A Seat at the Table for Nondisaster Organizations

The Quarterly for Practitioners

Fall 2007 ✦ Volume 36, Number 3 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG

Collaborative Governance:
Lessons from Katrina
Rebuilding the Parks
of New Orleans
The Unavoidable Politics
of Disaster Recovery
 Fall 2007

Viewpoints 1 The Manager’s Musings

by Warren Master
Forum
Emergency Management 3 Post-Katrina Emergency
Management: Forum Overview
by Beverly A. Cigler
Feature 4 A Seat at the Table for Nondisaster Organizations
by Scott E. Robinson and Brian J. Gerber
7 Collaborative Governance: Lessons from Katrina
by Heather Getha-Taylor
11 Transformational Leadership and NIMS
by William Lester
16 Revitalizing Emergency Management after Katrina
by R. Steven Daniels
21 Building Community Capacity to Respond
by Naim Kapucu
26 Rebuilding the Parks of New Orleans
by Steven N. Waller
31 The Unavoidable Politics of Disaster Recovery
by Dale Krane
Articles
Culture of Bureaucracy 38 Leading Change through Action Learning
by Robert Kramer
45 Realizing a Performance Culture in Federal Agencies
by Bill Trahant
51 Fostering a Performance-Driven Culture in the Public Sector
by Howard Risher
HR Management 57 Family Friendly Policy: Lessons from Europe—Part I
by Anmarie J. Widener
62 Nontraditional Leadership Training for Public Managers
by Darrell Norman Burrell
IT Management 67 Fulfilling the Promise of E-Gov Initiatives—Part I
by Judy Steele and Lisa Cliff
71 Executive’s Guide to Practical Computer Models
by Daniel Maxwell and Andrew Loerch
Departments
Image of Public Service 77 Within Reach…But Out of Synch
by Darby Miller Steiger and Carl Fillichio
83 Public Service Leadership: Lessons from the Front Lines
by Craig Pettibone
The Uncivil Servant 85 Yin and Yang of Government and Politics
by Grimaldi
Book Review 87 Ten Principles for Coalescing the Generations
by T. E. Winchell Sr.

Talking about New Affiliates
A warm welcome to three new affiliates that
joined The Public Manager’s readership ranks: the
Federal Aviation Administration Managers Asso-
ciation (FAAMA), the Federal Executive Institute
(FEI), and American University’s Institute for the
Study of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI).
FAAMA, a membership organization that promotes
excellence in public service, as well as aviation
safety and efficiency, brings many new readers to
our audience. The FEI is one of the federal govern-
ment's premier development centers for senior ex-
ecutives. ISPPI helps find solutions to public policy
implementation problems, researches federal em-
ployee engagement, and offers a Certificate in
Leadership for Public Policy Implementation. To-
gether, these organizations bring our total reader-
ship to more than 10,000. We have plans afoot to
expand our diverse communities of interest still fur-
ther during 2007 and 2008. More to be said on that
topic and how we plan to offer stimulating new
products and services to our readers and affiliates
in the winter issue.
Talking about Katrina, Again
This journal’s winter 2006 mini-forum on les-
sons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
(Volume 35, No. 4) examined what happened in
advance of, during, and after these “natural disas-
ters” to make matters better. From presentations at
the American Society for Public Administration’s
(ASPA) 2007 annual conference, Bev Cigler and
the ASPA Katrina Task Force have pulled together
The Manager’s Musings by Warren Master
a forum that includes a more current assessment
of status and lessons learned. Our feature article by
Scott Robinson and Brian Gerber paints a broad
picture of collaboration lessons learned from the
2005 hurricanes. Similarly, Heather Getha-Taylor’s
article on collaborative governance reveals four key
lessons on working together in emergency man-
agement. Next, William Lester offers his views on
how the National Incident Management System
can have its theory on collaboration transformed
into actual practice. This piece is followed by an
article by R. Steven Daniels on revitalizing federal
emergency management after Hurricane Katrina
and Naim Kapucu’s contribution on building com-
munity capacity to respond to catastrophic disas-
ters. Also, Steven Waller tries peeling the onion
with his article on pragmatically rebuilding the
parks infrastructure of New Orleans. And lastly,
Dale Krane shares his thoughts on what public
managers need to know about the politics of dis-
aster recovery. Expect another shorter installment
of lessons learned, with a lead article summing up
the task force report, in the winter issue.
Talking about Changing Culture
Several articles address the issue of culture
change. Robert Kramer gets us started with an ar-
ticle that details action learning and includes a
case study from the Animal and Plant Health In-
spection Service on how agency managers can
lead organizational culture change and build a
learning organization. Bill Trahant offers related
thoughts on how to realize a performance culture
continued on next page
continued from Musings
PUBLISHER
Harry L. Featherstone
in federal agencies today. Howard Risher shares survey re- EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Warren Master
sults on how to foster a performance-driven culture in the pub-
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
lic sector. And Anmarie Widener tells us what we can learn Martin P. Lyon, LMI
Karen M. Shaffer, The Bureaucrat, Inc.
from the European Union in Part I of a two-part series on pro-
FEATURE/DEPARTMENT EDITORS
Kim Ainsworth, Beyond the Beltway
moting family-friendly policies. On related matters, Darrell Bur-
Patricia S. Atkins, Regional Governance
rell enlightens us on new, nontraditional leadership training for Sharon Caudle, Homeland Security
Levar Cole, Young Professionals
public managers, and Daniel Maxwell and Andy Loerch offer Robert Fagin, Humor
Leann Jenkins, Beyond the Beltway
guidance to the nontechnical leader on how to shape, oversee,
Richard Koonce, HR Management
and manage projects with computer-based tools. Darby Miller Steve Ressler, Young Professionals
Susan Sanow, Nonprofit Management
Steiger and Carl Fillichio pass along conclusions of a recent Dale F. Weeks, Performance Management
and Evaluation
study on shaping tomorrow’s government workforce, and Craig Bob Welch, Acquisition
Don Zauderer, Culture of Bureaucracy
Pettibone summarizes two personal leadership vignettes from
ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN
the front lines. Also, on the topic of the changing technology cul- Diane Donohoe, LMI
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ture, Judy Steele and Lisa Cliff of the General Services Ad- Timothy M. Dirks
Lynn Edwards
ministration bring us up to date in Part I of their two-part series Harry L. Featherstone
on fulfilling the promise of e-Gov initiatives at the federal level. Carl A. Fillichio
Allan J. Kam
Maurice A. Kelly
Richard Koonce
Talking about Ups and Downs Ronald Manderscheid
Warren Master
And while Grimaldi offers a Zen side-by-side look at gov-
Patrick Mendis
ernment politics, Tim Winchell reviews a book on improving John M. Palguta
Craig B. Pettibone
the multi-generational work environment. Nancy A. Potok
Irene Rubin
Karen M. Shaffer
Our Affiliates Muriel Watkins
Paul T. Weiss
The Public Manager is proud to be affiliated with organizations that share mutual
interests and jointly strive to advocate and disseminate the best practices that lead BOARD OF EDITORS
to transcendent governments, here and abroad, which benefit and sustain the
Kim Ainsworth, GSA, Boston Federal Executive Board
citizens of the world. David L. Baker, California State University,
American Academy of Certified Public Managers (AACPM) San Bernardino
Alan Balutis, INPUT
American Society for Public Administration (ASPA)
Steve Benowitz, Consultant
Coalition for Effective Change (CEC)
Richard Blake, Seton Hall University
Council for Excellence in Government (CEG)
Michael E. Canes, LMI
DC Society of Certified Public Managers (DCCPM)
Sharon Caudle, U.S. Government Accountability Office
FAA Managers Association (FAAMA) Levar Cole, Department of Homeland Security
Federal Executive Institute (FEI) Harry Featherstone, LMI, The Public Manager, Publisher
Federal Executive Institute Alumni Association (FEIAA) Janice Flug, American University Library
Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI) Leann Jenkins, Oklahoma City Federal Executive Board
National Association of Schools of Public Affairs John Kamensky, IBM Center for The Business
and Administration (NASPAA) of Government
Partnership for Public Service (PPS) Richard Koonce, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Stanley C. Langfeld, General Services Administration
Public Employees Roundtable (PER)
Judith Light, U.S. Agency for International Development
Professional Managers Association (PMA)
Warren Master, The Public Manager
Graduate School, U.S. Department of Agriculture (GS USDA)
Patrick Mendis, Norwich University
Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Geralyn M. Miller, PhD, Indiana University-Purdue
Young Government Leaders (YGL) University Fort Wayne
John M. Palguta, Partnership for Public Service
Source for house-on-car photo on front cover: Aleta Kiefer.
2 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
BOARD OF EDITORS, CONTINUED
Steve Ressler, Young Government Leaders
Lemar Robertson, Partnership for Public Service
Irene Rubin, Professor Emeritus,
Northern Illinois University
Susan Sanow, Washington Council of Agencies
Myra Shiplett, Consultant
James Smith, Smith-Woolwine Associates
and American Military University
Chris Sonnesyn, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
John G. Stone III, Consultant
Muriel Watkins, MWF, Inc.
Dale F. Weeks, Florida Department of Revenue
Danny Weiss, DC Society of Certified Public Managers
Bob Welch, Acquisition Solutions, Inc.
T. E. Winchell Sr., Strategic Human Capital, Inc.
Hyong Yi, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
Don Zauderer, Consultant
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE
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 Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

Post-Katrina Emergency Management:

Forum Overview

by Beverly A. Cigler

It’s said that cooperation is an “unnatural act among nonconsenting adults.” Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the flooding of New
Orleans, highlight the need for collaborative action before, during, and after disasters. This post-Katrina forum was organized by the
American Society for Public Administration’s Katrina Task Force. Articles were submitted in response to an open call for manuscripts
and were reviewed by task force members. The focus is on the need for collaborative governance.
Scott Robinson and Brian Gerber examine traditional disaster personnel working with nondisaster organizations, such as
churches, nonprofits, and schools, which are often central to successful collaboration. Their review of cultural and institutional bar-
riers to collaboration via a West Virginia case study yields advice for helping those with special needs by overcoming barriers to
bringing disaster service organizations together. Heather Getha-Taylor interviewed federal executives through the lens of collabora-
tive governance to offer practical advice about leading by example, building relationships, training for collaboration, and recognizing
success. William Lester offers practical advice on how transformational leadership can help translate our theory about collaborative
governance into reality. He examines the National Incident Management System as it attempts to build collaborative relationships
across the federal system.
Steven Daniels surveyed emergency managers to ascertain the extent of collaborative, post-Katrina learning between the national
government and state and local emergency managers. He uncovered increased interest in comprehensive approaches and perceived pos-
itive changes in the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The public expects improved public-sector leadership relating to disasters. Naim Kapucu’s article offers advice on building com-
munity capacity in the complex networked environment of horizontal and vertical communication, a multitude of coordination needs,
and decision-making capabilities. Steve Waller brings such advice to bear in an examination of the planning process used after Kat-
rina to rebuild New Orleans parks.
The official governmental and academic diagnoses of Katrina focus on administrative and technical challenges and solutions. Dale
Krane uses a political lens to examine another set of collaboration obstacles: turf wars, partisan actions, class-based indifferences to
the needy, and interest group rivalries. Krane shows that working toward collaboration in the administrative arena must also include
understanding and dealing with the seemingly unavoidable “politics” of disaster recovery as collaboration is forged.

Bev Cigler is professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg and an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Her research focuses on intergovernmental relations, including emergency management. She can be reached at cigler@psu.edu.

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 3

 Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

A Seat at the Table

for Nondisaster Organizations
by Scott E. Robinson and Brian J. Gerber West Virginia University
has a strategy for bringing
he hurricanes of 2005 taught public managers many difficult lessons.

T As we watched the aftermath on our TVs, the deficiencies in our dis-

aster response system became clear. Communication between state,
local, and federal agencies was difficult. Lines of authority were unclear, and
organizations together to
render disaster services
to special needs popula-
implementation of disaster response plans was problematic.With the bad news,
tions, and North Texas
though, came some good news. As is common in disaster situations, individ-
ual and community group volunteers from across the country stepped up to shows how to integrate
assist in serving evacuees and rebuilding affected communities.Although such religious organizations
volunteerism is notably generous, it also poses an additional disaster manage- in disaster response.
ment challenge. Public managers faced difficulties in coordinating efforts of
their own agency with the efforts of other organizations—public nonemer-
gency management (like schools), religious and nonprofit (like churches and
charities), and business.
The experiences of the 2005 hurricanes demonstrate that nondisaster or-
ganizations have a lot to offer in the response to and recovery from the disas-
ters. Religious organizations offered volunteers and even housing for evacuees
who made it to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Schools cooperated in providing
access to counseling and social work organizations to evacuees enrolled in
school. Private businesses provided material resources (such as truckloads of
water) and locations (such as closed and empty stores for use as staging grounds,
intake facilities, and temporary housing).These were all resources of great value
in disaster response and recovery.

4 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
 This article briefly discusses the anticipated man-
agement challenges involved in bringing nondisaster or-
ganizations into disaster planning and response activities.
It then discusses strategies to overcome these obstacles
and offers managers of disaster organizations advice on
how to best involve nondisaster organizations in disaster
planning and response.
Obstacles to Integration of
Nondisaster Organizations
Although nondisaster organizations have much to
offer in facilitating emergency response and recovery, in-
tegrating them into the plans and efforts of emergency
response agencies is often difficult. Two major types of
differences between disaster and nondisaster organiza-
tions create obstacles to their coordination. First, nondis-
aster organizations lack many institutional characteristics
designed to make disaster organizations effective in dis-
aster situations. Second, members of nondisaster organ-
izations routinely come from different professional
backgrounds than members of disaster organizations,
often creating cultural barriers.
The structure of an organization is often a product
of its core missions. Manufacturing organizations take
on a shape and form that allow them to efficiently man-
ufacture goods. Educational organizations pattern them-
selves for their primary mission of education. Disaster
organizations take on the structures they need to pre-
pare for and respond to disasters. By this logic, organiza-
tions with diverse missions also have dramatically
different structures.
Disaster managers need to consider these institu-
tional differences in collaborating with nondisaster or-
ganizations. Fire and police departments (as disaster-
related organizations) often have plans in place to ensure
robustness of operations, even amid the trying circum-
stances of a natural or human-made disaster, but nondis-
aster organizations often lack institutions to ensure that
operations continue during or immediately following a
large-scale disaster.This may make nondisaster partners
in disaster scenarios particularly vulnerable and poten-
tially unreliable in extreme events.
Scott E. Robinson, PhD, is associate professor, Bush School of Government
and Public Service,Texas A&M University, College Station,Texas. He can
be reached at srobinson@bushschool.tamu.edu. Brian J. Gerber, PhD, is as-
sistant professor, division of public administration, School of Applied Social Sci-
ences,WestVirginia University, Morgantown,WestVirginia. He can be reached
at Brian.Gerber@mail.wvu.edu.
School District Illustration
Consider the case of a school district. According to
the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), in
the wake of school shootings and natural disasters, many
school districts have developed emergency plans. Given
the historical role of schools in sheltering during natu-
ral disasters, they are a key example of nondisaster or-
ganizations with which disaster agencies may wish to
collaborate in emergency planning. However, even the
relatively prepared school districts do not have as robust
a set of institutions as an organization that focuses on
disaster response. For example, many school districts rely
on phone trees and cellular phones to ensure communi-
cation between administrators—a perfectly reasonable
plan in most cases, but vulnerable in a hurricane where
massive power losses and damage to external structures
have made cellular towers inoperable. Furthermore, the
publicly accessible means of communication—land-
based phone lines and cellular phones—may be quickly
overwhelmed in an area stricken by an extreme event.
The school district relying on such communication sys-
tems would be vulnerable to the large-scale communi-
cation disruption and may not be available in such events.
Cultural Barriers
Cultural barriers also can impede communication
between disaster and nondisaster organizations. Disaster
professionals live with disasters daily: if they are not re-
sponding to an emergency, they are preparing for one.
The professional training for people in emergency or-
ganizations familiarizes responders with key parts of the
emergency preparedness/response process as well as such
topics as emergency site management. Members of
nondisaster organizations are not likely to have any such
training.Volunteers from a local church are not likely to
come in with any training in how to work in an emer-
gency shelter. Representatives from private businesses
probably are not familiar with how to operate at an
emergency site. In emergency situations, disaster man-
agers must consider the likely lack of training and expe-
rience of nondisaster volunteers.
This brief review of the potential barriers to the in-
tegration of nondisaster organizations in emergency re-
sponse suggests the difficulty of leveraging the resources
offered.Although difficult, this leverage is still essential—
especially in a time when many public emergency re-
sponse organizations struggle with small budgets.These
barriers, though significant, are not insurmountable.
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 5
Strategies for Integrating
Nondisaster Organizations
The key to overcoming these potential barriers to
collaboration is creating opportunities for repeated in-
teraction. If the first time the disaster organization works
with a nondisaster organization is during an emergency
or during disaster recovery, the barriers may be quite
strong. If, on the other hand, the disaster organization
has previously established, and continues to maintain, a
relationship with the nondisaster organization, the bar-
riers can be overcome. In this section, we review some
examples of inviting nondisaster organizations to build
relationships with disaster organizations to overcome the
potential barriers to cooperation.
Establishing Contact
The first step in integrating nondisaster organiza-
tions is establishing contact, often much more difficult
than it sounds. Emergency response plans often involve
a complex combination of police, fire, medical, and other
public agencies. The complexity of the system leaves
many nondisaster organizations wondering whom to call
when they have services or goods to offer. Facing this
uncertainty, many organizations that could help may not
end up offering assistance. Mark Fischer, associate direc-
tor of program operations, and Jodi Van Horne, emer-
gency response medical specialist, at West Virginia
University’s (WVU’s) Virtual Medical Campus (an out-
reach and training center for emergency, disaster, and
public health issues) led a needs assessment study and se-
ries of subsequent workshops on promoting considera-
tion of the unique concerns of special needs populations
in local emergency and disaster planning in WestVirginia
(www.vmc.wvu.edu/hrsa/specialPopulations.htm).
They found that the biggest challenge for special
needs service organizations was that they typically had
little knowledge or understanding of how emergency
management systems are planned or function. At the
same time, emergency management professionals were
frequently overwhelmed by the scope and complexity
of various special needs issues.Van Horne notes that they
found a great disconnect between key organizations, but
after facilitating a series of meetings, they also found,
“Everybody wanted to do the right thing, but they
didn’t know whom to contact to accomplish that.” To
overcome this, Fischer and Van Horne suggest that dis-
aster organizations take the initiative in contacting a
wide range of nondisaster organizations in organized fo-
rums to bring them into disaster planning.
6 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
The time to build these relationships, of course, is
before a disaster occurs. When dealing with a disaster,
disaster organizations have little time to canvass the com-
munity for potential resources.They are busy responding
to the disaster. Before a disaster, disaster organizations can
take the time to make new contacts and bring new peo-
ple into the process.
Establishing an inventory of community resources
available in case of a disaster is a wonderful opportunity
to begin building relationships with nondisaster organi-
zations. Contacting local charities, churches, schools, and
businesses to see what they can offer in the case of a dis-
aster is a good excuse to start building a relationship.
Periodically updating the inventory presents the oppor-
tunity to continue and build upon previous relationships.
Long-lasting relationships are most likely to overcome
the barriers to collaboration.
Institutionalizing Relationships
Consider this example from Dallas/Fort Worth as
evacuees forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina
began to make it to North Texas.The primary coordina-
tor for North Texas regional sheltering efforts was sup-
posed to be the American Red Cross. However, most of
the Red Cross officials had gone to the Gulf Coast to help
with the immediate aftermath of the hurricane.The cen-
tral actor in the plan was simply not available.As the dis-
aster response organizations in North Texas scrambled to
accommodate the wave of evacuees, the director of home-
land security for Collin County, Kelley Stone, received a
phone call from a local religious summer camp.The sum-
mer camp had recently closed operations, so it called out
of the blue with dozens of beds to house refugees, offer-
ing its site as a location for evacuee sheltering.
The representatives of the religious camp luckily
contacted the right person to incorporate its site into
the county’s plan to accommodate evacuees.To avoid re-
lying on such luck, Stone took steps in the immediate af-
termath of the disaster to institutionalize and strengthen
the newly founded relationships. For example, another
church offered to staff shelters. The members of the
church had little to no experience in shelter manage-
ment—but every person was valuable. To ensure that
these people would be prepared in case of a future dis-
aster, the church and the county now work together to
train teams of church members in shelter management.
Next time the county needs to staff shelters, it will have
a trained volunteer force available.
 Fischer and Van Horne of WVU offer additional
counsel. Maintaining ongoing relationships is critically
important, but other considerations make these relation-
ships function more effectively. Disaster organizations
should forge integrated memorandums of understanding
(MOUs) with organizations in their area.Well-integrated
MOUs that specify clear standards improve the likelihood
of effective response by disaster and nondisaster organi-
zations throughout the affected area.
Moreover, although difficult, local disaster agencies
should work with their community partners in pre-
emergency or predisaster testing of the actual effective-
ness of cooperation and coordination of planned
response agreements. Finally, although a local disaster or-
ganization is the appropriate lead in these relationships,
its managers must be aware of the need to balance com-
peting interests when it comes to special needs advocacy
and service provider organizations.As advocates, nondis-
aster groups often have a very specialized interest in a
particular disability (a common and appropriate arrange-
ment). Managers from disaster organizations have to
shape their planning for a broad range of functional
needs and avoid emphasizing a particular disability need.
resource. Nondisaster organizations have a tremendous
amount of assistance to offer disaster organization.As dis-
cussed, organizations as diverse as churches, schools, and
disability rights advocacy groups all have much to offer
during disaster response and recovery.To take advantage
of these resources, disaster managers need to develop re-
lationships with nondisaster organizations before disaster
strikes.These relationships, when cultivated and institu-
tionalized during times of calm, can be the basis for ro-
bust emergency response in times of crisis.
References
GAO. Emergency Management: Most School Districts Have
Developed Emergency Management Plans, but Would Benefit
from Additional Federal Guidance, GAO-07-609. June 2007.
www.gao.gov/new.items/d07609.pdf.
Robinson, Scott E., Britt Berrett, and Kelley Stone. “The De-
velopment of Collaboration Response to Hurricane Katrina
in Dallas.” Public Works Management & Policy, Vol. 10, No.
4 (April 2006), pp. 315–327.
Thompson, James. Organizations in Action: Social Science
Bases of Administration Theory (Edison, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 2003).
West Virginia University. West Virginia Prepares. Virtual Med-
ical Campus/Homeland Security Programs.
www.vmc.wvu.edu/hrsa/files/AAR.pdf.

Conclusion
Collaboration between disaster and nondisaster or-
ganizations is difficult but, correctly arranged, is a great
Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

Collaborative Governance:
Lessons from Katrina
by Heather Getha-Taylor Federal executives in-
volved in the response ef-
ur nation’s most pressing and difficult problems defy jurisdictional fort reveal four key lessons
O boundaries and are resistant to bureaucratic routines. Quite simply,
twentieth century bureaucracies are not designed for twenty-first
century problems. One such problem, Hurricane Katrina, has been described
that illuminate both the
challenge and opportunity
as a “wicked problem,” where the time to react was short, no single organiza- of working together in
tion had all the answers, and the cost of failure was enormous. Such wicked emergency management.
problems span all levels of government and highlight the need for collaborative

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 7

governance, or working across organizational and sector
boundaries to solve shared problems. Wicked problems,
however, are just one factor driving the need for increased
collaboration. Decreasing public resources, financial and
human, constrain the ability of public employees to reach
their goals and create public value.At the same time, de-
mands for improved performance continue.
Together, forces such as these have made the tradi-
tional, hierarchical model of government less appropri-
ate for solving today’s most pressing governance
problems. As a result, core management responsibilities
are also changing.As Goldsmith and Eggers note,“Core
responsibilities no longer center on managing people
and programs but on organizing resources, often be-
longing to others, to produce public value.” While it is
clear that collaborative governance is becoming ever
more important, Kamensky and colleagues observe,
“Most public managers are not trained in how to lead
through the use of networks or partnerships.”These au-
thors go on to say that as our reliance on networks
grows, this new mode of governance requires govern-
ment leaders to “behave far differently than they have in
the past.” Understanding how this recommendation
translates to practice is the theme of this article.
Never before were these trends and associated needs
more apparent than in 2005 during the response to Hur-
ricane Katrina, which is particularly notable as a case for
study. In addition to involving government authorities
on the local, state, and federal levels, the response re-
quired the coordination of at least ninety-three disaster
relief organizations, as listed by the U.S. Government Ac-
countability Office (GAO), and countless private-sector
companies to deliver services to the public in the wake
of the hurricane.
Interviews with twenty-three federal executives from
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and
five other large federal organizations involved in the Ka-
trina response reveal four key lessons for public managers.
These lessons illuminate both the challenge and oppor-
tunity inherent to collaborative governance in the con-
text of managing a large-scale emergency response effort.
Heather Getha-Taylor (PhD, Syracuse University; MPA, University of
Georgia) is an assistant professor in the department of political science at the
University of South Carolina. She is the 2006 recipient of the Volcker Junior
Scholar Research Grant from the American Political Science Association, which
supported this research. She can be reached at hggetha@maxwell.syr.edu.
8 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Lesson One—Public Managers Must
Lead by Example
The interviews conducted for this research make
clear that public managers must emphasize the impor-
tance of collaboration within their organizations before
an emergency.To be effective, this emphasis must be ap-
parent through both word and action. Several DHS in-
terviewees praised the example of U.S. Coast Guard
Commandant Thad Allen, who replaced Federal Emer-
gency Management Agency Administrator Michael
Brown as the director of the response and recovery in
the Gulf Coast. One Coast Guard interviewee said Allen
continually “presses us” toward the goal of effective col-
laboration—not only in emergencies, but every day.
An interview with Admiral Allen supports this com-
mitment. During the response effort, Allen said that his
intention was to “cut red tape and increase the velocity
of this response and take care of what needs to be taken
care of right now. To prioritize things and make sure
there’s a focus given to this thing and that it’s getting the
proper attention that it needs.”Allen elaborated by indi-
cating that it was more important to focus on how to
address the task at hand—as a group—than on individ-
ual roles or jurisdictional boundaries.
Federal executives involved in the Katrina response
effort reveal that leaders can prioritize collaboration in
their organizations by (1) expressing trust in organiza-
tional leaders to act in good faith on behalf of the or-
ganization and its stakeholders, and (2) connecting the
organizational mission to a broader purpose, thus high-
lighting the important role of others in achieving that
shared purpose. As one interviewee noted, “Having an
easily understandable goal and mission makes collabora-
tion so much easier.” This was echoed by the White
House report, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina:
Lessons Learned, which stressed the importance of unity
of effort in meeting common goals and shared responsi-
bilities.
Prioritizing collaboration in this way moves the focus
to higher-order tasks and away from personal problems
that hinder shared achievements.As one interviewee said,
the key in collaborating during the Katrina response was
to remember that the focus is not on one person:“None
of us are the enemy.”Another said it was counterproduc-
tive to argue over whose job it is to do which tasks: what’s
more important was to get the job done. In the case of
Hurricane Katrina,“The city of New Orleans wasn’t the
enemy, the state wasn’t the enemy. Katrina was the
enemy.”According to this executive, today we should ask,
“How do we work together to get past Katrina?”
Lesson Two—Public Managers Should
Focus on Relationships First
When Admiral Thad Allen replaced Michael Brown
as coordinator of the Katrina response effort, he dealt
with the unknowns of the situation by relying on those
he trusted most. “I pulled out this list of people that I
knew I could absolutely depend on that had diverse
backgrounds (and) a specific skill set.” Allen compared
this strategy to those used in old Westerns, where the
main character says, “Meet me at Red Rock at noon.”
This strategy is supported by the public management lit-
erature. According to DiIulio, Garvey, and Kettl, there is
a need to “cultivate government managers who are
boundary spanners, managers who reach out to find col-
leagues in other agencies with whom they can solve
problems.”
One executive interviewed had been praised for his
collaborative ability. He said that his success is based on
his ongoing willingness—and desire—to reach out to
others.According to this federal manager, building rela-
tionships sets the foundation for future work. “We are
collaborating now … so that when the call comes, I
know who is on the other end of the line ... I have
worked with them and there is a degree of trust and rap-
port that you have already built.”Too often, he said, this
doesn’t happen. The need to build strong relationships
before the crisis, he said, “is a wonderful lesson learned
from Hurricane Katrina.”
Interviews with those involved in the response who
consider their efforts a success reveal that the trust and
rapport that developed from preexisting personal rela-
tionships helped unify those involved toward achieving
a shared goal.The importance of investing in relationship
building cannot be overstated. As one interviewee said,
common interests and solid relationships can serve pur-
poses down the road, particularly when it comes to
emergency response.“The old song is the last thing you
want to be doing is exchanging business cards in the
middle of a crisis.”
Another interviewee said that the successful exam-
ples of collaboration from the Katrina response illustrate
the importance of trust in accomplishing a goal. One
such example was from a former member of a flight
crew that worked to rescue stranded people off roofs in
New Orleans.According to this interviewee, those indi-
viduals “came together, completely trusted each other
from the get-go and performed and learned and adapted
because the foundation had been set.”
Lesson Three—Public Managers Need
Collaborative Management Training
The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina cited the
importance of preparedness, particularly the need for
government entities to “work in partnership with each
other and the private sector.” One interviewee indicated
that part of the coordination difficulty on the federal,
state, and local levels during the Katrina response was a
result of insufficient training.This interviewee indicated
that a renewed focus on connecting all levels of govern-
ment via preparation exercises seems to be mitigating
this deficiency.
Another interviewee noted that training must be in-
tegrated, not only among the levels of government, but
also among groups within organizations. Public organi-
zations should emphasize “individual training, team
training, and then exercising those many parts.” How-
ever, progress lags, said several interviewees, on prepar-
ing public managers to (1) effectively communicate with
citizens, particularly when it comes to emergency pre-
paredness, and (2) lead others outside of their organiza-
tion. As one interviewee said, the federal government
invests a significant amount of resources in teaching nec-
essary people technical skills, but doesn’t necessarily
teach people the accompanying “softer skills” that make
them effective leaders.
Effective communication with individuals outside a
manager’s organization is a priority that should not be
ignored. Little thought has been given to how to best en-
courage others to work well together, particularly as it
relates to enhancing communication among distinctly
different organizations. Ordering individuals and organ-
izations to work well together, said one interviewee, just
doesn’t work. Instead, public managers should find ways
to capitalize on others’ strengths and communicate that
value in relation to the collaborative effort.This strategy,
said one interviewee, requires advanced planning. One il-
lustrative example from the Katrina response was the
cadre of veterinarians who arrived to help animals in the
aftermath of the hurricane. As Admiral Allen said, “You
don’t want to lose that passion or that resource that’s avail-
able, so you have to think ahead of time: how am I going
to incorporate them?” Part of that incorporation is on-
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 9
going and two-way communication with those who are
interested in helping further a collaborative effort.
As one DHS interviewee said,“We hinge on events
like Katrina because that’s where we put our money
where our mouth is” (and perform). Such performance,
however, depends on proper training and preparation.As
one executive said,“I believe in the world we’re living in
today, where the unexpected is almost expected, we
don’t know what it is, but the unexpected thing is now
almost expected to happen.” Just as it is important to cap-
italize on strengths outside the organization, so, too, must
public managers focus on the collaborative potential
within. Emerging leaders need to learn from the collab-
orative lessons today. One experienced emergency re-
sponder said,“You don’t learn overnight.”
In a 2003 report, the GAO said,“National goals are
achieved through the use of a variety of tools, and in-
creasingly, through the participation of many organiza-
tions that are beyond the direct control of the federal
government.”The interviews conducted for this research
support this assertion and emphasize the benefits of cap-
italizing on networks to take advantage of resources for
current and future needs.This increased emphasis on col-
laboration, then, will result not only in greater resources,
said one interviewee, but also in a higher level of inter-
action with the local community, thereby creating more
participative governance. Collaborative training that
moves public managers in that direction is imperative.
Lesson Four—Public Managers
Should Recognize Collaborative
Success
Most collaborative work is done behind the scenes
and receives little recognition or reward. If rewards are
given, they typically focus on the outcome of the col-
laborative effort rather than the process.The response to
Hurricane Katrina, however, was an exception to this
rule by providing visibility—positive and negative—of
the ability of public organizations to work together.
While the considerable negative examples received the
media attention, interviewees for this research indicated
that many success stories were never mentioned.
For example, three nuclear power plants that poten-
tially could have been affected by Hurricane Katrina
were shut down to prior to landfall to ensure citizen
safety in the surrounding areas.This model example of
preparedness and swift collaborative action set by nuclear
power leaders was recognized during the Katrina Senate
10 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
hearings.When asked what made them so successful, one
of the public managers said,“We plan and we practice …
every year.” This commitment to preparation not only
echoes the need for ongoing training, but also illustrates
the importance of recognizing not only areas where cor-
rections should be made, but also instances when gov-
ernment leaders successfully worked together to
effectively prevent even greater disaster.
Recognizing both the merits of collaboration and
the associated outcomes should take on an even greater
role in employee evaluation and reward, said those in-
terviewed. Although federal regulations typically pro-
hibit the sharing of monetary awards across
organizational lines, interviewees indicated that praise for
a job well done is often considered more meaningful
than cash awards. One executive noted the symbolic im-
portance of recognizing the men and women involved in
the Katrina response effort. During the organization’s
annual awards ceremony, the Secretary of Transportation
pinned medals on the chests of the employees who were,
as this executive said,“as proud as they could be” to have
been a part of the response effort.
Conclusion
These four lessons illustrate the need to focus on
ways to improve collaborative governance and highlight
the unique nature of the Hurricane Katrina response ef-
fort. While collaboration may be stymied by organiza-
tional politics and individual-level friction, interviewees
for this research indicated that the force of Katrina erased
those concerns; as one said,“Everybody just banded to-
gether.” Part of that shared commitment, said one exec-
utive, results from a common interest among emergency
responders in helping others in times of crisis rather than
running from danger.“There is an internal drive to help
others.” In the case of Hurricane Katrina responders, in-
terviewees credited a shared sense of mission for saving
so many lives. As one manager said, “They knew what
their mission was and they could lead themselves to ac-
complish that mission.”
The question now becomes, “What can we learn
from Katrina?” One interviewee said, “How can we
build something better? Because you know it’s going to
happen again.” Collaboration is increasingly necessary
for improved public performance, especially under
changing conditions where resources are limited, prob-
lems are complex, and failure is unacceptable. Finding
ways to encourage public employees to collaborate in
the absence of such a crisis will create an ongoing chal-
lenge. As one manager said,“I wish we could find a bet-
ter way to foster (collaboration) in the day-to-day work
and not always have it become the result of a crisis.”
Perhaps the best way to foster such a culture of col-
laboration is by emphasizing the shared goal of improv-
ing public value. By focusing on a broad mission over
narrow interests, collaborative governance may be real-
ized. For instance, one DHS employee recalled the dif-
ficulty that many New Orleans–based employees faced
after Hurricane Katrina:“We had people who were res-
cuing people from rooftops and moving trees out of their
driveways and … living in tents in 100 degree heat and
things like that for months at a time.”These difficulties
helped her identify the key to effective collaboration: we
must replace individual interests with shared interests.
“Because [we’ve] had to all work together in a crisis,
then [we] saw that maybe individual problems weren’t
all that important.”
References
DiIulio, J.J., G. Garvey, and D. F. Kettl. Improving Government
Performance: An Owner’s Manual (Washington, DC: Brook-
ings Institution Press, 1993).
GAO. Results Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage be-
tween Individual Performance and Organizational Success,
GAO-03-488. March 2003. www.gao.gov/new.items/
d03488.pdf.
Goldsmith, S., and W. D. Eggers. Governing by Network: The
New Shape of the Public Sector (Washington, DC: Brook-
ings Institution Press, 2004).
Kamarck, E. C. “Applying 21st Century Government to the
Challenge of Homeland Security.” In J. M. Kamensky and
T. J. Burlin, eds. Collaboration: Using Networks and Partner-
ships (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).
Kamensky, J. M., T. J. Burlin, and M. A. Abramson. “Net-
works and Partnerships: Collaborating to Achieve Results
No One Can Achieve Alone.” In J. M. Kamensky and T. J.
Burlin, eds. Collaboration: Using Networks and Partnerships
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

