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Quiet Heroes: The Untold Stories of U.S. Public Servants at Work | Cameron Kober
00:51:54
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- [00:04]
A
We don't focus on employee engagement because we care very deeply about happy employees. That's important, right? Like we care about that we want happy federal employees. But we care about this mostly as an organization because we feel strongly that an engaged employee is an employee that is accomplishing the mission and is supporting the American public more effectively. So consequently, when we think about employee engagement, this is really a metric of organizational performance. If you want a successful organization, you got to start with your people and you got to make sure that they're fully bought in and supported and being taken care of so that they can do the work.
- [00:44]
B
Welcome to the Work for Humans podcast. This is Dart Lindsley. Are governments building a good experience of work for the people who work there? A lot of us might worry about bureaucracy or the pay, but the truth is that government employees get to take on missions few other organizations get to tackle. Whether it's fighting hurricanes or advancing autism research, or managing millions and millions of acres of public land, the federal workforce is filled with purpose driven people making an impact every single day. And to support these employees and the agencies that they serve, the Partnership for Public Service was created. It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that helps agencies recruit talent, improve leadership, and create better workplaces for public servants. Today, I'm delighted to talk with Cameron Kober from the Partnership for Public Service. Cameron leads initiatives including the Best Places to Work in Federal Government Rankings, a tool that provides agencies with actionable insights to improve culture, leadership, and engagement. In this episode, we talk about what motivates federal employees, how they handle obstacles, like in particular, leadership transitions at the very top, and the lessons that every leader can learn from government work. You'll also hear remarkable stories of public servants solving problems and creating real impact. As always, please show your support for Work for Humans and future episodes by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. And now I bring you my conversation with Cameron Kober. Cameron Kober, welcome to Work for Humans.
- [02:36]
A
Pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for the invite.
- [02:38]
B
It took me a little while to find you. I really wanted to have somebody on the show from the Partnership for Public Service. And where I first heard about the Partnership for Public Service was in Michael Lewis's book the Fifth Risk. And what he did in that book that I so admired is that he pulled forward a bunch of stories about people in public service working for the government in various ways that have done extraordinary work. And so I wanted to have an episode about the work in government, about the experience of work in government and the nature of the work that's going on there. So thank you very much for joining me today.
- [03:17]
A
No, it's a pleasure. And, yeah, we care very deeply about our public servants and the great work that they do. So happy to discuss their excellent work.
- [03:26]
B
And I think we completely underestimate both the magnitude and the magnificence of a lot of that work. So what's the background? What's the history? What's the mission of the Partnership for Public Service?
- [03:39]
A
It's a great question. We actually are. Our first event, as the story goes, it was actually on September 11, 2001. And the way our CEO at least describes it, we actually had our opening event in the Congress building, and they actually emptied it out due to, obviously, the events of the day. Now, that's a little bit of where we started, but I think that has been used in some ways as a demonstration of just how valuable government is that we actually started during, of course, one of the most horrific events in our nation's history. Our organization cares very deeply about public service. We care deeply about the work that government does and was really established first and foremost to help government get the best and brightest in to work for it. Like many workforces, the federal government has an aging population of employees that many of whom are eligible for retirement, very large amount disproportionately eligible for retirement. And that's been a concern for decades now. And so our original focus was, let's get new young people into government to strengthen the civil service. I think what we've realized over the years that it's not enough to recruit those folks into government, but it's also essential to have a functioning government, one that can retain those employees and can ensure that the work of government is done effectively so that they feel like they have this connection to the mission that keeps them there and makes them want to have an impact on their country and the citizens in it. So our work has definitely evolved over the years since 2001, but in many ways, that's our origin story. And I think we continue to evolve as we identify a lot of work needed in the leadership development space and making sure excellent leaders are leading that work and supporting and engaging their employees. And of course, we do a lot of work recognizing them as well. So that's a little bit about our organization and where we started and where we're going to.
- [05:42]
B
It's a really interesting situation because the federal government doesn't really have a marketing arm for its employment. I mean, parts of it might, bits of it might, but there's like an Employer brand gap. And it's fascinating that a not for profit stepped forward to fill the gap.
