others to help them do so); and they—like leaders of every generation—do not hesitate to do what they believe is right.  The game has not gotten harder, in my opinion, but the rules have gotten more complex.  It is our responsibility at SAG, as trainers of tomorrow’s leaders, to help those who will be tomorrow’s leaders understand these new rules and become successful in their chosen fields.

I’d like to know what you think, though: is it harder for a leader to achieve greatness today, and, if so, why?  I’m looking forward to your comments below.

Leveraging Today's Technology and Data (Part II)

by Chris Domergue, Director of Client Services

As I discussed in my May 26 post, President Obama’s April 27, 2011 executive order, titled “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” requires Federal agencies to quickly come up with ways to use technology to improve their service to their customers. 

In my post, I recommended four principles that, if followed, will result in a successful customer service strategy: defining the customer experience; focusing on consistent information; leveraging today’s technology and data; and making customer experience one of your core functions. 

I‘d like to continue to discuss the third principle – leveraging today’s technology and data.  Technology, in this day and age, allows for a paradigm shift in both the way the customer interacts with your organization and the way your organization can optimize its business.

In the past, many large companies and federal agencies have treated their contact centers and servicing customers purely as a cost to the organization.  As a result, multiple contracts were awarded or different technologies were used to try to minimize the cost of customer service and to optimize the budget.  However, over time, this strategy has had the exact opposite impact – those who used the strategy created ‘silos’ across their organizations, and now any holistic customer satisfaction initiatives they might try will cost the enterprise exponentially more to implement and will have a lower chance of success.

Why?  First, any ‘simple’ change of adding a new channel (email, web chat, social media, etc) or creating a ‘common view’ of the customer has to touch multiple systems, all speaking different languages.  And second, the costs to maintain and update systems with new software and hardware have increased the burden on an organization’s IT department--all in an often failed attempt to just look at data across the systems.

Over my career I have worked with several CIOs and IT leaders to develop plans for them to ‘modernize’ and ‘consolidate’ their customer servicing functions.  Many of them have made the same fatal flaw in this effort– they pick the technology and the platforms they will use before they define their requirements and strategies.  This course of action has led to many failed implementations and has wasted vast amounts of money.

I have worked first hand to ‘fix the mess’ with clients, and we’ve been able to put band aids on many of these initiatives.  However, that’s all they were for the most part… band aids.  My clients still needed to address the reason why the dam was breaking, instead of just sticking fingers in the holes to hold the water back. 

I would encourage any organization truly looking to modernize today’s technology to define a strategy before spending a penny on implementation.  This task should start with asking these simple questions:

Question #1:  Do I know what exists in my current environment? – Do you as the IT leader for your organization know what already exists in your current state?  Do you know how many technologies exist, how many functions are performed, where your infrastructure is, and the cost of those components?  Do you know if you are optimizing the solutions available to you in your current platforms?  Do you know where critical business data is stored within your environment and how it is accessed?

During my time with IBM, I worked with clients who were about to undertake a key $100M+ initiative to transform their contact centers.  They already had four different CRM desktop applications and countless other technologies in place… and they wanted to procure something ELSE to put on TOP of this infrastructure.  Instead, they should have taken exactly the opposite approach – they had the existing hardware and software to do everything they needed.  They should have just picked ONE solution out of what they already had, then migrated everything to that platform to simplify the environment.

Question #2:  Do I even want to manage this function? – Are contact centers and CRM applications even in your organizations core capabilities?  Would this simply be better for you to manage this function as a service instead of procuring, building, and maintaining your own platform?

Today, ‘cloud’ solutions are the hot buzz.  Why?  Simply put, they finally work to a degree that allows for enhanced security, faster deployment, and a massive reduction in cost with a higher quality of performance.  I developed a massive ‘cloud’ based solution with one of my clients over the last several years.  This solution cost my clients one-third of what building the function themselves would have, and was deployed in one-fifth of the time. 

My team was able to build an all-inclusive enterprise level solution customized for our customer’s requirements.  We leveraged a ‘cloud’ platform including Speech Recognition IVR, Automated Outbound Dialer, VoIP Enterprise Routing, Centralized Workforce Management, Virtual Desktop Applications, Audio/Video Quality Monitoring, and true End to End Call Reporting in just over a year.  Then, we were able to deploy this solution to 7000 seats in just 14 weeks.  This solution held constitutionally-mandated secure data and gave the organization the ability to manage operations at the enterprise level.  (By the way… we also got a 100% Award Fee score for this solution). 

In a time where key IT leaders have enough to deal with, wouldn’t it be easier to have someone else handle some of the functions they aren’t great at anyway?

Question #3:  Will my business adapt to the technology? – Should I procure a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solution or should I build a custom solution?  Have I defined the ‘requirements’ for what the technology needs to do or have I dictated how the technology needs to work?

