GERALD CARMEN - LEGACY OF A LEADER

 

In March 1980, President Ronald Reagan asked Jerry Carmen to lead the General Services Administration (the GSA).

At the time the GSA was the Federal Government’s most corrupt and wasteful agency. 

Jerry’s mission, direct from President Reagan, was to clean-up the GSA or shut it down. 

Three years later the GSA had dropped from 36,000 employees to 12,000, thanks to the most thorough hiring freeze instituted under Reagan.

The GSA’s duplicative offices and obsolete operations were gone.

In its place was the best run Federal Agency in 1984. 

Jerry saved tens of billions of taxpayer dollars.

This is how bad it got. 

An employee cabal orchestrated an insider contract scam to renovate the 8^th Floor Utility Rooms at the GSA Headquarters Building.

It wasn’t until they requested a contract extension that people remembered the GSA Headquarters only had seven floors.

Jerry created a secure “war room” where we placed the entire GSA organization on its walls.

We then rolled plastic sheets over the personnel charts.  Using grease pencils, we “x-ed” out offices and operations that were flagged by Inspector General Reports and Whistle Blowers, marking them for extinction.  

Once personnel actions were recorded, we erased the notations.

When Leftist Congresswoman, Pat Schroeder, demanded our work files we were able to honestly say there were none.

Jerry was “laser focused” on his mission.

A Union official met with Jerry to protest the hiring freeze.

A few minutes into the meeting, Jerry picked up the bowl of Jelly Belly candy on his desk and began picking out and eating the red ones.

The Union official noticed this and commented, “You really like those red ones.  What makes them so special?”

Jerry answered, “The meeting is over when the red ones are gone”.

Jerry’s main achievement was creating a business-based culture grounded in honesty and integrity.

The Director of the Springfield Supply Depot called Jerry declaring that he needed to buy 12 additional forklifts to meet the new work deadlines.

Jerry immediately drove himself to the Depot.  He rushed past the guards and raced through the warehouse counting twenty idle forklifts. 

The Director was immediately removed from his position and fired within the week.

Jerry embodied the commitment to excellence, the courage of convictions, and the bravery of a true leader. 

Jerry’s accomplishments, and how he accomplished them, will inspire generations to come.

TRUMPING GOVERNMENT

[Also published at http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/trump-federal-government-presidency/2016/11/24/id/760573/ ] #TRUMPING #DRAINTHESWAMP

President-Elect Trump can revolutionize governing as he revolutionized campaigning.

Trump is uniquely positioned as the first nonmilitary, nongovernment, person to ever be elected President.  His mandate for change will overwhelm those wanting an ever expanding and dysfunctional government to prevail. 

The Washington Establishment defends the status quo by asserting: “we have always done it this way”; “you can never run government like a business”; “we are unique”; “we have already cut what can be cut”, and “cutting anything will harm Americans”.

Trump is already doing things his way, breaking new ground as he goes.  The media and the Establishment were against Trump since he announced his candidacy and were consistently wrong about everything relating to Trump and the 2016 elections.  They are now foolishly attempting to second guess Trump, hold him to some arbitrary transition schedule, and giving him unsolicited advice.

These unrelenting, but always wrong, voices ignore that President-Elect Ronald Reagan named his core cabinet on or after December 10, 1980, thirty-six days past his landslide election.  They also refuse to mention that none of Trump’s appointments can be confirmed until the new 115^th Congress convenes on January 3, 2017. The first Senate confirmation hearings cannot take place until that first day of the new Congress.  Trump can take his time and get things right from the start.

Trump is crafting his own way of governing.  His only requirement is to seamlessly transition to power.  Think of a relay race where one runner is completing their segment while the other is beginning theirs.  Ideally, both runners achieve stride for stride coordination until one passes the baton to the other.  America’s civic culture is tested and proven strong every time this peaceful hand-off occurs between opposing parties.

Once the “baton is in hand” President Trump will end the Obama era.  Ronald Reagan took time, immediately after his Inaugural Address, to sign Executive Orders ending the Carter era. Trump should move this decisively.

Realigning and mobilizing the Executive Branch to achieve his top priorities will be the first test of Trump’s ability to lead. 

Trump must instill a “sense of urgency”. November 8 was a massive Taser blast to the heart of the Washington Establishment.  They remain stunned, dazed, and confused.  Trump must move swiftly to achieve his goals before the Establishment awakes. 

Revolution’s worst enemy is delay.  Trump is an intuitive thinker and doer. He must act aggressively on his instincts and not let over analysis paralyze his cause.

