http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/ 15 Challenging the conventional wisdom with NYU Wagner School's Paul Light en Copyright 2011 Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:33:32 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=4.2-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Washington Post blogs have moved. If you are subscribing to the RSS feed for this blog, you may need to re-subscribe with the new feed URL. If you stop receiving updates from this feed, please visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/rss where you can see all of our feeds and re-subscribe to this feed or sign up for new ones. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/03/the-rss-feed-for-this-blog-has-moved.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/03/the-rss-feed-for-this-blog-has-moved.html Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:33:32 -0500 The nation's nonprofit sector is a leading indicator of economic collapse and recovery. It tightens first as anxious donors hold onto their dollars, and rebounds last as anxieties finally fade. In between the starts and stops, the sector bears the brunt of increasing demand, budget cuts and delayed payments. Reserves begin to disappear, credit lines evaporate and volunteers become clients. Asked to do much more with far less, many nonprofits end up trying to do almost everything with nothing. The nonprofit sector is not about to disappear, of course. It's a major industry in its own right with 11 million employees, 63 million volunteers and $1.5 trillion in annual income. Nevertheless, there is growing evidence that many nonprofits closed their doors over the past three years, while others are about to do so. In 2008, I estimated that 100,000 of the nation's 1 million tax-exempt nonprofits could go under during http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/03/service-deserts-nonprofit-land.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/03/service-deserts-nonprofit-land.html Economic crisis Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:59:29 -0500 The Government Accountability Office just released a blockbuster report that may yet drive bureaucratic reform to the top of the budget-cutting agenda. The 345-page report is as dry as toast, but might just be the document to drive a real overhaul of the federal bureaucracy and produce a government that works better and costs less. The report offers the first comprehensive analysis of the duplication and overlap across the federal budget I have ever seen. It's all been anecdotal up to this point, but GAO has the data: 80 programs for economic development; 100 programs for surface transportation; 7 departments and agencies working on U.S.-Mexican border water quality and 20 involved in managing federal cars, trucks and airplanes; two dozen presidential appointees running programs to prevent bioterrorism; the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives still working in separate silos on controlling explosives; 15 agencies assigned to food http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/03/fog-of-government-bureaucratic-overlap.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/03/fog-of-government-bureaucratic-overlap.html Economic crisis Thu, 03 Mar 2011 09:22:08 -0500 Virginia's Democratic Senator Mark Warner has emerged over the past week as the most important referee in the budget battle between House Republicans and President Barack Obama. As a rising star on the Senate Budget Committee, Warner actually believes Congress and the president should take on big programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, taxes and defense spending. Warner also believes that the Senate must take the lead in brokering a bipartisan compromise on short- and long-term deficit reduction before the federal government runs out of money next week. Working with Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, he's pulled together a small working group that is pushing the Senate to play its constitutional role in cooling the passions of the House. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/mark-warner-to-the-budget-rescue.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/mark-warner-to-the-budget-rescue.html Crisis leadership Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:52:21 -0500 Complaints about President Barack Obama's budget continue, not the least of which are concerns about defense spending, Social Security and the failure of both parties to engage in meaningful progress on health-care costs. But there are good ideas in the details, including the president's proposal for $100 million or so in "pay for success bonds." Designed to prevent problems before they balloon into huge cost sinks, the idea just might work in producing the social change Americans deserve. The idea comes from Great Britain, which only recently launched a pilot program that encourages private investment in preventing prisoner recidivism. Although Britain's social-impact bond program has yet to be fully tested, it encourages agencies to raise the bar on performance. Investors only get their money and a bit of profit back if programs actually produce measurable gains in impact. Obama's budget contains a brief commitment to the idea in its long http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/the-best-idea-for-social-change-in-obamas-budget-1.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/the-best-idea-for-social-change-in-obamas-budget-1.html Federal government leadership Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:02:11 -0500 House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama are now engaged in a fierce but misleading contest to cut billions from the federal government's relatively small discretionary budget. With this year's budget about to expire under a short-term extension, and next year's budget outline about to enter the Congressional process, both are working feverishly to find the dollars to show they mean business about reducing the deficit. But neither leader is focusing on the huge amount of spending locked up in inviolable programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and rising interest payments on the federal debt. The prevailing wisdom about leaving the big entitlements alone is still strong. Despite efforts to raise the alarm here and there, the status quo has the upper hand as it always has in such battles for change. The Lilliputians remain in charge. (I'll write more about how to dislodge the prevailing wisdom next http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/obama-boehner-lilliputian-budget-cuts.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/obama-boehner-lilliputian-budget-cuts.html Bad leadership Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:36:08 -0500 Bill Gates and his huge foundation are under fire these days for his unrelenting focus on eradicating polio. Critics are urging him to pull back from the zero-case goal. Eradication is impossible, they say, and is pulling dollars away from other life-threatening diseases. Gates should accept reality and invest in controlling the disease, not wiping it out. Well-meaning though they might be, these critics miss the point. Gates is right to set an audacious goal and take it to the finish line. In doing so, he has decided to convert what many see as an intractable problem into one that is solvable. This is the core challenge facing anyone engaged in changing the prevailing wisdom that rules the world. It is the same obsession that drives all social breakthroughs. As I write in my new book, Driving Social Change, success is not about settling for half a loaf or even http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/is-bill-gates-wrong-about-polio.