In my experience, most failed customer relationship management initiatives start with a lack of scope control and definition by the business owners.  Most of today’s products that claim to be COTS are actually only truly able to deliver their Return on Investment (ROI) when the business adapts the processes to fit the technology.  If you are the IT owner, you need to push on the business to define the requirements of what needs to be done and control how it is executed.  On one project I worked on, the COTS product had to be so overly configured to meet the business owners needs and processes that it ended up costing the organization three times more than if they would have built a new custom solution themselves.

Question #4:  Do I know what is going on across my enterprise? – Can I compare Contact Center A with Contact Center B in an ‘apples to apples’ comparison?  Am I optimizing my workforce?  Can I pinpoint every segment of my customer’s actual experience?  Are my reports accurate?

Enterprise data and their corresponding reports can influence millions of dollars of decisions in an organization.  What if that data is inaccurate? 

In a technology assessment I did with an Internet Service Provider a few years ago, I identified that the way they were reporting on inbound contacts by supposedly measuring the number customers called in on was actually being aggregated across multiple phone numbers.  Every promotional CD this company mailed out to try and get new members for their service had a different 800 number on it, and then they pumped more marketing dollars into those that were the most ‘successful’.  In my final analysis, I found out that hundreds of different CDs actually came through on the reports inaccurately and this company was pumping $10 million into the wrong marketing campaign.  While many of today’s products promote “end to end” or “cradle to grave” reporting, IT leaders need to invest time and effort in to verifying and validating that data is truly captured, represented, and reported upon accurately throughout the organization so they are best equipped to make the correct strategic decisions for the enterprise.

IT Leaders today are faced with a lot of tough challenges.  However, the one that most often is undervalued is how your organization’s technology supports your customers.  By optimizing your solutions around the customer experience, you can drive not only vast reductions in costs in your area, but across the enterprise as a whole.  In addition, as the customer’s experience improves, you can actually INCREASE your revenue stream by supporting more customers (if your business is corporate) or your ability to support Americans more effectively (if you represent a government agency).

At SAG, we focus on defining a Strategic Plan that supports your customer’s needs and then driving your IT implementations to align to this strategy.  With these simple questions, you can begin to outline your organization’s strategy which will allow you to save operational costs and ultimately serve your customers more effectively. 

Now, for one final question… Are you ready to make the change?

 

Leaders Are Made, Not Born

by Seth Sinclair, Member
  

On the AOL Government web site, Sandi Edwards, the director of Corporate and Government Solutions for AMA Enterprise, Inc., recently posted an article that claimed that the new generation of Federal workers were lacking in the skills Government agencies will need to meet their customers’ needs in the 21^st century.  (Read it here.) 

Ms. Edwards’ post was based on a “Critical Skills Survey” conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) in 2010.  The survey looked at the skills both government and private industry needed in their emergency leaders, and concluded that most federal workforces simply don’t have enough young people with those skills “to do the job that an increasingly competitive and innovation-based environment demands”.

The skills AMA believes young leaders need to develop include:

• Critical thinking and problem solving-the ability to make decisions, solve problems, and take actions as appropriate;
• Effective communication-the ability to synthesize and transmit your ideas both in written and oral forms;
• Collaboration and team building-the ability to work effectively with others, including those from diverse groups and with opposing points of view;
• Creativity and innovation-the ability to see what's NOT there and make something happen.

According to Ms. Edwards, these skills are not taught in schools, and most of today’s young people don’t have them intuitively—leading to a crisis that has “severely handicapped government organizations in their efforts to increase productivity and meet budget constraints while still delivering on their mission.”

At SAG, we think the list of skills AMA has developed for new leaders is both useful and comprehensive, but we disagree with the notion that the failure of America’s school system to develop graduates with all of these skills—in and of itself—is a reason for significant concern.  Very few, if any, of today’s senior government leaders had all of these skills when they began their careers.

Instead, they learned on the job; by following the example and advice of mentors; by observing behaviors, both good and bad, of leaders with whom they came into contact; by listening carefully when their performance was evaluated at all stages of their career; and through a process of lifelong learning, including training specifically developed for them at every stage of their careers.

Schools have never been able to replicate the business or government environment very well: there was never a “golden age” in which young leaders emerged, full-blown, from academia, ready to shoulder the responsibilities of leadership.  Some skills are best learned on the job, in a real-world environment: others, like collaboration and team building, can only be taught once people have some understanding of why those skills are so important.

We’ve taught many Federal employees and leaders in our training programs, and we’ve seen the improvements in performance, across the board, leadership training provides.  Our instructor-led classroom training, hands-on exercises, and one-on-one coaching sessions have built cadres of competent and inspired leaders to execute organizational strategies at numerous federal agencies.

By exposing our students to best practices and theories in leadership and management, and by providing them with a structured framework to help them apply what they learn in real-world situations, we help them develop the skills they will need to assume the duties of a Federal government leader.  While some students, naturally, are better than others at developing these skills, all of our students benefit from our training.

We have never seen a leader whose skills are so “natural” that he or she needs no more instruction than they received in high school and college.  Instead, learning the skills AMA describes is a lifelong process, and good agencies make sufficient resources available to train their staffs throughout their careers.