- [06:02]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So pretty early on in our organization's history, we established, I think, one of the best ways that we do that very thing, which is through the best places to work in the federal government rankings. So I think most people are familiar with different ranking systems that exist for the private sector, but up until this point, there really wasn't anything for the public sector. This is actually work that my team oversees and manages. And luckily around this time and we were able to work with Congress to get this implemented, there was the development of an employee survey, which I think is very commonplace in most workplaces. But this was survey, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which goes out to just about every federal agency in the government. And we use that survey to be able to identify which organizations have the highest levels of engagement, strongest cultures, strongest perceptions of leadership and rank, consequently their organizations. This serves, I think, for a couple of purposes. One, it's an accountability mechanism for those leaders in creating that culture. But I think to your point on that, branding it in many ways does that for agencies too. And it gives them the ability to recruit young people and say, hey, we're the best place to work. If you want to work in government, if you want to have an impact on the American public, come here. This is where you're going to find success, is where you're going to find mission connectivity. And it's been very, I think, helpful in elevating this topic of culture and engagement, while also helping agencies do the excellent work of recruiting young people into government, as well as other people, for that matter.
- [07:37]
B
Before we get into what might be challenging about working in government, what's great about working in government, there are few.
- [07:44]
A
Organizations that I can think of which have a more diverse set of opportunities. In my time, a little less than a decade working at the Partnership, I have interacted with people who are fighting disease at the cdc. I have been in sessions with federal employees who've said they worked at the National Park Service. They said that after this session, they're going to be going and tagging moose in at the national parks. You get a wide variety of people at NASA do it, you know, sending people to space. There's so much you can do within the federal government. And I think that it allows people that have a very, sometimes very niche interest, but more importantly, a desire to do good in this world. It gives them probably the best way to go about doing that, strong resources and infrastructure to be able to do good. That's, I think, why so many people join the federal government. Because of that kind of impact that they're capable of having.
- [08:46]
B
I pulled a list in advance of this. There's NASA, There's a National Science Foundation. There's the National Institutes of Health. There's Environmental Protection Agency. There's the National Park Service. The Centers for Disease Control, the FBI, Food and Drug Administration. And honestly, those are just the big ones. There's some pretty weird little agencies. Is there a weird small one that you could identify?
- [09:10]
A
I've spent a lot of time with the Bureau of Land Management, which is not a weird one per se. But the Bureau of Land Management is a land management agency. The federal government, as many people know, manages a ton of land. Especially on the west coast of the United States. That management of that land, I think, makes a lot of sense for folks. And people understand generally what that is. But when I get in there, every single time I work with them, I find a different kind of profession. You've got an archaeologist in the session. Sitting right next to people involved in energy production at times. You've got people focusing on, obviously, recreation on that land. There's so many niche roles working with indigenous populations. It's quite interesting, I think, when you get into the individual career level. Just what kind of role you'll see across some of these agencies.
- [10:05]
B
And for international listeners, the Bureau of Land Management in the United States. West of the Mississippi, east of the Mississippi. Most land is privately owned west of the Mississippi. I don't know if it's. The majority of land is publicly owned. But an enormous, like 250 million acres of land is owned by the federal government and managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Largely because it doesn't have water. That's part of the reason. But it's something that people lease for purposes of mineral extraction and things like that. And managing something of that size is just a huge job.
- [10:47]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And lots of other land management agencies involved in the maintaining of that land. The National Park Service, obviously, is one that many are familiar with. Forest Service as well. But, yeah, a tremendous amount of land. A lot of work to do on that land and to maintain it.
- [11:03]
B
And in terms of the challenges, I think I want to break it into different categories. There's the challenges that people think when they think about working in government. There's the challenges of working in government. That are the same challenges of working for any large organization. I mean, all large organizations have things that drive you crazy, I'm sure, some of the time. And then there's things that might be unique. And so let's start, if we could, with the perception and what the brand is.
- [11:37]
A
So we've done some surveying on this, on perceptions of the federal government and the trust levels that sometimes folks have with the federal government. It should probably come as no surprise that it can be low. When we ask about individual federal employees or we talk about specific agencies like NASA or the National Park Service or whatever, quite positive responses to that. And this is where I think this comes from. You know, I think people are oftentimes unclear about what's going on with organizations that seem far removed from them. And if they are out west or they're far removed from Washington, D.C. sometimes I think that there's a lack of understanding of what's going on there or even a lack of trust. What I think people don't realize is that federal employees are their neighbors. It is actually a minority of federal employees that are based in Washington, D.C. they're in every state in the country. They're around the globe and do important work day to day that impacts their lives on a regular basis, whether it is building up our nation's infrastructure with the Department of Transportation, whether it is tracking storms. I live in central Florida and we've had quite a few hurricanes this year. And it has been NOAA employees that have helped keep my family safe this summer. Right. So I think that that's the perception sometimes that you have a federal employment that it feels removed, that it feels bureaucratic. But I don't know if people quite realize that actually there are many important tasks that are happening every day in government that impact their lives on a daily basis. Every time they take a flight, every time they drive on a road.