The federal government is ridiculously huge.  Its size and growth are unnecessary.  In its first 129 years, America became a world power, the leader in technology innovation, and an industrial juggernaut, with only six Cabinet Departments.  All Cabinet Departments, except Treasury, fit into the Old Executive Office Building until World War I.  The door knobs in the building still display the Departmental seals.

Rethinking the role of government can be Trump’s greatest contribution to America.  Private initiative makes America great, so government should only exist when an overwhelmingly compelling case can be made.  Even then, incentives and sanctions through regulation, taxes, or fees, should be exhausted before a new government program is created.  Except for Coolidge and Reagan to varying degrees, no incoming President has ever conducted such a fundamental review.

Much of what sent America over the fiscal cliff were the actions of President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1960s. LBJ cynically established the modern welfare state to entrap large swathes of the electorate in an ever expanding federal leviathan. LBJ’s “great society” programs drove millions into voting for Democrats and drove America trillions into debt.

Trump knows government growth can be reversed. Personnel and costs can be dramatically cut.  Agencies can be abolished, like the Civil Aeronautics Board.

Under President Reagan, the General Services Administration invoked a hiring freeze and radical reorganization that reduced employment from 34,000 to 12,000 in three years.  Costs plummeted while the quality and responsiveness of services skyrocketed.  Under Speaker Gingrich, all non-parliamentary and non-security operations were consolidated within a new Chief Administrative Officer. Aggressive outsourcing and business based operations cut employment in half.  Once again, costs plummeted while quality and responsiveness of services skyrocketed.

As President Trump reshapes the Federal Government he needs to take to heart the immortal words of two of America’s most successful Presidents.  Calvin Coolidge directed his appointees to “Trim wherever you can”.  Ronald Reagan had a sign on his desk that inspired his team, “It CAN be done".

Saving the Secret Service

Failure to perform the most basic of protection functions for the President, his family, and world leaders visiting the President, is not acceptable.  Secret Service Director, Joe Clancy, was pointedly held accountable for his agency’s failures before the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on March 17.

Defending his being blindsided by agent misconduct, Clancy asserted, “I brought in my staff. We discussed why I didn’t know prior to this event. We had a good stern talk about that”.

Members of Congress from both parties were appalled at Clancy’s bureaucratic response to agent behavior and operational integrity. 

“This is my first test,” said Clancy.

Clancy is wrong on so many fronts.  The first test of a leader is their first interaction with their organization.  Even how they enter their headquarters for the first time is a test.  Tests of leadership occur every waking moment of a leader’s tenure.  To think otherwise is to fundamentally misunderstand leadership.

Clancy admitted he was appointed to change the increasingly dysfunctional and unprofessional culture of the Secret Service.  He defended himself by noting his short tenure and that cultural change takes time.

“With all due respect, I’m just shocked by your testimony,” said Nita Lowey (D-NY). “Take time to change the culture? I don’t understand this one bit. It seems to me it should take time to help people who think this is the culture to get another job.”

Changing an organization’s culture is hard, but not impossible.  The challenge for Secret Service Director Joe Clancy is to actually want change, lead change, and embody the change.  He can learn from successful culture changes in the federal government.  There are only a few, but their lessons are universal. 

 

I was lucky enough to be on the leadership team that turned around the General Services Administration (36,000 employees), and to lead the team that forever changed the U.S. House of Representatives (14,000 employees). 

 

The Secret Service employs approximately 6,500 people, including 3,200 special agents, 1,300 Uniformed Division officers, and 2,000 technical, professional and administrative support personnel.   It is much smaller than the two strategic transformations that succeeded in creating immediate, tangible, and sustainable change.  There is no excuse for inaction.

Define the Promised Land

Change fails because there is no clarity of purpose.  A leader must visualize every aspect of a defined outcome.  A leader needs to see, hear, touch, and smell their end point and to understand the timetable for reaching it.  Whether the horizon is six months, a year, or three years, a leader must see that “Promised Land” and a general path to reach it.  Only then can a leader communicate that vision to others and to win converts who will assist them with the journey.

 

Gerald Carmen took the helm of the General Services Administration (GSA) on May 26, 1981.  His background as President & CEO of a regional network of auto supply dealerships gave him the clarity and common sense embodied in every successful small businessman.  He immediately visualized how core operational services and resources should be provided to the federal government and set about bringing on board an inner circle of experts who fundamentally grasped his vision.