Transformational Leadership
and NIMS
by William Lester The NIMS promise of col-
laboration can be realized
he aftermath of Hurricane Katrina revealed a disaster response system on the ground through
T that was broken and in need of repair. The National Incident Man-
agement System (NIMS), a coordinated disaster response system, ex-
hibited serious flaws. To fix them, many have called for a much more
basic steps that transform
theory into practice.
centralized disaster response system that is federal government focused, and
the federal government seems quite eager to take up the responsibility. In the
name of ever-present threats of natural disaster and terrorism, the federal gov-
ernment could tip the fundamental federal relationship into a decidedly na-
tional government focus with impacts far beyond the realm of emergency
preparedness and response.
Although NIMS failed to deliver on its promise, its basic rhetoric is sound,
focusing on the collaborative relationships essential in the intergovernmental

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 11

 Photograph by Aleta Kiefer
Type of Transformation
The basic disaster response system can become more
centralized under federal government control or become
more decentralized and involve more collaboration. Ei-
ther approach would require transformation of the cur-
rent system, but a more centralized approach could
jeopardize the basic federal relationship by making the
national government the overlord of all disaster response
with spillover effects into the broader state and national
relationships. Many experts in disaster response recog-
nize that this degree of centralization would hurt what
is currently good about the system and derail the needed
transformation toward more initiative and leadership in
disaster situations. Hence, a more centralized approach
environment, yet rhetoric and action can be two quite is the antithesis of the type of transformation needed for
different things, as demonstrated during the response to effective disaster response.
Hurricane Katrina. This begs the question of how the
rhetoric of collaboration present in NIMS can become Transformational Leadership
reality on the ground.Although Lester and Krejci lay out Transformational leadership offers a way to make the
the basic need for sound leadership to make this happen, needed change in organizations responding to disasters
the question remains as to how the necessary basic trans- and transform the intergovernmental relationships that
formation across governments and organizations can take seemed so confused during the Hurricane Katrina re-
place.What steps can be taken to transform NIMS into sponse. The changes needed within and across organiza-
the system that it promises to be?Who needs to take these tions will not simply happen: there must be leadership to
steps and how do they take them? make them. Otherwise, the changes prescribed in the
many reports and supported by many of the experts will
The Need to Transform remain buried in the reports.The result will be only in-
NIMS did not perform well during the Hurricane cremental changes when the basic response system needs
Katrina response.A large array of governmental and non- reordering.
governmental entities issued reports on the response to For transformational leadership to work, those at the
Hurricane Katrina.Three particularly telling ones are A top of the command structure (elected and unelected)
Failure of Initiative from the U.S. House of Representa- must be committed to the transformation. This means
tives, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared issued that the president, governors, Congress, and state legisla-
by the U.S. Senate, and The Federal Response to Hurricane tures must be on board. Otherwise, the important proce-
Katrina: Lessons Learned from the White House. Each dures and decisions will be hammered out while the
takes the position that change in how disaster response disaster unfolds.This is precisely why federalism matters
organizations function is necessary.Words like “initiative” in this context.The leadership of the various governments
and “transformation” appear throughout the text, and al- involved will want to exercise their authority during
though they differ in prescriptions, the basic acknowl- these situations. Tough issues of collaboration and au-
edgment is the need to transform the current system. thority must be covered beforehand and not glossed over
in exercises that make things appear to run well. The
needed transformation of these organizations must be in-
tentional and led by those in authority if it is to succeed.

William Lester is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Sci- The System
ence and Public Administration at Jacksonville State University. He is a Civ-
NIMS was designed to coordinate disaster response
itas Scholar with research interests in organizational theory, intergovernmental
relationships, leadership studies, ethics, and public personnel. He can be reached within and across governments. The NIMS documents
at wlester@jsu.edu. use terms like “joint” and “collaborative” throughout. So

12 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
long as NIMS lives up to its rhetoric, it can be an impor- Figure 1. Implementation Model
tant vehicle for transforming organizations and organiza- for Transformative Leadership
tional relationships. However, in the Hurricane Katrina
disaster, NIMS did not live up to its rhetoric because it
dodged basic questions of authority and leadership. If
NIMS avoids becoming a vehicle for federal government
domination, it can be central to transformation.

Making NIMS Work through Transformation

Applying transformational leadership to NIMS will
take changes that include elected officials, appointed offi-
cials, and careerists.Transformational leadership must be
exercised at every level, but it must receive support from
the top levels of federal and state government. Once top-
level leadership is committed, it must communicate the
idea of transforming throughout the organization. First,
the national and state governments must see themselves
as a team and not as competitors.The team must have a
shared vision and mission, which requires a changed
mindset when it comes to authority and resources.This
will take more than just the nice rhetoric found in NIMS.
The national government must realize that a decen-
tralized approach allows for the initiative necessary for
better response. It also allows for a better use of state and
local resources through collaboration. On the other side
of the ledger, the state governments must allow the fed-
eral government great latitude when operating in a dis-
aster environment. The national government, through
the president, must recognize that it will provide needed
resources to be directed by the state government in the
event of an emergency. On the other hand, the state gov-
ernment must allow the federal agencies a large level of
authority and autonomy when operating in a crisis.
NIMS has done much of the organizational work.
Next, organizational culture must change—substan-
tially at times. Leadership is essential to fostering this
change. Once leadership is on board, the question of im-
plementing transformational change is front and center.
Essential Points for Transformation
The transformational model (Figure 1) is derived
from a basic model developed by others, with important
changes.
First, the poor response to Hurricane Katrina force-
fully challenged the current process of disaster response
and opened the door for the consideration of systemic
change. Certainly, the various official reports mentioned
Source: Kouzes and Posner (1987) as found in Van Wart (2005).
earlier point toward an understanding of the need for
change.
Second, a common purpose must be formed, but
not mandated, from above. To share the vision, the
process of vision development must be shared as well.
This necessitates work within and across organizations
and governments. Involvement of organizational mem-
bers in vision development allows leadership to intro-
duce the basic parameters for discussion, but this
discussion must be more than just a “smokescreen” for
predetermined outcomes. Basic ideas derived from lead-
ership should be in place, but they must be open to fur-
ther development and adjustment. The vision and
mission is to have the best disaster response possible for
the people of the United States through the collabora-
tion of governments and their associated organizations.
Next, it is vital that the executive leaders of each
government, along with the respective legislative
branches, grant others the authority to act. Likewise,
within specific organizations, public managers must rec-
ognize that subordinates will also need more authority to
act. During the Hurricane Katrina response, instances
arose where government organizations—and the people

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 13

who make up these organizations—did not act because
they did not believe they were authorized to do so or
because the event did not fit into any standard proce-
dure. Trucks filled with ice stranded on the side of the
road because they had no “tasker” number come to mind
as an instance where someone with authority should
have been able to act on the larger mission goals of dis-
aster relief. In many organizations, delegating this au-
thority will require changed attitudes toward
empowering associates to act, particularly in the absence
of guidance in standard operating procedures.This abil-
ity to act independently and with initiative is especially
important in disaster situations where breakdowns in
communication are common.
A transformational leader sees others in the organiza-
tion as being capable of independence and initiative in
fulfilling the organizational purpose of disaster response.
This is not advocating organizational members behaving
as “loose cannons,” but rather a well-trained, collabora-
tively structured organization where members have shared
in the development of the organizational vision and goals.
This allows leadership to have confidence in implemen-
tation of the basic organizational mission. Achieving this
confidence will not be cheap: it will require the alloca-
tion of significant resources for adequate training.The U.S.
military has achieved much of its success due to superior
training. Members of a unit understand their roles and can
function if part of their organizational structure is dam-
aged. Just as a sergeant keeps going toward the mission
objective when a lieutenant is killed or incapacitated,
emergency responders need to be able to press on with
the basic goals even without standard leadership in place.
National, state, and local officials will need to receive train-
ing that is collaborative, coordinated, and intergovern-
mental.
All relevant state officials (governors cannot opt out),
department heads, and agency leaders must be involved
in comprehensive training and exercises.Training, joint
operations, and internships should be intergovernmental.
Interagency or interdepartmental internships are neces-
sary for a broader diffusion of mission and vision along
with technical expertise that crosses governmental or-
ganizations. Legal constraints or traditions standing in
the way should be abolished to streamline intergovern-
mental cooperation.This will take leadership on the part
of the president, governors, Congress, and state legisla-
tures to establish and fund the mechanisms for main-
taining collaborative structures. Still, it is a basic change
14 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
in mindset that is probably most important for over-
coming the barriers to collaboration.
Before Katrina, agreements like NIMS abounded,
which were not backed up with changed attitudes, val-
ues, and capabilities.Although the agreements are good
in and of themselves, it takes real changes in attitudes,
beliefs, and behaviors to transform. These real changes
demonstrate and model the way to transform the intra-
and intergovernmental relationships. If leadership really
believes the rhetoric of transformation and initiative, it
has an impact in changed behavior toward the public and
organizational subordinates. The modeling of trans-
formed behavior does a great deal to make change.
The transformation is institutionalized once the
process has been challenged, a common vision has been
developed and shared, others have been empowered to
act on the vision (mission), and leadership actually mod-
els the appropriate behaviors. Institutionalization of the
changes means that the practices have become a part of
a well-established system: the organizations and their
members have learned the new lessons and practices to
the degree that they are internalized and part of the way
things are now accomplished. On the other hand, this
new way of thinking and collaborating needs to institu-
tionalize the understanding of the need to constantly ad-
just the system to improve disaster response.
NIMS Positioned for Transformation
NIMS has the potential to bring all the preceding
points to life. The system exists and has the proper ter-
minology already, but the test will be whether it is
wielded properly. NIMS can be used as a tool for national
government domination, or it can live up to its promise
as a system that encourages collaboration. NIMS offers a
forum for the various government organizations to de-
velop the relationships and procedures necessary for true
collaboration. However, it cannot continue to dodge the
basic questions of authority and leadership by conduct-
ing exercises that are not all-inclusive and skirt these
questions. Still, NIMS is currently in place, and if prop-
erly positioned and used, it can aid in transforming the re-
lationships between and within governments to improve
the disaster response system.
NIMS and Evaluation
Although NIMS can help to bring about transfor-
mation, once transformative thinking and processes are
in place, they must be evaluated. If the transformation of
organizations is to succeed, it must be demonstrably bet-
ter than its predecessor.While implementation is ongo-
ing, intervening and moderating variables come to bear
on the process (Figure 1), including the on-the-ground
sense of the effectiveness of the changed environment.
This is the perception of those involved in the transfor-
mative process, but it is more than that.The perceptions
can affect and change the transformative behaviors.
Openness to this course correction is a hallmark of trans-
formational leadership.
While all of the challenging, inspiring, enabling,
modeling, and institutionalizing is occurring, those in-
volved in the work in the field need a voice in the
process.This certainly includes governmental and non-
governmental organizations as well as citizens affected
by the transformative behaviors.This intervening variable
is vitally important for success and should be present.
There can be no shared vision without the constant pres-
sure from this intervening variable. If something is not
effective, it needs to be revisited while it is in process
before the more official evaluations.
The ability to employ transformative practices is a
moderating variable (Figure 1). All transformative prac-
tices (challenging, inspiring, enabling, modeling, and in-
stitutionalization) will be tempered by whether or not
the new way of thinking and acting is apparent from the
top of government. The changes must be properly
funded, and as stated earlier, NIMS or a NIMS-like struc-
ture must be in place to marshal all of this transformation
into an organized structure. The rhetoric is nice, but it
must be backed up by action. Otherwise, the transforma-
tive process is moderated and possibly marginalized.
The model for transformational leadership comes
down to performance after the process is instituted and
course corrected by the intervening and moderating
variables. Is the product (good disaster response) pro-
cured in an efficient and capable way? The results of
well-developed and all-inclusive training exercises along-
side real-world application during disasters can be stud-
ied to see whether the product is effectively and
efficiently delivered. NIMS can be used to examine these
training exercises and real-world experiences to deter-
mine whether more adjustments are needed.
Next, are those involved in the process satisfied with
the results? Do the organizational members feel that they
have improved due to the new regime? For transforma-
tional leadership to work, those involved must feel em-
powered to affect the system for the better.The changed
mindset that allows people to work better within the or-
ganization and across organizations must be internalized.
This happens only with satisfied and involved organiza-
tional members. Surveys, focus groups, after-event re-
ports, and other options can be used to gauge this area.
Again, NIMS provides a good system for feedback.
Have the organizational systems actually changed?
A new structure and new procedures should have be-
come routine. Pre- and post-examinations of the organ-
ization can ascertain the extent of real organizational
change. NIMS can aid by encouraging examination of
changed organizations.
The Personnel Function
The process of transformation must reach out to
current organizational members, but also must recruit
like-minded individuals. Individuals that will not work
collaboratively or continually try to forestall the process
have to be dealt with in a careful, yet timely, manner
(ranging from more aggressive training, to reassignment,
or even to termination). The training and retraining of
organizational members is vital to success. Hiring, firing,
and discipline of members can be used to shape the or-
ganization. A certain mindset is necessary for transfor-
mation and continual transformation toward the overall
mission of better disaster response across governments.
Ultimately, this transformation will result in a changed
organizational culture.The personnel function is a basic
way to encourage this change.
Conclusion
The significance of leadership—expressly, transfor-
mational leadership—is an important addition to the
conversation about improving disaster response. Trans-
formational leadership offers a means for achieving an
improved disaster response mechanism while respecting
federalism. With NIMS already in place and with the
language of collaboration and initiative already part of
its rhetoric, it provides a particularly interesting system
for accomplishing the goal of real improvement. If lead-
ership supports NIMS, real change can occur. Absent a
commitment from leadership, NIMS will likely just be-
come a tool of the federal government to attempt fed-
eral domination.
However, NIMS has the potential to effect real
transformation to do a great deal of public good. Public
managers at all levels of disaster response, and those who
only tangentially affect it, must receive encouragement
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 15

from leadership to transform. However, the real work
will be done at the managerial level as the changes are
discussed and implemented. Public managers in disaster
response are leaders and must be involved.Without their
involvement, the call to transform and initiate actions
post-Katrina will remain buried in reports, and the next
disaster will find us less prepared than needed and with-
out having learned and applied the lessons so clearly
written on the shores of the Gulf Coast.
Lester, William, and Dan Krejci. “Business ‘Not’ as Usual:
The National Incident Management System (NIMS), Feder-
alism, and Leadership.” Public Administration Review, Spe-
cial Issue on Lessons from Katrina, December 2007
(forthcoming).
Van Wart, Montgomery. Dynamics of Leadership in Public
Service: Theory and Practice (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,
2005).
Waugh, William L. Jr., and Gregory Streib. “Collaboration
and Leadership for Effective Emergency Management.”
Public Administration Review, Vol. 66, No. 6 (supplement),
pp. 131–40.

References
Bass, Bernard M., and Bruce J. Avolio, eds. Improving Organi-
zational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership
(Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc., 1994).
Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Chal-
lenge: How to Get Extraordinary Things Done in Organiza-
tions (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).
Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

Revitalizing Emergency
Management after Katrina
by R. Steven Daniels A recent survey of emer-
n the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the federal government gency managers urges

I and the State of Mississippi issued several reports criticizing and recom-
mending improvements to federal and state disaster response. Common
themes included the following:
improved response, plan-
ning, and leadership and
a reinvigorated FEMA—
✦ Accurate forecasts prevented further loss of life.
✦ All levels of government understood the potential consequences of a the federal government
large-scale hurricane on the Gulf Coast. has responded by making
✦ All levels of government were unprepared for a disaster so large.
most of the recom-
✦ The state and local infrastructure—including flood protection, law
enforcement, human services, emergency response, and medical care— mended changes.
was inadequate for the scope of the disaster.
✦ Response plans at all levels of government were inadequate for the
scope of the disaster.
✦ All levels of government failed to execute existing response plans
effectively.
✦ Massive communications failures undermined coordination.
✦ Lack of training, communication, and situational awareness undermined
command and control.
✦ Military assistance was invaluable, but uncoordinated.

16 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG

In general, the federal reports recommended a
stronger focus on comprehensive emergency manage-
ment; improved coordination through a national emer-
gency operations center (EOC), regional strike teams, and
interagency planning; better communications interoper-
ability; greater commitment at all levels to the national
emergency management system; better training and pro-
fessional development at all levels; more comprehensive
community preparedness; and more thorough planning
for catastrophic disasters.The Mississippi report also em-
phasized smart growth and recognition of the long-term
consequences of economic development decisions.
Did the events of August and September 2005 lead the
emergency management community to reexamine the
way it thought about and planned for catastrophic disaster?
The author devised an online survey, the International As-
sociation of Emergency Managers (IAEM)–National
Emergency Management Association (NEMA) Emer-
gency Management Survey, to examine these questions.
IAEM-NEMA Survey
The survey examined “catastrophic disasters” from
the perspective of local and state emergency managers.A
catastrophic disaster is an “event having unprecedented
levels of damage, casualties, dislocation, and disruption
that would have nationwide consequences and jeopard-
ize national security.”The survey asked emergency man-
agers to explore four themes: the most likely catastrophic
disasters in their political jurisdictions, the effectiveness
of their political jurisdiction’s emergency operations plan
(EOP), the causes of the policy failures of Hurricane Ka-
trina, and suggested improvements for the director of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The author administered the survey to IAEM mem-
bers and fifty-four state and territorial emergency man-
agement directors in early 2006. Despite a low response
rate (3 percent), the survey reached all ten FEMA re-
gions, thirty-five states and territories (65 percent),
eighty-five counties (3 percent), and four Canadian
provinces and one Australian state.The political jurisdic-
tions (states and counties) in the survey represented 26
percent of the U.S. population.
R. Steven Daniels is professor of public policy and administration at Cali-
fornia State University, Bakersfield. For further information, he may be con-
tacted by e-mail at rdaniels@csub.edu.
Photograph by Aleta Kiefer
Catastrophic Disasters
Since September 11, 2001, terrorism and homeland
security have largely overshadowed disaster assistance in
federal emergency management.Although comprehen-
sive emergency management includes homeland secu-
rity and national preparedness, national security issues
have dominated priorities and resources for disaster as-
sistance throughout FEMA’s history. In contrast, the state
and local emergency managers in the survey clearly do
not rate terrorism as the most likely type of catastrophic
disaster to confront their political jurisdiction (Figure 1).
The disasters ranked as most likely were flooding (67
percent listed flooding as first to fifth most likely), tor-
nadoes and associated storms (58 percent), winter storms
(50 percent), wildfires (46 percent), and chemical acci-
dents (41 percent).The different forms of terrorism only
received 5 to 9 percent of the responses.
In addition, the relative rankings of likely cata-
strophic disasters across the ten FEMA regions varied
greatly. Flooding influenced every region.Winter storms
rated highly in New England and the Mid-Atlantic; tor-
nadoes in four Midwestern and Southern regions; hur-
ricanes in the Southeast and the Caribbean; terrorism
and riots/civil disturbances in the DC region; and wild-
fires and earthquakes in the West.
Local and State Preparation
The survey also examined the thoroughness and clar-
ity of local and state EOPs and the vulnerability of local
and state EOCs. Using standards developed by David
Alexander, they assessed four dimensions of their jurisdic-
tion’s EOP in sixteen areas: clarity, simplicity, and profes-
sional development (three); completeness (ten); vulner-
ability of the EOC (one); and the presence of a sufficient
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 17
 Percentage Ranked Top Five Most Likely Figure 1. Ratings of Disaster Likelihood

80.0
66.7
57.7
60.0
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45.9
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23.4 20.7
18.9
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Torn

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number of personnel in local and state emergency man- gency managers largely blamed poor economic devel-
agement agencies (two). In general, state and local emer- opment and mitigation decisions by local and state gov-
gency managers believed their local plans were clear, ernments (68 percent) and inadequate state and local
simple, and professionally developed (72 percent). They leadership and response (66 percent). Fewer respondents
were less confident in the completeness of the plans (60 criticized inadequate FEMA leadership and response (33
percent).Their greatest concerns involved the adequacy of percent) or believed that the response was effective or
resources for catastrophic disasters,existence of an adequate the disaster too large for adequate response (18 percent).
mass evacuation plan, and use of a full resource audit to The survey also allowed respondents to answer freely.
prepare the plan. More than half believed their EOC to be The most commonly cited causes of the ineffective gov-
vulnerable to catastrophic disaster. Nearly 80 percent be- ernmental response were inadequate response, recovery,
lieved their local and state agencies to be understaffed. execution, and communication (44 percent); inadequate
planning, mitigation, and preparedness (42 percent); poor
Effectiveness of Katrina Response leadership at all levels of government (30 percent); and
Survey respondents also evaluated the effectiveness poor intergovernmental coordination (21 percent). Sev-
of the government response to Hurricane Katrina.The eral state, local, and private emergency management pro-
survey asked respondents to agree or disagree on a five- fessionals cited one or more of these factors in their
point scale with ten statements on four dimensions: analysis of the adequacy or inadequacy of governmental
flawed mitigation procedures and economic develop- response. At least one official placed the blame directly
ment decisions (four); inadequate state and local leader- on a failure to educate the public about the responsibil-
ship and response (two); inadequate FEMA leadership ities of emergency management.
and response (two); and a dimension combining respon-
dents who believed that the response was effective with Revitalizing Federal Emergency Management
those who believed the scope of the disaster was too What solutions did emergency managers suggest to
large for effective response (two). State and local emer- revitalize federal emergency management? The survey

18 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
asked state and local emergency managers to agree or
disagree on a five-point scale with fourteen potential
changes in federal emergency management organization
and policy that made up five dimensions: refocusing
FEMA on comprehensive emergency management and
restoring the direct link to the president (five); refocus-
ing emergency management responsibility on state and
local government (two); recognizing the limitations of
government response (one); centralizing federal emer-
gency management (four); and abolishing FEMA and
separating the four emergency management functions
(two).
The majority of respondents recommended refo-
cusing FEMA on comprehensive emergency manage-
ment and reestablishing the direct link to the president
(87 percent) or refocusing emergency management re-
sponsibility on state and local government (59 percent).
Few respondents said government could do little to
manage catastrophic disasters (34 percent), the federal
government should centralize emergency management
(19 percent), or FEMA should be abolished and its func-
tions separated (14 percent).
To identify specific recommendations, the survey
asked respondents to place themselves in the role of
FEMA director and note the key changes they would
make to improve agency performance and achieve the
agency’s goals. At least 20 percent of respondents made
six broad recommendations:
✦ Separate emergency management and homeland
security: 33.3 percent
✦ Recruit expertise and experience: 32.1 percent
✦ Restructure and re-fund FEMA: 27.4 percent
✦ Improve intergovernmental coordination: 23.8
percent
✦ Focus on comprehensive emergency management:
23.8 percent
✦ Improve preparedness and training: 21.4 percent.
Recommendations
State, local, nonprofit, and private emergency man-
agement professionals identified several key issues and
made several implicit and explicit recommendations for
the improvement of federal emergency management
throughout the survey:
✦ Recognize and develop comprehensive emergency
management plans for the most likely types of cat-
astrophic disasters: flooding, tornadoes, winter
storms, fires, and chemical accidents.
✦ Recognize and implement plans for clear regional
variations in likely catastrophes.
✦ Improve EOPs to ensure adequate resources for
catastrophic disaster, regular mechanisms for audit-
ing those resources, and comprehensive mass evac-
uation plans.
✦ Evaluate EOCs for vulnerability to catastrophe.
✦ Foster local and state economic development poli-
cies that manage effectively vulnerability to cata-
strophic disasters.
✦ Reestablish close linkages between the elected po-
litical leadership and emergency management ad-
ministrators and professionals.
✦ Improve catastrophic disaster planning, communi-
cation, coordination, and execution at all levels of
government.
✦ Make FEMA independent of the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), recruit experience and
expertise, improve coordination, shift focus back to
comprehensive emergency management, and im-
prove preparedness and training.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, emergency
management officials and elected politicians issued many
recommendations for the improvement of federal emer-
gency management. Most mirror the recommendations
and policy changes identified by the respondents to the
IAEM-NEMA survey. Several elected politicians spon-
sored or supported legislation to make FEMA inde-
pendent of DHS, establish a direct reporting line to the
president, or both. IAEM and NEMA lobbied exten-
sively to strengthen FEMA’s emergency management
authority, bring preparedness back into FEMA as part of
the comprehensive emergency management model, and
increase funding for and maintain the natural disaster
components of emergency management performance
grants.
After considerable debate, President Bush signed the
DHS appropriation.TitleVI of The Post-Katrina Emer-
gency Management Reform Act of 2006 sought to re-
structure federal emergency management generally, and
FEMA specifically.To answer the criticisms arising from
the failures of governmental performance during Hur-
ricane Katrina, the act does the following:
✦ Transfers preparedness functions back into a re-
structured FEMA.
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 19
✦ Requires FEMA “to lead and support efforts to re-
duce the loss of life and property and protect the
nation from all hazards through a risk-based system
that focuses on expanded [comprehensive emer-
gency management] CEM components.” The ex-
panded concept of CEM includes “protection.”
✦ Grants FEMA independent status within DHS,
similar to the Coast Guard and Secret Service.
✦ Prohibits the secretary of DHS from separating or
transferring FEMA functions or resources and re-
quires the secretary to follow statutory appropria-
tions requirements when allocating funding to
FEMA.
✦ Gives the FEMA administrator (formerly director)
the rank of Deputy Secretary of DHS, reporting
directly to the president, Homeland Security
Council, and Secretary of DHS; possibly receiving
cabinet position status during a national emer-
gency; and requiring emergency management or
homeland security experience (although the White
House has contested the limitation on presidential
appointment power).
✦ Allows FEMA up to four deputy administrators
appointed by the president and confirmed by the
Senate.
✦ Requires FEMA to develop and maintain robust
regional operations headed by regional administra-
tors who have extensive emergency management
and homeland security experience.
✦ Gives, for disaster response, the administrator
greater authority to preposition resources or uni-
laterally provide assistance without a state request.
✦ Requires appointment of a national advisory
council and ten regional advisory councils to pro-
vide state, local, nonprofit, and private expertise to
FEMA and its regional offices. Creates regional
strike teams to provide assistance during disasters.
✦ Creates a disability coordinator, a chief medical of-
ficer, and a small state and rural advocate.The ad-
ministrator appoints the first, the president (with
the advice of the Senate) chooses the second, and
the president selects the third.
✦ Makes changes to ensure greater flexibility in the
delivery of services and assistance during the re-
sponse and recovery phases of a declared disaster.
FEMA has begun to implement these initiatives
through the creation of a National Preparedness Direc-
20 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
torate and development of a Catastrophic Disaster Plan-
ning Initiative. In addition, in its fiscal year 2008 budget
request, it has begun the process of converting its short-
term response employees into permanent employees.
A comparison of the policy recommendations of the
five federal and state Hurricane Katrina reports, respon-
dents to the IAEM-NEMA 2006 survey, and actions
taken by Congress and the president suggests that the
president and Congress have listened.The Post-Katrina
Act has strengthened FEMA, reestablished the direct
linkage between the FEMA administrator and the pres-
ident, refocused the agency on comprehensive emer-
gency management, and recognized the importance of
regional differences in catastrophic disasters. The only
federal recommendation not implemented was the sep-
aration of FEMA from DHS. The actions taken to in-
crease the status of FEMA within DHS and reestablish
direct reporting lines to the president have achieved
much of the advantages associated with independence.
However, the Post-Katrina Act does little to ensure
that state and local jurisdictions make their EOPs more
comprehensive, retrofit their EOCs, and make economic
development decisions that promote comprehensive vul-
nerability management. These actions will require a
greater commitment from state and local elected officials
with support from the state and local emergency man-
agement community.
References
Alexander, David. “Towards the development of a standard in
emergency planning.” Disaster Prevention and Management,
Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 158–75.
Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and
Renewal. After Katrina: Building Back Better Than Ever.
December 31, 2005. hsgac.senate.gov/_files/Katrina/
BBBTE.pdf.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. Catastrophic disas-
ters: Enhanced leadership, capabilities, and accountability
controls will improve the effectiveness of the nation’s prepared-
ness, response, and recovery system, GAO-06-618,
September 2006. www.gao.gov/new.items/ d06618.pdf.
U.S. House of Representatives. A Failure of Initiative: The
Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investi-
gate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina.
Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation
for and Response to Hurricane Katrina (Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, February 15, 2006).
katrina.house.gov/full_katrina_report.htm.
U.S. Senate. Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared
(S. Rept. 109-322). Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office, May 2006). hsgac.senate.gov/_files/Katrina/
ExecSum.pdf.
 Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

Building Community Capacity

to Respond
by Naim Kapucu Shifting from the internally
focused Federal Response
he emergency management system in the United States is mainly de-

T signed to respond to major disasters. The programs and organizations

have been instituted in response to these disaster experiences, not to cre-
ate resilient communities that can respond to any kind of disaster. Catastrophic
Plan to a National Re-
sponse Plan requires
greater involvement of
disasters are characterized by unexpected or unusual size, disruptions to the com-
munication and decision-making capabilities of the emergency response system,
public, nonprofit, and pri-
and an initial breakdown in coordination and communication.The National Re- vate organizations as well
sponse Plan (NRP) notes that a catastrophic event “could result in sustained na- as citizen participation.
tional impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds
resources normally available to state, local, tribal, and private-sector authorities in
the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and
emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened.”
High performance in catastrophic disasters requires an ability to assess and
adapt capacity rapidly,restore or enhance disrupted or inadequate communications,
utilize uncharacteristically flexible decision making, and expand coordination and
trust of response agencies.These requirements are imposed on conventional bu-
reaucratic systems that rely on relatively rigid plans, exact decision protocols, and
formal relationships that assume uninterrupted communications.
Our response to catastrophic disasters clearly evidences the different stan-
dards expected of the public sector in the twenty-first century—whether those
standards were actually achieved in that event or not. Just as Hurricane Andrew
closed the century and a chapter in the history of catastrophic events in the
United States with the public’s demand for radically better public-sector per-
formance, 9/11 inaugurated expectations of new, substantially higher standards,
while simultaneously exemplifying the incredible complexity of successfully man-
aging the panoply of catastrophic disasters in the future. The Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), created in response to 9/11, has inherited these chal-
lenging expectations, which include the facilitation of a partnership of govern-
ment, private, and nonprofit organizations as well as citizens. Catastrophic disasters
require complex interactions of multiple-sector organizations in multiple juris-
dictions. These interactions cannot simply be accomplished by investing in cat-
astrophic planning. Local community capacity building is critical for successful
responses to disasters.