Here, of course, is the problem.  As Federal agencies increasingly face budget constraints in today’s environment, will they reduce the amount of funding they set aside for leadership training?  As Ms. Edwards points out, today’s college graduates don’t have the leadership skills they require on graduation (nor, we maintain, did their predecessors).  If they are not given formal, structured training tailored to their level of development, they will never learn what they need to know to succeed in today’s fast-paced business world—or tomorrow’s. 

Training funds are not a luxury, to be slashed when the funding pipeline begins to dry up: instead, they are a necessity—one of the prime ways to enable any Federal agency or private company to “do more with less” and meet the challenges of budget reductions.  Bold, visionary leadership can go a long way towards overcoming fiscal shortfalls—but such leaders aren’t born, they’re taught.  We hope that as today’s leaders make decisions about their agency’s futures, they will spare training costs from the budget ax to the maximum extent possible.

Leveraging Today's Technology and Data (Part I)

by Chris Domergue

Director of Client Services

As I discussed in my May 26 post, President Obama’s April 27, 2011 executive order, titled “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” requires Federal agencies to quickly come up with ways to use technology to improve their service to their customers. 

In my post, I recommended four principles that, if followed, will result in a successful customer service strategy: defining the customer experience; focusing on consistent information; leveraging today’s technology and data; and making customer experience one of your core functions. 

I‘d like to start to discuss the third principle – leveraging today’s technology and data.  Technology, in this day and age, allows for a paradigm shift in both the way that the customer interacts with your organization (today) and the way your organization can optimize its business (more on that next week).

For many years, customers began their experience with a business or a government agency with a face-to-face visit at a store or office and formed their first impressions of that organization through that interaction.  Now, most first experiences with any given company or government department are through electronic means.  Websites, phone calls, web chat, emails, social media, smart phone ‘apps’, and other forms of communication dominate the way the majority of business is conducted in 2011.

In many ways, today’s technology has made enhancing a customer’s experience with your company or organization a much easier task.  Modern technology allows the customer to easily choose how they want to interact with your organization at the time, in the place, and in the manner with which they are most comfortable.

Today’s applications and solutions enable commercial businesses and government agencies to personalize the experience for their customers.  By understanding their previous actions and customizing this interaction to their personal preferences, organizations can now optimize this exchange by providing more valuable and targeted information, in a timely manner and at a lower cost.  This will enhance the customer experience and in turn drive repeat business from a satisfied consumer.

Numerous products are available to help manage your organization’s interactions.  While some may claim to be better than others, in my opinion, after many years at IBM and Accenture working with these tools, they all have strengths and weaknesses. 

Choosing one over another for your organization depends on how their tools map to your customer strategy and enable your business processes.  If you have already defined your experience, strategy, and background processes, then you can focus on choosing and implementing the technology with the features that best fit your needs.  (If you have not done this already, go back and re-read my previous blog posts.)

The biggest benefit today’s technology offers customers is that it increases their options.  Specifically, for government agencies, President Obama’s order pushes the Federal Government to leverage the technology available today to provide multiple interaction options to Americans when they do business with Federal agencies.

One of my favorite clients once made a critical ‘faux-pas’ in a recent implementation… the agency provided limited and non-preferred channels for collecting of critical information from Americans.

In 2010 (hint), the Federal Government surveyed the American population to collect key demographic information from more than 300 million people in the United States (hint hint).  To collect this information, the agency sent out more than 100 million pieces of mail with paper surveys to collect, process, and analyze this data.  There was a phone number recipients could call with questions, but the original design did not allow recipients to provide their data over the phone.  In addition, if you somehow lost or did not respond to this questionnaire, you either had to call in to request a new one, wait until a second mailing arrived, OR wait even longer until someone knocked on your door to collect the data.

Having worked with this agency for years, I understood all their major political and IT security concerns, as well as the agency’s true goals and objectives.  They had rationales on why no additional channels should be offered for this operation.  Although their rationales were reasonable, they never really addressed how to engage their core consumer in the way that today’s Americans prefer to do business. 

Many respondents were completely fine with opening the mail, filling out the survey, and sending the piece of paper in.  This is a perfectly acceptable channel to collect information.  However, there were a SIGNIFICANT number of Americans who would have much preferred to log into a website and provide this information electronically or to dial into a phone number and provide this data to an agent.  They would have felt more secure using these methods, as well.

What most Americans really did not want was for the government to come knocking on their door.  When we reached this phase of the operation, we had to modify the system to suddenly allow people to provide their information by phone, since there had been so many complaints about the face-to-face collection method and the lack of alternative channels to provide information.  As a result, numerous news reports, articles, and other ‘negative’ media reports drew attention away from the incredible efforts this agency made to accomplish their mission.

It was not that this client did anything ‘wrong’ by providing only two channels for data collection.  However, by not offering alternative data collection methods they failed to provide an optimized solution.  This ended up costing the agency hundreds of millions of dollars more, drew negative attention to their work, and ultimately provided a lower overall quality of service. 