 

I became the first Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 3, 1995.  My experience included working with Carmen at the GSA, with Quality Management Guru Philip Crosby, and personally leading the transformation of smaller enterprises within the Peace Corps and the Federal Aviation Administration. I also had the advantage of absorbing the work of Jim Nussle’s House transition team.  Like Carmen, I quickly visualized the “Promised Land” and immediately set about recruiting an inner circle of experts who shared that vision.

 

A leader’s vision of the Promised Land should be their very first priority.  The only thing that is clear at the Secret Service is that the Clancy does not know where he or his agency is going.

 

Deploy Air Cover

A leader in government needs the backing of someone who will back their efforts early and often.  Only then will those they lead pay attention.  People both inside and outside the agency must realize that the change is a priority to those that matter and there is no hope for end running, appealing, stalling, or waiting out the effort.

 

President Reagan personally told Carmen he would have everything he needed to either shut down or transform the GSA within six months.  Speaker Gingrich placed ending corruption in House operations in his manifesto “Contract with America”.  Both Carmen and I constantly referenced our mandate and our patrons to embolden our change agents and allies.  Obama, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, except for some initial remarks, have been low key to the point of silence on changing the Secret Service.

 

Strike Hard & Fast 

Joe Clancy was appointed as acting director of the Secret Service on October 1, 2014, and became its official Director on February 18, 2015.  He had 168 days at the helm before his hearing.  Clancy took a small step in the right direction by reassigning at least four top officials to posts elsewhere in government. Little else was done.

 

Within his first weeks as GSA Administrator, Carmen forcibly reassigned a dozen top officials, leading to their resignations.  He elevated the three top whistle-blowers to key positions of leadership.  Within his first 100 days he had completely changed all the leaders of GSA, he had established a “War Room” to investigate and remove everyone associated with corruption, and he had created an Operations Center to implement and monitor business-based performance measures over every major GSA function.  Carmen had also begun implementing a strategic plan to run the GSA based on business principles and to use a combination of attrition and hiring freezes to flatten GSA’s layers of management and reduce its workforce from 36,000 down to 20,000.

 

In the first hour of my tenure as CAO, I fired the top 48 executives of House operations.  This lopped off the heads of everyone who had been complicit in, or ambivalent about, corruption.  Within the same hour, a team of outside experts became the “A Ring” for driving change.  By day 20, we had a strategic plan drafted for fundamentally transforming House operations.  By day 45, the CAO “A Ring” had detailed plans, complete with timetables and outcome measures, ready for 75 distinct reform initiatives.  By day 100, over two dozen of the reforms were already in place with the others awaiting committee approvals.

 

Unfurl Your Banners

Change requires ritual and symbolism.  Sun Tzu, the military genius of 4^th Century B.C. China, stated it best, “In night-fighting, then, make much use of signal-fires and drums, and in fighting by day, of flags and banners, as a means of influencing the ears and eyes of your army.”

 

At GSA, Carmen, within his first three months, resurrected a World War II war effort poster – the American Flag with the slogan “Give it your best”.  The poster went up throughout GSA headquarters.  Carmen constantly reminded employees that they worked for America and that they should always “give it their best”.  Handing out performance awards and recognitions further echoed this theme as did promotions.  It inspired increasing numbers of career employees to become fanatics about performance and service.

 

At the CAO, we adopted a credo drawn from top global service providers - “We are serving our country by serving our Congress” within the first 30 days.  Top global companies’ fundamentals of service excellence became the CAO’s “Contract with Congress”.  Wallet-sized hard cards were given to every CAO employee.  Training in service and operational excellence was provided to all.  Awards and recognition, as well as promotions, reinforced the new culture and won over legions of long time House employees to the new world of pride and performance.

 

The Secret Service, 168 days into Clancy’s tenure, has no organizing symbol or slogan to rally believers to the new order.

 

Cement Your Sand Castle

Real change must transcend its inception.  Changes must be irreversible.  Bridges back to the old ways must be burned or blown-up.  The Promised Land must be institutionalized through new position descriptions, new titles, new mission statements, new performance measures, and new incentives. Even new colors and office configurations play a role. 

 

At GSA, Carmen immediately moved out of the vast ceremonial office and turned it into a general meeting room.  He also repainted the hallways of the headquarters building (the color scheme remains to this day).  His “War Room” eliminated titles and operations that had outlived their relevance.  New mission statements and position descriptions were installed as he eradicated the old order.  All remain in place to this day.  When corruption tried to seep into the GSA twenty years later, career employees used to the new culture of integrity to blow the whistle, defending the integrity of the reinvented agency.