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 21

 Photograph by Aleta Kiefer
and decision systems are severely damaged and co-
ordination is either absent or simply overwhelmed
initially.

Performance in Managing Disasters

At an abstract level, catastrophic disasters have the
same pattern that typify all emergencies and form the
basis of the all-hazards approach: mitigation, prepared-
ness, response, and recovery. In addition, catastrophic dis-
asters share a common set of four routine functionalities
that must be in place for optimum performance in all
response and recovery phases:
✦ An established plan and system.The most obvious,
for example, the thousands of car accidents that
Catastrophic and Routine Disasters occur daily must be handled efficiently with pre-
Emergencies come in different sizes: the top level is arranged protocols, extensive training, and interor-
often called a major disaster, catastrophic disaster, or ex- ganizational agreements.
treme event. Catastrophic disasters are occurrences that ✦ Good communication and proper use of information
are notable, rare, unique, severe, and profound in terms of technologies.The success of emergency functions
their impact, effects, or outcomes.They generally affect depends on these factors.A highly successful ex-
the natural, social, and human systems simultaneously, ample has been the introduction of tornado sirens
whether the “triggering event” is natural or human- and TV-radio warnings for hurricanes in the
made. Although catastrophic disasters are a class of emer- United States in the twentieth century.
gencies and share commonalities with them, they are also ✦ Prearranged decision protocols.When emergencies
distinct in four important ways: occur, timeliness is always critical to save lives, help
✦ They are unpredictable and often quite unex- victims, and prevent further damage. Emergency
pected. Ironically, routine emergencies are predica- workers need to react as quickly as possible, only
ble and fit well into bureaucratized management thinking about the type or class of emergency that
protocols that increase the speed and quality of re- applies and then implementing the much-
sponses, while minimizing expenses. However, re- rehearsed decision protocol involving who does
sponses in catastrophic events substantially deviate what, how, and under what conditions.
from conventional emergency plans or protocols ✦ Formalized cooperation and effective boundary-spanning
because of the size or uniqueness of the event. agencies. Early on, the American Red Cross came
✦ They disrupt normal communications channels, into existence as a volunteer response organization
such as telecommunications and information tech- that built up stocks of resources and great expertise
nology infrastructures, yet routine operations as in attending to the victims of disasters.Today, it is
well as data collection for decision making depend an official part of the NRP and the only nonfed-
on a stable communication system. eral agency with agency status.
✦ They disrupt decision making, even as the need for
important decisions increases because the distinc- High Performance in Managing
tiveness or magnitude of the event causes special Catastrophic Disasters
threats and unusual needs. While catastrophic disasters rely on these emergency
✦ Their scale requires the intricate cooperation of management basics, their very nature demands special,
hundreds of organizations, just as communication sometimes crosscutting, requirements. First, there is a
profound need to adapt and expand capacity as quickly as
Naim Kapucu, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of public ad- possible. Agency leaders must rapidly assess the emer-
ministration at the University of Central Florida. His research focuses on col- gency need and often their own agency’s capacities that
laborative emergency management and network leadership and governance. may have been damaged or diminished by the event.
He can be reached at nkapucu@mail.ucf.edu.

22 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Further, they must assess the appropriateness of formal
plans because of the inherent uniqueness of extreme
events that invariably call for adaptation.
Second, catastrophic events require leaders to restore
communication systems that have been disrupted or be-
come overwhelmed because of unusual load. Public
managers must know what redundant communication
systems are available and deploy them quickly.
Third, the need for flexible decision making and inno-
vation means that the emergency plan must be amended
on the fly and both plans of actions and functional rela-
tionships must be adjusted. Catastrophic events often re-
quire so many decisions, under such adverse conditions,
that important decisions must often be made at lower
levels because of the disruptions.
Fourth, coordination and trust are major compo-
nents of a resilient emergency system in a catastrophic
event. Because of the size and disruption of catastrophic
events, they require a dramatic increase in the amount of co-
ordination of the helping agencies within and across sec-
tors. Not only is this logistically challenging, but it is
psychologically demanding as well to work with many
unknown partners and sometimes even “rival” agencies
in trusting ways without the normal ability to develop
and hone relationships and agreements.
Community Capacity Building
In catastrophic disasters, the expectations change.Al-
though throughout much of the catastrophic disaster,
routine elements may continue to be the operational
ideal, an additional model of functionality must be su-
perimposed on the catastrophic disaster.Thus, in a cata-
strophic disaster, much of the time hundreds of agencies
do their business in traditional ways, following predisas-
ter contingency plans, communicating routinely, imple-
menting standard decision protocols, and interacting with
familiar partner organizations. At the same time, the dra-
matic spike in need, disruptions of all types, unique prob-
lems, and need to interact with new partners or old
partners in new ways change the way work is done, in-
crease the complexity of decision making, and vastly in-
crease the pressure on communication systems, despite
their reduced capacity. These and other challenges caused
by catastrophic disasters require significant investments in
community capacity building before any disaster happens.
Community capacity building refers to the means
by which a community can tap into its own strengths
and abilities rather than being overwhelmed by prob-
lems or feelings of powerlessness. Capacity building is
not likely unless the community has the assets to begin
with and the will to mobilize them. Communities are
never built from the top down or the outside in. The
community mobilizes its capacity to bring about change
by mustering its strengths into action.
Community capacity building networks are estab-
lished to increase “social capital” to enable societies to
deal with variety of social problems, including disasters
and emergencies. When a community mobilizes its re-
sources and abilities to address and solve its own prob-
lems, more efficient and effective results can be
materialized. Several key components are required for ef-
fective community mobilization: a shared vision, a com-
mon understanding of the problem, leadership, and
collaborative partnerships, community participation, and
sustainability.
Florida Partnership Model
According to the International City/County Man-
agement Association, the partnership model the State of
Florida developed to assist disaster-stricken communi-
ties during and after disasters is a good example. A crit-
ical element in both community capacity building and
mobilization is the leadership required to bring the key
players together, capture their imagination, and energize
them to action. Such leadership in community capacity
building need not come from established hierarchies, but
can emerge from the community itself. In response to
Hurricane Katrina, several studies concluded that the re-
sponse operations by the faith-based initiatives and vol-
unteer organizations were much faster and more
effective than the federal government response.
In the U.S. disaster management system, local gov-
ernments are responsible primarily for mitigating,
preparing for, responding to, and recovering from emer-
gencies and disasters. The NRP and National Incident
Management System (NIMS) require a more coordi-
nated response to human-made or natural disasters. All
jurisdictions should build community capacity at the
local level, including tribal authorities and private and
nonprofit agencies. Local communities have the re-
sources for developing community capacities in response
to disasters, but it requires developing a shared vision of
local vulnerabilities and potential solutions as well as en-
couraging the participation of diverse groups in collab-
orative activities.
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 23
 Currently, the receipt of federal assistance is tied to
NIMS. States are supposed to meet a minimal level of
preparedness before receiving funds, but many local gov-
ernments complain that they are not receiving needed
federal assistance. The current national response system
was not well understood at all levels of government dur-
ing the hurricanes of 2005. The U.S. Government Ac-
countability Office (GAO) report on Hurricane Katrina
regarding preparedness, response, and recovery noted that
communication and coordination among first respon-
ders was lacking, despite previous recommendations in
2003–04 GAO reports. Besides technology, handling
communication and coordination begins with develop-
ing relationships, and preexisting trust is vital for effec-
tive coordination.
Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane
Planning Project
Building relationships among emergency responders
through training and exercises is critical. GAO notes that
although the NRP assumes a proactive national response,
it does not provide detailed delineated plans. State and
local governments must have these plans and practice
them to ensure that they have a clear idea of what will
be required in a disaster, how much assistance will be
needed, and how it will be coordinated.
In 2004–05, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, with a private company, conducted the “Hurri-
cane Pam” exercise along with several parishes in
Louisiana.This was part of the Southeast Louisiana Cat-
astrophic Hurricane Planning Project, an effort to ad-
dress complexities in responding to a hurricane. This
exercise identified likely impacts in the event of a cate-
gory 3 hurricane, as well as capabilities that would be
needed, such as disposing of large amounts of debris and
providing shelters for thousands of evacuees. It involved
more than three hundred federal, state, and local gov-
ernment employees, including responders and planners.
However, many lessons learned during this exercise were
not implemented during Hurricane Katrina.
Effective emergency management must come from
the bottom up, and state and local governments must
take responsibility. The NRP provides a structure in
which local governments must be prepared to sustain
themselves for up to seventy-two hours before federal
aid can reach the disaster area. If a local government
needs assistance in preparation or response to a disaster,
it has the responsibility to request assistance from the
state government. In the event that a state government
24 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
needs assistance, it must request such assistance ahead of
time from the federal government.
Harris County
The NRP proposes a large-scale response system
comprising various federal agencies and departments and
the American Red Cross, but response operations also
include state and local public agencies, private, and non-
profit organizations. These emergency response teams
working in different jurisdictions and sectors need to be
linked by common information technology and a uni-
fied culture. Most often, in a large-scale disaster response,
responding organizations have not met or worked to-
gether before. Moreover, response at the beginning of a
disaster is loose and chaotic, an environment that can
cause major problems and detract from performance.The
response organizations come together in response to a
shared risk from a natural or human-made disaster.Their
success depends on the actors’ ability to interact, share
information, and work together. Increasing citizen in-
volvement can help develop a culture of preparedness
among individual citizens.
The recent examples of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
demonstrate that the lack of investment in and commit-
ment to citizen preparedness and participation con-
tributed to the prolonged suffering of the individuals
affected by the hurricanes and slowed response and re-
covery efforts. In addition, the response to these hurri-
canes demonstrates the need for volunteer surge capacity
to meet the response demands of a catastrophic event.
Harris County, Texas, offers an example of citizen
preparedness and participation. During the challenging
post-landfall days, the Harris County Citizen Corps
clearly demonstrated the power of advanced planning
and collaboration in working in partnership with citi-
zens and nongovernmental entities during a crisis.Thou-
sands of volunteers mobilized overnight to assist in
processing more than sixty-five thousand New Orleans
evacuees at the Houston Astrodome complex. Emer-
gency managers executed standby contracts swiftly and
efficiently, and volunteers fanned out to fully evacuate
Houston’s neighborhoods when Hurricane Rita proved
an imminent threat to the area. The outstanding per-
formance of the exceptionally large volunteer base
proved the value of advanced planning and training. In
addition, more than fourteen thousand Citizen Corps
volunteers in all fifty states and the District of Colum-
bia were involved in response and recovery efforts fol-
lowing Hurricane Katrina.
Conclusion
In the past, emergency management has largely
bounced back and forth between overinflated civil de-
fense or fire management systems and has been poorly
integrated among the various levels of government as
well as the nonprofit, private, and public sectors. Inter-
sectorial and interorganizational partnerships are an es-
pecially critical task for all public safety and emergency
management officials.This is even more important today,
with the move from the more internally focused Federal
Response Plan to the NRP, which requires greater verti-
cal and horizontal communication and private-sector in-
volvement as well as citizen participation.
Managing catastrophic disasters requires excellent
contingency planning, interagency coordination, train-
ing, and up-to-date technology. High performance in
catastrophic disasters requires capacity assessment and
adaptation, special efforts to restore or enhance commu-
nication, flexible decision making, and an expansion of
coordination and goodwill among emergency agencies
and personnel. Finally, disasters are nonetheless social
phenomena, and catastrophic disasters by their nature re-
quire decentralized decision making and intensive
human interactions. Local adaptation of needs requires
an informal flexibility, so state and federal leadership
must be careful not to supplant or squash the local gov-
ernment and nonprofit leadership that performs the bulk
of relief and recovery efforts.
References
Drabek, Thomas. Strategies for Coordinating Disaster Re-
sponses (Boulder, CO: University of Colorado, Natural Re-
search and Applications Information Center, 2003).
International City/County Management Association (ICMA).
A Network Approach to Improvements in Emergency
Management. admin.icma.org.
Kapucu, Naim, and Montgomery Van Wart. “The Emerging
Role of the Public Sector in Managing Extreme Events:
Lessons Learned,” Administration & Society, Vol. 38, No. 3,
pp. 279–308.
McEntire, David. A. “Coordinating multi-organizational re-
sponses to disaster: lessons from the March 28, 2000, Fort
Worth Tornado.” Disaster Prevention and Management,
Vol. 11, No. 5, pp. 369–79.
Waugh, William L. Jr. Living with Hazards, Dealing with Disas-
ters: An Introduction to Emergency Management (Armonk,
NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000).

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 Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

Rebuilding the Parks of New Orleans

by Steven N. Waller Despite Katrina’s devasta-

tion, New Orleans is tak-
n 2005, before the August arrival of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans

I boasted one of the premier park systems in the nation.Then came Katrina,
enormously damaging the city’s parks and recreation resources. Planners
from multiple organizations involved in the process of rebuilding the parks
ing a unique opportunity
to create a functional
master plan for parks to
and recreation infrastructure recognize that parks and green spaces, recreational
areas, and shared community spaces are critical for residents wanting to re-
reclaim its place among
cover, reconnect, and rebuild their neighborhoods. the premier park systems
The saga of its gallant fight to recover from the storm testifies to the re- in the country.
silience of New Orleans and the healing role that parks can play in a time of
extraordinary psychological stress. No city in the country is in more need of
the physical and psychological benefits that parks can offer. Much remains in
ruins, and less than half of the pre-Katrina population of 485,000 has returned.
Many who did stay or returned are still suffering.According to a June 2006 re-
port in The NewYork Times,“New Orleans is experiencing what appears to be
a near epidemic of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, one that
mental health experts say is of an intensity rarely seen in this country.”

Hope for a Better Park System

Often, triumph emanates from tragedy and lessons learned serve as a
springboard to progress, improved planning efforts, and increased stewardship
of scarce resources. In a recent article at The Trust for Public Land (TPL) Web
site,“Parks for the New New Orleans,” one prominent citizen has the follow-
ing to say:

“
“New Orleans has been handed a unique and rare opportunity to utilize parks as
a catalyst for rebuilding our city,” said developer Joseph Canizaro, who also serves
on TPL's New Orleans Advisory Council, of which he was founding chair. “We
need to utilize every incentive that can be offered to stimulate our economic re-

”
covery. It has been proven time and time again, across the nation, that parks and
open space do exactly that.

In light of the tremendous amount of damage done to the city’s parks, city
officials and residents could only be hopeful about the development of a new
and improved system. More than eighteen months after revitalization efforts
began, many have watched and scrutinized plans for revamped parks in New

26 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Orleans.TPL, one such organization, has actively chron-
icled city efforts to revive its decimated park system.
Hurricane Katrina was unquestionably a disaster for
the city of New Orleans, but the rebuilding process pres-
ents unprecedented opportunities to create a model city
with a new park system as a unifying element. New Or-
leans has several unique urban parks—City Park and
Audubon Park, for example—that are centrally located,
but it does not have an abundance of neighborhood parks.
Therein lies an opportunity to build a park system that
systematically conjoins the city. In the midst of this mon-
umental rebuilding initiative, this value cannot be forgot-
ten. Major cities across the country have learned the value
of parks and are in various stages of retrofitting green space
into the urban fabric.Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, NewYork,
and Indianapolis are replacing dilapidated infrastructure
with new green space, parks, and trails.
In the same TPL article, Ron Sims, executive of
King County, Washington, and a staunch advocate of
park development in Puget Sound country commented:
“
“New Orleans has a great opportunity to create a model
city where people go and say,‘Wow, they did it right.’ Parks
are an essential part of the infrastructure. Good neighbor-
hoods have them and bad ones don’t. A great people
doesn’t rebuild past mistakes. New Orleans officials have
to have vision, a vision that promises people a better fu-
”
ture. And nothing enhances the value of the urban expe-
rience more than a walkable city with trails and parks.”
Alex Garvin, a principal with the New York City–
based planning firm Alex Garvin & Associates, makes the
case for park enhancement of property values in his
book, The American City:WhatWorks,What Doesn’t, but he
also emphasizes the health and utilitarian benefits of
parks, especially in New Orleans. “New Orleans is an
unusual city, and rebuilding has to pay attention to his-
torical conditions. But parks in flood-prone areas can be
useful,” he explains.“Boulder, Colorado, has a park that
floods every spring. It is designed to absorb water.When
the water recedes, the park goes back to being picnic
areas and ball fields.” He cites another example:
“Louisville’s waterfront park is designed to absorb over-
flow from the Ohio River. New Orleans can apply the
same concepts.”
Steven N.Waller, PhD, is an assistant professor in the recreation and leisure
studies program, Department of Exercise, Sport, and Leisure Studies, Uni-
versity of Tennessee. He can be reached at swaller2@utk.edu.
Case for More and Better Parks
To many New Orleans residents, creating parks was
a low priority in the midst of the damage and chaos,
where so many problems cried out for immediate atten-
tion. In the face of devastated neighborhoods, the con-
dition of parks quickly became a secondary priority. The
prudent decision on the part of government was to
choose levees before parks.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray
Nagin established the two-hundred-member Bring New
Orleans Back (BNOB) Commission to create a frame-
work for reconstruction.The commission’s goal was to
create a comprehensive master plan for rebuilding, con-
centrating on safety issues but also emphasizing aesthetic
elements, particularly parks and open spaces interwoven
throughout the city. One recommendation envisioned
new parks in flood-prone areas that would combine both
aesthetic and utilitarian functions. In these low-lying
areas, parks would incorporate cleverly landscaped canals
or reservoirs capable of handling storm water runoff.
The commission called for an evaluation of the es-
tablishment of healthy neighborhoods—meaning neigh-
borhoods with biking and walking paths, parks, and
playgrounds—but it also adopted a long-range perspec-
tive. Its mission was to create a master plan that went be-
yond repairing neighborhoods to restoring a world-class
city, and a hallmark of such cities is parks and open
spaces. In the “Parks and Open Space“ section of its
Urban Planning Final Report, the commissioners wrote,
“[W]e might remember to ask a question: If the city is
not also a beautiful and inspiring place, why would
someone choose to live there?”
The report noted that while New Orleans boasts the
large, nationally renowned Audubon Park and City Park,
open space in most of the neighborhoods was nonexist-
ent or inadequate. During the rebuilding, the report rec-
ommended, open space should be added and
neighborhood connectivity achieved by thoughtful use
of the city’s “neutral grounds,” wide roadway medians
that could be used by pedestrians and cyclists and for
public transportation.The report also recommended in-
corporating canal rights-of-way into the park system. It
outlined potential sites for new parks in various districts
and identified specific areas within which property could
be acquired and parks created; citizen involvement
would determine the specific properties to be acquired.
The BNOB Commission enthusiastically endorsed
ongoing efforts to increase access to the Mississippi
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 27
River. New Orleans is a working port, and for centuries
public access to the river’s banks has been blocked by
loading docks and warehouses. Many in the downtown
area are no longer in use, however, and over recent
decades the city replaced such derelict structures with
the Moon Walk,Woldenberg Park, and Riverwalk, cre-
ating a pleasant open space along the river from Canal
Street to Esplanade Avenue. The riverfront park has al-
ready stimulated significant investment activity. Samuel &
Company, a major Miami-based developer, is far along in
negotiations with Entergy, the New Orleans electric
power company, to purchase an abandoned power plant
next to the proposed park. The combined cost of this
new development is an estimated $50 million.
Jump-Starting Unified Planning
In a September 2006 report, New Orleans: Planning
for a Better Future, the Rockefeller Foundation under-
scores the need for a unified planning effort to move
New Orleans forward. Lacking in New Orleans was a
force that would bring all the disparate parts together.
The mayor’s office, city council, and Louisiana Recovery
Authority (LRA) each had its own priorities, its own vi-
sion of the future.The visions often did not mesh, the in-
clination to accommodate was missing, and people were
entrenched in their positions.
In January 2006, the Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency notified Mayor Nagin that it would not
provide the funds necessary to underwrite the planning
process. Given the lack of public resources, the mayor,
his commission, and many local leaders began to recog-
nize the urgent need for some sort of private assistance
to advance the process. In late March, the LRA—in co-
ordination with the Greater New Orleans Foundation
(GNOF), an established community group—invited the
Rockefeller Foundation’s director of domestic programs,
Darren Walker, to New Orleans to discuss the possibil-
ity of funding assistance.Walker accepted the invitation
to the meeting, with the proviso that it be an inclusive
gathering, one that would be attended by key players
across the spectrum: representatives of the governor’s and
mayor’s offices, local philanthropic groups, community
organizers, business leaders, and neighborhood ac-
tivists—a true reflection of the city’s diverse interests.
In late March, these constituents gathered in a con-
ference room in GNOF’s offices on the edge of down-
town New Orleans. From that meeting emerged two
elements that would jump-start the planning process and
28 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
focus efforts on a more comprehensive effort. First, a $3.5
million Rockefeller Foundation grant was made to
GNOF, which immediately triggered a grant from GNOF
itself for an additional $1 million, bringing to $4.5 million
the total committed to a new plan.Additional funding has
since been garnered to subsidize planning activities.
Technical Assistance
In light of the mammoth task of rebuilding the New
Orleans park infrastructure, several professional associa-
tions, including the American Institute of Architects
(AIA), American Planning Association (APA), Associa-
tion of Community Organizations for Reform Now
(ACORN), National Recreation and Park Association,
American Academy for Park and Recreation Adminis-
tration, and Urban Land Institute (ULI), have been en-
listed to assist with the task. Each of these premier
organizations has supported legislation for funding proj-
ects and has sent teams of consultants to conduct assess-
ments and develop planning documents that outline
strategic actions for the revitalization effort.
Community Participation
The APA’s report, Charting the Course for Rebuilding
a Great American City:An Assessment of the Planning Func-
tion in Post-Katrina New Orleans, recommended several
strategic modifications to aid in the facilitation of a
meaningful planning process. To ensure that the short-
term urgency of the rebuilding effort does not displace
the city’s long-term planning and development processes,
key completed elements of the city’s master plan should
be reviewed to ensure their relevance to the conditions
resulting from Katrina.Another recommendation was to
include the redevelopment strategy proposals as exam-
ined by community feedback.
To permit timely modifications to the rebuilding ef-
fort, BNOB and the City Planning Commission held a
short, intensive workshop (after completion of the
BNOB strategy framework and community feedback on
the strategy) to review land use in the master plan.The
workshop used the capabilities of APA, ULI, AIA, and
other consultant assistance acquired by the BNOB
Commission and was structured to encourage participa-
tion by community groups. It focused on the land-use
element but considered relevant aspects of the trans-
portation, parks, preservation, and economic develop-
ment. Potential modifications under consideration
included the following:
✦ Greater density, with mixed-use, mixed-income
development in appropriate locations, while ensur-
ing protection of existing neighborhoods
✦ Creation of a light-rail transit line connecting re-
built residential neighborhoods with downtown
employment centers and the airport
✦ Expanded parklands and greenways where rebuild-
ing is not desirable.
From the vantage point of citizens, the grassroots,
public interest group ACORN held several forums to
provide access for citizens into the master planning
process. ACORN’s July 2006 planning document, Re-
building after Katrina: ACORN Planning Principles, es-
pouses several key values and planning principles relative
to rebuilding the city’s park and recreation infrastructure.
According to ACORN, as the rebuilding process con-
tinues, every neighborhood is entitled to the following,
as planning and resources dictate:
✦ Access to nearby public parks
✦ A diversity of recreation facilities to accommodate
different age groups and interests
✦ Both natural and athletic facilities
✦ Landscape that properly drains and absorbs water
✦ Adoption by community members of unused land
for community gardens and parks
✦ Participation in city plans for vacant and
destroyed lots.
Keys to Rebuilding
ULI advised that development proceed immediately,
categorized by emergency, interim, and long-term stages.
It recommended the following for the rebuilding of the
New Orleans infrastructure:
✦ Use sustainable development principles to guide
infrastructure planning, design, and construction.
✦ Phase infrastructure improvements by assigning
priorities to geographic areas most environmen-
tally suitable for development and to critical eco-
nomic development sectors.
✦ Rebuild a reliable and safe regional levee system
and restore coastal wetlands.
✦ Develop and improve a local and regional trans-
portation system that connects neighborhoods and
facilitates evacuation.
✦ Establish a centralized regional infrastructure plan-
ning process.
✦ Coordinate local land use and infrastructure plan-
ning and decision making.
In the final analysis, professional planners and the
citizenry of New Orleans recommended the following
to revitalize the city’s park infrastructure:
✦ Multiple-use open space.The city needs more parks
and smaller parks, ones with slides and swings and
basketball backboards.
✦ Interconnectedness.The city’s major parks sit in near
isolation from each other, separated by impassable
streets as large and forbidding as Interstate 10. Safe
streets and bike and pedestrian paths need to be
designed to connect these parks and double their
accessibility to the public.
✦ Urban forests. Forests are more than trees: they are
systems like stock investments that spin off annual
benefits at very low maintenance costs.They im-
prove air quality, filter out water pollution, reduce
summer heat, harbor diverse wildlife, and con-
tribute to a sense of general welfare.
✦ Storm water retention. New Orleans always has
flooded from rainwater, but it floods more each
year from the loss of natural water storage capacity.
Rains that used to be absorbed by lawns, empty
lots, and neutral grounds now hit asphalt and ce-
ment and are zipped into an increasingly over-
loaded pumping system. New construction is only
required to hook into the system, exacerbating the
problem.The first rushes of rainfall from city
streets end up contaminating Lake Pontchartrain
to the point that it is unfit for swimming or even
human contact.A better answer is to require new
construction to provide its own water retention
through the dedication of open storage space and
use of porous paving materials.
✦ More trees. Half of the city streets and sidewalks are
devoid of shade.The lack of street trees has been a
longstanding problem and a source of tension
among residents.
✦ The levees.The earthen levees along the Mississippi
River and Lake Pontchartrain are natural parks and
recreational grounds for their neighbors.The levee
path along the river from Audubon Park to the
Luling Bridge is one of the most heavily used
recreational facilities in the area.The trees and
open space along the batture are havens for picnics,
walks, and off-the-leash dogs.The redesign of the
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 29
 New Orleans levee system, particularly the interior
canal levees, should take these benefits into ac-
count. The concrete toppings of the canal levees
may be ineffective storm barriers, but they are ter-
ribly effective barriers to human use.
✦ Urban gardens. In recent years, the city has seen a
renaissance of ad hoc urban gardens and open
green markets for homegrown products.These
gardens are more than vegetable producers; they
are community projects, community morale boost-
ers, and part of the glue for the survival of New
Orleans neighborhoods. Space should be made for
them, as a condition of surrounding rebuilding and
development.
Conclusion
Planning is the vital activity that will push revital-
ization of the New Orleans parks. Public-private part-
nerships, citizen input, and a willingness to change and
be “rebranded” are all essential ingredients to success.The
wealth of technical assistance provided by a plethora of
organizations must not be construed as a one-time en-
deavor, but included as a part of the long-term solution.
Funding to drive the necessary structural and infrastruc-
30 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
ture improvements must flow from multiple streams—
state and federal government, business, and the philan-
thropic community. Chicago, Cleveland, and Miami have
shown that cities can make a comeback when parks are
at the core of the formula.
References
Bring New Orleans Back Commission. Urban Planning Final
Report. Urban Planning Committee. January 11, 2006.
www.bringneworleansback.com/Portals/BringNewOrleansBack/
portal.aspx?tabid=1.
Costa, Fernando, Jane S. Brooks, Chandra Foreman,
Bob Lurcott, Grover Mouton, and Richard Roths. Charting
the Course for Rebuilding a Great American City: An Assess-
ment of the Planning Function in Post-Katrina New Orleans.
APA, New Orleans Planning Assessment Team.
November 2005.
Garvin, Alexander. The American City: What Works, What
Doesn’t. Second Edition. June 19, 2002.
Miara, Jim. “Parks for the New New Orleans.” Land & People,
Spring 2007. www.tpl.org/
tier3_cd.cfm?content_item _id=21413&folder_id=3368.
The Rockefeller Foundation. New Orleans: Planning for a
Better Future. September 2006. www.rockfound.org/library/
no_better_future.pdf.
Saulny, Suzan. “A Legacy of the Storm: Depression and Suicide.”
The New York Times, June 21, 2006. www.nytimes.com/
2006/06/21/us/21depress.html?ex=1308542400&en=c1af78f3e8a
426c3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.
 Forum:
Post-Katrina Emergency Management

The Unavoidable Politics of

Disaster Recovery
by Dale Krane Hurricane Katrina offers
lessons on the interaction
n the two years following Hurricane Katrina, public bodies, journalists,

I professional associations, and university scholars have made numerous di-

agnoses of what went wrong before the storm made landfall and of the res-
cue and relief operations in its aftermath. Many of these critiques examine the
of technical matters with
decisions that distribute
benefits and burdens.
shortcomings of government agencies and offices at all levels and arrive at a
strikingly similar set of problems.The deficiencies include command and con-
trol, communication, coordination, equipment, infrastructure design, individ-
ual and organizational initiative, leadership, management, mission clarity,
planning, shelter, supplies, transportation, and training. A second, separate set
of critiques, while lamenting the administrative and technical failures, focuses
on Katrina through the lens of politics. Here the indictments include diverted
attention (by the occupation of Iraq), cronyism and patronage, class-based in-
difference to the poor, interest group maneuvering, local political culture, par-
tisanship, racism, and turf wars. Unfortunately, the recovery phase is also rife
with these political pathologies. Efforts to remedy the errors in response to
Katrina cannot pretend, as some analyses and recommendations have, that the
pursuit of political advantage somehow will be suspended. Understanding how
technical matters interact with decisions that distribute benefits and burdens
must also be part of learning the lessons Hurricane Katrina is teaching.