Corporations cannot survive without optimized solutions to customer interaction issues, and now, with the Presidential mandate, government agencies face increased pressure as well.  Customers today want the options and personalized service today’s technology can provide.  If you don’t know how, let us know and we can help at SAG.  Feel free to email, call, tweet, mail, visit our website, post a Facebook or blog comment, or just stop by for a chat.

(Part II will be posted next week.)

Timeless Books on Business Management

By Seth Sinclair, Member

A wise man once said: “the books that help you the most are those that make you think the most.”  Recently, Time Magazine’s web site (www.Time.com) published a list of what Time’s editors believe are the “25 Most Influential Business Management Books.”  You can read the list here. 

The books on the list range from Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which was published back in 1936, to Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson’s short tome “The One Minute Manager,” to one of our own personal favorites, “On Becoming a Leader,” by Warren Bennis.

It’s interesting that the most recent of their top 25 books was published in 2001, meaning that either an entire decade has passed since a great book on business management has been written, or simply that not enough time has gone by to judge any of the current crop of books on the subject to be a classic. 

Here at Sinclair Speaks, we’d like to help the process along.  What recently written books have you read that you think are worthy of being included on Time’s “Most Influential” list, or even on your own personal list of favorites?  If nothing written recently has struck your fancy, what great book on Business Management do you believe Time omitted? 

Send us an email at info@sinclairadvisorygroup.com telling us what you’ve liked and why by October 21st. We’ll publish your responses here on the blog—and give a prize to what we believe is the most thoughtful response. The winner will be announced in our November Newsletter.

Here’s your chance to share your favorite book with the world, and for you and all our readers to fill your home and office bookshelves with books that will make you think—and help you to succeed. 

Teamwork on the Field and in the Office

By Ev Chasen

Football season is about to begin again, and pigskin prognosticators are hard at work trying to interpret who will survive the long, grueling season, who will face each other in the playoffs, and finally who will emerge as this year’s Super Bowl Champion.  Good pundits know that it’s not necessarily the number of stars on a team that determines how well it will perform, but how well the team plays together.  In other words, teamwork.

Vince Lombardi, perhaps the greatest football coach of all time, once said: “Individual commitment to a group effort- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”  It’s important for every manager to take this to heart in evaluating how his or her staff works together.

Does your staff trust each other?  Are their goals the same?  Do they collaborate and use their talents, and their experience, to contribute to overall organizational success?  Do they try to be honest, respectful, and listen to every person’s point of view?  Are they all “blocking in the same direction?”  If the answer to these questions is “yes,” your organization is in a position to benefit from the synergy that results from a group of diverse individuals functioning as a team.  If the answer is “no,” here are a few ideas to help the process along.

First, every manager should emphasize teamwork, in their formal meetings, in their “one on one” discussions with staff, and whenever a new task needs to be accomplished.  It is important to remind employees of the benefits of teamwork, and the improvements in individual performances that result when people work well together.  At the highest levels of football, the best coaches set a culture of selfless commitment to the team, and they part ways with players who won’t buy-in.

Second, focus on organizational goals not just individual goals. Emphasize what your company or agency is trying to accomplish in your discussions with staff, not what any individual is doing. This will create a common focus and encourage groups to work together towards accomplishing the goals your organization had set.  In football, this means aiming for the Super Bowl instead of focusing on individual statistics.

Third, design well-balanced teams by having members complement each other; one’s strength should counter-balance another’s weakness.  Creating diversified teams will encourage people to work closely with one another to off-set their own weaknesses and capitalize on strengths.  Champions are never the team with five awesome quarterbacks and not a single decent lineman.

Fourth, if you’re going to talk the talk; then make sure you walk the walk. Staff will not work as a team if their manager is not part of that team.  Don’t give up on the team concept even when things are going badly; stay with it. Be honest, open and loyal to your staff, and they will respond in kind.

And finally, make sure the whole team is involved and agrees with important decisions. Every team member should hold themselves accountable for each decision, solution, or idea the team makes together. The more team members feel involved in the team’s decision making, the more likely they will commit to being an effective team member.

Henry Ford once said: “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”  In football, business, and society teamwork is the key to success.  And, if you’re interested in my own choice for this year’s Super Bowl Champion, here it is: I’m picking the Jets!

Getting the Most Out of Your Mentor

By Stan Sinclair, Managing Member

In his August 5 Washington Post blog post, The Federal Coach, Tom Fox of the Partnership for Public Service answered a question from a reader who asked what young federal leaders can do to continue developing their skills after completing a formal leadership training program.  (You can read the entire column here.)  Tom offered his correspondent three good ideas:

•  Phone a friend: that is, use your fellow program members as an informal network for advice and counsel in future situations.

•   Find a mentor: Look for experienced, high-performing leaders who are willing to help you navigate the ins and outs of leadership in your agency.

•  Look for learning opportunities all around you: Read professional journals, follow leadership experts on twitter, and take notes on how exceptional leaders go about their business.

Our company is deeply involved in all three of these areas of leadership development.  In our leadership development courses, we encourage students to follow each of these paths to self-improvement, and we hope that this blog is a learning opportunity for many of our readers.  As many of our Associates are retired Federal executives, mentoring is a logical area in which we can add value to Government agency operation, and we are proud to provide that service to our customers.

