Larry's POV
Managing for Great Internal and External Customer Service
Doing More With Less: Funding Programs Through Proposal Writing
How to Assess and Improve Your Agency's Performance: The Balanced Scorecard
I just love workshops for Public Sector Managers.
Fourth Generation Management.
The Kano Model of Quality. The Goalpost Target
I love this stuff.
I love sitting in seminars and learning. Transactional and transformational leadership. Integrate quality improvement tools into your agency's daily work. Measure your agency's performance.
Man, this stuff just makes my blood boil.
And the best part of it is, Josh hates this stuff. Having to sit through 8 hours of a consultant teaching the nuances of the latest management theories drives him nuts. I often wonder how he made it through college and law school. But, you see, he is in charge of running daily White House Operations, so he has to keep up on it.
So we have worked out an ideal solution. I get to pick them and go, he okays the seminar authorization. You wouldn't believe how many of these things are held at Disney World. Donna hates me, Josh won't let her go anywhere near Disney World. She sits on those authorizations, so I have to catch Josh on the fly to get him to sign off.
Any way, I get to go and then I give Josh the handouts and the Cliff Notes Version of the spiel when I get back. Five minutes or less is what he wants. The amazing thing is, he'll flip through the handouts while I point out the highlights. And then, wham, the next Operations meeting we're in he's smacking people right and left for not developing implementation actions and measurements for teams that integrate strategy with daily tasks. It's almost like he knows what he's talking about.
The reason why I bring this up is Josh has been picking some out for me to go to lately, Mostly about delegation and preparation for the unexpected in a changing managerial environment and its effect on the quality of public sector work and preparing the enterprise for rapid change.
You see, Josh has delegated many of his duties to me lately. He has been staffing the President and the President has been mentoring him. Donna told me that.
Donna wanted to know if I knew what was up. I think they must be setting Josh up for a run at some office or appointing him to head something. Look at what happened with Sam, and no one was even trying.
Now that Sam won, this administration is going full guns ahead with Josh - hell, the President is with him 24 hours a day to get him ready for it. I think that the President wants to move the Senior Staff from his first four years up and out, to position them to lead the Democratic world in the future as Congressmen and Senators, and to raise us to Senior Staff level to train.
Josh is delegating most of his management work to me. He hasn't said anything yet, but I think he is setting me up to take over here.
Now Margaret came to me asking all kinds of questions about Josh's personal life. And she asked me if Mr. McGarry has said anything to me about helping Josh find a wife. And she won't tell me why - she just said its top secret. Probably needs a wife so he can run for Congress.
I've heard rumors that Senator Black of Connecticut is going to resign due to his health. That would free up the seat. The Governor could appoint Josh to fill it. I've checked the books, a Governor can appoint a Senator to fill out a term. It hasn't been done much, but it's legal.
A lot of requests here never really get asked. After all you can't order someone to find a wife for someone else. You just let it be known, through channels, that there is a deed which needs to be done. And it gets done, no questions asked. I wonder where Ed is.