More Than Party Politics

Since Katrina struck, the drumbeat of claims that partisan politics drove the
decisions and actions of public officials has been nearly continuous, and in
some instances, considerable evidence supports these indictments. Some alle-
gations have gained national notoriety—for example, the struggle over feder-
alization of the National Guard engaged in by Louisiana Governor Kathleen
Blanco and President Bush, former national Republican chairman and Mis-
sissippi Governor Haley Barbour’s ability to obtain large amounts of federal aid
for his state, the patronage appointments of former Republican campaign staff
members to positions in the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), and cuts in federal funds for Mississippi River levees justified as part
of an ideological strategy “to starve the beast” of government.
As every public manager knows (from experience), the implementation of
public programs such as disaster relief and reconstruction are shaped by politics

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 31


that transcends bald-faced partisanship. Implementation
entails assembling program elements and moving them
through multiple bureaucratic-political layers to deliver
goods and services to intended citizen beneficiaries. In
the complex interactions among individuals and organi-
zations that must be brought together, public managers
face a variety of administrative, legal, and technical issues.
The effectiveness of existing policies such as the Stafford
Act and National Response Plan depends on choices made
during the implementation process, where the discretion
available to elected and administrative officials creates the
potential for success or failure. As officials translate pol-
icy into operational terms, their actions may achieve the
legislature’s intent, exceed expectations, fall short, or in
some cases, miss the mark altogether.
Because politics does not stop with the adoption of
a policy or program, implementation is not a process
characterized solely by rational technical decisions; in-
stead, the various stakeholders who contended over the
design of the policy continue to wrestle over its execu-
tion and are joined by other interested parties.The po-
litical jockeying during implementation poses several
problems for effectiveness, primarily because the pursuit
of particular goals may work against the goals as articu-
lated in legislative intent.Although there are many ways
to think about how politics beyond the usual partisan
actions of Democrats and Republicans shapes imple-
mentation, one can identify at least four other types that
affect it. Each is associated with a specific arena of com-
petition inherent to implementation, and each may in-
teract with the other types.The subsections that follow
briefly describe each type of politics bearing on post-
Katrina disaster recovery efforts, illustrated with specific
cases and events. Many different examples could be of-
fered, but the intent here is not to chronicle recent his-
tory but rather to underscore the inevitability and impact
of politics on implementation.
Agency Politics
Agency politics begins with the choice of the pub-
lic organization that will take the lead in carrying out a
policy.The institutional features (such as structure, orga-
nizational culture, discretion, and professionalism) of the
“lead” or responsible agency directly affects the execu-
tion of its assigned tasks.The choice of a lead agency also
Dale Krane, PhD, is professor, school of public administration, University of
Nebraska at Omaha. He can be reached at dkrane@mail.unomaha.edu.
32 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Photograph by Aleta Kiefer
affects the targeting and delivery of a program’s bene-
fits—for example, an economic development agency
may emphasize a different set of award criteria than a
housing agency.Whether agency managers can shape the
program during its implementation depends on the dis-
cretion available to the agency. Because different agencies
possess different institutional features, these differences
not only produce different modus operandi, they also
generate different intraorganizational politics. For exam-
ple, the ability of senior politically appointed managers
to exercise control over career professionals may depend
on how technical the agency’s tasks are. Similarly, a long-
established agency may be less susceptible to partisan
control than a newly created one.
Agency politics are exacerbated by multiple agen-
cies’ populating policy areas among which the tasks re-
quired to implement a policy are divided, thus
contributing to turf wars. Because authority over ad-
ministrative agencies is constitutionally diffused, agency
politics also comes into play when legislative and exec-
utive branches each seek to ensure their influence if not
control over a program’s administration.The branch that
prevails can make a difference in which interests are fa-
vored during implementation. At the state level, execu-
tive-legislative maneuvering reflects the state’s
institutional framework (such as a strong or weak gov-
ernor), its political culture, and its partisan composition.
Mississippi and Louisiana took different approaches
to the organization of recovery. Much has been made of
Governor Barbour’s political ties to the White House
and the fiscal benefits of those connections to Missis-
sippi, but clearly the governor acted expeditiously in
forming the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Re-
building, and Renewal (the Barksdale Commission).The
Mississippi Development Authority, a long-established
state economic development agency, worked with the
Governor’s Commission to develop and implement a se-
ries of action plans for homeowner assistance, public
housing, regional infrastructure, small rentals, ratepayer
and wind pool mitigation, and economic development.
Even before Barbour called for a special legislative ses-
sion three weeks after Katrina struck, Mississippi Speaker
William McCoy brought together the chairmen of every
standing committee and all of the members from the dis-
tricts in south Mississippi that bore the brunt of the
storm. This group became the House Hurricane Re-
covery Committee and took the lead in developing re-
covery plans and passing emergency legislation that gave
the state flexibility in responding to the crisis. One leg-
islative proposal—for a joint house and senate commit-
tee to control the use of federal recovery funds—was
defeated, with the result that the governor controlled
these monies.
By contrast, the crush of evacuees from New Or-
leans complicated the ability of Louisiana state officials to
act quickly. More than a million persons arrived in Baton
Rouge, and state officials were overwhelmed with de-
mands for food, water, and shelter. Louisiana Speaker Joe
Slater and Senate President Donald Hines decided that
the legislature had to establish a separate resource center
inside the state capitol to answer questions and dissemi-
nate information. The legislature was not able to con-
vene a special session until November 7, 2005. Unlike
the united focus exhibited by the Mississippi legislature,
the regional conflicts and divisions that have long char-
acterized the Louisiana body quickly surfaced in the reg-
ular 2006 session. Aid for New Orleans was seen by
representatives from areas hit by Hurricane Rita as con-
suming so many resources that little was left for their
areas. Other recovery issues also ran into regional dis-
putes—for example, legislators from the state’s center and
north fought the tough statewide building code enacted
after Katrina and Rita.Acting ahead of the legislature in
October 2005, Governor Blanco established the
Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA), a new thirty-
three-member executive entity to plan and coordinate
community recovery and resurgence as well as to secure
funds and other resources. Its creation was opposed by
some in the legislature who saw the LRA as a “power
grab by the governor in an effort to usurp the legisla-
ture’s appropriations powers.” Despite an agreement that
the legislature would approve all LRA expenditure plans,
efforts arose during the 2007 session to abolish the au-
thority.
Considerably more progress was evident in Missis-
sippi than in Louisiana a year after Katrina.The scale of
damage to be repaired in Louisiana, no doubt, posed a
much larger problem, but the behavior of each state’s
governor and legislature contributed directly to the pace
and targeting of recovery plans, and their behavior is
grounded in each state’s political culture. Louisiana pos-
sesses one of the most variegated populations of any state
in the nation. This extraordinary diversity produces a
near-kaleidoscopic expression of interests. Conflicts
among the numerous distinct regions—for example,
north and center against New Orleans—have been a
long-standing axis in Louisiana politics. By contrast, Mis-
sissippi politics usually is viewed through the lens of
racial politics, but this perspective ignores the impor-
tance of class-based politics in the state. Despite historic
conflicts between rich and poor, the state’s business com-
munity since the late 1930s has worked in a reasonably
unified fashion to advance economic growth in the na-
tion’s poorest state.These distinctive differences in polit-
ical culture can be seen in each state’s efforts to develop
and implement its recovery plan.
Intergovernmental Politics
Agencies are not the only source of politics that in-
fluences implementation.The American federal arrange-
ment of government complicates the task of assembling
and directing program elements, thus creating intergov-
ernmental politics. Because decision-making authority
and functional responsibilities are divided formally
among several tiers of government, most domestic pro-
grams—including disaster management—must operate
within the fragmented authority of our dispersed mul-
tiplicity of jurisdictions. Response to a disaster with
damage spread across jurisdictional boundaries requires
marshaling action both vertically and horizontally. Offi-
cials representing each jurisdiction, however, should not
be expected to lay aside their local interests even as they
participate in rescue and recovery operations. Just as the
behavior of agencies is influenced by various features
(structure and culture, for example), so is the behavior
of officials representing diverse communities. Conse-
quently, although the shared objective is obvious, ten-
sions and conflicts over means will emerge.
Federal relief aid totaling $110 billion poured into
the five Gulf Coast states. Mississippi, as of July 2006, re-
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 33
ceived $22.2 billion, while Louisiana received $20.7 bil-
lion and was eligible for an additional $1.5 billion.These
impressive totals obscure the relation of the amount of
relief to the scale of damage. For example, $5.2 billion in
federal housing recovery monies were sent to Mississippi
compared with $6.2 billion sent to Louisiana, but
Louisiana had almost 205,000 damaged homes, while
Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas had a combined 77,000
damaged homes. Louisiana officials openly said this dis-
crepancy could be attributed directly to the influence of
U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), who chaired the
Senate Appropriations Committee.
Louisiana officials also believe that partisan politics
explained the Bush administration’s unwillingness to
waive fully the Stafford Act’s requirement of a local cost-
share, which originally was set at 25 percent, but had
been lowered to 10 percent. In previous instances—most
notably in NewYork City after the 2001 terror attacks—
the local cost-share had been waived. Bush’s denial of an
exemption for Louisiana would cost the state approxi-
mately $1.7 billion, which the state could use to reduce
its nearly $3 billion shortfall in the Road Home re-
building program. Federal refusal to waive the 10 per-
cent match prevented smaller, Louisiana-based
companies from bidding on contracts because, unlike
large national firms, they cannot afford to pay the match
requirement up front.
Governor Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray
Nagin lobbied Congress over the unfairness of this re-
quirement, but encountered resistance from Speaker of
the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), who declared
Louisiana could not be trusted with any federal money
given its history of corruption. Blanco and Nagin were
Photograph by Aleta Kiefer
34 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
successful only after the Democrats won a majority in
both congressional chambers in the 2006 election. In late
May 2007, the emergency war-spending legislation in-
cluded a provision to waive the 10 percent requirement.
(Stafford Act relief funds have become a popular form
of presidential patronage, so a president’s decision to
waive or not waive the matching requirement is simply
a continuation of an already established pattern.)
Intersectorial Politics
With the growing use of contracting to deliver pub-
lic services, implementation is complicated by intersec-
torial politics encountered in networks of for-profit
enterprises and nonprofit organizations.American pub-
lic policy has long relied on incentives to obtain partic-
ipation by for-profits and nonprofits in service
delivery—that some of these organizations will seek to
gain advantage at the expense of the public should be
no surprise. Not only must one induce private entities to
participate in service delivery, one must also expect pri-
vate entities to manipulate implementation activities to
their benefit, thus necessitating some level of govern-
ment control and regulation of private entities utilized in
service delivery.
Louisiana and Mississippi have been engaged in a
running argument with insurance companies over the
settlement of damage claims suffered by each state’s res-
idents as well as by governmental jurisdictions.The ne-
gotiations take the form of lawsuits contesting the
insurance company actions related to the cause of dam-
age, amount of compensation, and degree of negligence
by the property owner. In Mississippi, the state attorney
general agreed to drop civil action against State Farm
Insurance for the company’s refusal to cover damage
caused by storm surge in return for a large payment. Pri-
vate individuals also sued several insurance companies
for fraudulent denial of claims, but a federal district court
judge refused to allow class action against the insurance
firms because the judge held that case-by-case court-or-
dered mediation would be more appropriate.This deci-
sion led to the collapse of the state’s agreement with
State Farm, and the state filed a lawsuit seeking com-
pensatory and punitive damages and is considering a
criminal investigation.
In Mississippi, insurance companies argue water, not
wind, destroyed buildings; in Louisiana, the firms argue
the opposite—it was wind, not water. Damage to state
agency buildings in Louisiana is estimated at $1.75 bil-
lion, and the state expects to obtain about $1 billion
from FEMA’s Public Assistance Program and the rest
from private firms. Louisiana’s Office of Risk Manage-
ment has led negotiations with insurers and has obtained
$275 million in payments. Because of the layered nature
of coverage, this compensation is only a portion of the
total claims, and the remaining claims are in dispute as to
the insurers that have responsibility for the payments.
These two cases appear to be straightforward legal
matters to be settled in court, but they also embody po-
litical decisions about the relationship of the public and
private sectors. Simply put, state officials face a dilemma:
if they pursue large claims too aggressively, private in-
surers may choose not to underwrite coverage in the
state; if state officials fail to hold companies to their ob-
ligations, the state and its residents will pay an unfair por-
tion of the costs.A further problem is that coverage may
not keep pace with building costs—so even with com-
pensation, a state may find itself faced with residents who
need additional funds to rebuild. The situation in both
states makes it clear that no one state can easily control
insurers and still maintain an insurance market.
Democratic Politics
The most fundamental political dimension of im-
plementation arises from legislative delegation of poli-
cymaking to administrative agencies. Policy choices
made by unelected officials pose a problem for demo-
cratic politics in that agency interests (both substantive
and procedural) may trump citizen preferences. One of
the most challenging and commonly occurring imple-
mentation issues is the clash between citizen preferences
and the professional/technical requirements necessary
for effective implementation. Agency personnel often
find themselves caught in a crossfire between stakehold-
ers with opposing interests. Another cross-pressure af-
fecting agency action comes from demands for public
managers to meet several criteria, including efficiency,
effectiveness, equity, procedural due process, reliability,
responsiveness, and timeliness. Choices among these cri-
teria invariably entail tradeoffs and prompt reactions by
different groups, thus compounding the politics of im-
plementation. Especially disturbing aspects of democratic
politics are race- and class-biased actions that occasion-
ally are blatant, but more typically are insidious.
The initial effort by Mayor Nagin’s Bring New Or-
leans Back (BNOB) Commission found serious resist-
ance when its planners proposed not to rebuild several
lower-lying neighborhoods so that these areas could re-
vert to swampland.The primarily African American res-
idents revolted, forcing the mayor and the BNOB to
abandon this idea. Rejection of BNOB’s initial plan
spawned several other planning efforts, including the
New Orleans City Council, Orleans Parish, and LRA.
Eventually, the separate groups agreed to work jointly
on a Unified New Orleans Neighborhood Plan (UNOP).
Satellite technology was used to involve displaced New
Orleans citizens in community meetings where the
UNOP details were discussed. The resulting plan, re-
leased in March 2007, targeted $1.1 billion to seventeen
redevelopment zones, ranked in order of damage sever-
ity: two zones are to be “rebuilt,” six to be “redeveloped,”
and nine to be “renewed.”
The UNOP still faced approval by the eight-mem-
ber City Planning Commission, which had its own view
of how to rebuild. The commission’s staff prepared an
analysis that listed several flaws in the UNOP, including
the absence of a comprehensive housing policy, failure to
plan for costs associated with federal flood elevation
mandates, and issues related to construction costs and in-
surance. Debate ensued as to whether the UNOP with
its shortcomings should be approved so that rebuilding
could go forward or to continue refining the plan.The
commission gave unanimous approval in late May 2007,
and the plan was transmitted to the City Council. Once
the city approved the plan, it still needed to gain the
LRA’s imprimatur so that community development
block grant funds could be released; state approval came
in late June.
The city’s redevelopment director, Ed Blakely, la-
beled the approved plan “the people’s plan” because in
his view it reflected the input from citizens who spoke
at the many public meetings over twenty-two months.
Blakely headed the New Orleans Redevelopment Au-
thority (NORA), which has responsibility for executing
the UNOP. Unfortunately, NORA faces its own obsta-
cles. For example, a constitutional amendment passed in
2006 limits its ability to seize property. Uncertainty over
the repairs of the city’s levee system has blunted the in-
terest of some developers to invest in new projects, and
this reluctance has been stiffened by rising construction
and insurance costs. NORA itself has budget and staffing
problems. Almost two years later, much of the recovery
is the product of citizens who are not waiting for the
public processes to unfold.
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 35
Politics and Remedies
The Katrina failures, according to several assess-
ments, were failures of implementation, not of design or
plans. The most frequently suggested remedies are the
time-honored public administration panaceas of coordi-
nation and leadership. Certainly, the immediate response
to Katrina and Rita exhibited a lack of coordination and
leadership, but so also does the recovery. The advice to
use these old palliatives is not wrong; it is merely in-
complete because it fails to recognize that these remedies
are at the mercy of contesting interests.To conclude re-
ports with recommendations calling for more coordina-
tion and better leadership ignores the political realities of
program implementation. After all, when “better coor-
dination” is prescribed, this phrase is often translated as
“do it my way.” When “better leadership” is sought, one
asks officials to transcend their constituency connections,
let alone their personal goals. The challenge in disaster
recovery programs, as with other public programs, is an-
ticipating the politics of implementation and devising
strategies that make it in the interest of stakeholders to
work toward program goals rather than against them.
The path to better coordination and better leader-
ship must cross barrier reefs erected by the multiple di-
mensions of politics. Everyone knows the difficulties of
bringing together agencies, jurisdictions, private organ-
izations, political parties, and diverse stakeholders, yet the
reports on Katrina shy away from confronting this crit-
ical driver of behavior—politics. Literature on how to
foster coordination and leadership can be used to guide
post-event assessments in identifying what worked. For
example, research on coordination emphasizes the im-
portance of inclusive participation and trust building.
That is, informal interaction must precede the introduc-
tion of formal mechanisms of coordination. Activities
such as joint training and the use of common databases
are more acceptable and successful when all parties par-
ticipate from their own interest rather than in response
O n June 1, 1889, Americans woke to the news that Johnstown, Pennsylvania, had been devastated by the worst flood in
the Nation's history. Over 2,200 were dead, and many more homeless. When the full story of the flood came to light,
many believed that if this was a “natural” disaster, then surely man was an accomplice.
36 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
to a command from some authority.As for leadership, it
must heed the needs of individuals and organizations. It
does not equate solely with command but includes skill
in bargaining and negotiation to ensure those who hold
the keys to requisite actions and resources are willing to
collaborate.
Leadership and coordination are linked because co-
ordination flows from leadership that is willing to gather
all parties together to forge agreements over objectives
and methods. Bringing together diverse groups and or-
ganizations means negotiating the different preferences
held by various stakeholders.The initial rebuilding plan
for New Orleans was rejected precisely because it pro-
posed actions detrimental to many of the citizens who
would be affected. Only with their inclusion in the dis-
cussions did a plan gain broad support. The key to
achieving agreements that minimize opposition is to in-
clude all interested parties in the decisions that will in-
fluence outcomes. This simple maxim applies to the
formulation of plans as well as to their implementation.
References
Boulard, Garry. “Hurricane Heroes,” State Legislatures, Na-
tional Conference of State Legislatures, Vol. 32, No. 7,
July/August 2006, pp. 52–4.
Ink, Dwight. “An Analysis of the House Select Committee and
White House Reports on Hurricane Katrina,” Public Admin-
istration Review, Vol. 66, No. 6, November/December 2006,
pp. 800–7.
Kettl, Donald F. System Under Stress: Homeland Security and
American Politics, second edition (Washington, DC: CQ
Press, 2007).
Rowley, Karen. GulfGov Reports: One Year Later (Albany, NY:
The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, 2006).
U.S. Government Accountability Office, Gulf Coast Rebuild-
ing: Preliminary Observations on Progress to Date and Chal-
lenges for the Future, GAO-07-574T, Testimony Before the
Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, Committee on Home-
land Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, U.S.
Senate, Statement of Stanley J. Czerwinski, Director of
Strategic Issues, April 12, 2007.
—U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
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THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 37


Agency managers can
change organizational
culture and build a
learning environment,
as demonstrated
by APHIS.
38 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Leading
Change
through Action
Learning
by Robert Kramer
ederal, state, and local governments in the United States invest
F hundreds of millions of dollars annually in university leadership
courses, executive development programs, and off-site retreats
for mid-level and senior managers—yet leadership is still the
weakest link in public service, resulting in poor agency performance,
scores of billions of wasted taxpayer dollars, and low employee morale.
The Best Classroom
Leadership is traditionally developed outside the workplace—in
university classrooms, weekend retreats, and other off-site settings—but
this learning rarely transfers when managers return to their high-pres-
sure jobs. No one else’s leadership has been “developed,” so the strength
of the organizational culture prevents managers who are returning from
even the most well-designed program to translate classroom learning
into practice.
Traditional university curricula employ a teacher-centered model:
academics lecture and students receive a sprinkling of experiential ex-
ercises, role-playing, and case studies in topics such as government ethics,
administrative law, budgeting, statistics and program evaluation, organi-
zation theory, politics, and policymaking. However, classroom teaching
techniques don’t directly relate to actual, real-time organizational
predicaments and don’t test the always unpredictable consequences of
managers’ actions. For public managers, real time is the
only time that counts, making the organization—not the
university—the best classroom.
Permanent White Water
Peter Vaill tells us that managing in the turbulent
context of today’s public service means immersion into
“permanent white water.” Under such conditions, split-
ting the process of leading from the process of managing,
following the conventional wisdom, is not helpful. Glo-
rifying leadership as a calling and minimizing manage-
ment as an occupation serves no purpose. Successful
managers must be skilled at leading people, and the best
leaders must meet budgets and timetables. A manager
must know how to lead, and a leader how to manage.
FollowingVaill, such public administrators are “manage-
rial leaders.”
According toVaill’s research, permanent white water
has the following characteristics:
✦ Shocks and surprises
✦ Novel predicaments with no single correct solutions
✦ Wicked problems that are messy, ill-defined,
unpredictable, and difficult to solve
✦ Large expenses
✦ Continual repetition of these characteristics.
Permanent white water means that managerial lead-
ers face daily predicaments that, as a matter of course,
cannot be defined with clarity, much less resolved, and
yet require immediate action.
Continuous Learning
In this permanent white water environment—
where the only constant is surprise, pain, and confu-
sion—leadership for public service must be reframed as
the capacity to learn continuously. Learning how to learn
in this fluid environment is the key to leading others to
perform effectively in public service.
University courses and off-site retreats promote
leisurely reflection but don’t involve real-time action
since by definition participants are “out” in three senses:
they are out of context, out of commission, and out of
touch. Is it any wonder that executive participants off-
site can’t seem to stay away from their BlackBerries,
Robert Kramer, PhD, teaches action learning to federal, state, and local gov-
ernment managers at American University in Washington, DC, and to Eu-
ropean Union managers at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium.
He can be reached at kramer@american.edu.
e-mail, voice mail, and cell phones? When they return to
work, these managerial leaders tend to act frenetically,
but often little is resolved or learned in the process of
taking action, resulting in endless recycling of the same
problems.
In recent years, the nation has seen public adminis-
trators fail to manage recovery from Hurricane Katrina;
fail to implement billion-dollar computer systems at the
Internal Revenue Service, Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion, and Federal Aviation Administration; fail to inter-
cept hijacked planes on 9/11; fail to build an effective
Department of Homeland Security; fail to win the peace
in Iraq; and fail to learn from any of these failures. Un-
less our public managerial leaders make quantum leaps in
learning, catastrophes such as these, or worse, will haunt
us for the rest of the twenty-first century.
Hierarchical or bureaucratic organizations have a
hard time correcting behaviors in view of their mistakes.
Too rigid to adjust to the transformation demanded by
the pace of social change, market failures, and globaliza-
tion, these organizations find it almost impossible to
learn. Ownership for taking action is frequently impeded
by the boxes on organization charts. Responsibility is
easy to avoid in any hierarchical system. So how do we
plant the seeds of a learning organization in the anti-
learning culture of most public-service organizations?
One thing is certain: learning and working can no
longer be separated. Learning is the work of the twenty-
first century. Managerial leaders must develop the capac-
ity to learn how to learn—and, even more, the capacity
to lead others around them to learn how to learn.
The programmed solutions that managerial leaders
are taught in conventional academic courses deal with past
solutions to past problems. Programmed knowledge—in
the form of “best practices” or “case studies”—is the right
solution, the dominant culture says, when faced with a
problem that has been solved at least once before. But it
won’t help managerial leaders who need to learn contin-
uously in permanently messy, turbulent conditions.
Action Learning
More than sixty years ago, Reginald Revans formu-
lated action learning, which involves managerial leaders
working in a small group on an urgent organizational
problem that has no single correct answer, asking ques-
tions, unraveling layers of the problem, taking action to
implement solutions, and, in the course of the process,
learning about their belief systems and the cultural as-
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 39
sumptions of the organization.Widely used by Fortune
100 companies, action learning promotes practical solu-
tions, group emotional intelligence, and individual, team,
and organizational learning.
Action learning is a process that promotes learning
in the “here and now” while managerial leaders tackle a
real predicament with real work colleagues in real time.
As they work to solve an urgent problem, these man-
agers are also learning how to build a high-performing
team, collaborate more effectively, ask higher-quality
questions, think in system terms, and become more ef-
fective leaders.While these developmental processes un-
fold in real time, action learning simultaneously plants
the seeds of a learning culture.
Action learning builds a community of learners that
allows group members to transfer what they learn in the
process of solving an urgent problem today to solve
other, more complex workplace problems tomorrow.
The optimal group size in action learning is five to seven,
and meetings usually take place at least one day a month,
but sometimes weekly or even daily, over the course of
a project.
Action learning makes inquiry and reflection central
to the group as members learn with and from each other.
The changes implemented in the organization are called
“action” and the changes disrupting the mindsets of the
participants are called “learning.”The basic principle of
action learning is that only those who have learned how
to change the boundaries of their own mindsets—taken-
for-granted values, assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes—
can change those embedded in the culture of an
organization.Those unable to change their own mind-
sets will never be able to change the organizational cul-
ture and subcultures in which they are spatially and
psychologically located.
The power of action learning comes from the many
ways it develops the skills and habits of questioning, lis-
tening, and reflection. As in the Socratic method, ques-
tions are more important than answers during action
learning. At first, action learners engage new ideas by
asking questions to frame and reframe the initial, or
“presenting,” problem. Unlike conventional problem-
solving approaches, action learning is a process of find-
ing, rather than accepting at face value what is presented
as, the right problem.“If I had an hour to solve a prob-
lem and my life depended on the solution,” a great
thinker once said,“I would spend the first fifty-five min-
utes determining the proper question to ask, for once I
40 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in
less than five minutes.”The proper question can also be
called a “high-quality” question (see box).
Asking High-Quality Questions
High-quality questions open our minds. They allow us to ques-
tion what has been considered to be unquestionably true.
They direct our attention to new vistas. They make us exam-
ine our assumptions and beliefs.
High-quality questions slow down our thinking. They allow us
to consider new options before coming to closure. They allow
us to value “not knowing.” They let us breathe fresh air.
High-quality questions tap our emotions. They connect to
what is going on inside our psyche. They reorient us to what’s
important. They motivate us to take committed action.
Learning How to Unlearn
While consciously framing and reframing the pre-
senting problem—that is, finding the right problem—
participants are, at a preconscious level, also beginning
to learn how to unlearn. Learning how to unlearn means
that they will repeatedly revisit values, assumptions, be-
liefs, and biases and question their own mindset. At the
same time they are learning about and unlearning their
norms and behaviors, they are learning how to inquire
into the collective assumptions of their organizational
culture and professional subcultures.
Through deep questioning, they also learn that “not
knowing” an answer does not make them ineffective as
managers or leaders. Not-knowing is reframed in action
learning as an opportunity for learning, not as a sign of
weakness, as traditionally seen by leaders obligated to
“have all the answers.” Valuing not-knowing can inspire
managerial leaders—and others in the organization—to
take committed action, even in the face of unknowable
outcomes.
In contrast to what Paolo Freire calls the “banking
model of education,” action learning is designed to help
learners in the here and now transform their internal,
“invisible” psychic worlds at the same time they are en-
gaged in transforming the external visible practices and
systems in their organizations. But what, exactly, is invis-
ible about the psychic world of human beings? Every-
thing is, including our fears, hopes, dreams, speculations,
puzzlements, hunches, intuitions, meanderings, habits,
unconscious projections, identifications, muddle-head-
edness, misunderstandings, covert power relations in the
organization, half-baked notions, social conditioning,
prior training, values, assumptions, beliefs, and internal-
ized cultural expectations.These elements of our psychic
world are all liable to be questioned in action learning,
supplementing the conventional questioning of what is
visible: hard data, facts, bottom lines, ways of behaving,
public agendas, project plans, financial statements, reward
systems, and organization charts. In short, in action learn-
ing we question any idea, belief, feeling, habit, value, or
practice considered to be unquestionably true by orga-
nizational members.
Participants in action-learning dialogues are learning
the capacity for self-reflection and culture-reflection.
They are discovering how to change mindsets—their
own and those of their fellow group members—by ex-
amining assumptions.They are increasing their capacity
for mindful learning and unlearning. They are making
conscious what is not conscious, making visible what is
usually invisible. In action learning, one might say that
vision is the art of seeing the invisible.
Under the most important ground rule of action
learning (as first proposed by Michael Marquardt, who
has recently advanced the theory and practice of action
learning), group members do not offer statements, opin-
ions, or viewpoints except in response to another mem-
ber’s question.
On commencing action learning, participants are
likely to be emotionally attached to the unconscious as-
sumptions, beliefs, and values inculcated into them dur-
ing a lifetime of cultural socialization into various
roles—family, community, religious, educational, profes-
sional, and organizational. Bringing into awareness and
questioning—and when necessary unlearning—these
values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations are essential
for effecting personal and organizational change.
Transformative Learning
During sessions of action learning, the “contents” of
mindsets and professional and organizational subcultures
emerge, usually in fragments or short statements, in the
mutual questioning process as participants share the mul-
tifaceted meanings they construct of organizational sym-
bols, stories, mythologies, rituals, ceremonies, heroes,
humor, boundaries, language, and professional jargon.At
the same time that participants are learning about, and
unlearning, their own norms and behaviors, they are
learning how to inquire into the collective assumptions
of the organizational culture.This is transformative learn-
ing (Figure 1).

Figure 1. What Is Transformative Learning?

Question Higher-Quality Question

Reflection
Examine:
Assumptions
Beliefs
Become curious about ÒTaken-for-grantedsÓ Ask the problem presenter a
your assumptions: ÒdisorientingÓ question.
Where do they come from? What are the consequences
Ask about othersÕ assumptions if you deny an assumption?

