Category Archives: Government

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Not Just a Test

Maybe we have so many problems right now that we’re simply at overload, so much so that there is practically no bad news headline that can hold our attention for very long.  We don’t have enough jobs, we’re stuck in two wars, contractors are fleecing our government when they are supposed to be helping with the wars, we are at internal political gridlock, our tax code is horribly broken, our roads and bridges and pipes are giving out, home prices are going in the wrong direction and too many people are stuck underwater with bad mortgages, and mother nature has been serving up an unusual amount of natural disaster pounding.  That’s not all of it, but it’s a lot.  It’s a wonder we aren’t in a worse mood.

So when yet another negative headline comes at us, it is any wonder it’s a one day wonder, if that, and we just don’t have any appetite to deal with it?  No, human nature at a certain point just shuts down, so it’s understandable.  But I think this one is core, and we can’t let it go:

Last week we learned that U.S. SAT scores for reading and writing hit a new low, with math scores also declining.  Here’s a quick summary as noted in the Wall Street Journal:

The results from the college-entrance exam, taken by about 1.6 million students, also revealed that only 43% of students posted a score high enough to indicate they were ready to succeed in college, according to the College Board, the nonprofit that administers the exam. Students had to score a 1550 out of a possible 2400 to meet that benchmark, which would indicate a 65% chance of getting at least a B-minus average in the first year of college, the Board calculated.

Okay, so not everyone does great on tests, it’s an acquired skill, and not everyone is college bound.  What’s the big deal?  Quoting further:

“At the precise time the importance of a college degree is increasing, the ability of the U.S. to compete in a global economy is decreasing,” said Jim Montoya, vice president of the College Board. “We, as a nation, have to do a better job preparing our kids for college.”

Let’s go back to the litany of problems, starting with the one about which President Obama recently gave a special speech to a joint session of Congress and the American People.  In that speech, the President said that right now, Job #1 is Jobs.  Barring some untold natural or unnatural crisis on the horizon, I am guessing that Job #1 doesn’t change through the next Presidential election.  After that, Jobs will probably remain Job #1 until unemployment is below 7% or so, which could be a long, long time — and there is no guarantee that it will ever be corrected, we have no natural entitlement to Jobs.  We have to create them.

Is there not a little irony here?  Is it possible we are trying to solve a problem in the short-term that was created in the long-term and can only be solved in the long-term?  Do we not see a link between falling test scores and an inability to compete?  Perhaps it’s fair to say that’s a little abstract, even obtuse — we all know plenty of well-educated, intelligent people who are out of work, so maybe that’s not the problem.  But let’s try to roll the clock forward a generation or two, at which time it is likely yours truly and many of you will be but particles of dust and memories.  Is there anyone who believes if a lot more than 43% of our kids can’t do better than 1550 out of 2400 that we are going to be the first stop on the investment train?  I’m not talking goosing the scores through prep programs and gaming strategies, I’m talking read the paragraph and answer the question, add the numbers in a column, writing a few coherently linked sentences that make a point.  That can’t be too much to ask for a high majority of the citizens of the #1 economy in the world, unless that doesn’t matter to us anymore either.

How did we slip?  Well, just when we got a little too distracted by so many consumer options created by our magnificent economy, as Thomas L. Friedman told us, the World Got Flat.  Competition for jobs become global.  Demand for commodities became global.  The internet and telecom made easy information exchange global.  Industrial contracts are up for bid regardless of geography.  Lots more people are attending many more years of school in places like India and China — and they are taking school very seriously, as an opportunity and a privilege, a gift that lets them advance the way we thought about education when our middle class was emerging over 100 years ago.

If we don’t think of education as a gift but instead a legal mandate to be tolerated, how do we compete in a world that is flat?  If we don’t use the time we have to be here with each other to absorb the knowledge collective, how much of life have we missed?  If our kids don’t learn math and science and history and language, what kind of leaders will they fall prey to electing?  Learning is at the core of prosperity, fulfillment, and public safety.  Why aren’t we treating it that way?

We can’t afford to let this be just another piece of bad news, another negative headline that just goes by because we are overwhelmed.  If we want to fix the problem at its core, we need to think long-term.  This isn’t unemployment, this isn’t terrorism, this isn’t social security or Medicare, this isn’t the banking system, this isn’t GNP, this isn’t an emergency brought on by the ground shaking or the winds howling or the rivers flooding.  It isn’t even global warming or protecting our precious planet.  I get it, we have a lot of priorities, too much to fix and not enough dough to fix it all.

