Re: Are You the Best and the Brightest? Working For America Act

by Anonymous on 2005.10.18 09:44AM EDT  | 
IP: 

Failure to recognize current and past failures
results in an unsuccessful future. The institutional charge toward the
echelons of government lacking the “best and the brightest” employees
goes hand-in-hand with the recent non-selection interview feedback I
received: though I was able to display and communicate new perceptions
and ideas, as well as the knowledge, skill and ability to work with the
latest technology, I do not speak the [directorate] language.” This
feedback reveals the flaw in the present government system –
“institutional change is a socio-political process that reflects the
power and interests of organized actors as institutional entrepreneurs
“lead efforts to identify political opportunities, frame issues and
problems, and mobilize constituencies” and “spearhead collective
attempts to infuse new beliefs, norms, and values into social
structures” (Rao, H., Morrill, C., & Zald M. N. 2000 “Power Plays:
How Social Movements and Collective Action Create New Organizational
Forms”, Research in Organizational Behavior, 22: 239-82). Key to the
success of institutional entrepreneurs is the way in which they connect
their change projects to the activities and interests of other actors
in the field, crafting them to fit the conditions of the field itself.”
http://www.management.unimelb.edu.au/icrodsc/call.cfm Bottom line?
Revising perceptions and attitudes is the first step in accommodating
the “best and the brightest” – the federal government does have its
share of creativity and talent. Only by doing the former do we move
beyond the behavioral, social, political and institutional processes of
the latter.

Re: Re: Are You the Best and the Brightest? Working For America Act

by Joe on 2005.10.18 02:15PM EDT  | 
IP:

I agree that the federal government has many employees with creativity and talent.

I have worked with many such people in my career.

That is why when I hear comments like Mr. Stier's I feel that such statements reflect poorly on the people I have worked with.

They deserve better than to be used as an example to justify change that is primarily being done for economic reasons.

In fairness to Mr. Stier it may be suggested that he was merely
expressing the views of the people who paid him to be there because the
same statement seems to come from others whose livelihood is similarly
affected.