- [13:16]
B
I'm going to name a few. I know one of my friends, Dave, works for the epa and so he's air quality. Many people younger than me don't remember Los Angeles before the epa. My grandparents lived in Pasadena at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. I didn't know that the San Gabriel Mountains were there because the air was so bad. And now you see them all the time. And I think that's the sort of thing that somebody wouldn't notice happened and that somebody caused it to happen, but it was the epa. I met somebody whose job it was to fly airplanes into the center of hurricanes for noaa. He was like Indiana Jones flying into hurricanes. I met somebody whose job it was to essentially drop into countries and extract fissile material before it fell into the wrong hands and in particular was out there collecting. I Think it was yellow cake which is a precursor that was with the Department of Energy. And so these are things that you would never think that there needs to be somebody in the world who can go often into war torn areas. Right. And cut a deal for a bunch of fissile material and bring it back to the Department of Energy. So these are anecdotal. These are just the ones I know.
- [14:35]
A
Yeah, I, I can give a story. One program, long running program that we've had as an organization is our Service to America medals. And this is our opportunity to really recognize the best and brightest in government. We call our Oscars of Federal service if you will not got quite the A list celebrities of the Oscars but people that do I think a whole lot more good for society in my opinion. And one such cases actually are winners are federal employees of the year this year. This is a team based out of the Department of Labor. Shannon Roboyedo, Dustin Uphold, Nancy Alcantara. And these were investigators within the Department of Labor. And I don't know if people realize the Department of Labor has investigators, people that look into crimes happening, but that was their job. And through their investigations came upon circumstances at a meat processing factory in which the sanitation services contractor were employing children to clean dangerous machinery during night hours. So they found instances where there were injuries that children as young as 13 had been involved in the cleaning of these slaughterhouses, cleaning bone saws, very dangerous materials. I think there's instances of chemical burns even and shut it down obviously. And in that process not only secured a major fine, one of the biggest fines I think of this type, but also investigated and identified how big of a problem this is in government. When I eat a hamburger or a steak, it never occurs to me that children may be involved in that process in some way, shape or form. It probably isn't something that any of us think about, but it's federal employees that do think about that and think about that on a regular basis and ensure that that sort of thing doesn't happen. And I think that kind of work, it's niche, it's something we're not necessarily focusing on on a regular basis, but has a real impact on the lives of everyday Americans.
- [16:41]
B
And like we were saying, that's not the image that people have in their minds about the government. I do think that people worry about working for a bureaucracy and they do worry about the pay. How is the pay in the public sector?
- [16:56]
A
I think pay is something that's important. We need to sustain ourselves to sustain our livelihoods. And I think Depending on the role, it's going to be comparable in some ways. But you know, make no mistake about it, that is not the primary motivator of federal employees when they seek jobs within the civil service. And we know that. Actually, we know that from our own research. So I mentioned the best places to work rankings. Using the data set that we have, we're able to do a lot of interesting work to try to understand what those motivations are and what feds really care about, what really engages them the most. We take a variety of different variables, identify what are the variables that impact engagement and keep people at the organization. And pretty consistently, we see pretty much the same story every year when we do this analysis. We see that the two biggest factors that impact people's desire to stay in the organization are connection to mission, what we call mission match. So the extent to which they feel that the work that they're doing is impacting the mission of the organization and their perception of their leadership comes in normally. Just as important to that. Interesting. We also see what an important variable is the extent to which they're brought into decision making. So the input that they bring are brought in. And I think what that tells me is, yes, to your point, the pay, that may not always be the factor that is most motivational for these civil servants. What they do care very deeply about is that connection to that mission and feeling like they have leadership that supports them in being able to carry that mission out. And we see that pretty consistently every year through our ranking system. And I think that's the thing that the private sector really can't replicate candidly. And the federal government does so well.