 

The Congressional reform removed and sold off furniture, and worked with the Architect of the Capitol to completely change spaces as operations were abolished, downsized, or privatized. New mission statements, position descriptions, core skill requirements, and performance measures were created as old ones were removed or created where none had previously existed.  Twenty years and two partisan changes later, everything remains in place.

 

The Secret Service, and Director Clancy, have much to learn and much to do – if they are truly sincere.

 

[Scot Faulkner served as Chief Administrative Officer for the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a member of Carmen’s GSA Executive team.]

 

 

Vacuous VA

The following was published in The Washington Examiner.

http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/ronald-reagan-era-cleanup-of-general-services-administration-shows-how-to-fix-veterans-affairs-after-eric-shinseki-is-gone/article/2548602

Shinseki must go.  It is unconscionable for a leader to be so asleep at the switch.

 

Secretary Shinseki’s lack of curiosity is a fundamental flaw.  No leader, especially a Cabinet Secretary responsible for the well-being of America’s veterans, should be allowed to remain after their inaction caused unwarranted deaths.  Shinseki’s after the fact display of concern is not a sufficient atonement for what happened. 

 

Real leaders are pro-active and follow-up.  No matter how much they trust their subordinates, a real leader random checks and deep dives within their organization to independently verify actions, gain important insights, and connect with their colleagues.  Shinseki did none of these and lives were lost.

 

An example of a real leader is Gerry Carmen’s tenure as Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) under Ronald Reagan. In1980, the GSA was one of the most scandal ridden agencies of the federal government.  President Reagan picked Carmen, a no nonsense auto parts entrepreneur from New Hampshire, to clean up the GSA. 

 

Carmen immediately took steps to turn around the GSA. He elevated three whistleblowers (who had been ostracized and marginalized under President Carter) to key positions and began to hold people accountable. In league with the whistleblowers and investigative journalists, Carmen and his team dusted off mountains of unread Inspector General Reports, worked closely with the Justice Department, and sent forty eight corrupt GSA officials to jail.   The signal was crystal clear; GSA was to be an honest agency with zero tolerance for waste, fraud, or abuse.

 

His first opportunity for operational change was reducing processing time for federal supplies.  The average “work in process” (WIP) time for an agency supply order to move from order entry to shipment was 45 days.  Carmen ordered that WIP be reduced to nine days. A new reporting unit, Program Control, was established to directly monitor operations and measure performance. 

 

Within the first weeks, WIP magically fell to nine days in reports from the GSA warehouses.  Carmen did not believe it.  An immediate audit of the warehouse reports showed that warehouse managers had redefined WIP to only cover activity related to preparing supplies for shipment.  Just like at the Department of Veterans Affairs, career bureaucrats created a parallel set of measures to erase a backlog.  Unlike the V.A., Carmen and his team, ferreted out the subterfuge and fired those who cooked the books.

 

One Washington, DC area GSA warehouse did not “cook the books”.  However, the warehouse manager complained that he could not reduce WIP unless he had ten more fork lifts.  Once again, Carmen wasn’t buying it.  He made an unannounced visit to the warehouse and discovered forty fork lifts, fifteen of which were disabled waiting long overdue repairs.  Carmen also reviewed the operational logs and unearthed the fact that there were only twenty certified fork lift operators.  No effort had been made to certify new operators after a dozen had left or retired.  The Washington warehouse manager was immediately placed on administrative leave and was jettisoned from government service within the month.

 

Shinseki was not confronted with flim flams over supply chain management; he confronted manipulations that impacted lives.  His passivity is unforgivable.  He insulted everyone involved by hiding behind the lamest excuse of all – trying to minimize the scope of his negligence.  Shinseki declared, “Most veterans are satisfied with the quality of their V.A. health care, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care.”

The removal of Dr. Robert A. Petzel, the under secretary for health, is clearly not enough. Tom Tarantino, with The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, correctly asserted, “We don’t need the V.A. to find a scapegoat. We need an actual plan to restore a culture of accountability throughout the V.A.”

That can only happen with a new leader, who actually knows how to lead.

[Scot Faulkner led the Office of Program Control for Gerry Carmen at the GSA.  He also led the clean-up of Congressional operations as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. http://citizenoversight.blogspot.com/ ]

Budget Bacchanal

This column was published in Politico
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/the-summer-budget-bacchanal-95811.html?hp=r13

While most people are enjoying vacations, government agencies and their contractors are spending your tax dollars faster than ever.