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 41

The Coach’s Role
At each session of the action-learning group meet-
ing, one member serves as action-learning coach, a role
that often rotates among members.The coach’s task is to
pose challenging questions to support the reflection,
learning, and unlearning of the members. Much prac-
tice is needed to become skilled in the coaching role,
which is not designed as a form of facilitation. In other
words, the coach does not facilitate the group’s agenda-
setting or interpersonal, conflict management, and prob-
lem-solving processes.
Modeling the three conditions that Carl Rogers
found necessary for transformation in any interpersonal
or group situation, the action-learning coach must be
congruent, stand fully present in the here and now (with
no pretense of emotional distance and no professional
façade), and show unconditional positive regard and em-
pathy for members of the group as they struggle with
questioning and unlearning beliefs that are no longer
productive or helpful.
Acting on the Problem
The process of action learning is not merely an op-
portunity for Socratic questioning and unlearning. Ac-
tion needs to be taken on the problem, no matter how
provisional or incomplete its definition.Action must be
tested against the limits of the real organizational culture,
with all of its normal constraints, in real time. No action
is meaningful without learning—as Reg Revans, the
founder of action learning insisted—and no learning is
significant without action.
By transforming their own mindsets, and taking ac-
tion in the face of uncertainty and high risk, managerial
leaders and other participants in action-learning processes
create safe spaces for themselves and their group col-
leagues to learn and unlearn. They are learning how to
become learning leaders: leaders who know how to learn
and learners who know how to lead others to lead and
learn for themselves.Their learning is inextricably tied to
real organizational work.Working and learning are fusing
into self-transformation and organizational transforma-
tion. They are planting the seeds of a learning culture.
APHIS Emergency
Management System
Recently, President Bush directed federal agencies
to adopt the National Incident Management System
and defend U.S. agriculture and food systems against ter-
42 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
rorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. In
the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
(APHIS), the staff of the Plant Protection and Quaran-
tine (PPQ) office is responsible for safeguarding the na-
tion’s agriculture resources from natural or terrorist risks
associated with the spread of harmful plant pests and dis-
eases.
Senior officials at APHIS asked Osama A. El-Lissy, a
senior operations officer in PPQ, to organize a team to
produce the national APHIS-PPQ emergency manage-
ment plan. El-Lissy and his team chose to use action
learning to formulate the plan.
Responding to Nationwide Outbreaks
As framed by APHIS, the emergency management
problem was,“How should PPQ respond nationwide to
outbreaks of plant pests and diseases—those that occur
naturally and those that are introduced through acts of
bioterrorism?” El-Lissy and seven PPQ regional and na-
tional managers—from a variety of locations and pro-
fessional disciplines—served on the team. Shortly after
recruiting the team, El-Lissy held a full-day workshop
to allow team members to get to know each other and
become familiar with action learning.
At first, faced with the urgent task of responding to
presidential directives, the team felt overwhelmed. Some
members jumped to identify quick solutions rather than
engage in the questioning and reflection process. Others
were hesitant to speak. Serving in the role of action-
learning coach, El-Lissy reminded the group to “think
questions first.” As individuals, their goal was to learn
how to get better at asking each other quality questions.
As a group, their goal was to learn how to build a high-
performing team that could be smarter as a whole each
time it met.
Over the course of many meetings, the team’s ques-
tions ranged widely: What is PPQ seeking to accom-
plish? What is stopping PPQ from accomplishing it?
Who can get the solutions implemented? Does PPQ
have the right philosophy, vision, and values? Is the cur-
rent organizational structure attuned to the task? Is PPQ
using the appropriate technology? To what extent has
the team assessed all external and internal issues that im-
pact the PPQ mission? Have team members considered
the needed coalitions, stakeholders, agenda, and power
base? Are the needs of the organization and people
aligned? Does APHIS have the right mix of people, tal-
ents, and experiences to achieve the president’s goal?
Does APHIS have the right resources? Is APHIS organ-
ized optimally?
Listening and Reflection
At the heart of action learning is the process of lis-
tening and reflection. Members ask each other questions,
actively listen to answers, reflect deeply, and continue the
learning cycle by following up on prior answers or re-
framing questions on the basis of newly emerging
thoughts and knowledge. As group members became
skilled at practicing action learning, they developed con-
fidence in their capacity to explore new options, recon-
sider their assumptions, and unlearn old ways of thinking
and behaving.
For the first time in their careers at APHIS, team
members, as they began to practice action learning, dis-
covered that work and learning could be blended to-
gether to become the same activity.
Reflection was the most important team norm.
Members were committed to continuously reflect on the
words, actions, questions, answers, and thoughts of other
members. Inquiry and questioning, openness, willingness
to yield to others, ability to show empathy, active listen-
ing, courage and frankness, transparency, wisdom, com-
mon sense, and self-awareness—ways of being—were
practiced intensely by the APHIS
team members.
The process provided the team Leadership for
with a set of skills that opened their
minds and hearts to three levels of
public service must
learning: (1) about their own beliefs be reframed as
and assumptions, (2) about how the the capacity to
group was functioning in the here
and now, and (3) about the larger or- learn continuously.
ganizational culture. A sense of re-
sponsibility for the urgent task drove
team members to look deeply into the organizational
context and alternatives before offering proposals to
solve the emergency management problem.
Each session was facilitated by a learning coach,
whose role was to promote the learning of the group,
not to participate in the solution of the problem. The
coaching role, first modeled by El-Lissy, was rotated
among team members.Through questioning and active
listening, the coach helped the team reflect on what it
was doing well, what it could do better, and how it was
evolving its thoughts and learning.
Emergency Management Procedures
To date the action-learning team has delivered three
sets of emergency management procedures. The first,
Standards for Plant Health Emergency Systems, distributed to
all 50 states and the territories, includes the following:
✦ Emergency management plans. Detail the logistical re-
sources and responsibilities of local, state, and fed-
eral agencies involved in preventing and
responding to emergencies.
✦ Authorities and policies. Identify state and federal
laws, rules, and regulations to be applied in emer-
gency response.
✦ Surveillance. Describes effective detection systems
that can serve as an early warning for plant pests
and diseases.
✦ Communication. Details communication plans for
first responders, cooperators, and public awareness.
✦ Training and education. Describes training for all first
responders.
✦ Funding. Identifies sources of contingency funding
required for emergencies.
The second guidance, PPQ Incident Command System
Guidelines, brings together multiple responding agencies
from different jurisdictions under a single overall com-
mand structure in response to an in-
cident. Adapted from NIMS, these
guidelines describe the overall orga-
nizational structure to be used in re-
sponding to emergencies and define
the functions, roles, and responsibil-
ities of each position in the com-
mand and general staffs. The
guidelines integrate PPQ’s best prac-
tices for emergency management in
the context of a comprehensive in-
cident command system (ICS) framework.
The third guidance, ICS Training Programs, offers a
series of exercises simulating plant health emergencies to
ensure a consistently high level of preparedness and re-
sponse capability across all 50 states and the territories.
Conclusion
El-Lissy and his APHIS colleagues addressed the
issue and simultaneously became more skilled at learn-
ing how to learn. This enhanced capacity for learning
can now be tapped by senior APHIS leaders to meet fu-
ture organizational challenges. By showing the courage
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 43
to inquire into their own mindsets, APHIS public ad-
ministrators created conditions for themselves and other
organizational members to learn.
Public administrators who become skilled at prac-
ticing action learning will develop more confidence in
their capacity to build groups, teams, and organizations
that continuously learn new ways of thinking and be-
having—and continuously unlearn old ways.
For additional case study information, visit the
American University Web site, spa.american.edu/ exec-
utivempa/action.php, and download Using Outside Ex-
perts at U.S. Food and Drug Administration by Donna-Bea
Tillman, Creating an Emergency Management System for
U.S. Agriculture by Osama El-Lissy, and Reframing Acqui-
sition Logistics for U.S.Army by Jim Kelly.
References
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1970).
U.S. Government Accountability Office, 21st Century Chal-
lenges: Reexamining the Base of the Federal Government,
GAO-05-325SP, 2005. www.gao.gov/new.items/d05325sp.pdf.
Kramer, Robert. “Carl Rogers Meets Otto Rank: The Discov-
ery of Relationship.” In Pauchant, Thierry, ed. In Search of
Meaning: Managing for the Health of Our Organizations,
Our Communities, and the Natural World (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1995), pp. 197–223.
Marquardt, Michael J. Optimizing the Power of Action Learning
(Palo Alto: Davies-Black Publishing, 2004).
National Academy of Public Administration, Strengthening
Senior Leadership in the Government (Panel of the National
Academy of Public Administration, 2002).
Office of Personnel Management, Federal Human Capital
Survey, 2006.
Revans, Reginald W. Developing Effective Managers: A New
Approach to Business Education (London: Longmans, 1971).
Vaill, Peter B. Learning as a Way of Being: Strategies for Sur-
vival in a World of Permanent White Water (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1996).

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Congratulations FEI! Celebrating 40 years of Leadership Development

44 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
 Realizing a
Performance
Culture in
Federal Agencies
by Bill Trahant
Government
executives and human hat’s the best way for government executives to create

capital professionals
offer a road map for
designing and
W high-performance cultures in federal agencies? In March
2007 testimony before the House Subcommittee on the
Federal Workforce, Bob Tobias, Director of Public Sec-
tor Executive Education at American University (AU), said it will never
happen until you “change the behavior of every employee in govern-
ment.” And that won’t happen, he said, until you “build robust per-
implementing effective formance management systems that can objectively evaluate different
levels of job performance and guarantee a fully funded reward system.”
performance Creating such systems is difficult,Tobias told lawmakers.They must
management systems. be very robust and able to synthesize large amounts of data relating to
work standards, job requirements, and other performance specifications.
What’s more, designing them is a “time-consuming process that requires
the close collaboration of government employees and their managers,”
he added.

Government Focus on
Performance Management
The design and implementation of performance management sys-
tems have become a frequent topic of recent government executive con-
versation. Agencies are striving to comply with The President’s Management
Agenda (PMA) and the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 45

Framework (HCAAF), the U.S. Office of Personnel Man-
agement (OPM) road map for transforming government
human capital management.
For these reasons, “How to Build Effective Per-
formance Management Systems” was the topic of a
briefing for government executives at the National Press
Club in Washington, DC, on May 29, 2007. Held under
the auspices of AU’s Institute for the Study of Public Pol-
icy Implementation and sponsored by Watson Wyatt
Worldwide, the forum brought together government ex-
ecutives from a range of agencies. It dealt with every-
thing from the effective design of performance
management systems to the management concerns and
organizational and political obstacles that often stand in
the way of their deployment in agencies (see box).
Featured speakers included AU’s Tobias; Marta Perez,
chief human capital officer at the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security; and Bill Leidinger, former assistant
secretary for management and former chief human cap-
ital officer and chief information officer at the U.S. De-
partment of Education (ED).
The forum revealed a number of challenges in
establishing a performance management system:
Managing employee expectations. Getting federal em-
ployees to buy into performance-based evaluation
measures is difficult, especially when, in many cases,
they are accustomed to getting “above average” job
evaluations and “automatic” pay increases, regardless
of actual job performance. The history of grade infla-
tion in federal agencies complicates the recalibration of
performance appraisals to give them greater meaning.
Increasing responsibility of supervisors. Implementation
of performance management systems makes managers
more accountable for articulating new work expecta-
tions and coming up with measurable work and out-
come standards.
Forging a new relationship between managers and em-
ployees. Implementing performance management sys-
tems requires agencies to redesign the relationship
between managers and supervisors. First, it calls for
both managers and employees to assume greater re-
sponsibility when it comes to adhering to specific work
standards. Second, it requires that supervisors and em-
ployees trust each other.
Aligning strategic agency goals and individual employee
work goals. Creating a clear line of sight from frontline
employees to an agency’s top leaders is difficult. Trans-
lating job tasks into meaningful performance stan-
dards can also be problematic.
46 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Cultural Challenges
Tobias noted that cultural impediments have pre-
vented these systems from being easily implemented in
government agencies in the past. “Since 1993, when
Congress passed the Government Performance and Re-
sults Act, agencies have struggled to identify outcome
versus output goals,” he said.
One reason is that agencies and government execu-
tives find it hard to reduce achievement of their public
mission to clear and measurable objectives.“At the pro-
gram level, managers find it tough to define measurable
program outcomes. And at the supervisory level, super-
visors have trouble translating organizational goals into
individual employee job requirements and performance
expectations.”
At the same time, Tobias said, supervisors and em-
ployees have struggled to redefine their working rela-
tionships—to put more focus on measurable job results
and less on pro forma job evaluations. Still, Tobias as-
serted that if managers and employees can come together
to collaboratively design and implement performance
management systems, they have the potential to “totally
transform” their long standing traditional relationships
in the federal government.
Performance management can also energize em-
ployees to perform at higher levels and assume greater
job ownership,Tobias noted, because they see how their
everyday jobs are connected to the strategic goals and
priorities of their organization. He added, “When em-
ployees understand the linkage between their efforts and
desired agency outcomes, their engagement in their
work and productivity increases.” Involving employees
in defining job requirements also “enables managers to
leverage the natural desire of employees to improve
agency goal achievement,” said Tobias.
Today, however, he said most federal agencies don’t
do a very good job of identifying output and outcome
goals, so “employees feel uncertain about how their in-
dividual job efforts (and performance) impact overall or-
ganizational goals and performance.”
Manager-Employee Dialogue
Like Tobias, Perez, a principal architect of HCAAF
while at OPM, noted that the key to making performance
management work is getting supervisors and employees
Bill Trahant (William.trahant@watsonwyatt.com) is national leader of
Watson Wyatt’s government consulting services practice in Arlington,VA.
to work together to define critical job requirements and
articulate performance metrics to which both sides can
agree.“It’s all about good communication,” she said.
Perez noted that the public sector has traditionally
emphasized performance appraisal and not performance
planning, coaching, and development. Conversations be-
tween managers and employees “traditionally have been
about activities—not outcomes,” she said. By contrast,
she added, “Performance management involves contin-
uous dialogue between managers that is focused on
achieving specific, concrete results. There is shared re-
sponsibility and involvement by managers and employ-
ees alike.Thus, it becomes a workplace partnership.”
Perez is striving to align the work of the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) twenty-two com-
ponent agencies with the overarching strategic goals of
DHS as a department. One way is by holding focus
groups with managers and employees in all DHS com-
ponents to articulate work standards and evolving job
requirements in key DHS positions and operating areas.
Perez said doing so is critical to building employee en-
gagement with DHS’s strategic mission goals. In an
agency like DHS, which is concerned with evolving
mission requirements related to national security, Perez
said “the need for continuous dialogue” about job re-
quirements, work standards, and results is especially acute,
and an activity to which she and other DHS executives
give constant attention.
To foster good communication between supervisors
and employees, DHS intensively trains managers in goal
setting and interpersonal communication—in the class-
room and through webcasts and teleconferences. Such
training is critical because “managers must be trained on
how to do performance evaluations with employees,
how to communicate job expectations, and how to ef-
fectively engage with employees to define work re-
quirements,” she said.
To be fully operational, performance management
must be integrated with “operational planning, goal set-
ting, and decision making,” Perez emphasized.
How, Perez was asked, do organizational discussions
about performance at DHS actually get translated into
specific job activities and performance metrics? More-
over, how does the department take the work tasks of
individual employees and guarantee that they “roll up” to
serve the overarching goals of DHS as the guardian of
our nation’s security?
Job Linkage to Mission Goals
“Today, we’re trying to have as much dialogue about
work expectations and job tasks as we can, to help peo-
ple understand the linkage of their work with the over-
all mission goals of DHS,” Perez said. She showed how
this works in the department by describing how one
strategic DHS priority—safety and terrorism prevention
at the nation’s airports—is broken down into specific
component objectives, unit and program objectives, and
individual and team objectives.
To ensure airport safety, Perez said a key objective
of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the
DHS component agency charged with protecting the
nation’s transportation systems, including airports, is “to
deploy layers of security to protect the traveling public
and the nation’s transportation system.” To accomplish
this objective,TSA has developed specific airport prior-
ities and goals, which include improving the efficiency
and effectiveness of airport screening and maintaining
an excellent safety record.
These priorities and goals are advanced by airport
managers’ taking specific actions such as improving effi-
ciency and quality of airport screening, she said. These
actions are then made operational through the daily
work tasks that individual airport screeners and security
personnel perform at the nation’s airports.
“You can see, from this simple example, a framework
of performance management goals and measures that
aligns the work of people at all levels of TSA around the
strategic organizational goals of DHS,” said Perez. It serves
to create a strong organizational line of sight on key de-
partmental priorities and focuses on results. (Frontline
TSA personnel, and their immediate supervisors, get eval-
uated, according to Perez, on metrics such as “wait time”
for passengers going through airport security, and the goal
is to ensure that “wait time for 80 percent of people going
through airport security is 10 minutes or less.”)
Constant Dialogue
At DHS, Perez emphasized, defining critical work and
the standards by which it is evaluated is an ongoing process
because ensuring airport security requires constant review
and vigilance.“We spend a lot of time in DHS and TSA
talking about how to improve the security of airports
while, at the same time, creating more efficiency in the
way we do business,” said Perez, noting that this is the sub-
ject of regular conversations she has with TSA Adminis-
trator Kip Hawley and other DHS executives.
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 47
 Perez said DHS could make airports so secure that
nobody would be able to move through them. But “we
don’t want to do that. We want people to be able to
travel, and to move through our airports as quickly and
safely as possible.” Perez told attendees that when agen-
cies clearly define critical work requirements and align
them with strategic goals, it supports a strong employee
line of sight and focuses jobs on performance. “When
you articulate metrics so they reflect
program priorities, organizational
conversations about performance
become clear, and judging individ-
Federal agencies
ual employee performance becomes today need to spend
easier,” she said.That’s because em- more time on careful
ployees know what is expected of
them and on what they will be and systematic
judged. workforce analysis.
Perez noted that for perform-
ance management systems to take
firm root in agencies, they can’t be seen as a function run
by the human resources department. Instead,“agency line
managers and executives must clearly own the perform-
ance management system” they design and build, so that
employees will accept it as a fair and credible tool to ob-
jectively evaluate people’s job performance.
Senior Leadership Commitment
Even that, however, isn’t enough to ensure complete
success with performance management, said Perez.Top
government executives and political appointees must be
enthusiastic backers of performance management, she
added, and must promote its importance to agency suc-
cess at every opportunity. “Leaders from the top of the
organization down to … first-level supervisors must have
continuous conversations about performance with em-
ployees. They must communicate a vision to employees
of where the organization is going, and the critical role
that employees have to play in making completion of
that mission a reality.”
Bill Leidinger agreed that an agency’s top leaders
must be vigorous champions of performance manage-
ment, if it is to get real traction inside federal agencies
today. But he worried that such top-level leadership sup-
port often isn’t there.“That’s one of the biggest concerns
I have about performance management in the federal
government today. I don’t know where the leadership is
to make it work. I mean,‘Where is it?’”
48 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Leidinger noted that for performance management
to take hold in federal government culture, leadership
support of performance management must be consistent
at all levels of government.“The president, cabinet sec-
retaries, and all political appointees have to be involved
in driving change right along with employees.They need
to roll up their sleeves, and also give employees the tools
they need to make it work,” he said.
When it comes to agency trans-
formation, and the importance of top
leadership in driving change, Lei-
dinger knows what he’s talking about.
As a top ED executive in the early
2000s, he was intimately involved in
massively reengineering the talent re-
cruitment process at the department.
“That initiative required a lot of
hands-on effort by everybody, in-
cluding top execs,” says Leidinger.“It
wasn’t something we did through a few memos and
town hall meetings.”
Leidinger said the same kind of commitment is re-
quired today to design and implement performance
management systems in federal agencies.“To play a lead-
ership role in agency transformation today—and specifi-
cally to implement performance management—top
government executives and political appointees need to
spend time with the people they supervise. They need
to manage their organizations by walking around, and
by intimately understanding the nature of people’s jobs.”
Four Openers
What does Leidinger suggest to managers and po-
litical appointees who want to create strong perform-
ance-based cultures in their agencies?
For starters, he said, managers and supervisors must
deeply understand the nature of the daily work their
subordinates do. “You don’t get that understanding by
sitting in an office.You need to walk around and talk to
people.You need to ask them what they’re doing, how
they do it, and why they do it.You also need to under-
stand the constraints they face, and figure out how you
can help them do their jobs better.”
Second, managers need to look for inefficiencies in
the organization and for skill gaps in people, Leidinger
said.“Again, unless you spend time walking around and
talking to people, you won’t know where these weak-
nesses exist.And you won’t have any idea of how to align
people’s work with your agency’s strategic or mission
goals.”
Third, government executives must take action
when they find impediments to people doing their work
effectively, said Leidinger. For example, he says, “If you
find skills gaps in employees, you must give peo-
ple training and coaching to remedy those gaps.
If you find people’s work isn’t clearly related to
the agency’s goals, you need to look at that, and
create better alignment. You can do this in
focus groups and through small, intense team
meetings. Otherwise, you won’t improve effi-
ciency or productivity.”
Finally, Leidinger said, federal agencies
today need to spend more time on careful
and systematic workforce analysis.“You need
to understand the current demographics of
your workforce and the current state of peo-
ple’s skills in your agency,” he said. “You also
need to carefully project your agency requirements and
skill needs into the near-term future in order to get a
strategic handle on how to align people around critical
agency or mission priorities going forward.”
Doing the aforementioned is critical, said Leidinger,
if an agency wants to create a performance-based cul-
ture and a line of sight to strategic mission goals.
Patience in Process
Under the best circumstances, Leidinger cautioned,
aligning employees with mission goals and connecting
everyone’s job to specific organizational outcomes doesn’t
happen overnight. It takes time. “In my opinion, any
agency that wants to implement an effective performance
management system must commit two to three years to
develop, modify, and tweak that system to make it work,”
he asserted.
Part of the reason is that agencies need time to de-
lineate job tasks and performance criteria for every em-
ployee and to logically link daily employee job tasks to
the overarching strategic needs and mission requirements
of the agency for which they work. In some cases, mak-
ing those connections isn’t that hard, he said. In others, he
says, “It’s tough to determine how someone who’s pro-
cessing transactions deep inside the organization person-
ally impacts the outcomes of their agency.You need time
[therefore] to make those connections, and to create mu-
tual understandings (between a supervisor and an em-
ployee) around job tasks and performance expectations.”
The need to create organization-wide buy-in and
train large numbers of managers in performance-based
job evaluations are other reasons that implementing suc-
cessful performance management systems takes time, ac-
cording to Leidinger. That’s okay, he said, emphasizing
that the process of implementing performance
management is best thought of as a long-
term organizational initiative that will have
multiple phases, each building on the best
practices, successes, and organizational
learning of the previous phases.
“You’re not going to create the perfect
performance-driven organization over-
night,” Leidinger said. “In fact, most studies
show that real, sustainable culture change and
organizational transformation take five to
seven years to achieve.”
Road Map
As part of his presentation, Leidinger laid out a se-
ries of recommendations—a road map of sorts—for gov-
ernment executives and political appointees who are
designing and building performance management sys-
tems for their agencies.
“Think of these things as guidelines in implement-
ing performance management in your organization, and
in designing and building a performance management
system to support your agency’s strategic mission goals,”
he said.
Step 1. Align individual performance expectations
with organizational goals.
Agencies must spend time articulating outcome
goals that are consistent with the agency mission and set
at a level that encourages innovation and improves indi-
vidual job performance.
Step 2. Clarify roles, responsibilities, and expectations
for all employees.
Agencies must involve employees in defining work
expectations and delineating different levels of job per-
formance. By doing so,“you create employee buy-in for
specific performance standards and build trust that peo-
ple’s job performance will be evaluated fairly and accu-
rately during annual job reviews.”
Step 3. Create a clear line of sight so that employees
at all levels understand how their individual jobs and ob-
jectives support achievement of the agency’s overall
strategic or departmental objectives.
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 49
 This not only provides people with a clear view of
how their work supports the organization as a whole,
noted Leidinger, but improves employee engagement
and motivation (as Watson Wyatt human capital research
has shown).
Step 4. Use core competencies as the basis for defin-
ing the skills and behaviors required of people in specific
jobs.
To identify required competencies, an agency must
first profile the workforce in detail and analyze skill gaps
to discover its in-house competencies and those it must
bring into the organization or develop in employees to
meet future mission goals. “Top executives have a key
role to play in driving such workforce analysis,” he said.
Step 5. Link pay to individual and agency performance.
Doing this right means linking pay, incentive, and
reward systems to demonstrated employee performance
on the job, Leidinger noted.
Step 6. Make meaningful distinctions in job performance.
Leidinger noted that effective performance man-
agement systems are designed partly on the basis of mar-
ket pricing research. Performance management systems
should be able to supply managers with credible pay and
reward guidelines that can be used to make objective de-
cisions on employee compensation and rewards.
Step 7. Include safeguards to enhance the credibility
and transparency of employee performance reviews.
When such safeguards are built into a system, Lei-
dinger said, agency leaders can assure employees that per-
formance will be evaluated objectively and won’t be
influenced by favoritism, office politics, or longevity in
a job.
People Factors
Building effective performance management systems
is one thing, but using them to drive agency work per-
formance is another, said Leidinger. And that’s where
critical people factors come into play. For example, he
said, performance management systems can be used to
formalize work expectations with employees, but they
require that managers monitor employee job perform-
ance closely and link individual performance plans to
agency goals. At the same time, employees must meet
formal work standards that may not have been required
50 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
before, but which are key to having their work evalu-
ated fairly at review time and to ensuring it supports
agency goals.
DHS’s Perez agreed with Leidinger that perform-
ance management requires fundamentally new work be-
haviors and attitudes on the part of managers and
employees alike. “Managers must be able to define job
and performance expectations with employees,” she said,
“and be willing to listen to employees to understand
their job challenges, concerns, and point of view.”At the
same time, she added,“Employees must understand that
their job performance will be based on specific criteria,
and that while they’ll have input in shaping those crite-
ria, their job performance will ultimately be judged on
a range of factors and measures.”
Conclusions
Performance management can increase the organi-
zational effectiveness of federal agencies by fostering
tighter employee alignment with mission goals and by
creating a framework for the effective and equitable eval-
uation of employee job performance. Some cultural is-
sues have prevented such systems from being readily
embraced by agencies and government executives in the
past, but government executives can, with top-level lead-
ership support and organizational focus, effectively de-
sign and implement such systems. Engaging employees
in the effective design of performance management sys-
tems following the road map above will help govern-
ment executives and federal human capital professionals
in the design and implementation of such systems.
Establishing a strong culture of performance in the
federal government is imperative for many reasons, in-
cluding compliance with PMA and HCAAF and tax-
payer expectations of improved government
performance. In addition, as Bob Tobias noted in his
March 2007 congressional testimony,“When employees
understand how their own work impacts agency out-
comes, their engagement in their work increases, as does
their productivity, satisfaction, and morale on the job.”
Clearly, this organizational outcome is as important as
improved agency performance or compliance with PMA
or HCAAF requirements.
 Fostering a
Performance-Driven
Culture in the
Public Sector
by Howard Risher
Culture is key in
managing organiza- rganizational culture is a concept widely understood on the

tions, and specific

practices make
performance a
O surface. The focus of several books, it’s a construct like
weather and social status, which has been invented by peo-
ple who want to study or discuss it. In the not-too-distant
past, the subject was only explored in arcane social science journals; now
it is frequently discussed by senior executives.
Researchers tend to break it down into dimensions (such as the level
cultural priority. of comfort with risk and uncertainty) and use interviews, focus groups,
or surveys to assess each of them.Thus far, however, they do not agree
on the relevant dimensions, and each book seems to rely on a different
definition. Nevertheless, the literature agrees that this culture is central
to our understanding of organizations.
The current public-sector focus is on “performance culture,” a term
largely ignored in corporate studies, but coined in government a few
years ago to describe a culture where performance is a recognized pri-
ority. A recent Google search on the phrase resulted in more than 10
million hits, almost all tied to government-related (or consultant) Web
sites.
This article looks at the role of culture in managing organizations
and at the management practices that contribute to or reinforce the im-
portance of performance as a cultural priority. It also describes a method
for identifying actions to increase the emphasis on good performance.

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 51

Understanding Organizational Culture
The simplest and most practical definition of orga-
nizational culture is T. E. Deal’s “the way things get done
around here.” Charles Hill’s definition is more academic,
but still practical:
“
…the collection of values and norms that are shared by
people and groups in an organization and that control the
way they interact with each other and with contacts out-
side the organization.The culture dictates the beliefs and
ideas about what kinds of goals members of an organiza-
tion should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds
or standards of behavior organizational members should
use to achieve these goals. From organizational values de-
velop the norms, guidelines or expectations that prescribe
appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular
”
situations and control the behavior of organizational
members towards one another.
Hill’s words offer us a clear understanding of how
important culture is in determining employee behavior
and focus.
People working in an organization behave in ways
that are heavily influenced by the culture. The culture
governs the way they react to change and new ideas. It
also governs the way they react to and interact with out-
siders, such as customers.The culture influences the way
people think and the way they expect to be treated. Dif-
ferent offices or locations usually exhibit subtle differ-
ences in culture. The culture is always an important
consideration, often the most important, in gaining ac-
ceptance for new policies and work management prac-
tices like pay for performance.
In an organization with a strong performance cul-
ture, employees know what they are expected to ac-
complish and are emotionally committed to
organizational success. They believe in the mission and
goals and are quick to put their energy into a task with-
out being asked or monitored. Informal conversations
with coworkers frequently focus on performance prob-
lems and recent organization results.They tend to cele-
brate successes as a team or group.The commitment to
performance is a way of life in the organization.
Howard Risher is a private consultant on pay and performance. He has over
30 years of experience as a consultant and a corporate human resource exec-
utive, managed studies that led to the Federal Employees Pay Compatibility
Act 0f 1990, and has consulted with a number of federal agencies. He has
played a role in several National Academy of Public Administration studies
and previously authored the 2005 IBM report, Pay for Performance: A
Guide for Federal Managers. He can be reached at h.risher@verizon.net.
52 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Performance has not been an explicit focus of cor-
porate studies because it is an issue in every company.
The intensity of the commitment may vary across an or-
ganization, but a company cannot survive if it is not a
concern. Companies do study and concentrate on im-
proving the culture as it relates to more specific issues
such as customer service or attention to quality.The cul-
ture governs or influences a number of performance is-
sues, like customer service. For example, in some retail
store chains employees often talk on the phone to
friends.They are comfortable placing these calls because
the culture permits it.
Initiatives to improve performance often do not pro-
duce the desired changes, in part because of established,
culturally driven behavior patterns.We now understand
that when changes are expressed solely as formal policies
and management systems, employees who see them as a
violation of the culture may reject them. To avoid the
problem, the “soft” culture considerations should be ad-
dressed in planning the change.
Organizations in each sector have somewhat similar
cultures. In higher education, for example, the typical
strong commitment to individual performance makes it
difficult for faculty members to work together effectively
on any internal problems. In health care, the culture re-
inforces the extreme importance of reacting as quickly as
possible to a patient’s medical crisis. Similarly, govern-
ment employers have common cultural patterns.
Drive for Good Performance
A private company differs from a public agency in
that it focuses on the bottom line—continued prof-
itability. Management continuously worries about main-
taining or increasing revenues and controlling costs.
Every month as financial results are compiled, executives
worry about how the results for their unit will be per-
ceived, and company leaders are quick to act if the re-
sults fail to meet expectations.The drive for continued
good performance, an obsession in some companies, af-
fects every aspect of a company’s management.
The ongoing interactions of managers and their
people are affected and influenced by the policies, prac-
tices, and systems used to manage the organization. Over
time, the practices determine the culture. In any organ-
ization, the introduction of a new policy or practice is
often resisted if it requires people to behave or think in
new ways. Corporations sometimes find change easier
to accept if people are convinced it will contribute to
improved performance.
A comparative survey (conducted by the author and
Dr. Charles Fay of Rutgers University) focused on the
use of fifteen effective practices by seventy-six employ-
ers, including corporations, state governments, large city
and county governments, and colleges and universities
(Table 1).
The results of the survey clearly show that corpora-
tions emphasize and rely on these practices more than
the government and nonprofit institutions.Very few or-
ganizations score at the best-practice level throughout
the list, but those that score the highest are the best man-
aged and best performers. Although not as widely used
in the public sector, these practices are regularly discussed
at conferences and in books and articles. The practices
in combination are good management.
Lessons Learned
The corporate experience shows us that the system
used to manage employee performance does not exist in
a vacuum. Companies routinely rely on management
practices that send the message to employees: “Good
performance is a priority and essential for this company’s
financial success.” Every employee understands and at
some level accepts that reality when accepting a corpo-
rate job. Employee performance management is consis-
tent with that message.
The public and private sectors do not differ signifi-
cantly in the practices associated with managing em-
ployee performance.That is to say, the participants in the
Risher/Fay survey tend to rely on similar practices, as if
they used the same textbooks and consultants. For ex-
ample, comparative results show each of the groups pro-
vides training for managers and those directly reporting

Table 1. Effective Management Practices

Performance monitoring

Performance is tracked and communicated, both formally and informally, to staff.

Performance is continually reviewed, with follow-up actions to ensure continuous improvement. Results are communicated to staff.

Regular performance conversations focus on problem solving and addressing root causes. Meetings are used for constructive feedback
and coaching.

Targets balance financial and nonfinancial performance targets.

Corporate goals focus on shareholder value and cascade with increased specificity to lower levels of management.

Long-term targets are translated into specific short-term “staircase” targets.

Targets are genuinely demanding and grounded in solid economic facts.

Performance measures are well-defined, strongly communicated, and reinforced in all performance reviews.

Failure to achieve targets drives retraining in areas of weakness or a job change to where skills are more applicable.

