2011

Winter 2011: Opening Doors - Making a Difference

Welcome to our winter issue of The Public Manager. Inside, you’ll see how federal managers are making a difference in lives of people around the world, even in an age of austerity. “Families sitting around the kitchen table … aren’t interested in abstract theories about whether government should be big or small,” says Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan in this issue. “They simply want to know whether it can be smart and whether their tax dollars are producing results that impact their lives and communities in a positive way.”

Summer 2011: 21st Century Government Reorganization

Welcome to my first issue of The Public Manager. Every quarter we will bring you ideas about federal
leadership that works. This new tagline also underscores The Public Manager’s focus throughout the year on government best practices and tested management techniques.

As I was selecting the content for this issue, I was reading Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter–a book about creatively leveraging existing resources, including what the authors call untapped “genius.” It’s just what the government needs. With the right environment for collaboration, talent can flow like an amoeba to food to deal with the challenges at hand.

Spring 2011: Preparing for Climate Change

After 11 years before the mast as head of The Public Manager, I’ve decided to let someone else take the helm. I know most readers (and Board members) are like…hmm… “It’s about time, don’t you think?” So, I would just like to remind everyone that when former editor-in-chief Paul Weiss and publisher Tom Novotny approached me about steering this enterprise, I agreed to commit to a term of TWO YEARS! That was more than a decade ago, when this quarterly journal had a subscriber base of 1,500, no website, a nonprofit board of directors, a phantom board of editors, and an editorial focus and contributing author circle that rarely extended beyond the Beltway. This issue’s seven-article symposium on climate change represents a collaborative effort to help frame the related challenges of global warming, environmental degradation, energy dependency, and sustainability, as well as offer a glimpse of what governments at different levels are doing to respond to these challenges both at home and abroad.

Fall 2011: Government Workforce Innovation

Welcome to the fall Public Manager, a journal reflecting some of the best examples of collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning in government circles. We collected ideas from every level—intern to executive—about federal leadership that works. This will seed discussion for the upcoming ASTD/Public Manager Government Workforce: Learning Innovations Conference November 2 in Washington, D.C.

In nearly 40 years of government service, Gene Dodaro, the U.S. Comptroller General, worked his way to the top. He reminds us in the fall Exchange of the need “to put forth the effort to make government better and to make our country stronger.” He also talks about confronting the nation’s toughest challenges spotlighted on the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk List.