- [18:46]
B
It's true in the sense that there's always this sneaking suspicion in the private sector that all my work is going to line the pockets of somebody. Actually, my father did work for the federal. Well, I don't know if he worked for the federal government. When I was born, he was working for Union Carbide, and I don't know exactly how that worked. He was at the Oak Ridge National Labs and they were run by Union Carbide, but as a part of the Department of Energy. I guess one thing I can say is he didn't make a lot of money. He did fine. He had fine money. In other words, we never wanted. But that's not what he was there for. That's not at all what he was there for. He determined how radiation kills you. One of the ways it does is it stops the fast growing cells in your bone marrow. And he was the person who proved that. And that's what he wanted to do in life. He wanted to make unique discoveries that are going to make the world better. And that's what motivated him. And in fact, at the end of his career, when he retired, he worked for another 30 years for free because, again, he wasn't there for the money. And so this makes a lot of sense to me. I'm wondering in those surveys, which of the organizations that you have surveyed that you are coming out on top? Who are your winners? And what do we know about how they are winning?
- [20:11]
A
At the top of our rankings, probably no surprise to folks, is NASA. So NASA pretty consistently is our number one agency and has been for some time now. And I don't think that's a surprise. I think it very much aligns with what we were just mentioning, is that NASA employees feel like they're doing something incredibly valuable. They're sending people to space. They're learning about our universe. Right now, there's a lot of compelling missions in the federal government. So what does NASA do that I think is different than the others is I think that they really deeply care about the experience of their employees. They are constantly asking questions and trying to understand what is it that those employees need in order to be successful in their role and providing space for them to be able to share their perspectives of what's not working and how can things be improved. And I think that's what gets them not just to have a compelling mission, but to have a mission that employees feel like they're having a very real impact on. Health and Human Services is another one, does a lot of the same things. Health and Human Services, very compelling mission. Our nation's health, very heavily involved in things like COVID 19 pandemics, right? And I think while there is no lack of controversy that sometimes can happen in those organizations, there is a deep understanding that what they do is saving lives. So let me give you another anecdote from Health and Human Services. This is actually my favorite of all time. My favorite winner from our Service to America medals, which is Marshallin, Jergen Alsop. And Marshallin was pretty instrumental in understanding of autism, and she for decades was specialized in finding children that were behaving somewhat irregularly to their peers and then finding the themes and finding the realities of what that is and how to classify some of those things, and led to a much greater understanding that has led to a greater ability to diagnose autism. I care deeply about this because if you look at some of her work, the impact of her work really took off in the 2000s and ever since then there's been quite an increase in understanding around autism because of her research. And it was actually around that time that my two youngest siblings were diagnosed with autism. So this is a very personal thing for me that in many ways I don't know this for sure, but I can only imagine that the doctors that diagnosed my siblings when it was still not as understood, I think in the medical community about what this looked like. It was research from people like her, from public servants like her, that really allowed us to be able to support my siblings and help them be able to receive the treatment and care that they need. So I just don't know if people know that kind of thing when they think about public servants. They really are impacting people on a very personal level like that.
- [23:23]
B
And that's a perfect example of something that private sector is not going to do because you can't make any money off of it. It's very, very hard. There's a whole range of things that for profit businesses are not going to pursue. So is there an issue with the way politicians speak about public servants? There's such debate that happens in every campaign and such a big chunk of it seems to be an argument about the value of public service. And it seems like your organization has set up an organization that's the marketing arm and the brand arm and there's other organizations that are essentially the anti brand arm. And that's gotta be a burden for people working in the sector.
- [24:20]
A
It is not without its complications, I'll say that. But here's what I would say is politicians across party lines may have at times negative perceptions of certain agencies, but there always are the agencies that they do care about, they care deeply about. Right. Whether it is defense or it is public health or it is land management. And this is reflected also in perceptions that the American public have of these same agencies is that people have a very strong perception of the FBI, the National Park Service, that sort of thing. And I think that's reflected within these politicians priorities as well. So what I would say as obviously we we've just ended another presidential cycle is the federal government is an incredibly resilient one. They're used to being the political football being a part of it. I think what matters most is really identifying what are the priorities of that administration and how is it that coalitions of departments can play a valuable part in addressing the needs of the American public. Right. Most of them do that quietly on a regular basis and stay out of the public eye. Enough to be able to do good work, and that's fine enough for them. They do it without fanfare. And then in other places, it can be quite damaging, I think, for sure, and damaging to retention. But it has been interesting, as somebody who's been working on employee engagement across multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat, that those engagement levels, you do not see a trend based on party. You do not see a trend based on priorities. You see a trend based on whether their leaders care about their experience. And that, I think, goes across party lines.