Human capital management

Managers are evaluated and held accountable on the strength of the talent pool they develop. Training and development
opportunities are available for top performers.

Ambitious stretch performance goals with clear performance accountability and rewards are established.

Company does whatever it takes to retain top talent. Managers are responsible for trying to keep desirable staff.

Company tries to provide a unique “value proposition” to attract talented people. Company HR practices are planned to achieve
this goal.

Company actively works to identify, develop, and promote top performers. Managers are assessed on the basis of succession plans
for individuals.

Company moves poor performers out of the company or to less critical roles as soon as weakness is identified.

Source: Howard Risher and Charles Fay. Managing for Better Performance: Enhancing Federal Performance Management Practices (IBM Center for the Business of Government, 2007).

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 53

to them on performance management principles. The
results also show that manager and employee involve-
ment in planning the performance system is common.
We conclude from the survey data that the contin-
ued reinforcement of performance by a multiplicity of
practices is responsible for creating a performance cul-
ture. The system or process for evaluating employee per-
formance by itself is not enough to define the culture.
Pay for performance as an isolated practice would simi-
larly not define the culture. Of course, when employee
performance is ignored or has no consequences, it sends
a very clear message: performance is not a priority.
Assessing and
Improving Performance
In a recent article in The McKinsey Quarterly,
Stephen Dorgan and others offer a practical framework
for assessing the importance of performance across an
organization and for taking steps to strengthen the com-
mitment to performance. The assessment provides a
snapshot of an organization’s readiness for more effec-
tive performance management practices and for plan-
ning the steps that may be needed to establish a more
supportive culture.
New approaches for managing employee perform-
ance are unlikely to succeed unless the culture already
makes performance important. A number of publica-
tions and forums discuss the importance of a perform-
ance, or “results” (the U.S. Government Accountability
Office term), culture. Six years ago, the U.S. Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) announced The Pres-
ident’s Management Agenda and kicked off its aggressive
strategy for improving performance. Backlash and resist-
ance from employees clearly show that the culture is not
ready to accept pay for performance.
The culture in many agencies impedes attempts to
introduce more effective employee performance man-
agement systems. Managers and employees alike are more
receptive to new practices if they understand and accept
the importance of the change in policies and practices.
Communicating this importance helps change their be-
havior, giving them a reason to think about their jobs
and their work habits in a different way. New emphasis
on individual performance, and an onus on managers to
bring it about, has to include the message that it is an or-
ganizational priority or it will be resisted (or ignored).
Managers also have to understand that it is in their
best interest to support the initiative.The change should
54 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
be reinforced by making the management of employee
performance a priority for managers. If the new policy
is to be accepted, it should affect the way managers are
rewarded as well, and they need to appreciate that it is in
their interest to accept and support the change.
Culture change is not the focus of this article, but
the need for change is central to gaining buy-in to new
performance management practices and to any success-
ful initiative to improve performance.The starting point
should be an assessment—usually based on interviews,
focus groups, or surveys—of the culture as it affects em-
ployee performance. If the assessment confirms per-
formance is not a priority, management should take steps
to refocus on performance.
Eight-Dimension Performance
Culture Model
Research, including the studies mentioned, has high-
lighted a number of widely used practices that empha-
size performance and that can and should be managed to
reinforce the message that individual performance is a
priority. The research suggests eight dimensions for as-
sessing the culture (Figure 1). Each can be defined with
a subset of scaled-response questions focusing on spe-
cific issues. This approach follows from the assessments
behind a recent London School of Economics study.
Figure 1. Management Practices That
Contribute to Performance Culture
Employee Leaders
engagement as champions
Manager Work link
accountability to mission
Performance
Culture Performance
Recognition tracking
and rewards and dialogue
Investment Cascading
in talent goals
 The eight dimensions are as follows:
✦ Leaders as champions. Leaders across the organiza-
tion need to explain, in most cases repeatedly, why
the new practices are necessary, how they will ben-
efit the organization, and how they will affect em-
ployees—beating the drums to convince people
change is necessary.
✦ Work link to mission. Employees want to feel their
work efforts are contributing to the success of
their organization.They need to understand the
mission and to have a line of sight from their work
output to the achievement of goals. Cascading
goals help to solidify that linkage.
✦ Performance tracking and dialogue.The common
practice in a goal-based environment is to track
performance over time, take corrective action as
necessary, and communicate results widely. Em-
ployees want to know how their employer is per-
forming, and regular communication keeps them
involved.The Total Quality Management move-
ment prompted employers to post performance
data so everyone could keep track of how well
they were doing. Practices like that reinforce the
focus on performance.
✦ Cascading goals. Each level of an organization de-
fines goals linked to the goals above and those
below. Defining performance goals at lower levels
may be difficult, but even the lowest-level em-
ployee will be more engaged after seeing the cas-
cading goals.
✦ Investment in talent. Organizations that want to per-
form at high levels need well-qualified people.
They need to invest in the development of indi-
vidual skills and ensure the most qualified people
are promoted. Organizations that commit to talent
management send the message that performance is
important.
✦ Recognition and rewards. Gaining adequate support
for pay for performance may be difficult, but every
organization has a reasonably long list of ways that
employees are recognized and rewarded. Recogni-
tion and reward practices should be evaluated oc-
casionally to decide whether they serve the needs
of the organization. One purpose is to recognize
that high-performing employees and their accom-
plishments are to be celebrated.
✦ Manager accountability. Managers should be held ac-
countable for managing the performance of their
people. It must be a primary role for frontline
managers, made a theme throughout their training,
and reinforced by tying their pay increases (and
other rewards) to how well they perform this role.
They need to understand the performance man-
agement process and, more important, make a
commitment to help their people improve.They
need to provide guidance and coaching advice,
competencies that should be a priority.
✦ Employee engagement. Finally, we know from re-
search by Gallup and others that when employees
feel engaged or emotionally committed to the suc-
cess of their organization, they perform at signifi-
cantly higher levels.Taking a survey to learn how
employees feel about the organization, their jobs,
and their supervisors provides a picture related to
employee engagement.
Conclusion
Some argue that a switch to pay for performance
will somehow change the culture. Culture, however, is
far from that simple. In the private sector, everyone—
managers and employees—understands that performance
is a priority.They may not all be committed to the suc-
cess of their employer, but they basically understand what
needs to be accomplished and why it’s important.They
are paid for their performance, but a salary increase pol-
icy is only one of multiple practices that reinforce the
importance of performance.The culture rides on the re-
peated messages from a broad spectrum of formal and
informal management practices.
The McKinsey study confirms the obvious—well-
managed companies perform better. It also illustrates
how many day-to-day practices contribute to the cor-
porate focus on performance. The fifteen practices are
available to federal agencies and would contribute to im-
proved performance.
Federal employee surveys have repeatedly shown
that reward and recognition practices are the least effec-
tive of any of the human capital practices, so federal
agencies must take the opportunity to reinforce the im-
portance of performance. That has implications for the
culture.
Culture is a powerful concept. It’s a factor in every
organization. Pay for performance will influence the cul-
ture, but many government organizations are clearly not
ready for the change in policy. OMB’s initiatives for im-
proving performance are clearly consistent with a per-
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 55

formance culture, but the focus has been on management
systems related to organization performance.To foster a
performance culture, agencies should focus on the day-
to-day practices of middle managers and supervisors.
References
Deal, T. E., and A. A. Kennedy. Corporate Cultures: The Rites
and Rituals of Corporate Life (Penguin Books, 1982).
Dorgan, Stephen J., John J. Dowdy, John Van Reenen, and
Thomas M. Rippin. “The Link between Management and
Productivity,” London School of Economics, June 2005 (The
McKinsey Quarterly). www.mckinseyquarterly.com/
article_abstract_visitor.aspx?ar=1725&l2=1&l3=24).
Hill, Charles W. L., and Gareth R. Jones. Strategic Manage-
ment, 5th Edition (Houghton Mifflin, MeansBusiness, 2001).
Risher, Howard, and Charles Fay. Managing for Better Per-
formance: Enhancing Federal Performance Management
Practices (IBM Center for the Business of Government,
2007). www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/RisherFayRe-
port.pdf.

W hen the wind carries a cry which is meaningful to human ears, it is simpler to believe the wind shares with us
some part of the emotion of Being than that the mysteries of a hurricane’s rising murmur reduce to no more than
the random collision of insensate molecules.
—Norman Mailer.

56 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
 Family-Friendly
Policy:
Lessons from Europe—Part I
by Anmarie J. Widener
A work/life balance
not only makes a ountries have been compelled to tackle the concomitant

happy family, but

increases productivity
on the job.
C problems arising from increased female employment, an
aging population, declining fertility, and higher divorces rates.
The single breadwinner has been replaced by the dual-earner
and single-earner/single-parent family models. The struggle to juggle
raising children and caring for elderly parents when both parents—or
the only parent present—work outside the home has led to a surge of
international “family-friendly” legislation on child care, job flexibility,
and family leave policies.

A Need Fulfilled
Family-friendly policies help employed caregivers achieve their fam-
ily and career goals, which usually revolve around access to affordable
child care, leave provisions, and flexible work arrangements.They may
be generated or supported by local or federal governments, employers,
or the individuals themselves. Family-friendly policies’ key goal is to
support parents’ ability to participate in the labor market in a way that
simultaneously fulfills individual career aspirations, improves the stan-
dard of living, and promotes the care and support of young children and
aging parents.The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and De-
velopment (OECD) sees family-friendly policies as aiming to achieve
“the reconciliation of work and family life” in a way that also promotes

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 57

societal goals: increased employment, secure sources of
income that generate domestic spending, child well-
being, individual independence, and gender equity. As
such, family-friendly policies are an important compo-
nent in achieving economic and social progress.
Although countries vary widely in their social pro-
grams relating to child rearing, most developed coun-
tries now have national laws that mandate some income
replacement for women and men who leave work tem-
porarily to care for a new baby or sick family member.
Family leave policies are not standalone practices, how-
ever: they often come in conjunc-
tion with policy on daycare,
preschool, and the structure and Family-friendly
organization of the work environ- policies today are part
ment, which, in turn, is influenced
by the type of welfare state in of a strong recruitment
which people live. Family leave strategy and correlate
policies give glimpses into social
policies that impact men and
with increased job
women and the attainment of retention.
gender equality, particularly in the
realm of employment.Analyzing these policies offers one
path to insight into each nation’s achievement of a bet-
ter quality of life and reconciliation between work and
family.
The aging population coupled with the decrease in
fertility place a greater burden on social security and pen-
sion plans, resulting in a need to increase overall employ-
ment rates. The increased employment rate of women
(especially mothers) has been the most dramatic change
in the workforce in the last fifty years. Policies that help
women join and maintain employment are necessary for
a continued strong female labor force. The increasingly
competitive and flexible global labor force encourages
cross-national competition to capture the most talented
and skillful.Women outnumber men in higher education
completion rates and thus have become increasingly valu-
able and sought-after human capital. Family-friendly
policies today are part of a strong recruitment strategy
and correlate with increased job retention. Women are
Anmarie J.Widener, MSW, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar for the LMI Re-
search Institute. Dr.Widener is also a professorial lecturer at Georgetown Uni-
versity, where she teaches on gender, the welfare state, and globalization.
Previously, she was in private practice in clinical social work and taught grad-
uate school for the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan. She
can be reached at awidener@lmi.org.
58 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
projected to account for 51 percent of the increase in the
total labor force growth between 2004 and 2014. Clearly,
policies that support employment coupled with quality of
family life will be the linchpin of any positive twenty-
first century equilibrium.
Family policies are needed to help women and men
combine employment with caring responsibilities.Today,
more men want an active part in child rearing and often
are shouldering the dual burden of employment and care.
In the United States, nearly one-quarter of male em-
ployees live with and provide informal care for their
aging parents, a 2003 MetLife study
found. In OECD countries, paid
paternity leave ranges from a few
days to a few weeks and European
Union (EU) eligibility for parental
leave is equal to that of the mother.
In Scandinavian countries, leave
policy has a “use it or lose it” clause,
encouraging fathers to use their
nontransferable paid parental leave
(between four and eight weeks, de-
pending on the country). Despite the lack of paid pa-
ternity leave laws in the United States, my 2004 study
found 42 percent of fathers prefer to work fewer hours
and spend more time caring for their children.
Family and Medical Leave Act
The U.S. system of leave policies focuses on the free
market coupled with private family means to meet the
needs of working families. Family policies are a compli-
cated mix of individual state and federal actions, each af-
fecting and directing the other. Because family policies
affect interstate commerce and involve gender discrim-
ination issues, the federal government has broad power to
enact such legislation. In 1993, President Clinton signed
into law the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA),
which offers working parents the right to twelve weeks
of unpaid leave for any serious family-related medical
issue (such as the birth of a baby, a serious illness, or the
death of a family member). It applies to all companies
with fifty or more employees within a seventy-five-mile
radius of the worksite. Employees must have worked at
the company for at least twelve months and for a mini-
mum of twenty hours per week during the last year to
be eligible. Before 1993, only 1 to 2 percent of employ-
ers paid for maternity leave; instead, most employees used
paid sick leave, holiday leave, or short-term disability
leave, if they had access to them.
When it comes to combining care responsibilities
with employment, FMLA is limited in the amount of
support it provides working families. Only half of all U.S.
employees are eligible for this leave. Of employees that
meet eligibility requirements, very few are able to make
use of this leave because it is unpaid. The highest paid
10 percent of employees are exempt from eligibility if
the employer can prove that their absence would create
a problem for the company. In 2000, one survey found
only about 2 percent of eligible FMLA recipients actu-
ally made use of FMLA; 77 percent of those who wanted
to but did not use FMLA said the lack of pay was the
defining reason. Low-income working families are es-
pecially affected because they are the least likely to have
any type of employer-based paid leave.Although the law
stipulates that those applying for FMLA leave are pro-
tected, unfortunately the termination of employees seek-
ing this leave continues to be the primary reason for
filing a complaint concerning this law.
Despite the limited federal family-friendly policies
in the United States, it boasts a high employment par-
ticipation rate for men and women. Approximately 75
percent of women and 90 percent of men ages 25 to 54
were employed in 2005. Families with children also av-
erage high employment rates. More than half of all two-
parent families are also two-earner families. Almost 60
percent of working mothers are back to work before
their child is one year old. Only 30 percent of families
continue the single-male-breadwinner model, in which
the father works full time and the mother stays at home;
in only 5.5 percent of two-parent families does the
mother work full time and the father stay at home.The
labor force participation rate for mothers in 2005 was
71 percent: 68 percent for married mothers and 77 per-
cent for unmarried mothers.
An International Movement
Family-related leave policies arose in the late 1960s
and early 1970s with the advent of women’s movements
followed by a sharp rise in the number of women join-
ing the labor force. Sweden is commonly cited as the
country with the longest established history of facilitat-
ing gender-equal roles in work and family life through
family policies dating back to the early 1960s. Sweden’s
family policies are heralded as the most progressive and
generous.They not only ensure the health and safety of
the mother but also aim to facilitate the child’s well-
being, as well as gender equality both in caregiver roles
and in career options. For example, its parental leave
package includes a nationally funded child care system in
which the majority of Swedish children take part.
The international trend in the 1990s has been to
broaden maternity, paternity, parental, child care, and fam-
ily leave. In 1992, the EU adopted a directive mandating
a fourteen-week paid maternity leave as a health and
safety measure for women and infants. In 1999, the In-
ternational Labour Organization revised and adopted a
maternity leave convention that strengthened job pro-
tection and broadened the coverage for working women.
In 1998, the EU enacted the Directive on Parental Leave,
which applied to all men and women who participate in
the labor force on a contractual basis in all member states.
It stipulates that workers have the right to parental leave
and that parents have that right until the child is eight
years old, as defined by each member state.The length of
parental leave is stipulated as a minimum of three full
months. EU countries have the option to make it paid,
and most do offer some form of income replacement.
EU member states have turned to family-friendly
work policies as a way to increase the numbers of work-
ing women.The female labor force has grown alongside
increases in divorce rates and in the number of elderly
needing care, so combining employment with care has
become a major theme of the European social agenda.
EU directives on maternity leave, parental leave, care
leave, and part-time parity laws have led more countries
to offer incentives for women who are also mothers to
join the labor force.They also have encouraged men to
share more in the care work, a move toward gender
equality.
Today, the countries with the most generous fam-
ily-friendly policies also boast the highest employment
rates for women and men. Strikingly, national family
leave policies have not led to a decrease in national pro-
ductivity levels. In fact, the Global Competitiveness Report
for 2006–2007 from the World Economic Forum shows
that the United States has dropped from first to sixth
place in national productivity level, surpassed by the
Scandinavian countries (which have the most generous
family leave policies), Switzerland, and Singapore. In
terms of productivity per hour worked, U.S. rates are
lower than the Netherlands, France, Luxembourg, Nor-
way, Ireland, and Belgium, all countries that guarantee
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 59
much more time off than the United States for family-
related reasons.
Two Countries’ Perspectives
Employment rates of mothers have increased every-
where in the last fifteen years, but especially in the
Netherlands, where they have doubled. The United
States and the Netherlands vary considerably in family-
friendly policies, in part because the Netherlands is an
EU member state and, as such, follows directives from
the European Commission. A recent study compared
working parents’ ability to balance family life with em-
ployment in the United States and the Netherlands.The
study asked whether the parents were satisfied with their
respective country’s family policies, and whether these
policies helped them do what they intended to do—jug-
gle raising children, especially young children, with paid
work outside the home. It also asked the extent to which
the country’s approach to family policies really helped
reconcile work and family life.
American and Dutch families greatly differed in self-
perceptions of quality of life and satisfaction with gov-
ernment policies. American parents overwhelmingly
reported that FMLA did very little to meet the needs of
working parents because it is unpaid; none reported hav-
ing made use of it for this reason.American mothers and
fathers rated lower on all but one quality-of-life measure.
Mothers and fathers in each culture filled out six sub-
scales (general quality of life and general health, positive
feelings, negative feelings, self-esteem, working capacity,
personal relationships, social support, financial resources,
and participations in and opportunities for recreation/
leisure) of the World Health Organization’s Quality of
Life Questionnaire. On every facet except self-esteem,
Dutch parents reported significantly higher levels of
quality of life.
When federal family leave policies were compared,
FMLA fell far short of supporting the kinds of policies
families valued most. Americans are nearly identical to
their European neighbors regarding the characteristics
of family policy that hold the highest value. Although
the United States lacks many of the policies supporting
working families that are in place in EU member states,
this study found the majority of U.S. mothers and fa-
thers favor government spending on such policies. For
example, nearly 90 percent of U.S. mothers and about
three-quarters of U.S. fathers supported universal, feder-
ally subsidized preschool as well as guarantees for places
60 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
in universal, federally subsidized child care settings; 85
percent of U.S. mothers and 63 percent of U.S. fathers
supported national legislation for paid FMLA leave for
all working Americans. The study also showed that 93
percent of U.S. mothers and 84 percent of U.S. fathers
support the right to reduce working hours to increase
time at home with children.
National family policies in the Netherlands in-
creased employment rates for women and opened an av-
enue for more men to take part in care giving, a gender
equal balance that is an EU goal. Female employment
rates for prime-aged (twenty-four to twenty-five years)
populations show that the Netherlands (as well as the
United Kingdom, France, Denmark, and Sweden) now
surpasses the United States.
Implications for Managers
For the most part, today’s families are made up of
two earners.Although fertility rates have declined in the
last fifty years, more than 80 percent of women will be-
come mothers by the time they complete their fertility
years.The next generation of women is being socialized
in societies that have undergone major changes in gen-
der roles and the labor market.All men and women will,
at some point in their working careers, address factors
associated with aging parents. At some point in their
working lives, everyone will need paid time off for fam-
ily or health-related reasons.This means that private and
public managers alike must reckon with care work and
employment.That is, our culture has already changed, so
organizations must adapt to this change.
How do managers deal with the changing demo-
graphics of the workforce and its concomitant conflicts?
Does a successful organization imply one that can com-
ply with current and future work/life balance legisla-
tion? The bipartisan federal Commission on FMLA
reported that 90 percent of employers found adminis-
tering the leave to be “easy” or “somewhat easy.” Eighty-
nine percent found they incurred “no cost” or “small
costs,” and 86 percent reported “no noticeable effect” on
profitability and growth. Rather, a significant number re-
ported improvements in productivity and advancement
after implanting FMLA. Research, in fact, shows busi-
nesses may actually end up saving money by decreasing
turnover and increasing employee retention. Employer
support, flexible work arrangements, paid family leave,
positive relationships with coworkers, and quality child
care are key factors that have been shown to correlate
with effective and productive job performance.
Conclusion
The international trend in the 1990s has been to
broaden national maternity, paternity, parental, child care,
and family leave policies as well as to set standards for
flexible work arrangements. EU directives support a
move toward a new welfare state model similar to that of
the Scandinavian countries; that is, they increasingly sup-
port policies—universal and generously paid parental,
maternity, paternity, and care leave; universal child care
(including early childhood education and care programs),
and part-time parity legislation—that aim to achieve
universal employment. By contrast, nearly half of all
working Americans go without paid leave of any kind.
The United States has seen a steady decline in job
satisfaction since the 1970s. One cause is that American
working families continue to have problems with work-
life balance. A 2002 study found that 85 percent of
American workers say they want more time with their
family; 46 percent say they want much more time.
FMLA was enacted to help working families balance the
pressures of employment and family needs. The 2004
study comparing Dutch and American family policies
found that no families used FMLA (all but one case be-
cause it is unpaid), and only 4 percent of U.S. families
were satisfied with FMLA (again, primarily because it is
unpaid). In this same study, three-quarters of mothers (74
percent) and 56 percent of fathers reported feeling forced
to return to work before they felt ready to do so after
childbirth. A large majority supported the right to
shorten the workweek to increase time with family (93
percent of mothers and 84 percent of fathers), and a ma-
jority supported a federally mandated paid FMLA leave
(85 percent of mothers and 63 percent of fathers).
Most of the U.S. social entitlements have been con-
structed and shaped by cultural tenets: individualism; the
belief in the family as a private unit, with which the state
should not interfere; volunteerism as a means of provid-
ing social welfare (as opposed to statutory enactments);
a strong work ethic; an open immigration approach,
which keeps fertility rates robust; and the free market
and laissez-faire economics. However, changing demo-
graphics have led to the dual-earner family norm and
caring responsibilities that conflict with employment re-
sponsibilities because not only children, but aging parents
require time from working men and women. In essence,
biological clocks are in conflict with career clocks.
Part II of this article gives a fuller account of lessons
learned from around the world and more closely exam-
ines the implications for managers planning and imple-
menting family leave policies.
References
Eurostat. Europe in figures: Eurostat yearbook 2006-07 (Lux-
embourg: Office for Official Publications of the European
Communities, 2007). epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/
cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-CD-06-001/EN/KS-CD-06-001-
EN.PDF.
Heymann, S. J., A. Earle, S. Simmons, S. M. Breslow, and A.
Kuehnhoff. Work, Family, and Equity Index: Where Does the
United States Stand Globally? (Project on Global Working
Families: Harvard School of Public Health, June 16, 2004).
www.globalworkingfamilies.org.
Oswald, A. “Are you happy at work? Satisfaction and work-life
balance in the U.S. and Europe.” Paper delivered at the War-
wick WBS Event, Warwick Hotel, NY, November 5, 2002.
www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/os-
wald/finalnywarwickwbseventpapernov2002.pdf.
Widener, A. J. Sharing the caring: state, family, and gender
equality in parental leave policy. PhD Dissertation, Leiden
University, the Netherlands, 2006.

e are confident that the lessons we have learned from Hurricane Katrina and the accompanying recommen-

W dations we propose will yield preparedness dividends that transcend Federal, State, and local boundaries.
Their full implementation will help the Nation—all levels of government, the private sector, and communities
and individual citizens—achieve a shared commitment to preparedness. Together, we will strengthen our ability to pre-
pare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from a wide range of catastrophic possibilities that are as varied as the
mind of a terrorist and as random as the weather. There is no greater mission, and no greater tribute to the victims of
Hurricane Katrina.
—The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned (closing paragraph).

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 61

Nontraditional
Leadership
Training for Public
Managers
New educational
programs expose
working professionals
to the critical chal-
lenges of our time:
emergency prepared-
ness, crisis response,
disaster management,
and counterterrorism.
62 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
by Darrell Norman Burrell
atural and human-made disasters challenge public manage-
N ment leadership, exposing the need for preparation beyond
traditional academic courses to solve real-time problems in
public health and safety. Public managers challenged by such
crises are seeing the value of education in complex topics not typically
offered by universities, such as emergency preparedness, crisis response,
disaster management, and counterterrorism. Several innovative, re-
spected, and regionally accredited institutions have filled this need by
providing new, nontraditional options that train executives in these fields.
In late August 2005, the devastating winds and storm surge of Hur-
ricane Katrina severely damaged the Gulf Coast, and on April 16, 2007, a
Virginia Tech student went on a shooting rampage on the Blacksburg
campus. Both of these tragic events brought worldwide attention to the
leadership challenges public managers face related to crisis management
and citizen safety. Diseases and other outbreaks—the avian flu, severe acute
respiratory syndrome, salmonella, and food poisoning; natural disasters—
earthquakes, monsoons, hurricanes, wildfires, and mudslides; and human
violence—gang warfare, shootings, and the lasting legacy of the Okla-
homa, World Trade Center, and Pentagon terrorist attacks have exposed
gaps in our collective knowledge. In the public sector, they are most no-
ticeable between traditional academic preparation and the realities of pol-
icy preparation, decision making, and problem solving in the areas of
public health and safety at all levels of government.
 These threats have created a need for all public man-
agers to expand their knowledge and develop new skills.
Leaders with enormous job and family responsibilities
are finding that the traditional degree and certificate pro-
grams often do not respond to the problems they face.
New Academic Programs
Today’s public management crises do not always fit
into the knowledge framework historically provided in
traditional doctorate and master’s programs in public pol-
icy, public administration, criminal justice, and political
affairs. New academic programs that engender diversity
of thought in problem solving and decision making in
emerging areas are critical, especially as public manage-
ment and public safety policy studies become more in-
terdisciplinary, ethnically diverse, and global on the
federal, state, city, and local levels of government.
As Jennifer Reeger discusses, several innovative and
regionally accredited universities have responded to the
demands and leadership challenges by offering some
nontraditional options that allow practitioners to work
full time, fulfill family obligations, and gain critical
knowledge from a certificate, master’s degree, or doctor-
ate program focused on cutting-edge aspects of crisis
management and homeland security.The degree names
vary, but, as noted by Sharla Bardin, they expose profes-
sional students to critical policy issues in emergency re-
sponse, disaster management, public health preparedness,
and counterterrorism.
Metropolitan State University in Florida
Metropolitan State University in Florida has an on-
line certificate in police supervision designed for police
officers in supervisory positions and those who aspire to
senior leadership in law enforcement.The program con-
sists of four courses of fourteen credits that can be used
toward the completion of a degree. This program—
aimed at state and local law enforcement professionals—
includes the more complex and technology-driven
aspects of law enforcement public management. (Access
www.metrostate.edu/slc/policesupervision.html.)
Darrell Norman Burrell is a faculty member of Averett University in Vir-
ginia and a doctoral student at Colorado Technical University. He is also a
Presidential Management Fellow (www.pmf.gov) in the federal government
with more than seventeen years of combined management experience. He can
be contacted at dnburrell@excite.com.
Michigan State University
In light of recent U.S. food poisoning outbreaks in-
volving produce, the government and produce industry
are scrambling to respond to concerns and develop ex-
pertise and new guidelines on preventing contamination
throughout the food chain, from before greens are
planted until they reach the dinner table, as described by
Linda Johnson.To respond to growing international is-
sues of food poisoning and bacteria outbreaks, Michigan
State University developed a thirty-credit online profes-
sional master’s degree in food safety.Those who earn the
degree learn how to develop policy and strategies to re-
spond to major food-based bacteria outbreaks and pro-
tect the public from risks of improper food storage and
food preparation. Many of the students are from state
health departments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
and the Department of Homeland Security. (Access
foodsafe.msu.edu/proms_about.htm.)
The University of Maryland,
Baltimore County
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, of-
fers an online master’s in emergency health services
management with courses in refugee health services, cri-
sis management health services delivery, and associated
areas. This program—which allows leaders to focus on
the core political, logistical, and ethical issues concerning
the provision of health care in emergency scenarios—
has been delivered to specialized employee groups at the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. De-
partment of Health and Human Services.A program like
this has tremendous value for public managers responsi-
ble for providing medical services to the injured, such as
the students hurt in theVirginia Tech shootings. (Access
www.umbc.edu/gradschool/programs/ehs.html.)
Duke University
Duke University offers an online master’s in envi-
ronmental leadership, with courses in ecosystem and
human health, environmental policy and law, and simi-
lar topics.As oil spills and other environmental accidents
continue to happen, programs that offer nontraditional
options for leadership training in environmental protec-
tion grow in value. Employees of the U.S. Environmen-
tal Protection Agency, Department of Energy, Forest
Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Department of
the Interior have applied for this program. (Access
www.nicholas.duke.edu/del/del-mem/.)
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 63
The University of Maryland,
University College
The University of Maryland, University College, of-
fers an online master’s in biotechnology studies, a rapidly
growing field worldwide, with courses in biosecurity, eth-
ical issues involving bioengineered food, and other top-
ics. This field encompasses the use of recombinant DNA,
which allows scientists to take genes common in one or-
ganism and combine them with genes common in an-
other. Its emergence has led to interaction among science,
technology, capitalism, religion, and ethics, causing con-
flict between differing perspectives. Leaders who under-
stand this field are critical in future policy development.
This program has tremendous appeal for management
analysts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
(Access www.umuc.edu/grad/msbt.shtml.)
Long Island University
In 2006, Long Island University became the first in
New York to offer a graduate program in homeland se-
curity management. This program, which is offered in
classroom and online, was a response to the research done
after 9/11 by the on-campus Homeland Security Man-
agement Research Institute. Students are drawn from a
diverse range of professional and occupational specialties,
including legislative affairs, law enforcement, intelligence,
fire protection, nursing, and public policy. They come
from all over the world with diverse academic back-
grounds, which allow a broad array of perspectives and
experiences to contribute to online discussions, offering
valuable learning opportunities.This interdisciplinary col-
lection of students fosters a comprehensive and unsur-
passed understanding of the breadth, depth, and
complexity of the political, logistical, ethical, and secu-
rity issues in the field of homeland security. Students
come from local, state, and federal law enforcement, but
the biggest groups are from federal organizations such as
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service Uni-
form Division, U.S. Park Police, and Border Patrol.
(Access www.southampton.liu.edu/homeland/
masters.html.)
Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University offers an online
thirty-credit master’s in homeland security and public
health preparedness with courses in bioterrorism, disas-
ter psychology, disaster management, and other areas.
The medical college developed this program because so
64 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
many new programs in homeland security focus only
on law enforcement and security issues. It was created to
help leaders understand the public health issues related
to homeland security and terrorism response. It appeals
to state health department professionals and members
of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(Access www.worldcampus.psu.edu/
MasterinHomelandSecurity_CourseList.shtml.)
Georgetown University
Georgetown University offers an online certificate
and a residential master’s in biohazardous threat agents
and emerging infectious diseases. Courses offered in-
clude biodefense public health countermeasures and bio-
surveillance. Most traditional degree programs do not
give students a comprehensive view of the nature of
bioterrorism and its potential impact on public safety.
This one offers in-depth training in critical areas of pub-
lic safety as it relates to biological and radiological threats.
It attracts students from the Department of Homeland
Security and senior officers in the District of Columbia
Police Department. (Access grad.georgetown. edu/pages/
certif_biohazard.cfm.)
Prescott College
Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona, offers a dis-
tance learning PhD in community sustainability devel-
opment that includes required courses in environmental
management, sustainability development, and public pol-
icy. The program can be completed in four years while
working full time. Outside of the core courses, this pro-
gram provides a rare opportunity for experienced pro-
fessionals to self-design a concentration in popular
political topics like conservationism, consumerism, re-
cycling, global warming, alternative energy development,
and ecological disaster avoidance.The program receives
applications from employees at the U.S. Nuclear Regu-
latory Commission, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, and Forest Service. (Access www.prescott. edu/
academics/phd/index.html.)
Abbey Carpenter, director of admissions at Prescott
College, says,
“
Prescott College has a history of developing environ-
mentally conscious students. We are not an online uni-
versity. We have a physical campus where students attend
classes each semester.We just offer our graduate programs
in some nontraditional formats. Prescott has a self-de-
signed master’s degree program where students can com-
bine courses in academic areas like community policing,
 public policy, counseling, and criminal psychology in one
program. Most graduate programs make you choose one
field and complete your degree in the single area. …The
“
benefit of having the Prescott College doctoral program,
which is flexible, as an option is most senior managers …
would not otherwise have an opportunity to pursue a
”
doctorate degree because of the structure of most tradi-
tional programs.
American Public University
American Public University in Charlestown, West
Virginia, offers an online master’s in public health with
a focus in homeland security management and disaster
management. It provides an opportunity for profession-
als to develop knowledge that can assist in better plan-
ning when hurricanes and other disasters occur. Ninety
percent of the students in this program are military offi-
cers. (Access www.apu.apus.edu/index.htm.)
NorthCentral University
NorthCentral University in Prescott,Arizona, has an
online doctor of business administration with a focus in
homeland security with courses in areas such as counter-
terrorism. Even though this degree historically has been
preferred by individuals in the corporate world or in uni-
versity business schools, NorthCentral has taken an in-
terdisciplinary approach, accepting students from
backgrounds outside business and offering concentration
courses in public administration, public policy, and home-
land security. The program was developed with the un-
derstanding that some business practices related to human
resources management, finance, and organizational devel-
opment are valuable in any profession for administrators
that have to manage budgets and people. Seventy-five per-
cent of the students are military or former military work-
ing in federal or state law enforcement. (Access
www.ncu.edu/info. asp?i=21.)
Norwich University
Norwich University has a unique online master’s
program in diplomacy with focuses in international con-
flict management and international terrorism. A one-
week campus residency and nine online courses are
required to complete the degree. Courses in the program
include international response to transnational terrorism
and conflict avoidance, prevention, and containment in
the international system.This program attracts students
from the National Security Agency and Department
of State.
The Norwich University program director, Dr.
Harold Kearsley, says,
The staggering complexity of the international system
nearly defies comprehension. Because of technology and
the growth of online communications, the reduction of
threats is no longer just an international issue. Under-
standing globalization is critical to success in international
business, diplomacy, the foreign service, peacekeeping, or
any area affected by the impact of world events. Those
”
who understand the intricacies of the new international
system will outperform those who don’t.
Olivet Nazarene University
To respond to the ethics crisis in public service and
politics, Olivet Nazarene University has developed a doc-
tor of education in ethical leadership.The hope is to attract
students from a variety of backgrounds outside education,
including public administration, business, nonprofit man-
agement, and public policy.The design, format, and focus
of the program are geared toward the development of ad-
vanced ethical leadership competencies in decision mak-
ing and policy development. The three-year program
includes an applied dissertation and a challenging cur-
riculum, with courses such as politics and social action
and ethical issues in leadership. Students attend class in a
cohort group one Saturday every month in Chicago.The
program can be completed in three years, including the
dissertation. Participants work on the applied research dis-
sertation all ten semesters of the program. (Access
www.olivet.edu/academics/GCS/edd_el.asp.)
Northeastern University
One of the most innovative new programs is the ex-
ecutive doctorate in law and policy at Northeastern Uni-
versity intended for working practitioners from a variety
of fields. While the average completion time for most
doctorate programs is about seven years, full-time em-
ployed students complete this program and dissertation
in two years by attending class one weekend per month
in Boston. The degree has an applied curriculum that
exposes policy developers, public managers, and other
professionals to an advanced conceptual and practical un-
derstanding of law and policy and the political connec-
tions between the two.The core of the program explores
the related impacts among court decisions, legislation,
community activism, and political action in shaping pol-
icy. Research method is integrated throughout the pro-
gram instead of being offered as a series of separate
courses. (Access www.spcs. neu.edu/dlp/overview/.)
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 65