I would still make our education system our #1 priority — because if we don’t fix that, the other stuff is just going to stay broken.

It’s not just a test.  It’s an evaluation, a form of measurement, a benchmark, an early warning system.  We’re getting bad grades.  We need to do better.  Shame on us for letting it slip to this level.  We either get on it now, or we don’t.

I say hit the books — make that Job #1.

 

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Is Other People’s Money Different?

Buried among last week’s headlines—that included a nation embarrassing spat between the President and the Speaker of the House over what day our President could address a joint session of Congress and The People—was this gem found among other reports on Thursday Page 3 of the Wall Street Journal (Nathan Hodge, 9/1/11):

The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, established by Congress in 2008, unveiled a final report Wednesday that represents the most comprehensive assessment to date of how the U.S. government has managed the more than $206 billion it is projected to spend on contracting in both wars through the end of fiscal 2011.

The findings, first reported by the Wall Street Journal in July, point to what the panel describes as a pattern of waste, fraud and abuse that has cost taxpayers dearly and at times undermined U.S. foreign-policy objectives.

The report includes a copy of an extortion letter sent by Afghan insurgents to a contractor working on a U.S. government-funded construction project in Afghanistan. It also details many instances of projects the panel says were poorly conceived, badly executed and, in the long-term, impossible to sustain without more U.S. or foreign funds.

The commission’s findings were based on hearings in Washington, staff research and a series of fact-finding trips to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Michael Thibault, one of the bipartisan panel’s co-chairs, said the commission found wasteful spending amounted to between 10% and 20% of total contract and grant spending. Fraud, he added, has ranged between 5% and 9% of contract totals.

Let’s extract a few of the more choice words from this excerpt:

Waste. Fraud. Abuse. Poorly conceived. Badly executed. Cost the taxpayers dearly.

Transforming War CostsI haven’t heard one person mention this in conversation. Other than in perfunctory reports, I’ve heard no outrage or rebellion. According to the Final Report to Congress, Transforming Wartime Contracting (August 2011) Executive Summary Page 5: “The Commission’s conservative estimate of waste and fraud ranges from $31 billion to $60 billion based on contract spending from FY 2002 projected through the end of FY 2011.” That’s not less than $30 billion—and possibly twice that much—of our money spent on stuff that it didn’t have to be spent on, for the same outcome. If you paid tax last year, some of that was your money. Willing to let that sail on? I’m not.

I still have wrenching memories from the 1980s of the government audit that revealed we were paying $500 for toilet seats. It was shocking, and never meant to have a command performance. I also know that profiteering in our nation is illegal, but perhaps we don’t have the resources to investigate and prosecute those kinds of abuses any longer. Legal fees are expensive—no sense throwing bad money after bad, right?

I also know that much of the money we use to pay these invoices is borrowed. Not only are we getting fleeced on value, we are paying interest on it to boot, and interest on the interest, because I can’t see a way the accumulated balance gets paid down in our lifetime. If a CEO allows his company to send our government a bill that smacks of fraud or abuse, I really do wonder what he is thinking when he sings the national anthem and stares at the flag in his hometown stadium. If the law and his conscience don’t get him, is he still a patriot as long as he sings the Star Spangled Banner in or out of key? He is not.

For a few thoughtful milliseconds, I want you to pretend you are responsible for 0.01% of that amount in your job ($20.6 million) and it is reported in your hometown newspaper that the public company you work for wasted that money on nothing whatsoever. Your boss calls you in and the conversation goes something like this:

Boss: It’s good to see you today.

You: Thank you, boss. Always good to be called into your office.

Boss: Hey, I need to ask you something. Seems the local newspaper—that printed thing in the machines by the gas station that take quarters—says we lit up $26 million of our shareholders’ money with a blazing torch and got nothing for it. The CEO can’t believe that’s true, and traced it back to our department. So a quick question—did it happen?

You: Well, to be honest, yes, it did, boss.

Boss: I appreciate your candor. Can you tell me why?

You: Not really. I guess I screwed up. I’ll try to do better. None of us are perfect, right?