- [26:15]
B
And when you say leaders, it's not who's in Congress, it's not necessarily who's running, you know, at the very top. It's their leaders in their particular bureau that have the largest effect. Hey, everyone, I want to let you know about some upcoming speaking events. If you happen to be in the Great Lakes area on September 30, I'm keynoting the HR track at the UWEBC 27th Annual Emerging Best Practices and Technology Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. The conference pulls in some fabulous speakers to discuss topics across all of business, not just HR. Also in Oakland, California, September 17th and 18th, two of our past guests and work for humans will be speaking at the Responsive Conference. Bree Grof will be talking about her sparkling new book Today Was Fun. And Simone Stolzoff will be talking about his next book. So check it all out at responsive.org use promo code elevenfold. That's one one f o l d to get a substantial discount. All right, hope to see you there.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah. So many listeners may not know that leading federal agencies are obviously a group. At the very top are a group of political leaders that are confirmed by the Senate, put forth by the president, and they sit at the top of the organization, sometimes even embedded within the career employees. Then you have a group of career leaders that span oftentimes across administrations. And you know, to be clear, those career leaders, I think, are the ones that probably have the most consistent positive interactions with employees because they've been there for a long period of time. But see also across administrations that those political leaders oftentimes understand this, too. They understand the value of this, too. And you know, I would say the first Trump administration, you know, the VA in particular, really started to increase in our, in our rankings because of political leadership over there really investing in this as a topic, and that's continued with the current administration. I have full reason to believe it will continue on. Those kinds of leaders understand that they cannot be effective in carrying out the mission of their organization without staff that are committed to being there and are retained. And so focusing on their experience and the culture around it matters.
- [28:52]
B
And if I'm correct, do you also monitor the quality of service that some of the organizations are delivering? Is that a part of your scope? And the reason I ask is that I think that the government's in an unusual situation, which is that it's a monopoly in many of the services it provides. And so there aren't any competitive pressures that might tend to shepherd those organizations toward upping their service levels. No matter how passionate the people in the organization are, sometimes they can drift. And so it's an unusual set of organizations for that reason.
- [29:35]
A
Yeah, it's a good point. And to be clear, our organization is not doing the federal government's bidding. There are times where we have to very carefully advocate that changes take place. And I think in some ways, this is one of those spaces. While we have done a lot organizationally to understand performance happening in government and try to advocate for civil service reforms that will ensure greater performance amongst the federal government, one of the things that I think the federal government could improve on, candidly, and it is something we advocate for, is greater measurements of performance. It is something that is quite inconsistent at times across government for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's candidly just kind of difficult to measure the progress in some agencies, and then in others, there may be other reasons for that. But let me give you one example going back to the VA that we have spent a lot of time looking at and thinking about. And the VA is quite ahead of the curve in terms of measuring performance because they operate hospitals and they have to get satisfaction data from their patients. That data is public. And it is something that we've had a chance to look at. And so what we did as an organization a couple years back is we looked at, okay, how does increased engagement levels at these VA medical centers, how does that impact overall performance? And it should come as no surprise that when leadership is on the ball, when they are engaging their employees, when they're ensuring a good experience for their employees, that we have better retention of nurses, we have greater satisfaction of employees. Even call center speeds at those hospitals, veterans trying to call in to just get an appointment, those speeds went down when there was greater engagement at the organization. I think about some of the anecdotes you hear from our veterans trying to work with the VA over the years. And there's plenty of success stories. And there are also, I think we've all heard anecdotes of someone sitting on the phone for A long time not getting the service that they would hope for. And it stands out to me that we have asked a lot from our veterans over the last several decades with the expectation that we would give back to them when they returned from war. And when leaders focus on the experience of their employees, the civil servants working at these hospitals, we provide those services better as a nation. And when we don't, we don't. So I think that that is one of many measures as to just how important it is for the federal government to be measuring progress while also seeking to improve it through measures such as employee engagement.
- [32:28]
B
I gotta say that's exciting to think about that. The data sets. Very excited by the data sets because I hadn't really thought about it before that public organizations, because they are public, they report on their data and then you in your part are collecting a set of data that can be matched site by site to the different hospitals. I know some academics who would really like to partner with you on publishing those data. It's one of the challenges of business, by the way, is that the private sector keeps so many things secret that you can develop some incredible practice and you can't talk about it. And your data sets are largely hidden. And your data sets are not uniform also. And so what one company measures is not uniform with what another company measures. But the VA is measuring uniformly across the entire ecosystem. And so are you. Are people doing that? Do you want me to introduce you to some people who are doing that? Because that's cool.