Whether or not you are using a mentor or coach provided by SAG, nearly all young leaders can benefit from having a mentor.  Whether you’ve chosen your own mentor, or had one assigned to you, here are some tips to get the most out of your mentor/mentee relationship:

First, be clear about what you’re looking for.  It’s difficult, if not impossible, for a mentor to guess the areas in which you’d like to be counseled in without your help.  Be prepared when you walk into a session or meeting with your mentor. It’s a good idea to bring one or two questions with you. Make sure these questions are clear, to the point, and honest about your situation. 

Second, be careful with your mentor’s time.  This is especially true, of course, if he or she is helping you out as an unpaid service.  If time is short, look for opportunities to share a cab, grab a cup of coffee, or exchange contact information to speak at a more convenient time.

Third, be prepared for your sessions.  Bring a laptop, or a pad and paper—and take good notes that you can read, transcribe and understand.  Keep them in a safe place where you can refer to them, and take action based on them.

Fourth, keep your mentor informed.  Let them know what actions you have taken, or plan to take, based on their efforts. 

Fifth, be appreciative of your mentor’s help.  Be enthusiastic about mentor’s good ideas and be responsive to them.  Don’t forget that they are also human beings, and like pats on the back and good feedback as much as anyone else.  Remember their birthdays and career milestones.  Don’t postpone mentoring sessions unless you really have to.

SAG is proud that our Associates have mentored hundreds, perhaps thousands, of our nation’s finest young leaders.  Like Mr. Fox, we enthusiastically recommend mentoring as a low-cost leadership development tool that pays off—in spades.  

Providing Your Customers With Consistent Information

by Chris Domergue, Director of Client Services

As I discussed in my May 26 post , President Obama’s April 27, 2011 executive order, titled “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” requires Federal agencies to quickly come up with ways to use technology to improve their service to their customers. 

In my post, I recommended four principles that, if followed, will result in a successful customer service strategy: defining the customer experience; focusing on consistent information; leveraging today’s technology and data; and making customer experience one of your core functions.  Today, I‘d like to discuss the second principle – focusing on consistent information.

There are many ways in which customers interact with government agencies today.  Citizens can be serviced in person, via the phone, or by utilizing the latest technologies on the web, in social media, and on mobile applications.  If organizations truly want to provide their customers with the best possible experience, the old cliché rings true – everyone needs to be singing off the same sheet of music. 

Each employee involved with customer service must be saying the same things, in the same ways, to everyone with whom they come in contact.  Without that consistency, most customers feel confused, frustrated, and puzzled by the complexity of what should be a common set of services.

I worked with one large government agency that allowed citizens to apply, receive, and repay federal student loans.  This agency had a significant problem in the way this process was implemented as related to providing customer service.  Each phase of the process was owned by a different organization and in turn processed by a different contractor. 

You could apply online for a loan: however, when you were approved for the loan and it was processed, a different company (with only phone capabilities) originated your loan and paid your school directly.  Finally, once you finished school and your loans were due for repayment, a completely different organization handled the repayment process.  In this scenario, a student was provided very different information across different channels at different points in the process. 

Imagine trying to start the first day of school away from home only to be removed from class to deal with some financial issues with the registrar.  Then, imagine spending three days talking to multiple groups to sort out what happened – a very real scenario I encountered.

Inherently, there is nothing wrong with having different owners and organizations maintain discreet components of the process.  However, if these different players do not provide consistent information across similar channels, it causes an incredibly exasperating experience for your audience. 

Quite simply, if this is the situation, and your customers have options, they will choose to leave your service.  With the Federal government, however, many agencies have a captive audience without the ability to be serviced elsewhere.  Still, as President Obama’s order emphasizes, that is not an excuse to offer subpar service.

Consistent information is not only providing the same answer to one question across multiple channels, but also understanding a customer’s history.  Customers want any service department to know of their past transactions with that organization.  Additionally, they expect that if they are transferred from one part of the company to another, they won’t have to repeat their entire story every time they speak with something new.  Today’s technologies can make that possible, but even with the best technology it is still inherent on the organization to ensure that each customer facing component has access to the same information.

Meeting those expectations is not a simple matter for most federal agencies, especially large ones.  That’s because these distinctive areas have different people responsible for managing them—individual “owners,” if you will.  However, each owner must make sure that information they have is correct in the entire customer facing ecosystem.  If that information is inaccurate or does not exist in some of the access points, then it will cause unnecessary confusion for your customers.

Just like this blog, it might be filled with some good insights, but if nobody is reading it…is the information getting through? 

The problem of customer service silos is everywhere, but especially prevalent in government agencies.  Those silos don’t go away easily, or quickly, but it can be done.  By following my recommended process, in which you start by defining your desired customer experience and then focus on providing consistent information to your constituents, you will be on the road to transforming into a world-class service provider.