Boss: Right, none of us are perfect. Some of us don’t watch money closely enough. Some of us make poor hiring decisions. It happens.

You: Am I in trouble, boss?

Boss: Trouble, for absent-mindedly destroying $26 million of Other People’s Money? I shouldn’t think so. You didn’t take any of it, did you?

You: Not a chance, boss. You know I would never do that.

Boss: Know is a pretty strong summation, but I am confident enough it can’t be proven. Hey, another question. When your counterpart at the company where we burned this money sent you the contract, is it possible he committed any possible act of deception?

You: Deception, gee, that’s a hard one. You know, I don’t really know. The thing about fraud is, if it’s committed well, you don’t even know it occurred. So how would I know?

Boss: Exactly, if you are duped, the other fellow is in the wrong. You had no reason not to trust him, so how could it be your fault?

You: So I still have a job, boss?

Boss: As do I. Our investigation is complete. I will report as much to the CEO.

You: Gosh, I felt really bad when I came in here. You are such a supportive boss. I feel so much better,

Boss: As do I, we are in this together. Do try to be more careful with Other People’s Money where you can. And always remember, candor is your friend.

You: Thank you, boss. You’re the best!

For an abundance of clarity, that wouldn’t fly in any legitimate enterprise.

From time to time, you may hear the expression OPM, as in Other People’s Money, as if somehow that is different from your money. If you treat Other People’s Money differently from how you would treat your own money, there is something wrong with you for allowing yourself the permission to do that, and there is something wrong with them for empowering you to do it.

Whenever you are in control of a business budget, you are being trusted to manage OPM. There is only one way I know how to do that: treat it as if it is your own. Nothing else can be justified, nothing else can be defended. Ask yourself on every allocation that can be tracked back to you: if this were my money, would I say yes? If the answer is honestly yes, you are acting in the best interests of those to whom the money belongs. If the answer is no, then ask yourself why you are saying yes, before someone else does. Your boss is likely to be a lot less understanding than the one depicted above, unless of course he is part of the problem— in which case, get out quickly! Life is much too short to be part of anything you cannot proudly explain.

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The Disingenuous Bop

Imagine working for a company where more than 80% of your customers held you in disregard. Congress has achieved that milestone of late, with an 82% disapproval rating. I want us to internalize that carefully, as the vast majority of us continue to share a sense of patriotism and love of our country, the very freedom and opportunity and dignity we believe to be our core shared values as Americans. We are patriots and we love our nation, but 82% of us hold our employees in Congress in disregard. Is it possible that we have found a way to separate the institution from its inhabitants, that we can continue to have pride in the ideal of democracy separate and distinct from its practice?

Seems like a reach to me. I am struggling with it as our nation reflects the wounds of the war of words being waged on our behalf in Washington, where our representatives are charged with an absolute mandate to serve the public good above all else. I am having a hard time believing an election cycle or two with the peaceful reassignment of power is likely to bring broad healing,

I have been writing a good deal of late about process, looking for corollaries of acceptable norms between business and government, digging into the core of behavior where bad form results in bad outcome. The entire tone of the debt ceiling debate felt wrong to me, and I wondered again if what we were hearing publicly was the same as what was being said privately. To that end, I wondered about the very nature of the language spoken in chambers and to the public, the rules of order imposed historically to remind us that with each gavel banging resolution we remain on the same team with a common purpose.

The imposed civility of government dialogue (“the gentleman from Nevada,” “my distinguished colleague from the great state of Virginia”) clearly was intended as a matter of protocol to smooth out the edges of vehement disagreement. I suppose that makes sense. Yet when one or the other party was asked as the hours ticked away about the claim that”we were getting close to a deal,” inevitably the retort would be: “I don’t know what they are talking about.” Some may call that negotiation style, readying for backroom agreements. To me it all seemed laden with secondary agendas that in the acceptance of dysfunction became unofficially primary—disingenuous at best, destructive at worst.

The problem for me with disingenuous discourse—posturing, grandstanding, two-faced commentary—is that it a symptom of a fundamentally unhealthy organization. Saying one thing to someone’s face and another behind his or her back may provide a temporarily effective tool in maintaining order, but it is fraught with peril in the critical endeavor of building consensus.