- [33:31]
A
We're lucky to partner with a lot of folks that are interested in this, you know, people that are also in the effective government space, as well as various for profit organizations that help sponsor a lot of our work. We're also really blessed to have the support of a variety of foundations that help us be able to do our important work. So, you know, I think that those partnerships, be it from the public sector or nonprofit or private sector, it's all essential in telling the story and ensuring that the federal government can continue to thrive.
- [34:03]
B
Who are your allies in this? I noticed when I was going through your website that you have some celebrities. First of all, you have different kinds of awards. I know that there's at least a couple of different ones. What's the difference between these awards?
- [34:22]
A
You're probably referring to two separate major programs. So our Service to America medals, which are very much geared towards individuals and individual teams doing excellent work in government. So many of the stories we've shared come from those awards. And then we have our ranking system that I oversee our best places to Work rankings, which are recognizing organizations, large departments that are creating a better experience for folks in those we work to try to tell this story to the best of our ability. And I think as we've evolved over the years, we've liked to reach out to voices that the American public trusts to be able to tell that story more effectively. So, yeah, you'll see in our Service to America medals, quite a few of our videos are narrated and explained by a variety of entertainment figures. We've over the years had CEOs of Fortune 100 companies to help in telling that story. I think that those partnerships are really important for us to just try to break through the noise a little bit and help people hopefully be able to trust this work a little bit better because it's through voices that they know and trust.
- [35:35]
B
One of them is Michael Lewis, who I am a stalker. I think of Michael Lewis. I'm just very subtle about it. So he doesn't know. I noticed on one of your sites somebody was getting an award and I thought, God, that guy looks just like Chris Evans, who is Captain America for people who don't follow the marvel. And I was like, that must be incredibly inconvenient looking that much like Chris Evans, because you'd always be. It was Chris Evans. But I know he was getting an award and he was getting an award that goes to external parties that are bridging a public private partnership.
- [36:12]
A
What is that we do every year with our Service to America medals? Present our Spirit of Service award. And it's an acknowledgment that the work of supporting the American public and partnering with the federal government can happen across the industry. It can happen with for profit companies, it can happen with individuals, their foundations. And I think in bringing that in, it's helped us further tell the story of just the reach that the federal government can have.
- [36:39]
B
You're specifically devoted to the employee engagement efforts of your organization and studying the nature of engagement in the different agencies. First of all, are there lessons that we can take from some of the greatest leaders, for instance, that you've been able to observe?
- [37:01]
A
Absolutely. And obviously the work we do directly with agencies is for the public sector. But I think that there's a lot of lessons learned of things that can translate very effectively across sectors. I think the leaders that do this the best are the ones that establish really effective feedback loops with their employees. So when I say feedback loops, what I'm really referring to is they're going to, first of all, start off by gathering data from their employees. And of course, we've mentioned the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. But if they're only doing that, they're probably not getting to the real root cause of what employees are concerned about. So they're typically working to uncover through qualitative means, really try to understand the voice of the employees. And then they're making really conscious decisions about what kind of actions they can take and implementing those actions in response to what employees are sharing. It seems pretty obvious. You listen to what employees say, you do those things, that would help. But what we've also seen all too frequently is that sometimes leadership just kind of stops there. And they're not painting the picture back to employees about what they've done as a result of the feedback that employees have shared with them. And that's where these communication channels have to come in. It's something that I think is not just a problem in the federal government. I think it's a problem across industry, is that if we are not tangibly going back to employees and saying, okay, you said that these are the things that you cared about. These were the things that we did as a result. And this is the impact that we're having. We generally are going to have employees that feel like we're not listening to them. And I think the real lessons from leaders at organizations like Health and Human Services or other agencies, the Government Accountability Office is frequently one of our winners as well. What they do well is they bring home to their employees how they're being responsive and how they can be vulnerable. I think, as well as leaders in saying, hey, we realized that we missed the mark here, and we're going to make changes as a result. And I think through opening those communication channels, it helps employees feel personal, heard, and then consequently much more likely to continue to provide feedback and see improvement organizationally.