And to the readers that do follow our blog… THANKS!  (And feel free to forward, tweet, or ‘Like’ it on Facebook too)

How Federal Mangers Can Meet the New Budget Challenges

by Timothy Shea, Associate

Once again, cooler heads have prevailed, and the United States will not default on its debt—at least not now. Federal agencies will once again be asked to do more with less, as they have so many times before--and Congress will continue to expect the highest possible level of performance from the Federal government despite these new spending cuts.  They will also not hesitate to hold senior Federal officials accountable if things go wrong… especially if they occur in an individual Member’s district. 

Throughout the government, federal managers are desperately figuring out how to cut costs while minimizing the effects those costs will have on key programs.  It is clear, however, that even more fundamental changes will need to take place to help resolve our current debt crisis.  Solving the crisis will take better financial data gathering from multiple sources, extensive analysis, and a systematic approach to optimize agency spending.  Here are a few ideas senior managers can use:

First, Federal managers need to take a hard look at their budgeting information.  Large cabinet agencies are multi-billion dollar operations and it can often be difficult to get a handle on how all that money is really spent… but it is not impossible. 

Key leaders need complete and detailed information about how their money is being allocated and used on a regular basis.  Employee input is also a very valuable tool in deciding what to cut and where.  The workforce that is engaged day to day in these projects can help provide a true understanding of the impact of a proposed budget cuts and propose where true waste can be eliminated.  Although leadership will make the ultimate decisions, it is the responsibility of every government employee to ensure that public funding is being spent appropriately.

Second, financial data and analysis needs to be useful to decision makers.  Many managers shy away from budget management because the information and regulations can be intimidating.  Those who work directly with an organization’s finances need to provide an easy to understand analysis, not in ‘accounting-ese’, so management can take the appropriate actions where necessary.  Then, even managers who have been traditionally ‘budget-averse’ can insist on regular financial information and briefings to use as an integral part of their decision-making processes.

Finally, each agency needs to adopt a systematic approach to aligning their budget to their Strategic Plan.  In the 1970s, the Federal Government used what was called a “zero-based” approach to budgeting. Missions agencies planned or hoped to accomplish were broken down, evaluated, and ranked against each other.  As a result, agency managers were able to look at everything their organization did or might do, and make good decisions on which projects should continue and which should not. 

This “Zero-based budgeting” process allowed decision makers to look at the consequences of not spending money on a project or activity.  It was a great way to take a fresh look at programs that have been funded year in and year out, but may have outlived their usefulness.  Managers in agencies dealing with budget cuts might consider this process as a way to review financial and performance data continuously. 

Our recent debt crisis is not a “one-time” issue.  The size of America’s debt, and the recent revision of our credit rating, means that we are going to be in an era of prolonged fiscal austerity in Government.  The only way in which most agencies will meet the demands that will be placed upon them is with a comprehensive overhaul.

The government will not fix the long term issue by lopping off a program or two.  Each agency will need to improve their financial data gathering and analysis and institute a systematic process to constantly review the quality of each program they are financing.  In the event the benefits of a given program are not realized, issues need to be immediately recognized and actions should be changed.

It can be done—but it won’t be easy!

 

Putting Stakeholder's Interests First

by Seth Sinclair, Member

Recently, author and consultant Jack Springman wrote a blog post for the Harvard Business Review’s website entitled “Implementing a Stakeholder Strategy.” (You can read it here.)  Mr. Springman began his argument by summarizing the work of a previous poster named Nathan Washburn, who stated: “Making the bottom line your top priority may not be the best way to improve profitability.  Recent research shows that CEOs who put stakeholders’ interests ahead of profit generate greater workforce engagement—and thus deliver the superior financial results that they have made a secondary goal.

Mr. Springman offered a number of steps for companies who are interested in following this revolutionary guidance:

·      Identify your company’s stakeholder groups.

·      Create a value proposition for each stakeholder group

·      Determine what you are seeking from each group

·      Compare the capabilities you need with those you already have

·      Create a profit model to manage the trade-offs among your stakeholder groups

·      Determine a set of key performance indicators.

We apply a similar philosophy in our strategic planning work with our federal clients.  Federal agencies, of course, are not driven by the need to make a profit for the benefit of shareholders.  However, in place of shareholders, we encourage our federal clients to focus strategy development around the needs of customers. 

We believe that all government entities have customers, and that their expectations should heavily factor into any strategic planning effort.  This approach is in contrast to traditional planning methods that focus exclusively on meeting regulatory and budgetary requirements.   Take the example of an internal management office responsible for supporting finance, HR, and IT services within an organization.  If the primary goal of the office is to be efficient in operations, success will be measured in terms of cost effectiveness, possibly at the expense of customers. 

In contrast, if the stated goal of the office is excellence in customer service, the office staff will design its processes and success factors around responsive and timely service to the agency’s employees.  This may ultimately enable greater efficiency and savings throughout the entire organization.

In this time of budget cuts and increased scrutiny of government expenditures, we believe strongly that federal agencies must not cut back on, or abandon, their customer service efforts.  Such cutbacks may appear to save a few dollars in the short run—but in the long run, they are likely to cost the organizations far more, in both actual dollars and in the damage to their reputations that will inevitably occur.

