The recent election cycle was painful. Regardless of your viewpoints, it seems our civil liberties were nearly ravaged. Many opinion leaders are calling for healing and more tolerance. Lord knows, we experienced a wicked year of community violence and upheaval that ended with a federal campaign about a war of the words. Throughout the year… Read More Leadership, Change and Respect for Our Foundational Law

This year, I attended the ASPA National Convention in Seattle. One panel was several members of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) raising the question of what advice should they provide to the new administration and Congress. One of the commentators lamented how do you get them to read it. Forget a stack of… Read More Returning to a Government of Competence

Now that we are approaching the next presidential election, there have been several moments that have made me question the election process, the elected candidates and the policies that are being passed on the state and federal level. A few months ago, I made a promise to myself to get more involved in local policy… Read More State Policies and How They Impact Us

Nov. 1 marks that time of year when highly ambitious, slightly delusional folks like me take on the self-imposed quest of writing a 50,000-word novel in one month’s time. The challenge is called National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. As arduous a task as it is, there are many strategies designed to help… Read More Management from the Road: National Novel Writing Month

Don’t get too excited by the title. No, I am not advocating for the mass retirement of men. Instead, I am making a case for retirees mentoring replacements before they retire. Take my retirement in 2014. After 36 years within state and local government (and in many roles) I filed retirement documents about 90 days… Read More HR Innovation: Mentirement

If you answered yes, congratulations. You’re having fun! If you answered no, congratulations. You’re part of the global and national workforce that is the majority. So how do you create a happy workplace? The blindingly obvious answer is, “To have a happy workplace, get rid of the unhappy people.” There’s a lot of truth in… Read More Is Your Organization Happy?

Whether for a nation or even an organization, the nomination process is crucial in determining who gets elected. William “Boss” Tweed famously figured this out when he ran New York City from Tammany Hall in the 1860s. Tweed said that he did not need to care who got elected, as long as he controlled who… Read More Who Gets Elected?

Poet Robert Frost once said, “The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.” Then again, there are those who are willing to work but can’t find a job. Photo Credit: Vermont Public Radio Today’s job market stands dramatically changed from what it was during Frost’s idyllic… Read More The Human Touch

Horrible derailments are not reserved for commuter trains. Americans’ trust of the two major candidates for president has crashed, too. The good news is that not everything believed about national candidates or national conditions is believed about local government. Across America, we have tested how much or how little tens of thousands of residents trust… Read More Local Government’s Public Trust Puzzle

I’m not sure if it’s because I am a millennial and tend to “overshare” on the internet or if it’s because after several blog posts I feel like we know each other, but I wanted to share that this past weekend I got married! To my excitement, the first presidential debate coincided with the first… Read More Selecting a Partner, Selecting a President