If we all lost the battle together, perhaps we can take from it a lesson for the business minded in moral application and at least get our heads screwed on straight as it applies to office behavior. We’ve all had occasion to dance The Disingenuous Bop. Let’s put a spotlight on the dance floor and see what reflects in the disco mirror ball. In the business world we sometimes call this gossip, and we know it is rotten to the core. It can go something like this, two employees in an ordinary private exchange, talking about their boss…

Jane: What do you think about Barry?

John: I really like Barry. I just don’t think he is very good as a leader.

Jane: Yeah, I like Barry, too. He was great when he hired me. But now he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.

John: Did you read what they wrote about Barry in the Wall Street Journal?

Jane: Yes, I wrote him an email and told him I thought they were unfairly harsh. He needed the boost.

John: Yeah, me too. I hope that helped him feel better. But you have to agree, he had it coming. He championed that stupid project and we lost a ton of money on it.

Jane: Yeah, I know, I thought it was going to be high-profile so I asked Barry to put me on it and he did. Then the project tanked. I tried to get off it, but I was stuck on it. Luckily I’m not taking the heat, he is.

John: Yeah, you dodged a major bullet on that. Lucky you. I was in the final milestone review last month and I knew it was a dog. It needed at least another month of polish.

Jane: Did you tell the group more time might save it?

John: No, it would have pissed them off. They were so happy with it, feeling self-satisfied and even though Barry asked if anyone thought we were in trouble on it, I knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, so I just went along with the program.

Jane: You probably would have taken some heat for being disruptive, so you kept your head low, that makes sense. I just wish the project would have been a winner, because I was going to ride it all the way up and ask Barry for a raise and a promotion.

John: And you would have earned it, too, if the project had been a winner. Barry would have been a happy camper, so you probably would have gotten it. Too bad.

Jane: Yeah, what a lost opportunity. Hey, are you going to the party at Barry’s house this weekend?

John: Absolutely, wouldn’t miss it. Career limiting move not to go to his party.

Jane: Yep, I’ll be there too, same reason. Good thing we both made the guest list. I guess he still likes us.

John: Yeah, I like him too. I don’t really like his parties though.

Jane: Agree 100%. Boring and not fun. See you there.

Harmless water cooler chat? A bonding experience with a fellow employee meant in good humor? Of course you would never engage in anything like this. It is rooted in the disingenuous, ugly in every respect. A person of honor would either reset the give and take or walk away.

There is nothing about being disingenuous that is ultimately productive. We see the embers all around us. Dance carefully, your name could be substituted for that of Barry at any time. If someone plays the game with you, they’ll play the game against you. Honor by definition is consistent. Smug is not a long-term strategy. Not caring about not caring is not sustainable. We are meant to live in one world, not maintain parallel existences for convenience and expedience. Style is content. Integrity only has one face.

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Deadlines, The Final Frontier

Looks like we dodged a bullet.  The United States of America will not default on its debt, We The People will be allowed to borrow more money to stay current in our obligations by way of a vague deal to curb deficit spending going forward that the House, Senate, and President will find a way to stomach late in the 11th hour.  Why don’t I feel proud?

In my mind, the process for resolution which was recently described by Senator McCain as “bizarro” has been a farce of such epic embarrassment, it is impossible to comprehend as somehow reflective of our shared values.  Last minute threats and posturing and leverage and mano a mano entrenchment ignore the obvious framework of achieving a shared vision — that working relationships must continue long after the dirty work is done.  Last week in a fairly heated discussion thread about the debt ceiling on another social networking site, an astute friend of mine wrote:

…the whole situation is disappointing. No one on the national scene has really acted that well.   Should we even give them praise for negotiating?  Has it come to that–we have to praise people for doing what sensible people do?

His exasperation is well-founded, and leads me to ask again, why must we accept one set of standards of conduct for business and a different set for government?  This is especially troubling since so many people in government have spent at least some of their career working in the private sector, where market forces determine the kinds of norms of acceptability and consequence our elected officials seem to ignore.

To be clear, I am not talking about mission structure — government service is not profit minded by design, so of course decision-making is not intended to be ROI focused, that would be absurd.  We go to war because our security is at stake, it is a cost.  We fix roads and build new infrastructure because they are the backbone of our shared needs, they are cost centers paid for by taxes, they are not profit centers so boardroom discussions will always be different.  I am talking about standards of conduct, behavioral norms — like honest discussion and earnest debate and timely resolution.