Holding Federal Employees Accountable

by Ev Chasen

On July 16, USA Today reporter Dennis Cauchon wrote a story that cited government statistics showing that workers in many Federal agencies are more likely to die of natural causes than to get laid off or fired.  (You can read the article here.) 

In Fiscal Year 2010, according to the article, the Federal government fired 0.55% of its workers—compared to the private sector’s 3% average annual firing rate.  The government also laid off 385 people in reorganizations that year—a 0.02% rate, or one in every 6,000 employees.  USA Today was unable to find a comparable private sector layoff rate.  (They did not count seasonal workers in the Federal rate.)

Two of the agencies studied, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, laid off or fired no one.  Overwhelmingly, those who were laid off or fired were “blue-collar” workers: federal employees earning more than $100,000 per year had a 99.82% job security rate.

I do not believe many people with significant experience as a Federal Government manager would agree with Department of Housing and Urban Development spokesperson Jerry Brown, who told Mr. Cauchon that HUD’s low dismissal rate demonstrates the skills and commitment of the Department’s workforce.  Rather, I think, most would agree with Associate Gary Rossio’s June 2 blog post, which stated that “too often in the past, I have felt that senior HR employees believed their role was to “protect” their directors and other supervisors from unions and lawsuits and difficult situations—leading to inaction by supervisors and management.”

Gary’s post stated that good HR departments should be able to provide sound advice, technical support, and the ability to spot, hire, and help retrain good employees.  Exceptional leadership in HR would certainly help managers make the tough decisions needed to fire poor performers, but there is another factor involved.

Creating a committed organizational workforce also depends on managers themselves applying management systems in a fair and equitable manner “so everyone recognizes that high performers will be consistently rewarded and poor employees will be consistently dealt with in an appropriate manner.”

In order to recognize top performers in a fair and equitable manner, managers should initially explain to employees what is expected of them—not only what minimum performance expectations are, but also what employees need to do to receive awards.   They should also give them frequent feedback so employees know how they are doing. Those who meet the standards needed to excel must be rewarded, and, conversely, action must be taken if employees do not meet the performance or conduct standards of their position.  

The overwhelming majority of government employees do not want to work hard and then see others who are not pulling their weight slide by.  Managers must deal with problem employees, so that everyone gets the message—and they should not be afraid to lose an occasional case. 

Federal managers should not have to shy away from disciplining problem employees because they fear the difficulties of the removal process.  If the bottom 10% of federal employees do not improve their performance, they must be removed.  The status quo, for them, is not acceptable.  Neither is the state of affairs USA Today described: federal government managers simply must develop a culture of performance, not tolerance, or they will never be able meet the expectations other Americans have for them.

How to Conduct Successful Negotiations

by Seth Sinclair, Member
Right now, much of our nation's senior leadership is fully engaged in serious, drawn-out negotiations on extending America's debt limit. While no one who is not there fully understands what's going on, the news media is full of stories about heated debate, participants walking out, and the progress or lack of same that's being made. Sinclair Advisory Group teaches negotiations as part of our Leadership curriculum, and since every organization and leader participates in high-stakes negotiations (even if the stakes are not as high as the credit of the United States,) this is a good opportunity to review some basic negotiation rules that will help ensure you and your organization gets the best possible deal.

First, preparation is absolutely essential. Before you enter a negotiation, consider such logistical details as timing and location. Seek a time and place that enhances (or at least does not diminish) your negotiating position.

Next, prepare your negotiation strategy. What is your ideal outcome? What is your bottom line in a minimally acceptable deal? Do you understand your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA), which defines your course of action should an agreement not be reached? What tone and tactics will you use in the negotiation session?

While preparing your own position is essential, it is just as important to anticipate the needs and actions of your counterpart. Research their priorities, separating their needs from their wants as much as possible. What tactics do you think they will use? How will you react? Try to visualize several possible scenarios and solutions that will result in an acceptable deal for both parties.

One negotiation begins, there are many techniques you can use to facilitate a successful and agreeable outcome. One is to never make clear to the other side that there's something you cannot live without. If you do, there's no doubt they'll find a way to take advantage of your need. "I can take it or leave it," is the right attitude to display-even if you really can't walk away. President Obama has made it clear in the current negotiations that we simply must have a budget deal by August 2, or the economy of the United States is at risk. Whether they actually believe it or not, Republicans have injected some ambiguity into that deadline: maybe the sky really won't fall, they say, if there isn't a final deal by that time.

Another is: don't make concessions without getting something in return. Unilateral concessions are often made in hopes of getting a quicker deal-and are just as often regarded with suspicion by the other side. I think both sides in the budget dispute are aware of this rule, and are driving hard bargains for every change in position they are willing to consider.

Yet another, which neither side appears willing to consider, is don't fight over the small stuff. If you've reached agreement on what you consider important in a negotiation, don't haggle too much over the nagging details that always accompany any large-scale process. In any negotiation, time is the enemy. The longer a negotiation takes, the better the chance the other side reconsiders their position, finds another company to negotiate with, or just plain decides they don't like you and don't want to work with you. When you've got what you really want (and I don't think that stage has been reached in the budget discussions), be very flexible about everything else.

