George Washington’s Vision For National Banking
It’s February and time to celebrate George Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1732. Washington, the 1st President of the United States, greatly contributed to foundation of the banking and finance industry. Washington said, “A people…who are possessed of the spirit...
Information Governance Insights: The Magic Black Box
We’ve talked a lot about Information Governance and the goal of increasing the productivity of employees, lower costs, increase operational opportunities, and cover downside risk by providing consistency, integrity, security and availability of information throughout...
How Government Can Utilize Niche Social Media
If you have been reading GovTalk the last few months, you should have some direction on how to use the three largest social media platforms to your entity’s advantage. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are the top tools to coordinate a social media campaign for any...
A Journey to End the Journey
In my previous article I described how I often use the analogy of a mountain to help me tackle the challenges of life. But in 2007 I actually moved the mountain from analogy to reality. By then any remaining doubts that my recovery was not both incredible and...
Of Leaders and Teams
In the first of this two-part series, we used illustrations of bridges as we looked at the power of external forces and the active perspective leaders employ to swiftly assess, understand and respond to challenges facing their organizations. We’ve already seen that...
Everyday Innovation
We met for breakfast in the antique Foshay Tower (now a W Hotel) in Minneapolis. My breakfast guest was the renowned cartoonist, John Bush. Now deceased, his syndicated cartoons were at that time white-hot. I was there to learn how his mind worked since my...
Motivational Junk Food: What’s the Problem?
The Problem with Feeding People Motivational Junk Food Excerpt from Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work … And What Does by Susan Fowler. Be careful of being driven. If you are driven, who is doing the driving? I heard this old adage many years ago, and ever since,...
Bilingual, Basic or Fluent: What Are the Differences?
By Jaymie Pompeo, Career Coach Growing up, my entire family instilled the value of a second language. My parents are native speakers and placed heavy emphasis on using Spanish at home while my English developed through the help of Sesame Street and elementary school....
The Courage to Be Curious
Leaders being asked to do more with less resources sometimes default to a “just get it done” attitude when tackling daily tasks. As a leadership tool, the willingness to evoke curiosity in these times often falls to the sidelines in one-on-one dialogues and team...
Benefits of Behavioral Logic Trees
While reading Phi Kappa Phi’s patterns themed Winter 2015 Forum, I thought about patterns of my own life. Specifically, I thought about how I develop patterns around my neophobia (neophobia, is the aversion, fear [phobia] of the unfamiliar, new [neo]). It is...
Do Governments Need Economic Development?
There are some who argue government has no business getting involved with economic development. They believe economic development is not a government function. Conversely, there are others who maintain economic development is the primary function of any American...
5 Reasons Why the Public Sector Needs Marketing
Marketing + public sector = success does not seem like a common equation. Marketing is the actions (sales, public relations, pricing, packaging and distribution) taken to place your product or service with a customer. It is synonymous with the private sector and...
You Have Chosen Your Current Income
What if you were told you are earning today exactly the amount you have chosen to earn, no more and no less; that you are where you are financially because you have chosen to be right there. Would you agree with that? Most would adamantly disagree. But the fact...
Women’s Leadership: Challenging Our Social Norms
Women are equally qualified for leadership positions as their male counterparts, however, less of us continue to fill political and corporate leadership positions. Most Americans find women indistinguishable from men on key leadership traits such as the capacity for...
Of Bridges and Connections
Life can often be described as a set of imperfect parts that occasionally come together in a perfect opportunity. In many cases, those opportunities are natural, uninfluenced and easily acted upon for all involved as a way to bring together two or more otherwise...
Information Governance Insights: The Exceptions
It is a constant in life that, no matter how perfect, there is always an exception to every rule. This is true in your Information Governance program as well.We spent a lot of time last year discussing how to build an effective program that can manage information...
Employee Retention: 5 Tips
Employee retention is critical to every business – including “high turnover” industries like childcare, automotive, retail, and more. Research shows that replacing an employee can cost up to 20 percent of the position’s annual salary. The focus of employee retention...
Government Leadership Needs More Women
Back in 1981, just 13 percent of chief administrative officers in government were women. Since then, that number hasn’t budged. It’s staggering to see what little progress has occurred in advancing the roles of women in government. Even with what appears to be a big...