- [39:16]
B
One of the authors that we had on the show a little while ago was Ashley Goodall, who wrote a book called the Problem with Change, which was just about the rate of change inside the private sector. So reorg of the week, he called it Life in the Blender. That there's just constant, constant change, I would suspect, but I don't know that that's less of a problem in government. I'm wondering if I'm right.
- [39:44]
A
It is probably a far worse problem in the public sector, in the federal government in particular. Let me actually explain why. And it goes to work. Other work that we do as an organization around presidential transition. So best case scenario, you have leaders, you have CEOs, essentially secretaries of departments, that are in their positions for at most eight years. And that's assuming there's not been some scandal that's pushed them out. Right below that is a variety of other political leaders that are oftentimes leaving even more frequently than that. If you look at any Fortune 100 company, you're not likely to have a CEO that shifts every four to eight years. Disney or Apple, these people have been in for multiple decades. And so consequently this is a challenge. And the transition process not only is frequent, but the transition process is very quick. The elections happen in November and inaugurations in January. Could you imagine if a CEO, the CEO of Apple, had a three month window to take over the entire company? It just doesn't happen that quickly. So I think with that comes a lot of whiplash. Candidly, sometimes it can come with quite a shift in priorities. And that's, I think, why it's so peculiar and so fascinating. What the federal workforce is able to accomplish is that despite that constant churn of leadership that takes place, they meet the moment, they become accustomed to it. And they know that transitions happen. It's baked into the constitution. And as a result, they're quite flexible to those changes frequently.
- [41:23]
B
It's a tricky thing to get good at. I worked for a company where we used to call everybody above vp, we'd call them temps, because the rate at which they came and went was so high. Now, I agree the CEO was not turning over that quickly, but everybody between director and CEO was turning over very, very quickly. And there's a way in which that can provide hope, which is, no, this one's not working out, but pretty soon there's going to be another one and maybe we'll have better luck that time. But on the other hand, there is a lot of whiplash and a lot of just needing to. I have always called it drive to the basket, even though you're being hacked. That's a basketball thing, which is that people are going to foul you on the way to the basket, but you just need to keep driving toward the basket. And that's the sort of stuff that's just noise. So lucky for us that humans can cope with it may not put us at our best, but we can. That hope is dashed for me. I was hoping it was a little better.
- [42:24]
A
And certainly you have leaders that have been put in place that have been in their roles for a longer period of time. Specifically the career folks sometimes will stick around for longer. But it is quite a bit of shifting that takes place. And the good news is also is there's so much work happening in government that is not political. Right. That people can continue to move forward on their priorities because they know what they need to do and they know the important roles that they have. And those are the. Consequently, the organizations that have the highest levels of engagement because they, I think, have a constant goal that they're seeking to push towards.
- [43:00]
B
What do you do in regards to presidential or administrative transitions? What is that role? I'm glad somebody's doing that. I think that there are some in government roles that help with changes in administration. But what's your organization's role? Not in detail, but just what's the point of influence?
- [43:20]
A
In many ways, our role over the years has been to just harbor the information somewhere and to create guides and direction for administrations, the incoming administrations. So during election seasons, we attempt to connect with the campaigns, to be able to share some of the best practices around that transition, to convene folks and that process. It's a matter of national security frequently, right. To get this right and to make sure that leaders are ready to get going on day one. So our role is really about the process more than anything, about what needs to happen in order to make that transition speedy and possible and to serve as that guidepost in that process.
- [44:06]
B
You know what's great about that and really different, I think, is that public companies tend to make that up each time. And a part of the reason that they're making it up is because it doesn't happen that often and they're just one company. And so it doesn't even make sense to invest in creating an ongoing practice. But you're serving a function across tons of organizations that all go through this on a routine basis, and you're setting up a process of transfer. That's another thing, I think that would have independent value from what you're doing. In other words, that would have value to the private sector, which is what are the best practices of transition. There's a book there that says, look, we do this all the time, and this is what works, and here's what doesn't. It's an important thing to be good at.
- [44:56]
A
I think you're right. It's a lot of change management and in some of the most complicated bureaucracies in the world. So it is a massive process, for sure.
- [45:06]
B
Well, I ask a few questions at the end of each show, and they're a little weird. The first one is the Partnership for Public Service hires you to do something for it. What do you hire it to do for you?
