The Center for Organizational Excellence, Inc. (COE) president and chief executive officer, Steve Goodrich, recently had an online and print article published by Government Executive, a journal that covers the business of the federal government and its vast departments and agencies. In his article, “Leading the Charge,” Steve Goodrich calls for a government transformation in which political leaders and agency executives come together with private, nonprofit and academic sectors to reduce costs by providing the right services efficiently and effectively.
“The federal government’s financial condition and outlook has deteriorated dramatically over a number of years. The government is on an unsustainable fiscal path and in need of major transformational reform in order to meet the needs of our country moving forward,” said Steve Goodrich. “We need to transform the way government works to ensure an effective approach to serving the American people within our means. That requires our government to refocus on what it does, how it does it, how it performs, how it is financed and how it measures success.”
COE conducts organizational assessments for its federal agency partners to determine strengths and weaknesses, specific actions for improvement and measures to gauge success. Along that same vein, the federal-wide audit Steve Goodrich suggests is an opportunity to transform government into an efficient, results-driven, nation-centric institution. This would save money, eliminate waste, produce measurable outcomes, increase collaboration across agencies and improve public services.
Although duplication of programs and infrastructure abound, Mr. Goodrich says that technology can help significantly. Employees are retiring faster than agencies are hiring, resulting in potential loss of critical knowledge-this is a chance to develop more effective ways of conducting work. These factors and more provide the opportunity to take a fresh look at what government does and how it does it.
To achieve this transformation, Congress and the President should immediately establish a statutory nonpartisan commission on government transformation. Steve Goodrich is one of the founders and board of director’s member of the newly formed Government Transformation Initiative (GTI). GTI’s primary focus is to support passage of legislation that establishes a long-standing, bipartisan, all-inclusive panel that would drive consistent methodology for reviewing agencies, programs and infrastructure and make recommendations for improving selected cross-cutting areas of government.
“We believe that this commission can provide the catalyst for systemic change,” added Steve Goodrich. “However, it is just as important that agencies, from the top down, think and act differently. The significant changes taking place must combine with a new way of leading that views systemic program effectiveness as a critical management tool. Effectiveness cannot be overlooked.”
Read the full article here and learn more about GTI by visiting www.gti-coalition.org.
About COE
For 29 years, The Center for Organizational Excellence, Inc. (COE) has been a trusted partner in helping to transform our clients’ organizations and programs so they may efficiently and effectively accomplish their mission. We help our clients achieve meaningful and measurable outcomes through strategy, development, and implementation services in the areas of organizational effectiveness, human capital and technology solutions. Headquartered in the Washington DC area, we offer organizational effectiveness, performance management, strategic human capital consulting, technology consulting solutions for program management and governance, systems development and integration, as well as data warehousing and business intelligence.
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