Colorado Technical University
The doctor of management program at Colorado
Technical University teaches professionals the aspects of
applied academic research and important skills for the
creation, design, and management of complex organiza-
tions. The program does not require a master’s degree in
business or management for admission. The admissions
department creates an interdisciplinary learning com-
munity by seeking applicants outside the business field,
with graduate degrees in education, public administra-
tion, international relations, psychology, public policy,
communications, social work, public health, and coun-
seling. The program is designed to provide an academi-
cally rigorous learning experience for full-time working
professionals from a variety of occupations and graduate
degree disciplines who want the knowledge and oppor-
tunities that having a doctorate degree offers and want to
become effective organizational leaders. (Access
www.instituteforadvancedstudies.com/sec2.html.)
The value of this program as an option for profes-
sionals without degrees in business is that at some point
in their careers they will have leadership and manage-
ment responsibilities that require advanced business skills.
The program goal is to develop effective organizational
leaders trained in knowledge areas critical in managing
conflict, creating social change, developing teams, devel-
oping others, valuing diversity, and solving complex
management problems.
The program is unique in that it does not have the
traditional dissertation, which has been replaced by four
applied research projects that can focus on solving real
problems at a student’s work place. Most of the courses
are offered one at a time, allowing working profession-
als to focus on the assignments for one course along with
family and work obligations during each term. Students
start as a group of twenty-five and go through the pro-
gram together as a group.This process allows students to
develop a support system that naturally improves their
ability to complete the program. Colorado Technical
University has a real campus where traditional students
take courses. Neither the Graduate Management Ad-
mission Test nor the Graduate Record Examination is
required for admission, but an academic essay with ref-
erences is required.
Asila Safi, who works in property management at
the General Services Administration, says,
66 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
“
After reviewing the information for all the traditional doc-
toral programs in the Washington, DC, area, I decided to
pursue the degree at Colorado Technical University be-
cause the university did not have the expectation that I
would quit my full-time job to complete the degree. …
The program has exposed me to leadership training that
”
has been invaluable to what I do on my job on a daily basis.
Similar Goals
The goals of these new degrees and certificate pro-
grams are similar. They develop innovative leadership
skills for professionals who need this specialized knowl-
edge to better contribute to their organizations and find
solutions to complex public management problems at all
levels of government.These programs work for profes-
sionals with full-time job responsibilities because the de-
livery is flexible and allows a balance between work,
family, and academic study. Government professionals
can consider future job responsibilities and needed areas
of expertise and gain the necessary academic training.
These programs are constructed to advance the value of
professional problem-solving skills through a combined
academic and professional exploration of ecosystem-like
relationships between practice, research, practical knowl-
edge, and established theory.
Most of these programs incorporate and use faculties
that have a combination of practical experience and a ter-
minal degree.The teaching methods are applied and prac-
tical. Much of the learning is driven by case studies where
students can learn things that can be immediately applied
when they return to work.These academic experiences
allow students to develop critical thinking leadership skills
in policy studies, crisis management, emergency response,
public safety, public health preparedness, conflict manage-
ment, program evaluation, and managerial decision mak-
ing in the context of the uncertainty of threats and
globalization, which make the knowledge provided in
these programs necessary and valuable.
References
Bardin, Sharla. “College Institute Offers Homeland Security
Training.” The Morning News, June 18, 2006.
Johnson, Linda. “Government and Industry Join in E-coli
Fight.” Associated Press, December 31, 2006.
Reeger, Jennifer. “Universities Offering Homeland Security
Curriculum.” Tribune Review, March 2005.
 Fulfilling
the Promise of E-Gov
Initiatives—Part I
by Judy Steele and Lisa Cliff
The integration of
federal acquisition s it working? The candles on the cake for the five-year anniversary
processes has greatly
improved services
to government
I of the e-Government (e-Gov) initiatives were barely cool before
critics began asking if their promise has been kept. How widely
are e-Gov systems used and how satisfied are customers with them?
Are the goals of improved citizen services, increased efficiency and ef-
fectiveness, and more transparency being met? Is a single source of gov-
ernment acquisition information readily available? Have agency legacy
and citizens. systems been shut down? Is cross-agency funding still worthwhile?
One of the original twenty-four e-Gov initiatives under The Presi-
dent’s Management Agenda (PMA) in 2001 was the integration of all com-
mon federal acquisition processes. This two-part series describes how
the Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE), managed by the U.S.
General Services Administration (GSA), is living up to the e-Gov prom-
ise. It discusses the systems that have been shut down, paper forms re-
placed by automated systems, and benefits to agencies and the public
and features interviews with satisfied customers. It also briefly describes
the nine systems that make up IAE and the services they provide.

The Past as Prologue

Before the IAE initiative, government-wide shared acquisition sys-
tems were few, and agencies’ budgets and management processes had no
collaboration incentives. Lack of coordination among agencies led to
duplication of effort, stovepiped information systems, lack of data and
messaging standards, and insufficient leverage. Agencies used a variety

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 67

of commercial software as contract-writing systems, and
several developed specialized systems to handle specific
functions such as collecting vendor data and monitor-
ing performance.
Steps in the acquisition process, such as advertising
solicitations and awards, obtaining wage determinations,
entering vendor banking data, and submitting represen-
tations and certifications, were labor intensive for the
government and contractors. Key parts—obtaining per-
formance data, checking the Excluded Parties List, and
reviewing subcontracting data—took too much time
and generated inordinate paperwork.Automated, shared
systems were needed to improve efficiency.
IAE Charter and Goals
The IAE charter outlined the following design:
✦ Build on the framework of a shared services model
where no single organization has “ownership” and
the services are a constellation of capabilities built
on standards and accessible over the Internet.
✦ Serve as the access point for various services and
provide a set of tools and capabilities that can be
leveraged by the acquisition community stakehold-
ers to conduct business across the government.
✦ Provide access to Internet-based software solutions,
acquisition capabilities, and value-added services
required to support the entire acquisition life cycle
in a unified and fully integrated manner.
IAE used an “adopt, adapt, acquire” strategy to make
the transition from concept to implementation, taking a
unified approach to obtaining modern tools to leverage
investment costs for business-related processes. It has met
the goals of its charter: to leverage the Internet and cur-
rent government technology to create a simpler, com-
mon, integrated business process for buyers and sellers
that promotes competition, transparency, and integrity.
This has resulted in increased data sharing, enabling bet-
ter business decisions in procurement, logistics, payment,
and performance assessment.
Judy Steele is a former contracting officer with nearly thirty years of experi-
ence in acquisition and procurement policy for various federal government
agencies. Currently a program analyst in GSA’s Office of Acquisition Sys-
tems, she can be reached at judy.steele@gsa.gov. Lisa Cliff is a senior con-
sultant with SiloSmashers of Fairfax, Virginia, a technology and project
management consulting firm, and a certified project management professional.
A communications manager for the Integrated Acquisition Environment since
2002, she was responsible for its initial marketing and outreach plan. Lisa can
be reached at lisa.cliff@gsa.gov.
68 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
The goal was to integrate, unify, and streamline the
federal acquisition processes. Agencies have worked co-
operatively to transition to the consolidated IAE systems.
Partner agencies don’t have to build and maintain sepa-
rate systems, benefiting from shared systems and expert-
ise. Agency contract-writing systems can access these
shared services as needed during the acquisition life
cycle, allowing agencies to focus on their specific needs,
such as strategy, operations, and management, while
leveraging shared services for common functions. IAE
improves cross-agency coordination, helping the gov-
ernment better use its buying power while giving com-
mercial organizations maximum visibility.
Performance Measurement
Each of the IAE systems is measured on business, fi-
nancial, and project measurement metrics to meet U.S.
Office of Management and Budget requirements to in-
clude earned value management measures of schedule
and cost. Operational measurements include the number
of hits, postings, and visits to each system by constituen-
cies and comparisons of transaction levels to previous
years or periods of performance. IAE also maps the in-
dividual user agencies’ measurements of financial, sched-
ule, and human resources impacts.
All major federal agencies use IAE, deriving benefits
that demonstrate the effectiveness of the program.Agen-
cies are adopting IAE tools and services to improve their
ability to make informed and efficient purchasing deci-
sions and replace manual processes.Without the IAE sys-
tems, agencies would need to build and maintain their
own systems to record vendor and contract information
and post-procurement opportunities. Agency purchas-
ing officials would not have access to databases of im-
portant information from other agencies on vendor
performance and could not use systems that replace
paper-based and labor-intensive work efforts.
The IAE influence on the use of processes, personnel,
roles, steps, and actions has saved agencies money. They
have also avoided the cost of inefficient operations. One
acquisition systems branch chief said that a cost-benefit
analysis at his agency indicated that it was saving from $11
million to $17 million annually in labor costs alone thanks
to the IAE systems. He added that IAE has “transformed
the role and function of federal procurement” whereby
acquisition is now being “recognized as a premier busi-
ness line in accomplishing organizational mission while
ensuring efficient and effective use of assets.”
Improved Performance
To increase efficiency and maximize resources, IAE
mapped the business process inherent to the acquisition
life cycle. By starting at the left navigational panel on the
Acquisition Central Web site (www.acquisition.gov),
users can easily find sites that provide standard contract-
ing information they need for making business decisions.
IAE satisfies the e-Gov plan to improve federal buying
operations by applying best practices in commercial e-
commerce technologies and business practices. It em-
ploys the best practices of agencies to create a more
efficient, competitive, and transparent federal procure-
ment process.
Using IAE systems, contracting officers furnish pur-
chasing data that are useable in end-to-end commercial
electronic processing to support agency payments, ac-
counting, performance reviews, and contract data re-
porting. These electronic and Internet innovations help
agencies achieve more efficient and simplified acquisi-
tion processes. IAE has established data standards; by
adopting them, agencies can use the IAE shared tools,
taking advantage of these innovations.
A contracting chief from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) said IAE systems have greatly
improved the efficiency of his contracting operation. Ini-
tially, the interfacing of the various IAE systems with
EPA’s legacy contract-writing system required some
troubleshooting and downtime, but once complete, the
interface made the contracting jobs much easier. He es-
pecially likes Central Contractor Registration (CCR)
because of the ability to enter data at one point and one
time, instead of the past practice of entering the infor-
mation on many documents in many locations.This par-
ticularly helped with entering business data for large
companies that had numerous contracts with EPA.
Reducing Paperwork and Saving Time
In addition to enabling agencies to shut down many
legacy systems, the IAE systems have replaced paper
forms and reduced the time involved in performing ac-
quisition functions:
✦ The online FedBizOpps (Federal Business Oppor-
tunities) replaced the manual Commerce Business
Daily advertisement and shortened the lead-time
for issuing solicitations by at least fifteen days.
✦ Federal Technical Data Solutions (FedTeDS) elimi-
nated the need to print technical drawings and
specifications and staff a secure room to monitor
contractor review of documents.
✦ Wage Determinations OnLine replaced the need
to fill out almost all Standard Form (SF) 98s and
reduced the wait time for a wage determination
from months to almost nothing.
✦ CCR replaced the SF 3881 and SF 129 by central-
izing both Electronic Funds Transfer and Bidder’s
Mailing List data.
✦ The Online Representations and Certifications
Application (ORCA) eliminated the need to man-
ually fill out Section K representations and certifi-
cations for each solicitation—only an annual
submission is now required.
✦ The Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) replaced
the printed Debarred Bidder’s List and greatly sim-
plified and expedited entering debarment and sus-
pension information.
✦ The Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS)
replaced the SF 279 and SF 281 manual contract
reporting.
✦ The Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System
(ESRS), which replaced the SF 294 and SF 295,
allows for “one-stop reporting” on subcontracts by
prime vendors.
These examples demonstrate that the government
goal of reducing paperwork has been achieved.
Benefits
IAE has facilitated the business process for govern-
ment buyers and business suppliers. With a few key-
strokes government buyers can
✦ search for commercial and government sources,
✦ post synopses and solicitations,
✦ securely post sensitive solicitation documents,
✦ access reports on vendors’ performance,
✦ retrieve vendor data validated by the Small Busi-
ness Administration and Internal Revenue Service,
✦ identify excluded parties, and
✦ report contract awards.
Business suppliers can
✦ search business opportunities by product, service,
agency, or location;
✦ receive e-mail notification of solicitations based on
specific criteria;
✦ register to do business with the federal government;
✦ enter representations and certifications one time;
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 69
✦ revalidate registration data annually; and
✦ report subcontracting accomplishments.
IAE has also made the acquisition process more
transparent for citizens, who can now
✦ retrieve data on contract awards,
✦ track federal spending,
✦ search to find registered businesses, and
✦ monitor business opportunities.
When asked about the impact of IAE, an acquisi-
tion professional at the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity said that because of the accomplishments of IAE,
more automated systems support acquisition than any of
the other major lines of business that support PMA goals.
He says acquisition is twenty to twenty-five years ahead
of the others because of the determination of the IAE
team to make IAE a success.
Recognized Success
Five IAE systems have been honored with technol-
ogy and industry awards, and the Industry Advisory
Council announced that IAE was one of the “Top 20”
candidates for the seventh annual Excellence.Gov awards
program, honored for demonstrating excellence in lever-
aging technology to enhance collaboration. According
to the council’s press release, this included “demonstrat-
ing efficiency gains, cost advantages, or superiority over
previous methods of collaboration, supported by met-
rics; and a sound approach to addressing security and
privacy of data.” The U.S. Government Accountability
Office pointed to IAE as “an example of effective col-
laboration” that had contributed to advancing the goals
of the presidential e-Government initiative.
And the Systems Are…
Part II of this series briefly describes each of the nine
IAE systems and their current status:
1. FedBizOpps (www.fbo.gov).The single point of
entry for federal government procurement oppor-
tunities over $25,000.
2. FedTeDS (www.fedteds.gov).An online system used
by federal agencies to securely disseminate techni-
cal drawings, specifications, and other documents
that may contain sensitive acquisition-related ma-
terial to approved business partners.
70 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
3. Wage Determinations OnLine (www.wdol.gov).The
source (per FAR Part 22) for Service Contract Act
and Davis Bacon Act wage determinations and
contractor labor standards information issued by
the U.S. Department of Labor.
4. CCR (www.ccr.gov) and FedReg (www.bpn.gov/far). A
single point where contractors can enter all com-
mon business information (developed by the De-
partment of Defense). Federal agencies also register
in the CCR for intragovernmental transactions
under the subsystem called the Federal Agency
Registration (FedReg) (www.bpn.gov/far).
5. ORCA (www.bpn.gov/orca). Replacement for most
of the paper-based representations and certifica-
tions in proposals.
6. Past Performance Information Retrieval System—
PPIRS (www.ppirs.gov). A Web-based system that
consolidates contractor report cards collected from
across the federal government into a single search-
able database.
7. EPLS (www.epls.gov). Replacement for the printed
“List of Parties Excluded from Federal Procure-
ment and Non-Procurement Programs.”
8. FPDS (https://www.fpds.gov).The central repository
of detailed information on federal contract actions
over $3,000.
9. ESRS (www.esrs.gov). The newest member of the
IAE family, a single point of data entry for vendors.
Of the nine systems discussed in Part II, the Federal
Acquisition Regulation requires the use of all but two.
Information may change by the time the series is pub-
lished, so we recommend checking the Acquisition Cen-
tral Web site at www.acquisition.gov for the latest
systems updates. Part II also takes a peek at future initia-
tives to accommodate young professionals and where
and how they get their information.
The goal of the e-Gov initiative has been to offer
citizens and businesses a single source for government
information.That defines the mission of IAE—one-stop
acquisition shopping. Please send questions or comments
on Part I of this series to integrated.acquisition@gsa.gov.
Executive’s Guide
to Practical
Computer Models
by Daniel T. Maxwell and Andrew G. Loerch
The nontechnical
leader can learn to overnment executives are witnessing revolutionary changes

shape, oversee, and

manage projects with
computer-based tools
G in information technologies and the geopolitical landscape.
These profound changes present leaders and decision mak-
ers with unique technology demands and special opportu-
nities as they strive to develop and implement solutions to historic
problems and new challenges.To succeed, government executives must
understand and appreciate how technology supports and serves them
and, in the process, and master the implementation of improved technologies.
One response to emerging challenges is the proliferation of models
become a more embedded in computer simulations, decision support systems, and com-
intelligent consumer. puter-based analyses. To some, the results are insightful; to others, the
trend is insidious. Military command and control visionaries, for exam-
ple, envision a future of Power to the Edge.This concept implies an in-
formation and decision authority that is more broadly distributed than
in most current command and control constructs, with participatory
leadership that involves more people throughout the organization em-
powered to both influence and make decisions.
Technology, including models, furnishes critical decision support to
this distributed-decision-making and information-sharing-based con-
cept. In Edge organizations, understanding a leader’s intent and the key
information relevant to the situation are crucial to successful empower-
ment. Technology, supported by computer models, encodes a leader’s

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 71

intent in information systems, allows it to be distributed
efficiently, and empowers subordinate leaders to act de-
cisively. Achieving this vision presupposes that the com-
puter models running behind the scenes are ensuring
that decisions are feasible (for example, logistically sup-
portable and physically possible) and consider all rele-
vant information.
Military command and control is an obvious high-
visibility, high-cost example where computer models are
becoming more prevalent, but the trend of using com-
puter-based decision support tools also spans the public
sector.This article offers thoughts and guidelines to help
public-sector leaders and executives understand emerg-
ing concepts and advancing technologies in modeling.
A key goal is to help nontechnical leaders better under-
stand technology and help them make it work for them
instead of them working for it. Technology needs such
understanding to achieve its potential, and public man-
agers need it to achieve their goals.Together, technology
and public managers can more effectively meet the chal-
lenges of the twenty-first century.
Types of Models
For purposes of this discussion, a model is the rep-
resentation of one system by another. It is an abstraction
created to describe and better understand that which is
real. Good models behave similarly to the real systems
they represent, but they are not perfect and do not pre-
dict the future. Most models relevant to this discussion
could be characterized as logical or mathematical mod-
els. These types of models are often embedded in com-
puter simulations, decision support systems, analyses, and
automated reporting systems.
Model is a general term, but many people believe that
all models are simulation models. Nothing could be fur-
ther from the truth. Although many useful models fall
into the category of simulation, other categories are bet-
ter used in different decision situations. Simulation mod-
els should be employed only when the results justify the
Dan Maxwell, PhD, is a senior principal analyst at Innovative Decisions, Inc.
He has provided model development and analysis support to senior leaders in
government and industry for about twenty years. He can be reached at
dmaxwell@innovativedecisions.com. Andy Loerch is an associate professor in
the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research at George
Mason University and is the distinguished visiting scholar at the LMI Re-
search Institute. He is a past president of the Military Operations Research
Society and has been involved in model development and analytical support
to military decision makers for more than twenty-five years.
72 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
effort—they tend to be complicated, difficult to popu-
late with data, and labor intensive in output interpreta-
tion—so other classes of models are often more
appropriate.
For example, optimization models help managers
find the right combination of alternatives to either min-
imize negative outcomes or maximize positive ones.An-
alytical models can mathematically represent a system
and the interaction of its components without simulat-
ing it.These models often take into account the uncer-
tainty involved in the system using probability theory.
Decision analytic models set a framework for the organ-
ization of information and allow the incorporation of
subjective judgment, uncertainty, and preference into
analysis or even embedded in an automated decision
support system.
A simulation model of the environment can help
predict the weather. Parameters that describe the condi-
tions of the environment are input into the model, and
the weather for the upcoming period is simulated.As we
know, the weather forecasts based on this sort of model
are usually correct, but sometimes the real environment
doesn’t behave like the simulated one.
The nation’s disparate governmental agencies em-
ploy numerous types of models.The following are a few
examples.
Department of Defense
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) uses mod-
els extensively to derive information needed to make
decisions regarding weapons and equipment procure-
ment, force organization, operational courses of action,
force deployment to a theater of operations, and many
other functions.These models take the place of collect-
ing information from actual engagements or from per-
forming expensive and limited experiments.
Internal Revenue Service
Forward-thinking government applications of tech-
nology and supporting computer models are not limited
to DoD.The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is exploring
and implementing models in advanced computer-based
systems and concepts.The intent of the modeling effort
is to simplify income tax filing for well-intentioned tax-
payers as well as to identify and prevent income tax eva-
sion more reliably.
Federal Aviation Administration
Similarly, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
is pursuing research and development into computer-
based tools containing models to increase the efficiency
and safety of air traffic. In fact, computer models were
used to evaluate policies that could increase the use of
fuel-efficient routes without compromising safety. Mod-
els, in the form of algorithms, are embedded in FAA
computer consoles to assist air traffic controllers.
Leadership Framework
Virtually all public managers reading this article can
look on their desks (or into their computer files) and
find a model-based information source on which they
rely. They understand the information and its implica-
tions under most circumstances, but do they understand
the underlying models and supporting technology?
Difficult government decisions warrant significant
investments in computer models, large analyses, or deci-
sion support tools. Nonetheless, responsible leaders have
been addressing these types of decisions throughout his-
tory, and good leaders succeed more often than they fail.
This record indicates that the experience and intuition
of domain experts are very relevant and should count
heavily in decisions involving the development, accept-
ance, and application of models. Informed governmen-
tal leaders with expertise in the domain of interest can be
intelligent consumers of computer models and decision
support systems. Moreover, the gravitas a committed ex-
ecutive can bring to a model-related project is probably
the best defense against the downside risks of applying
models badly. Properly supported, these same leaders can
be the practical visionaries who achieve the promise of
technology.
The ideas that follow set a framework for senior
leaders to use for shaping, leading, and managing projects
with computer-based models and in the process be-
coming the much-needed intelligent consumer.
Setting the Conditions for Success
Unfortunately, the media and management science
literature are filled with examples of well-intentioned
modeling efforts that have failed. Seemingly too often,
ill-advised initiatives gain momentum because of an un-
healthy interaction between persuasive marketing and an
innocent failure to appreciate the strengths and limita-
tions of the models, data, and underlying assumptions
that form the foundation of computer-based tools. In-
formed public managers are an essential line of defense
against these misguided efforts, however well-inten-
tioned they might be. The consequence of failure is at
best a waste of national treasure; at worst, it is misplaced
trust in a model-based decision support tool that has the
ability to harm people or points to strategies that might
threaten the safety of our citizens or national security.
The purpose of any model is to provide informa-
tion to a decision maker, inform a decision process, or in
some cases substitute for a human under specified con-
ditions. The information the model generates and re-
ports usually involves the response of the modeled
system to different conditions. The most important of
these conditions are the ones over which the decision
maker has control, the so-called “decision variables.” The
ideal model will represent the system such that the re-
sponse to changes in the decision variables is consistent
with those of the real system.The design of such a model
is a creative activity: the modeler has to decide how
much detail to include and what to leave out.
Typically, no model is perfect for a particular prob-
lem or application, and reasonable people can disagree
about the model design. Usually, a tradeoff is made be-
tween the level of detail and the computing resources,
particularly time, needed to actually run the model and
generate results. The model must be responsive to the
time sensitivity of the decision process, and though real-
ism is often seen as a desirable characteristic of a model,
the inclusion of too much detail can render the model
too cumbersome to use and not responsive enough.The
key activities in designing a model or choosing from ex-
isting ones are to match the information requirements
of the decision with the model’s capability to produce
that information and to ensure that the modeled systems
are represented in a sufficiently realistic manner.
Key Questions
Determining the information requirements of a
given decision situation is an important process fre-
quently given insufficient attention. At the very incep-
tion of a project, executive-level leaders can and must
ask three key questions (Table 1).
Good models help organizations achieve their mis-
sion-oriented goals more efficiently and effectively.They
never, however, become the mission. Focusing on these
three key questions early in a model development proj-
ect grounds the entire project in the relevant goals and
objectives of the organization and sets the stage for
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 73
 Table 1. Key Questions at Inception
Question Details
What are the A refined understanding of the goals and objec-
fundamental tives of the organization and, more narrowly, the
objectives? project. In essence, the model’s eventual repre-
sentation of the goals should reflect and justify
the relevant decision.
What is the An individual decision or complicated combina-
relevant tion of branches and sequels that describe the
decision space? strategy to be informed by the model.
What are the Two classes: the inputs and logical consequences
relevant vari- of a decision (such as resources consumed) and
ables? key uncertainties that could affect achievement of
a goal (such as the actions a competitor might ini-
tiate and the possible consequences). Analysis lit-
erature refers to these types of variables as means
variables.
meaningful communication among members of the
team responsible for developing and subsequently ap-
plying a model.
The Right People
Selecting and empowering the right people for a
modeling-related project are also key to success. The
complexity of the modern environment and technology
make it highly unlikely that any one person or homo-
geneous team will possess the depth and breadth of skills
and experience required to succeed. In constructing a
heterogeneous team, a manager should attempt to as-
Figure 1. Venn Diagram of Model Team
74 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
semble three classes of talent: domain expertise, scien-
tific and academic expertise, and applied science and en-
gineering skills (Figure 1). In many cases, people can fill
more than one role. For example, a senior executive in
the Department of the Treasury is likely to have formal
training, experience, and interest in economics, which
may provide a foundation for models that address the ap-
plied problems as well as practical knowledge related to
the decision situation.
The required balance of talent from across these do-
mains also depends on the nature of the project. For ex-
ample, extending a proven model to support a larger,
distributed population of users calls for emphasis on en-
gineering and social science skills to focus on system de-
sign and business rules. Conversely, a project exploring
whether emerging agent-based simulation techniques
apply to a previously untested application area calls for
emphasis on academic researchers, application domain
experts, and operations researchers.
Team Leader
The technical team leader—the most important
team member—must be capable of serving as the con-
nection between and among the various skills on the
team. Leaders must be capable of filling the very center
of the Venn diagram (a model) in Figure 1.
A manager can assess an individual’s ability to fill this
role by asking for a description of the most challenging
aspects of the project and the dependencies across it.The
candidate should demonstrate an understanding and
awareness of the significance of dependencies, a sound
rationale for the mix of skills on the team, and an ability
to communicate that understanding and rationale with
minimal reliance on technical jargon.
Commitment to Development
Over the years, we have led successful and unsuc-
cessful model-based projects. The most significant de-
terminant of success is the commitment of the
responsible government leader, the champion for the
project. The famous ham and eggs breakfast analogy is
especially relevant here: the chicken makes a contribu-
tion, but the pig makes a commitment. Some leader
must demonstrate an interest and participate in the de-
velopment process to reinforce the importance of the ef-
fort and the expected results or services. Somebody who
matters needs to be committed. This commitment also
naturally reinforces the consideration of the three ques-
tions above throughout the process. Furthermore, it mo-
tivates the leader to use or present the results of the effort
more effectively.As Richard Hamming of Bell Labs said,
“The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.”
The only way to obtain that insight is to invest intellec-
tually in the model development effort.
Leading a model development effort doesn’t entail
any unique methods that are the “secrets to success.” Ef-
fective executive leadership simply comprises expressing
interest, keeping the team focused on the answers to the
three questions, and meeting the inevitable executive-
level challenges.
Evaluate the Model
Evaluation is often either forgotten or under-re-
sourced when the realities of finite budgets, schedules,
and competing interests confront model development
efforts. Consequently, the failure to evaluate is often the
downfall of model development projects. To succeed,
evaluation should be an explicit part of the project plan
and receive meaningful resources throughout the project
life. Abundant rich literature, dating back many years, is
available on model validation and verification—almost
all, ironically, with its roots in the management science
literature. Evaluation in the future must remain grounded
on those early first principles (though they were often
more complicated than necessary).
A good model has three evident good features,
which synthesize this very complex subject into a con-
cise set of “common sense” principles that a manager
can apply (Table 2).
Table 2. Three Features of Good Model
Feature Explanation
Clearly bounded A concept of interest or variable is
clearly inside or outside the scope.
Logically consistent The variables inside the model fit
together and are clearly related to
the relevant goals and decisions
identified at the outset.
Penetrable The team can explain to an execu-
tive how the model works and why
it does what it does.
In participating in development and evaluation ac-
tivities, we’ve often seen models generate surprising,
anomalous, or counterintuitive results.These have been
important moments, ones that the committed manager
and model team should anticipate and pursue.When this
happens, one of three conditions has to be true:
✦ The model is wrong due to incorrect data, invalid logic, or
misleading presentation.This condition needs to be
corrected for the model and its results to be valid
and useful.
✦ A behavior or factor is relevant to the result but is cur-
rently outside the scope of the model.An executive
who understands the model concept and is aware
of this factor should inform the modelers that a
factor not in the model would change the result.
This information can then be used to consider
how the model might be extended to be more
useful or to document the model’s limitations to
shape any analyses or decisions it supports.
✦ The model is “speaking,” offering insights into the mod-
eled system that were not known or anticipated.This
means that the penetration of the model presents
new information.To note this success, an executive
should let the modelers know that the model has
created a new perspective for organizational
thought.To a modeler, this outcome equates to a
no-hitter by a pitcher in baseball. It is a great result
for the organization, too, as the unintended learn-
ing can potentially improve effectiveness and
efficiency.
Summary
Government executives and public managers in gen-
eral are an integral and important part of the technology
revolution in their respective organizations. Although
these individuals may not possess extensive technical
skills, their organizations often depend upon technology
to help them confront the challenges in today’s environ-
ment. Executives must understand their role and re-
sponsibilities in planning and achieving technical
proficiency in their organizations.
Leaders must be conscious of three factors that apply
equally to computer models and analysis, software solu-
tions, hardware vendors, and total-solution providers.
First, set the conditions for success; second, participate
in the development process; and finally, insist on rigor-
ous and continuous evaluation. Simply understanding
how technology can help you and how you can help
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 75

technology will help you become a better executive.
Your organization can be more successful, too.
References
Alberts, D., and R. Hayes. Power to the Edge: Command and
Control in the Information Age (Washington, DC: CCRP
Publication Series, 2003).
Carley, K., and D. Maxwell. “Understanding Taxpayer Behav-
ior and Assessing Potential IRS Interventions Using Multi-
Agent Dynamic-Network Simulation.” Proceedings of the 2006
Internal Revenue Service Research Conference, Washington, DC,
June 14–15, 2006.
Hamming, Richard. “You and Your Research.” Presented at
MRE, March 7, 1986. Transcription by J. F. Kaiser, Bell
Labs, 2006. www.cse.nd.edu/resources/hamming.html.
Keeney, Ralph. Value Focused Thinking (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1992).
MITRE. “Modeling the Airspace Can Improve Aviation Effi-
ciency.” The MITRE Digest, March 2004.
www.mitre.org/news/digest/.
Rice, Roy E. “Step #1 of the Scientific Method: Defining the
Problem.” Presented at the Military Operations Research
Society Education and Professional Development Collo-
quium, 2002.