There are many other useful techniques we can discuss further in our future blog entries. However, preparation is more important than any single tactic. Get ready by understanding what you want, knowing your counterpart, and entering with a plan. If you need help, seek support from an experienced negotiator and find opportunities to train and practice. This will put you in the best possible decision to reach a desirable outcome.

Defining the Customer Experience

by Chris Domergue, Director of Client Services

On May 26^th, I wrote a blog post entitled ‘Four Steps to Improving Customer Service.’ It’s a subject of particular importance to Federal agencies, especially since President Obama has required all of them to improve their customer service strategies in the next six months.  You can read it here.

In my previous post, I listed what I believe to be the four key principles of successful customer service: define the customer experience; focus on consistent information; leverage today’s technology and data; and make customer experience one of your core functions.  Today, I’d like to discuss the first of those principles in more detail – how to effectively define the customer experience.

There are three fundamentals in defining the customer experience.  You need to identify your “customer”, know how and why they interact with your organization, and understand how your employees deliver services to them.  A well-run organization’s goal should be to exceed their customers’ expectations in every interaction they have.

First and foremost, a “customer” is not just a person that buys a product from a company.  Customers can use any one of an organization’s services, leverage their facilities, check out their social media presence, support the organization, or simply just want some information.  The way in which customers perceive their interactions with an organization is critical to the success or failure of that organization regardless of whether it is a commercial corporation or a government agency. 

Customers don’t care how your organization is structured, and they shouldn’t have to jump through hoops because separate groups manage your website, supervise your field offices, and run your contact centers.  When you discuss improvements to your customers’ experiences, talk about their needs, their terms, and their expectations – not your personal preferences. 

As an example, I once worked with a large government client who was very adamant on what the ideal customer experience should be, based on the agency’s own biases.  However, when I conducted a focus group of 100 customers that would be leveraging this agency’s services, not one of them used the same terminology to describe what they wanted, nor did they feel the agency’s idea of the ‘ideal’ customer experience would even meet their needs.  If our design had been based on this agency’s internal bias instead of the customers’ feedback, the solution would have failed.

So, how do you get started?  How can you understand where your customer’s have problems dealing with your organization and figure out how you can optimize their experience?  Simple – by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. 

Airline executives learn a great deal about their customers’ experiences by getting on their planes.  By doing this, they understand the boarding pass experience, the time waiting in the terminal, the flight experience, and even getting a bag from baggage claim.  For your organization, apply for a benefit, look for a fact on a web-site, or stand on a line for a service.  You’ll get a much better idea of what’s really going on in the field, as opposed to what you THINK is going on--and you’ll get great ideas for improvement and powerful arguments to support your ideas.  Another important set of tools at your disposal are focus groups and surveys.  Find out firsthand what your customers think about your services – what they like and don’t like, where they’ve struggled, and where they’ve been delighted.   

The second major fundamental (and perhaps the most important) is to know how, when and why your customers interact with your agency or organization.  In the commercial sector, this mantra has determined where the strong have survived and the weak have failed.  This competition has now set the bar, one that government agencies must meet as well.  The college student who calls Apple for customer support about their laptop expects the same level of service when asking a question about their federal school loan. 

A blogger named Bruce Temkin, who describes his job as being a ‘Customer Experience Transformist,’ articulates a key insight I think is worth elaborating on.  His point is that every interaction creates a personal reaction, and that therefore experiences need to be tailored for individuals and customer feedback needs to be the key measure of success.  By understanding your contact types, channels, and timing through data and soliciting the appropriate customer feedback, you can easily put together a holistic picture of how customers prefer to deal with your organization.  This will be the foundation for defining the optimal experience.

The third and final fundamental is to focus on your employees.  Keep in mind that employees are at the heart of defining any customer’s experience.  By nature, employees will react to what is measured, incented, and celebrated.  Reward them when they do the right thing, make sure they know what leadership expects, and empower them to accommodate the needs of the customer whenever possible.  Even if this seems to be a particularly difficult task within a government agency, which must also ensure that every customer is treated fairly and impartially, it can be achieved with the right strategy. 

As part of this employee focus, make sure to allocate the appropriate time and funding to training – changing the rules without making sure your employees know what they are supposed to do is ineffective.  If the proper customer service behavior is understood and rewarded across the organization, then you will create a positive culture throughout your organization which will permeate through to your customers and finally your bottom line.

Accurately and adequately defining the customer experience is a difficult task—if customer experience isn’t a top priority, the effort is likely to fail.  President Obama’s executive order, however, and the increased pressure to perform both parties, and both houses of Congress, are putting on federal agencies to improve their levels of customer service, means that government leaders don’t have the option of failing anymore.  If you need some help in your efforts, however, we’re here at SAG!

As a side note… let’s all hope that some of those Airline executives are over 6’ tall like I am so that we all get a little extra leg room.