Consider that last one for a moment: timely resolution.  Anyone who has ever worked on a project knows the meaning of the term deadline.  Anyone who has ever taken a class knows that the date does not move for the final exam.  Anyone who has ever paid a bill knows that the due date is not negotiable, miss it and you pay a penalty out of your pocket and potentially suffer a credit score impact.  Anyone who owes a balance on their taxes knows that April 15 is not negotiable — it’s not magical, it’s just not negotiable, it is the law.  Although deadlines appear to be abstracts — fictitious creations of human imagination imposed as structure on others to compel action — deadlines are part of life.  They are real.  We learn as children to address them and as adults to manage them, or we suffer the consequences personally and professionally.

Deadlines teach us to manage two of the great success factors of businesses and careers: timeliness and urgency.  Timeliness means just that, occurring at a suitable or opportune time — being appropriately on time according to expectation and need.  Urgency is the competitive advantage of not being satisfied with timeliness, getting ahead of the curve so that winning is more possibly in reach by better applied and more efficient use of time to create distance ahead of the competition.

What can we learn from government with respect to timeliness and urgency? Does government consider these to be core values, even expectations of government’s viability?  Does government consider timeliness and urgency as Nice-to-Have or Must-Have?  We observe their philosophical commitment in their actions.  My sense is, there is not much here worth emulating.  If anything, government process is the antithesis to lessons a good business understands — and that includes leaving big blocks of time for rigorous review.

Our elected officials for whatever reason simply do not seem to take the notion of deadlines as seriously as the rest of us.  In some ways, a lack of respect for deadlines is the very notion of an entitlement culture — if you do what is expected, you get paid, and if you don’t do what is expected, you still get paid, right up until you get thrown out by the voters.  When you get thrown out by the voters, you get a pension.  Perhaps we are seeing the reason why deadlines don’t seem to matter in the halls of Washington.

Perhaps the reason our government has become so dysfunctional is because we have allowed it to be so.  In the working world, there are rules, and if you violate them, there are consequences.  In elected office there only seem to be two rules:

1) Don’t be party to a scandal that your opponents can manipulate to your demise.

2) Get elected, then reelected.

Pretty much everything else seems to be forgivable.  A missed deadline is a missed deadline.  Since there is no profit motive, there is no personally assessed penalty.  That’s just wrong.  It lacks humility.

Bosses are often accused of setting arbitrary deadlines.  What is the difference between an arbitrary and real deadline?  Not much, really.  If the boss sets a schedule and declares that milestones must be accomplished according to the schedule, there is usually nothing empirical or even mythical about the published dates — well, maybe the December holidays for retail, or similarly calendar driven events.  Most deadlines are made up, they are criticized and chastised and the stuff of Dilbert moments — but imagine a business enterprise without them.  Someone has to be Dilbert.  Someone has to create urgency.  Urgency combined with innovation are the stuff of success, creativity combined with timely delivery are the stuff of investment payoffs.

Most of us hate deadlines, but we all know they drive us to make hard decisions sooner, get past analysis paralysis, come together as teams and deliver.  Deadlines are the stuff of anger and stress and resentment — and the stuff of competition and collaboration and reward.  We hate them, but we embrace them, because we aren’t given a choice.  Arbitrary or organic, deadlines make us get stuff done to the best of our ability given the time allotted, and with some success, we then often get the chance to come back later and improve on our progress.  Deadlines are motivation and measurement, realities we learn to meet as challenges.  That’s why bosses set “arbitrary” deadlines — because timeliness is an expectation for compensation, and urgency is often a path from good to great.

I am not a big fan of rules just to have rules, but as a boss, I have to insist on a few or work does not get done and value is not created.  Deadlines are sometimes extended or forgiven for good reasons, but anyone who has worked in a high performance environment knows not to take forbearance for granted.  An occasional exception for truly improved work or some extenuating circumstance?  Of course, that’s possible.  The same rotten outcome I could have had yesterday a week from tomorrow?  Not a chance.

Just hitting a date with no breathing room and a lousy set of deliverables is not making a deadline, it is surrendering to mediocrity and living to play another day.  If that is allowable process, dysfunction has triumphed over reason.  It’s not urgency, and it’s not okay.  In business, you would likely get fired for it, or your business would go under.

Urgency is hard.  Urgency is a factor in competitive advantage.  Urgency matters.