That’s right — it’s peak shopping season for the U.S. federal government. Despite automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration,” the fourth quarter of the fiscal year remains the time for Uncle Sam’s annual spending spree. Why is that? Because over the course of July, August and September, agencies must spend the balance of their fiscal year budgets or suffer having their requests for budget increases being second-guessed by the Office of Management and Budget and the appropriating committees in Congress.

And spend they do. Each year around this time, potential savings evaporate in an orgy of expedited procurements and other spending during the mad dash to spend every penny before midnight on Oct. 1. No celebrations of frugality here; agencies would rather guard their budgetary turf than save money for taxpayers.

Each year, on average, executive branch departments and agencies spend only two-thirds of their discretionary money by June 30, the end of the third fiscal quarter. By the fourth quarter, there’s pent-up demand and a rush to spend. One-third of government spending typically happens in the fourth quarter. (In fiscal 2011, the peak was less dramatic. At the start of the fourth quarter, the federal procurement system had spent approximately 70 percent of its contracting dollars.)

The OMB provides program-specific fund tracking to federal executives around mid-July on what is left to spend. Agency officials view this OMB tracking report on “use or lose” spending as the “starting gun” for wanton expenditures of dubious value.

The government’s contractor accounting system, Deltek, also sends out fourth-quarter program and agency-specific opportunities to the vendor community. Government contractors, with long-term service arrangements, known as Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity, make beelines to their agency contracting officers to discuss immediate ramping up of expenditures. It is one of the dirty little secrets of how Washington really operates.

This year, some private firms started the fourth-quarter spending promotion in June, conducting business outreach sessions. One of their fliers heralds, “Once again federal spending has been delayed until the 4th quarter” and asks, “Do the agency people know you and your company?”

The flier [http://govconectx.com/June_13_Outreach.html] provides a list of participating agencies, “with more being added every day!” In this season of accelerated spending, there is something for everybody, except American taxpayers.

Imagine if Washington’s incentives mirrored the real world, where saving money still means something. Imagine if Congress passed a fourth-quarter spending restriction that mandated agencies spend only 25 percent of their budget in the fourth quarter.

To calculate the potential savings, let’s use the 33 percent average in fourth-quarter spending occurring across the executive branch. The 8 percent difference would save $104.8 billion in the next three months.

That amount in savings is larger than the $71.4 billion sequestration cuts for FY 2013. The key difference is that, instead of draconian across-the-board cuts, this amount is fully focused on last-minute arbitrary spending. These last-minute buys are for things agencies have lived without for the entire fiscal year. This is not spending to keep our military planes flying or national parks open; it’s money spent on optional conferences and nonessential services. The GSA and IRS conferences that attracted so much recent concern were part of previous year-end spending bonanzas.

Such waste provides another reason to curtail this long-standing budget bacchanal. Agency officials will scream, while American taxpayers will breathe a sigh of relief.

Scot Faulkner is former chief administrative officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.

GSA's Mad House

“It’s a mad house. A mad house!” [Charleton Heston, “Planet of the Apes” 1986]

The ongoing revelations of scandal at the General Services Administration (GSA) are now being equaled by looney ideas for solving the problem.

During the recent Senate hearings on the GSA, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) suggested that “GSA’s newly minted acting administrator should assign 11 “special oversight officers” to work in each of its regions for a period of time to improve accountability”.

What was she thinking?

GSA’s Regional Administrators are direct reports to the GSA Administrator. They are all members of the Senior Executive Service (SES), which means they are (1) under an enforceable and detailed performance agreement, and (2) can be immediately removed should they not fulfill this performance agreement, or violate federal law.

Once again, politicians have found a way to address a government problem by NOT enforcing existing procedures and policies. They want to create yet another layer of bureaucracy!

If the GSA Administrator is not properly managing their direct reports, it is time to find someone who will. Even an Acting-Administrator (and GSA has had nineteen of them during its sixty-three year existence) should hold direct reports accountable for their actions and actually know what they are doing.

The eruption of scandal at the GSA is a symptom of a larger issue throughout the Federal government. Government is way too big and its operations are based on everything but rational management thinking. It is only a matter of time before another agency or program explodes onto the front pages with waste, fraud and abuse. There are no real incentives for doing anything rational. Yes, there are detailed laws, policies, and regulations, but these are rarely based on reasonable management practices, and few people in government really care anyway. Fundamental organizational revolution is the only viable and lasting solution.