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76 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
 Image of Public Service

A report from the Council for Excellence in Government and

the Gallup Organization sheds new light on the challenges—
and possibilities—of shaping tomorrow’s federal workforce.

Within Reach …
But Out of Sync

W
Darby Miller Steiger and Carl Fillichio

hen it comes to the future of the federal workforce, the predictions are dire.
According to experts, 60 percent of General Schedule employees (rank and file
workforce)—and 90 percent of the Senior Executive Service (top managers)—
will be eligible to retire in the next ten years. As a result, the nation is at risk
of losing a huge portion of government’s most precious asset—its people—as
well as continuity, technical expertise, and institutional knowledge.
If that were the entire story, the challenge would be daunting, but the re-
ality is worse. In addition to the federal brain drain (state and local govern-
ments also report a looming talent crisis of even larger proportions), the entire
U.S. workforce is getting older, and record numbers of baby boomers are re-
tiring. At the same time, the next generation of American workers—GenY—
is a smaller part (16 percent) of the total population than the generation that
will retire (25 percent).
The competition among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors for
America’s talented workers is going to be unparalleled and fierce.To gain the
competitive edge, the federal government must understand tomorrow’s work-
force—its wants, needs, and preferences about work—and how a career in
government synchronizes with these factors.
This article—based on groundbreaking research, a combined effort of the
Council for Excellence in Government and the Gallup Organization—iden-
tifies trends that will influence the federal government’s ability to attract and
retain talented workers to replace those who are leaving. Working together
and bringing unique strengths to bear, these two organizations are perform-

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 77

ing innovative research, offering dia-
logue opportunities, and scheduling
other activities to engage a broad
coalition of public, private, and non-
profit leaders in a collective effort to
shape tomorrow’s federal workforce.
This effort looks for answers to some
simple but important questions:What
do key prospects for government ca-
reers value in a job? How do they
perceive working in the federal sec-
tor? How do they get information
about jobs? What is the brand value
of selected federal agencies?
Data Gathering
The Gallup Organization per-
formed two studies in September/
October 2006 and April 2007 and
held four focus groups in March 2007.
Gallup Panel Survey
A total of 2,596 members of the
Gallup Panel—a probability-based
panel of U.S. households—completed
an online survey. (These households
cannot volunteer to join the panel, but
are scientifically selected to participate
and recruited by experienced Gallup
interviewers.) The study consisted of
samples of current government work-
ers (federal, state, and local),“creative”
professionals (including architects, de-
signers, doctors, and lawyers), and
eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds, in
addition to the general population of
working adults. Respondents were
asked to share their views on what is
important to them as they think about
the benefits, workplace, job content,
and environment of an ideal job.The
survey also assessed their awareness of
twenty-six federal agencies and how
interesting they feel it would be to
work at each of those agencies.
Darby Miller Steiger (Darby_Miller_Steiger@gallup.com) is director of research for the Gallup Panel.
Carl Fillichio (cfillichio@excelgov.org) is a vice president of the Council for Excellence in Government.
78 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
The analysis in the final report
shares the work values of three pop-
ulations: those categorized as Gen Y
(eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds),
those currently in private- or non-
profit-sector managerial positions,
and finally, those who might be tar-
gets for the federal workforce of the
future (scientists, engineers, computer
systems analysts, and community or
social service workers). We dubbed
this cadre of workers the “Govern-
ment Go Gets,” or “G3s.”
Focus Groups
To understand the attraction of
the future workforce to the federal
government, Gallup held four focus
groups with individuals from these
key audiences and with current fed-
eral employees. Two of the focus
groups took place in person in Wash-
ington, DC (one among mid-career
professionals in federal government,
and one among young federal em-
ployees). The other two were by tele-
phone among Gallup Panel members
(one for GenY and one for G3/man-
agers) around the United States who
had previously expressed some inter-
est in working for the federal govern-
ment in the 2006 survey.
Public Service Recognition
Week Survey
In addition, as part of Public
Service Recognition Week (PSRW),
the Gallup Organization conducted a
special online poll for the Council for
Excellence in Government’s Public
Employees Roundtable and GEICO.
The survey—which examined inter-
est in public service jobs and trust in
government—was conducted among
2,448 members of the Gallup Panel
from April 23–30, 2007.
Key Prospects
The key challenge for the federal
government of the future is to recruit
now—and work to retain—talent
from several high-priority target pop-
ulations:
❚ GenY.The workforce of the fu-
ture—more than forty-six million
strong—born between 1977 and
1988 (currently eighteen–twenty-
nine years old).
❚ G3s. Scientists, engineers, and
computer science professionals
and individuals who work in law,
public policy, and the social serv-
ices—key prospects for the future
federal workforce.
❚ Managers. Professionals in manage-
rial or supervisory positions in the
private or nonprofit sector who
could potentially transfer to the
federal sector.
Workplace Values
We identified the qualities a fed-
eral agency would need to have to in-
terest, attract, and retain these
populations—twelve factors grouped
into the top five dimensions critical
in attracting talent:
❚ Intellectual stretch. Mental stimula-
tion; allowing workers to use
what they’ve learned in their edu-
cation; allowing them to be inno-
vative and creative.
❚ Mission match.An organizational
mission in which workers can be-
lieve, involving work that strongly
influences the public welfare.
❚ Growth potential.The availability of
opportunities to develop new and
advanced skills.
❚ Compensation and benefits. Reason-
able salaries, vacation time, health
benefits, and retirement plan.
❚ Job security.Assurance that em-
ployment will be long term.
Findings
Naturally, the survey results point
to opportunities and barriers to re-
cruitment and retention of the next
generation of federal workers, expe-
rienced managers, and those with ex-
pertise in target areas—science,
technology, engineering, law, public
policy, and social services.The poten-
tial to attract the future workforce is
clearly there, but the federal govern-
ment must sharpen its competitive
edge in terms of marketing and
branding, and even more challenging,
by offering high-performing work
environments that value innovation
and creativity and provide opportu-
nities for growth and advancement.
Gen Y Is Within Reach
Despite predictions to the con-
trary, a full 34 percent of those ages
eighteen–twenty-nine have an inter-
est in working for the federal govern-
ment regardless whether they are
currently seeking a job (Figure 1).
Also encouraging is the fact that 30
percent of G3s say they are interested
in federal government service. The
challenge remains in attracting man-
agers to federal jobs: only 17 percent
express interest, and 35 percent are
not interested at all.
Intellectual Stretch Is Important
Growth potential and intellectual
stretch are the workplace values that
top the list for Gen Y (Figure 2). For
managers and G3s, intellectual stretch
is second only to compensation and
benefits as a key job dimension.
In the G3 occupations, those in
community and social services value
mission match more than those in law
and public policy or science, engi-
neering, and computers (Figure 3).
They place less value on intellectual
stretch than the others. Among those
in law and public policy, job security
is the top value, while those in sci-
ence, engineering, and computers
rank compensation and benefits the
highest.
Perceptions of
Federal Government
The federal government is rated
as superb for benefits and job security
among all target populations (Figure
4). However, they rank the govern-
ment’s ability to provide a competi-
tive environment, innovation and
creativity, and attracting the best and
brightest the lowest in comparison
with the private sector.
In comparison with the overall
sample, Gen Y sees the federal gov-
ernment as better at attracting the
best and brightest and for its mission
orientation (Figure 5).
G3s rate government better than
the overall sample on job security and
mission orientation (Figure 6).
Compared with the overall sam-
ple, managers rate the private sector
as better on every factor except for
job security (Figure 7).
Brand Awareness and Interest
There are as many brands of the
government as there are agencies, and
each agency needs to define its own
brand promise and deliver work op-
portunities consistent with that
promise. Our research shows a high
level of awareness of most agencies,
but awareness does not equate to an
interest in working there (Figure 8
and Table 1).
For example, 94 percent of the
targeted populations were aware of
the mission of the Internal Revenue
Service, and 96 percent were aware of
the mission of the U.S. Postal Service,
yet a very small number thought it
would be interesting to work at these
agencies. On the other hand, agencies
such as the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, Central Intel-
ligence Agency, and Department of
Defense enjoy both high rates of
awareness and interest. A particular
challenge for an agency like the Na-
tional Science Foundation is that, al-
though it received a high rating for
“interesting work,” it scored low on
awareness among the targeted popu-
lations.
In addition, target audiences say
they would go to agency Web sites to
explore a job with the federal gov-
ernment (Figure 9). Job-searching
Web sites and ads in local newspapers
also are popular sources to get infor-
mation and search for federal jobs.
Attracting and
Retaining Talent
In terms of the federal govern-
ment’s ability to attract and retain
workers, several common themes
emerged from the focus group dis-
cussions. To attract new workers, gov-
ernment needs to do the following:
❚ Change public perceptions and
debunk myths
❚ Speak to the public mission
❚ Emphasize the exciting nature of
government jobs
❚ Promote opportunities for inno-
vation and creativity
❚ Rebrand government away from
its “broken image”
❚ Establish better systems
❚ Facilitate loan repayments
❚ Offer more horizontal and vertical
growth opportunities
❚ Pay competitive wages
❚ Streamline the application process
❚ Accelerate hiring
❚ Simplify applications
❚ Increase presence on job-search-
ing Web sites.
THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 79
 To retain workers, the govern-
ment needs better management:
❚ Succession planning and training
❚ Mentorship
❚ Instant opportunities to impact
policy and reduced layers of
bureaucracy
❚ Termination of unproductive
employees
❚ Promotion based on merit, not
tenure.
Next Steps
Our research and report is a first
step in a far-reaching effort to realize
the possibilities and face the chal-
lenges of shaping tomorrow’s govern-
ment workforce. We are making the
information available to anyone who
will find it useful and can play a con-
structive role in shaping a high-per-
forming public-sector workforce.
Human resource professionals in gov-
ernment, executive branch and con-
gressional leaders, academics, report-
ers, pundits, and thinkers and doers in
the public, private, and nonprofit
communities are encouraged to learn
more about this effort and to partici-
pate in future brainstorming sessions
about how to translate this informa-
tion into an action agenda.
In the near future, we intend to
organize a series of conferences to ex-
plore specific strategies and actions to
use this information to shape the fu-
ture federal workforce.Topics may in-
clude specific agency marketing and
branding initiatives to attract new
workers, unique strategies to recruit
workers with specific skills and spe-
cialties, reinventing the government
hiring process, how to retain talent in
the public sector, and measuring the
efficiency and effectiveness for re-
cruiting and retention efforts.
Through these activities and efforts,
we will identify and document inno-
vative best practices in recruiting, hir-
ing, and retaining the best prospects
for federal service. We also intend to
share practical recommendations for
action by government culled from our
research and dialogue with a broad
base of experts and stakeholders.

Figure 1. Interest in Federal Career Figure 2. Importance of Workplace Values

Regardless of whether you are currently seeking a job, how interested are you in a
career in the federal government?

Figure 4. Federal Government Compared

with Private Sector
Figure 3. Workplace Values within G3

How would you compare a job in the federal government to th private sector
on each of the following dimensions?

80 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
Figure 5. Federal Government Compared Figure 6. Federal Government Compared
with Private Sector (Gen Y) with Private Sector (G3s)

How would you compare a job in the federal government to th private sector How would you compare a job in the federal government to th private sector
on each of the following dimensions? on each of the following dimensions?

Figure 8. Awareness of and Interest

in Federal Government
Figure 7. Federal Government Compared
with Private Sector (Managers)

Table 1. Awareness of and Interest

in Federal Government (Details)
How would you compare a job in the federal government to th private sector
on each of the following dimensions?

Figure 9. Sources for Federal

Job Searching

Please indicate whether or not you would turn to each of the following sources
if you wanted to explore a job with the federal government.

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 81

 To the Man-of-War-Bird
Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)

Far, far at sea,

After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks,
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,
The limpid spread of air cerulean,
Thou also re-appearest.

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)

To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
Thou ship of air that never furl’st thy sails,
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
At dusk that lookist on Senegal, at morn America,
That sport’st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
In them, in thy experiences, had’st thou my soul,
What joys! what joys were thine!
—Walt Whitman

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82 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
 Image of Public Service

Federal executives hear two firsthand examples of how

public servants can make a difference in a time of crisis.

Public Service Leadership:

Lessons from the Front Lines

T
Craig Pettibone

he theme of the recent Federal Executive Institute Alumni Association

(FEIAA) annual Executive Forum in Ballston,Virginia, was “Public Service
Leadership: Lessons from the Front Lines.”This brief article passes along two
firsthand examples from the forum of how public servants make a difference.

U.S. Coast Guard, Hurricane Katrina

Retired Coast Guard Admiral Robert F. Duncan spoke about his experi-
ence in leading Coast Guard relief efforts in New Orleans following Hurri-
cane Katrina on Monday,August 29, 2005.
Admiral Duncan showed several pictures of water, water everywhere in
New Orleans, and described how bridges were out, roads closed, and homes
flooded to the rooftops. People stranded on bridges and rooftops in dire need
of aid overwhelmed local systems. Lake
Charles became a debris field. About one-
third of the twenty-five thousand fishing boats
in the gulf area were destroyed. Several oil-
drilling platforms in the gulf were destroyed
to the base (30 percent of U.S. oil for refining
comes from these gulf platforms). By any
measure, total economic damage exceeded
$100 billion.
He emphasized that the key to disaster re-
lief is good community management. Federal,
state, parish, and local interests in eight states
were affected. The Coast Guard shared its
concept of operations with all partners:“Un-
Flooded roadways can be seen as the Coast Guard conducts initial Hurricane Katrina damage assess-
ment overflights of New Orleans on August 29, 2005. U.S. Coast Guard photograph by Petty Officer 2nd
derstand the threat, have a plan, know the peo-
Class Kyle Niemi. ple.” It focused its relief effort on three things:

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 83

(1) sustaining life, (2) water manage-
ment, and (3) marine environmental
protection.After setting up headquar-
ters in St. Louis, it based aid efforts on
game scenarios practiced earlier in
the year and enlisted the help of pri-
vate boat operators to help rescue
people.
The Coast Guard philosophy was
“if we touch you, we own you.” It
took action to do what was needed
and kept adapting to meet circum-
stances. The Coast Guard hadn’t
planned on giving out water at the
Super dome, but water was needed, so
it did so. All in all, it saved 33,544
people in five days of relief work and
helped contain six major oil spills.
U.S. Embassy, Nairobi, Kenya
Prudence Bushnell, chief execu-
tive officer of Sage Associates, spoke
of her experience as U.S.Ambassador
to the Republic of Kenya in recover-
ing from the terrorist bomb that hit
the embassy in 1998. She began her
talk by thanking the federal managers
and executives in the audience:
Honor guard pallbearers carry the flag-draped coffin of USAF Senior Master Sergeant Sherry Lynn Olds onto the
flight line at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. Olds was killed in the terrorist bombing attack on the U.S. Embassy in
Nairobi, Kenya. DoD photo by Lisa Carroll.
84 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
“Thank you for your service. You
have been downgraded, outsourced,
reorganized [and] there are too many
short-term people in the government
with too little experience.”
On becoming ambassador to
Kenya, she sought to build staff lead-
ership capacity and assemble a team.
She asked her staff to put the group
ahead of individuals and to think
about a strategy to accomplish Amer-
ican goals for Kenya. She emphasized
that a team needs the necessary com-
ponents: a computer jockey, someone
to lead the charge, a strong supporter
with a shared vision, and hard workers,
but those who are also able to play.
The lack of security was an issue
in the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. It was
not set back from the road but located
right on the sidewalk and street. Her
team goal was to make those in Wash-
ington aware that the building’s loca-
tion made it insecure. She sent cables
and received objections; she then
wrote the secretary of state about the
terrorist threat.
When the embassy was bombed,
one-half of the key people were either
seriously wounded or killed. Survivors
had to be their own reserves and work
together as a team. She described the
situation as a time of leadership: peo-
ple were on their own, their character
was on the line, and they had to rise
and respond. Belief in mission, gov-
ernment, and the ability to make a dif-
ference held them together.
She worked with the embassy staff
to build a culture of leadership and
mind their own business. Her business
became helping them lead and do
what’s necessary. Her job was to rattle
cages in Washington and to get what
was needed. Her next step was to take
care of her own people. She added that
taking care of yourself—keeping
healthy mentally, physically, and spiri-
tually—is also important.
The ambassador asked the audi-
ence, “What can you do to foster
leadership?” She offered this advice:
❚ Ask people to do what they do
well and let them do it.
❚ Take care of people—support, en-
courage, and recognize them.
❚ Take care of yourself—perform
hands-on activity outside work
and exercise.
Perseverance helps, she said.
Show people that you tried to do
what was needed.
References
Bushnell, Prudence. After Nairobi: Recov-
ering from Terror. www.afsa.org/fsj/
julaug00/Bushnell.cfm. 2000.
U.S. Coast Guard. Untitled.
www.uscg.mil/d8/sta/nola/katrina.html.
Craig Pettibone is a long-time member of the board
of directors of the Federal Executive Institute
Alumni Association (FEIAA) and edits FEIAA’s
monthly newsletter, Executive Summary. He retired
from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in
2003 and is now a senior associate with GRA,
Inc., a human resources consulting firm.
 The Uncivil Servant

Yin and Yang of Government

and Politics

E
Grimaldi

vents around the world would lead the rational to worry about the fate of the
planet.What with global warming, immigration foibles, U.S.Attorney firings,
innocent Duke lacrosse players, Paris getting forty-five then twenty-three then
getting out then going back in, convictions of high-level officials, and the res-
ignation-under-pressure of the Attorney General, and the list goes on. But
the ancients knew long ago that there are two sides—the yin and the yang of
life.To help our readers, we offer a side-by-side listing of the opposing per-
spectives of events:

Hillary is leading the Dems Hillary is leading the Dems

Iran is nuclear Korea hates Persians
Social Security We live with rich parents at sixty-five
Immigration bills Family reunions are on the rise
War spending not capped Bureau of Engraving and Printing busts productivity targets printing
more money
Passport delays in middle of travel season Balance-of-payments deficit declines
An Inconvenient Truth wins awards Gore’s five-thousand-square-foot home burns
Ford lays off ten-thousand workers Toyota hires twelve-thousand
Balance of payments with China are at all-time low Sales of Buicks in China are at all-time high
Cheney goes hunting with a friend The friend doesn’t die
Redskins lose half their preseason games Dan Snyder spends more than Dennis Kozlowski for a new water boy
Barry Bonds hits 756 and surpasses Hank Aaron Hank Aaron is unavailable for comment
O.J. Simpson publishes a book Proceeds go to the Goldman family (Wait, this already happened!!)
Dow Index dropped 3 percent in two days in March Rupert Murdoch is buying the parent company
Ratings are significantly down for the NBA finals LeBron James proves one man can carry a team to the heights
Taxes are reduced Government revenue increases (Laffer laughs at last)
Cost of government at all-time high Contracting out at all-time high

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 85

 Real estate has collapsed Homes are now affordable
The Iraq surge is ineffective Victory is declared
Historic drought in Florida Hunting licenses for alligators are at all-time high
Marion Barry back in the spotlight He is arrested on a DUI charge
No Child Left Behind declared a fraud Students failing to progress to next grade at all-time low

Split NY loyalties guarantee no one from that state will win. Forty-eight
New York mayor announces for 2008 presidential race
states rejoice. California fears it is next

Other presidential candidates start dropping out
Al Gore announces for the race
“The Sopranos” ends its final season
Reality TV shown to cure a bleeding heart
Tiger Woods’s wife has their first child
The Boston Red Sox are in first place
Remaining candidates don’t need a 747 to get to the next debate
His move is offset by another actor from Tennessee
Or does it?
Ratings soar in Blue States
Child’s handicap is posted at 12
Sorry, Washington fans; the Nats can’t say the same

The University of Florida chess team wins yet another national

Number of student-athlete graduates increases by a factor of five
championship for the school

The NFL starts counting Super Bowls in Arabic numerals Worldwide advertising revenue declines 30 percent
Kobe Bryant is traded by the Lakers Wizards are wisely not interested at his request

The only woman president of a professional sports franchise resigns to go Two worst decisions in history are added to the Guinness Book of
to law school World Records

Oil hits $90 a barrel People stop driving and the Middle East becomes a footnote in history
Rupert Murdoch buys the Wall Street Journal Live bulls and bears block the Holland Tunnel in protest

Florida moves its primary to late January. Dem Party rescinds delegate
Florida Republicans cry alligator tears
credentials as a result

China’s exports are declared unsafe by the FDA The U.S. balance of payments improves by $50 billion
Albania joins NATO Putin rattles saber over the threat to Mother Russia
Wolfowitz has a new job He joins the National Guard and is sent immediately to Iraq
Attorney General Gonzales resigns Eight U.S. Attorneys resign in protest
Guantanamo is closed The prisoners are released into Cuba in recompense for the Mariel boatlift
France announces a new defense policy The French army surrounds the Maginot Line in protest

Mitt Romney declares an emergency and shuts it down until he can consult
Five ceiling tiles fall in the Big Dig tunnel
on a solution

Former Senator Edwards found to consort with known multi-millionaires
Princes William and Harry are interviewed by Geraldo Rivera
Donald Trump insults Rosie O’Donnell
Bruce Willis makes another “Die Hard” movie
Teacher resigns to marry her sixteen-year-old student
Forty-five appointees in DOJ from Liberty University resign
Homeland Security bans urea on airplanes as a potential explosive
Stem cells are discovered in oil
He is in a four-ball tournament at his home course. He wins
Geraldo shaves his mustache again for the occasion
Rosie quits “The View”
And he does
His grades improve and he gets a scholarship to college
The DOJ collective IQ rises fifty points
Infants and some others no longer disrupt business travelers
Executive order banning research is revised

Fifteen universities close and Alaska can no longer balance the state
Democrat leadership in Congress bans pork in legislation under new rules
budget. Senator Stephens resigns

Mercedes Benz sells Chrysler Chrysler immediately announces plans to build a plant in the Sudetenland
Fred Thompson announces “formation of an exploratory committee” A career official is promoted to DA on “Law and Order”

86 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
 Book Review

Jennifer J. Deal. Retiring the Generation Gap:

How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007)

Ten Principles for Coalescing

the Generations

L
T. E. Winchell Sr.

oaded with data-based analyses questioning common stereotypes of genera-

tional differences in workforce priorities and behavior, Dr. Jennifer J. Deal
provides a highly readable text of particular use to supervisors, managers, and
executives.The grounding of her conclusions on well-structured survey data
of 3,200 respondents rather than abstract theory is particularly refreshing
(while furnishing useful citations for further reading).The author is willing to
let the data draw her to logical conclusions not specifically addressed in the
survey questionnaire.
Page one of the text outlines three theses: people largely want the same
things from work regardless of age; employees from different age groups can
be managed without undo stress; and the generation gap is largely the result
of communications problems and misunderstandings typically generated by
“insecurities and a desire for clout.” The text addresses ten principles that
apply frequently to Silents (born 1925–45), Early Boomers (1946–54), Late
Boomers (1955–64), Early Xers (1965–76), and Late Xers (1977–86) regard-
less of organizational position.
Principle 1—“All generations have similar values; they just express them
differently”— sets the format for later chapters. Data are discussed in terms of
relevance to individuals and managers. In the case of values, there are more
“intra” than “inter” generational differences.The data indicate that conflicts are
caused by behavior more often than generation. Conflict involves being val-
ued rather than static values that find management responsible for addressing
the fixable and the tolerable.

THE PUBLIC MANAGER ✦ FALL 2007 87

 Principle 2—“Everyone wants
respect; they just don’t define it the
same way”—focuses on distinctions
between the older generation’s seeing
respect as status and experience and
younger people defining it by the
willingness to listen and pay attention.
Older people tend to correlate re-
spect with longevity and experience,
while younger people emphasize tal-
ent and initiative.The universal need
for respect provides managers with a
target that differs in method, not
goal—a recurring theme of this book.
Principle 3—“Trust matters”—
notes that all generations trust specific
people more than organizations or
upper management. Genders trust
equally. Upper management trusts di-
rect reports and the organization (they
control) more than lower levels.Trust
is directly correlated to retention.
Principle 4—Here, the author
addresses credibility and trustworthi-
ness, noting that all workforce mem-
bers, regardless of age or level,
appreciate leaders who are “credible,
farsighted, encouraging, dependable,
and trustworthy, and … listen well.”
Principle 5—“Organizational
politics is a problem—no matter how
old (or young) you are”—notes that
internal politics interferes with the
job and frequently leads to a misuse
of resources. Mid-career Early and
Late Boomers and Early Xers were
particularly bothered by what was
perceived as the importance of poli-
tics over competence in promotions,
and ethical concerns are also consid-
ered problematic. Late Boomers and
Early Xers emphasized the correla-
T. E.Winchell Sr. is a former federal civil servant and senior human resources management professional
who has worked in a variety of Department of Defense (DoD) and non-DoD agencies and cultures (in-
cluding sixteen years overseas), taught at the college level, and contributed articles and reviews to a variety
of practitioner-oriented publications. He also serves on The Public Manager Board of Editors.Tim can
be reached at TWinc33551@aol.com.
88 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
tion between office politics and get- and development programs impact
ting ahead. each generation.
Principle 6—“No one really likes Principle 10—“Almost everyone
change”—avers that change initiatives wants a coach”—found that 85 per-
often fail if structures and processes cent of all generations and levels of
are not realigned to new objectives respondents view coaching as a useful
and the organization ignores passive developmental tool and preferred
resistance. Particularly credible was face-to-face coaching. Older workers
the author’s willingness to acknowl- were happier with training for their
edge that her analysis for this chapter current positions than younger work-
was based upon unprompted com- ers, who preferred a greater emphasis
ments (since the questionnaire had on future growth. Coaching was
failed to ask specific questions about found to be a particularly powerful
change).Throughout the text, the au- tool for willing managers.
thor cautions against extrapolating
the data beyond reasonable conclu-
sions while taking the necessary risks
to provide practitioners relevant
analyses.
Principle 7—Loyalty is the issue
here. The author concludes that all United
H
urricane Katrina is the
most costly natural disas-
ter ever to strike the
States, and the deadliest
generations perceive that hard work since the Lake Okeechobee disaster
and infrequent job hopping are good (hurricane) of September, 1928. In
for their careers. addition, Katrina was one of the
Principle 8 involves attrition and strongest storms to impact the
coast of the United States during
retention. A dwindling pool of quali-
the last 100 years. At landfall, sus-
fied workers has combined with an
tained winds were 127 mph (a
attitude where workers no longer ex- strong Category 3 hurricane on the
pect job security and are prepared to Saffir-Simpson scale …), and the
prioritize individual employment op- minimum central pressure was the
portunities over the good of the team. third lowest on record (920 mb).
Although individual generational dif- Katrina caused widespread, mas-
ferences were found on particulars, a sive devastation along the central
transparent plan for advancement and Gulf Coast states of the U.S. The
development, up-to-date compensa- flooding of New Orleans, LA follow-
tion policies, and recognition for good ing the passage of Katrina was cat-
work are the foundation for effective astrophic, resulting in the
retention programs for all generations. displacement of more than 250,000
people, a higher number than dur-
Principle 9—“Everyone wants to
ing the Dust Bowl years of the
learn—more than just about anything
1930’s. As of early August 2006, the
else”—points to preferred methods death toll exceeded 1800 and total
and options for ensuring that training damages/costs were estimated to
be around $125 billion.
—excerpt from
Hurricane Katrina, A Climatological
Perspective, October 2005, Updated
August 2006
 Fall 2007

Viewpoints 1 The Manager’s Musings

by Warren Master
Forum
Emergency Management 3 Post-Katrina Emergency
Management: Forum Overview
by Beverly A. Cigler
Feature 4 A Seat at the Table for Nondisaster Organizations
by Scott E. Robinson and Brian J. Gerber
7 Collaborative Governance: Lessons from Katrina
by Heather Getha-Taylor
11 Transformational Leadership and NIMS
by William Lester
16 Revitalizing Emergency Management after Katrina
by R. Steven Daniels
21 Building Community Capacity to Respond
by Naim Kapucu
26 Rebuilding the Parks of New Orleans
by Steven N. Waller
31 The Unavoidable Politics of Disaster Recovery
by Dale Krane
Articles
Culture of Bureaucracy 38 Leading Change through Action Leanring
by Robert Kramer
45 Realizing a Performance Culture in Federal Agencies
by Bill Trahant
51 Fostering a Performance-Driven Culture in the Public Sector
by Howard Risher
HR Management 57 Family Friendly Policy: Lessons from Europe—Part I
by Anmarie J. Widener
62 Nontraditional Leadership Training for Public Managers
by Darrell Norman Burrell
IT Management 67 Fulfilling the Promise of E-Gov Initiatives—Part I
by Judy Steele and Lisa Cliff
71 Executive’s Guide to Practical Computer Models
by Daniel Maxwell and Andrew Loerch
Departments
Image of Public Service 77 Within Reach…But Out of Synch
by Darby Miller Steiger and Carl Fillichio
83 Public Service Leadership: Lessons from the Front Lines
by Craig Pettibone
The Uncivil Servant 85 Yin and Yang of Government and Politics
by Grimaldi
Book Review 87 Ten Principles for Coalescing the Generations
by T. E. Winchell Sr.
 A Seat at the Table for Nondisaster Organizations

The Quarterly for Practitioners

Fall 2007 ✦ Volume 36, Number 3 WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG

Collaborative Governance:
Lessons from Katrina
Rebuilding the Parks
of New Orleans
The Unavoidable Politics
of Disaster Recovery