The Federal Management Playbook
Public Management and Change Series
Beryl A. Radin, Series Editor
EDITORIAL BOARD
Robert Agranoff
Michael Barzelay
Ann OM. Bowman
H. George Frederickson
William Gormley
Rosemary OLeary
Norma Riccucci
David H. Rosenbloom
SELECT TITLES IN THE SERIES
Collaborating to Manage: A Primer for the Public Sector
Robert Agranoff
Collaborative Governance Regimes
Kirk Emerson and Tina Nabatchi
Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector
Jacob Torfing
The Collaborative Public Manager: New Ideas for the Twenty-first Century
Rosemary OLeary and Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Editors
Crowdsourcing in the Public Sector
Daren C. Brabham
The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform
Donald P. Moynihan
Federal Management Reform in a World of Contradictions
Beryl A. Radin
Federal Service and the Constitution: The Development of the Public Employment Relationship, Second Edition
David H. Rosenbloom
How Information Matters: Networks and Public Policy Innovation
Kathleen Hale
Managing Disasters through PublicPrivate Partnerships
Ami J. Abou-bakr
Organizational Learning at NASA: The Challenger and Columbia Accidents
Julianne G. Mahler with Maureen Hogan Casamayou
Program Budgeting and the Performance Movement
William F. West
Public Value and Public Interest: Counterbalancing Economic Individualism
Barry Bozeman
Public Values and Public Administration
John M. Bryson, Barbara C. Crosby, and Laura Bloomberg, Editors
The Responsible Contract Manager: Protecting the Public Interest in an Outsourced World
Steven Cohen and William Eimicke
2016 Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Goldstein, Ira
Title: The federal management playbook : leading and succeeding in the public sector / Ira Goldstein ; foreword by Tom Davis.
Other titles: Public management and change.
Description: Washington, DC : Georgetown University Press, 2016. | Series: Public management and change series
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007097| ISBN 9781626163720 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781626163812 (ebook : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Public administrationUnited States. | Civil serviceUnited StatesPersonnel management. | Administrative agenciesUnited StatesManagement.
Classification: LCC JK421 .G597 2016 | DDC 352.23/60973dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016007097
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
17 16 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Charles Brock, Faceout Studio.
This book is dedicated to the many devoted public servants, career and appointed, who work each day to deliver services and improve government.
Foreword
As chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, I oversaw investigations of literally dozens of failed federal programs, from the huge cost overruns at deepwater ports to soldiers being electrocuted in shoddily built showers in Iraq to bribery and incompetence in handing out government contracts. In nearly every case, the failures were driven by poor leadership or management decisions (or nondecisions) and were readily preventable. Often regulations were adhered to, but with such rigidity that foreseen poor outcomes actually were reinforced by managers who were afraid to take a risk or step outside their comfort zones or were just plain conflict averse.
These problems usually arose because the bureaucratic standards being followed and annual reviews of progress only measured inputs, not outputs. Decisions were not based on mission needs but on adhering to regulations and not making mistakes. Too often the mission itself became not making a mistake! Many times a congressional hearing on a failure became a finger-pointing exercise between the federal manager, the contractor, the agency head, and the Government Accountability Office. No one did anything technically wrong, but the failure to focus on the outcome, the lack of specificity in the requirements, and the failure to communicate resulted in wasted dollars, cost overruns, and project failures.
I cannot tell you how many times I would say to myself, I wish someone had written a book on this, so that the managers would not continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again.
But now, someone has written a book. Ira Goldstein, drawing on decades of experience in key roles in the public and private sectors, both inside the federal government and as a consultant, has written a must-read for any federal leader or contractor who wants his or her program or agency to succeed or any student who wants to learn how to avoid making these same mistakes.
Although numerous books have been written about corporate management and effective leadership, Goldstein offers a unique perspective on management within the federal arena of arcane rules, unique metrics, and unprecedented transparency and oversight. Why do so many leaders fail in the government arena? Its a game like no other, where innovation is too often punished, mediocrity is rewarded, and thoughtful programs and policies fail under the burden of stifling rules and unreliable resourcing.
As chairman I presided over scores of hearings concerning government programs, IT procurements, modernization initiatives, and large, complex enterprise-wide systems that had been thoughtful during their inception but failed in implementation. Mark Antony said: The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. So it is with government programs. The overruns, the delays, and the failures make headlines and result in congressional hearings. The projects that run smoothly, on time, and under budget get no quarter.
Goldsteins book is a thorough treatise on how to manage intelligently, how to avoid failure, how to identify problems while they are still correctable, and how to manage both the difficult and the unpopular. He livens it up with numerous case histories and anecdotes and draws on his vast experience in the public and private sectors, both as a federal executive and manager and as a contractor and consultant, to disseminate in readable prose how federal leaders and managers can succeed with the most difficult tasks. The book provides an extraordinary What to do and What not to do guide when facing difficult tasks and missions.
For example, Goldstein explains in some detail how todays managers can legitimately work the system within the massive and complex acquisition requirements to decide whether a project should be outsourced and, if it is, how to determine the correct requirements, the right vehicles, and the best communication techniques to align contractor performance to goals and expectations. By contrasting the success of the politically charged 2010 Decennial Census with the flawed launch of the Affordable Care Act website, the author delves into how these two failure is not an option projects differed in their implementation and management approaches. This chapter alone is worth the read.