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/02/is-bill-gates-wrong-about-polio.html Foreign Affairs Fri, 04 Feb 2011 11:30:16 -0500 After a long and complacent silence, President Barack Obama finally promised to reorganize government in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. It's about time. He only used the word once, and it came late in his speech, but it was there in a short paragraph nonetheless: "In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America. I will submit that proposal to Congress for a vote--and we will push to get it passed." Good for him. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/obama-finally-says-reorganize.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/obama-finally-says-reorganize.html Federal government leadership Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:20:49 -0500 House Republicans softened their rhetoric about President Barack Obama's "job killing" health-care reform this week, but don't expect kinder, gentler language to stick around when government reform hits the floor in the next month or two. The rhetoric is already hot, the anger intense and the proposals destructive. Republicans should take a different approach. Another round of bureaucrat bashing will not only deepen the public's anger toward Washington and set the stage for a bitter election season next year, it will squander a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a comprehensive government overhaul. Search as one might, there is no better issue on the agenda for showing Americans that business is anything but usual in Washington. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/government-reform-business-unusual-washington.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/government-reform-business-unusual-washington.html Change management Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:42:26 -0500 After three long years, the Government Accountability Office finally has a new Comptroller General, Gene Dodaro. Dodaro was Acting Comptroller General so long that he could have joined the Screen Actors Guild. Now that Dodaro is officially in charge, he ought think hard about what GAO might do to be a more aggressive player in reshaping the federal bureaucracy. With Congress and the president searching for ways to cooperate, GAO could be the swing player in actual progress. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/time-to-give-gao-a-big-job.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/time-to-give-gao-a-big-job.html Change management Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:48:12 -0500 The new Republican House decided to read the Constitution as the first order of business on Thursday. Although the majority could not resist rewriting the Constitution to its liking by erasing sentences and sections that have been modified by amendments, the reading sets a good precedent for reminding our representatives that there is a Constitution. For its part, the new Republican majority should pay particular attention to the Constitution's "take care" clause, ordering that all the laws be faithfully executed, even ones members want to change. Instead of eviscerating faithful execution through blunt reforms such as arbitrary budget cuts and indiscriminate downsizing, they should work with Democrats on eliminating programs that don't work and realigning the federal workforce to put more energy on the front-lines where the laws are implemented. The Senate could use a few minutes reading the Constitution, too. For its part, the chamber should pay particular attention http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/the-appointments-outrage.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2011/01/the-appointments-outrage.html Bad leadership Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:37:49 -0500 Congress may have rushed forward toward adjournment by giving billionaires a refreshing tax break, but it also actually took the time to help good government by upgrading the creaky Government Performance and Results Act. It was high time. The Senate approved the upgrade last week by unanimous consent, leaving the House to act on Tuesday in the final seconds before heading home for the holidays. They did. And though the bill won't make anyone's top ten list for management reforms of the past 100 years, it does signal potential consensus on the need to hold the federal government accountable for what works and what doesn't. And it may well be the most important statute in laying the founding for the top reforms that might come in the next two years. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/12/government-performance-act-passed.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/12/government-performance-act-passed.html Federal government leadership Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:28:03 -0500 Federal employees are kidding themselves if they believe that President Barack Obama's two-year pay freeze is the last of the cuts in what they're paid and how they work. Obama and Congress have created a freeze with more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese--meaning it will soon require additional, more significant measures to create real savings. Although many federal employees will be hit by this initial freeze, particularly if they are new to their jobs, a substantial number will actually get higher pay as the byzantine personnel system automatically moves them up and across the 15-level, 10-step pay system. And ever was it thus. Past pay freezes have saved little money, while injecting enormous uncertainty into the hiring process and undermining morale among the many federal employees who show up every day to make a difference. Pay freezes have also have produced more than their share of grade creep. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/12/next-round-federal-cuts.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/12/next-round-federal-cuts.html Bad leadership Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:45:26 -0500 Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) announced his new oversight agenda last week by promising a broad attack on government fraud, waste and abuse. In doing so, he both elevated the Government Reform and Oversight Committee agenda to new heights and rejected the slow-drip strategy of constant harassment marked by his predecessor, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ill.), who peppered the Clinton Administration with more than a thousand subpoenas. Burton was mainly interested in investigating trivial scandals that might make the headlines. Issa wants something much more. He actually wants to take his committee back to a more aggressive oversight role designed to improve government performance. That's good news. http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/12/darrel-issa-inspectors-general.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/12/darrel-issa-inspectors-general.html Change management Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:27:42 -0500 Good-government groups have started to weigh in on what they hope will be the president's management agenda for the coming year. The good-government groups know that you can't beat something with nothing--the something being the flood of Republican proposals for pay and hiring freezes, as well as for blunt-force reductions in workforce. The Republican agenda will do much more harm than good. The new House majority needs only look back to President Ronald Reagan's agenda for the evidence. Like many presidents before him, Reagan started his term with a pay freeze, brought in a blue-ribbon commission of business experts to probe for savings, and attacked the middle-level bloat through what was widely known as the "bulge project." Nothing worked. The federal hierarchy grew taller and wider, the federal workforce aged into higher ranks, and the bottom of government shrunk as contractors took on many of the inbox duties once reserved http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/11/trim-government-bloat.html?wprss=leadershiplight http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/light/2010/11/trim-government-bloat.html Bad leadership Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:44:07 -0500