- [45:17]
A
The type of Individual that is attracted to work at the Partnership, and this includes myself, are people that care very deeply about the American public and know that the federal government has an outsized role in influencing and supporting that public, but are really uninterested in doing that in a partisan way. And We're a Washington, D.C. based organization and there's a lot of partisanship. As you as I'm sure you know. What I love about our organization is we stay away from that. We stay above the fray there and work to be a nonpartisan organization that I think can provide guidance and direction to the federal government, regardless of the administration, regardless of the priorities of that agency, because we have such deep understanding of what works in government.
- [46:10]
B
So it falls into a category of answer that I often get. And the major category is to help others. But the subcategory is to help the world work better. And it's not necessarily, I'm going to give somebody some food. And it's not like delivering care in a hospital where you're directly aiding an individual person. You're working on the system and you feel that if you can improve the system, the world will work better. And so the unique opportunity that you have in your organization is to some extent be a bridge and make it nonpartisan and provide continuity across administrations and create strong organizations that can serve the people better. It's a beautiful mission. What does it cost you?
- [47:02]
A
Not as much as I think it costs our civil servants, but there is transition that impacts Washington, D.C. and impacts us. Right. And consequently, it is a spirit of innovation to figure out how do we ensure that we can provide what incoming administrations need the most. And so I think that whiplash we talked about earlier is far more difficult for federal employees. Nonetheless, it is something that we are doing, but that's also an exciting thing that allows us a lot of opportunity to innovate and a lot of opportunity to think creatively about how to reach both those leaders and the civil servants that they support. And while it can be quite a lot at times, it nonetheless is fascinating work. And you can see your impact.
- [47:54]
B
Yeah, the thing about being a public servant is that the whiplash is sort of overhead. But in the case of the Partnership for Public Service, the whiplash is the thing you're working on. It's like, yeah, it affects you, but it's also the thing you are working on, to some extent, healing. That's fantastic. Where can people learn more about the Partnership for Public Service?
- [48:18]
A
I would definitely point us towards a couple of websites so you can learn the essentials about our organization through our public service.org our public service.org. but don't spend as much time thinking about our organization. Think about the organizations that we're trying to elevate in those agencies. And so I would push you towards our best Places to Work website. So bestplaces to Work. And this is where you're going to see where those organizations that are successful, how they rank. Right. And what makes them unique. You're going to see not only the overarching cultural engagement satisfaction scores, but you're going to see the different variables within those organizations listed off and various metrics around them. And I think there's a lot of lessons learned within some of the publications that we have on that website, the stories that we're able to share that really are universal. In trying to understand what it is that leaders need to do to run an effective organization, we probably remissed start the conversation this way. But one of the things I really emphasize is we don't focus on employee engagement because we care very deeply about happy employees. That's important. We care about that. We want happy federal employees, but we care about this mostly as an organization because we feel strongly that an engaged employee is an employee that is accomplishing the mission and is supporting the American public more effectively. Consequently, when we think about employee engagement, this is really a metric of organizational performance in the federal government. And so I would leave that with your listeners too, not just within a public sector, but in a private sector as well. It's like if you want a successful organization, you got to start with your people and you got to make sure that they're fully bought in and supported and being taken care of so that they can do the work that you want to see take place.
- [50:18]
B
Yeah. One of the things Paul Zak said when he came on the show, he studies the brain chemistry of engagement, essentially. And one of the things he pointed out was that it's not that happy people are more productive, it's that more productive people are happy.
- [50:32]
A
Yeah, I like that.
- [50:34]
B
So when you are measuring employee satisfaction, part of what you're measuring is whether or not they feel like they're getting stuff done. And that's a pretty good measure of whether or not they're getting stuff done. It's probably the best measure of whether they're getting stuff done because they know better than anybody whether they're getting stuff done. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It opened a window into a world that it's a world that I've never worked in and that is a bit of a black box for me. And I imagine things about it that are not true and I suspect that a lot of people imagine things about it that are not true. So it was great to get a better look.
- [51:14]
A
I'm glad I could paint a picture over there for you. Dart. We're always trying to get the best and brightest into government, so if ever you're wanting a turn in government, let us know. We'll help you get there.
- [51:24]
B
And I know some people early in career who should really consider it. Thank you. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Work for Humans. If you enjoyed this episode, please please give us a five star rating. Wherever you listen to podcasts and share the show with one person you think would get value from it, believe it or not, this really helps us grow the show and reach more people who want to build the kind of work that people really want. As always, thank you to my producer Jason Ames at ninthpath Audio for his insights into content and his high standard for quality. Final note, the opinions shared here are my own and not the views of Google or Cisco Systems. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.