Some say the GSA should go away. Maybe so. However, before taking such an action, why isn’t anyone checking on how things are done in the real world? There are thousands of large successful businesses that provide operational space, equipment, and supplies to their far flung units. Why aren’t the House and Senate panels holding a hearing with executives from H&R Block, Marriott, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, or any number of other private companies asking them how they provide space, equipment, and supplies? Are they centralized, regionalized, or localized? Where does procurement authority reside? What are their systems for accountability and planning?

The real world is constantly updating their approaches to serving their markets. Those companies that do not change with the times and consumer tastes vanish. Government never has to worry about vanishing, even when it is decades behind the times. There are ways to bring reality to government. Adding additional layers to already antiquated and dysfunction systems is not one of them.

GSA - Bureaucrats Gone Wild

This was published in The New York Daily News

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/gsa-top-to-bottom-gutting-article-1.1062586

What is to be done with the General Services Administration? The agency is now the “poster child” for government waste, thanks to daily disclosures of bureaucrats gone wild, topped by three days of House oversight hearings.

I know from history that this agency can be saved from rife corruption — but only if leaders attack its dysfunction root and branch.

On April 13, 1981, President Ronald Reagan did something no other President has done before or since. He directed the soon-to-be head of the GSA to either “fix the agency or shut it down” within six months. That soon to be head was Administrator-designate Gerald P. (Gerry) Carmen, a businessman from New Hampshire. Carmen had been an early supporter of Reagan, but his strong suit was being a no-nonsense owner of a network of tire and auto parts stores in New England.

What followed was something that should occur on occasion in every program, agency and cabinet department in the federal government. Carmen assembled a team of private-sector experts in operations, finance, personnel and change management and set them loose on the GSA. Their mission was his mission: design and implement a fix of GSA or shut it down.

Just like today, the GSA of 1981 was in the headlines for going rogue. For nearly two years, “60 Minutes” and an army of investigative reporters had exposed countless scandals in the government’s centralized procurement and real estate operation.

Whistleblowers, including William Clinkscales and Howard Davia, became media sensations for their exposure of GSA crimes, while Carter administration functionaries did everything they could to silence them. Clinkscales ended up working out of his car in the GSA headquarters parking lot before Reagan began mentioning him in speeches.

In the early summer of 1981, Carmen and his team quickly realized that the GSA corruption was deeply embedded and very bipartisan. Large numbers of Republicans who became career employees under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford oversaw the leasing and building kickbacks, while similar numbers of Democrats who became career employees under Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter ran procurement scams.

The only way to get an honest answer from GSA careerists was to mount an “Eliot Ness”-type operation. Carmen and his team asked the whistleblowers whom they trusted, then asked those people whom they trusted and so on — until a critical mass of honest, trustworthy professionals honeycombed the agency.

As the personnel and management metrics expert on Carmen’s team, my role was to create a “war room,” filled floor to ceiling with organization charts documenting every employee in the GSA. Carmen and I spent countless days, nights and weekends combing through the mountains of reports from inspectors general, the General Accounting Office and investigative journalists and connecting them to specific programs, identifying the corrupt and incompetent, while streamlining GSA operations.

Ultimately, 48 GSA employees went to prison. Hundreds more were removed and sent packing. Streamlining some processes, and eliminating even more, shrank the agency from a bloated 34,000 employees down to 20,000 employees in less than three years. Billions of tax dollars were saved while operational integrity was rebuilt.

This fundamental cleansing of the GSA was tethered to building a new ethical culture. Carmen displayed the famous Word War II poster of the American flag with the slogan “Give it your best” throughout GSA offices. Later, my program control team wrapped real operational performance measures around all GSA activities. Employees were held accountable for failure and rewarded for results.

This resurrected, service-oriented GSA lasted until political agendas began seeping back into the agency. In 2008, President George W. Bush’s GSA administrator, Lurita Doan, resigned after being the focus of House oversight hearings over her sole-source contracts to political cronies and violations of the Hatch Act. This rot at the top of the GSA spread throughout the agency’s culture, resulting in the recent explosion of sordid tales of waste and abuse.

Still, Carmen’s GSA revolution lasted for nearly 25 years — and proves the value of mounting similar efforts in every nook and cranny of the executive branch and repeating them every 20 years, if not more often.

This is something both President Obama and Mitt Romney should promise to Americans as part of their respective platforms. Imagine what Washington would be like if SWAT teams were appointed to every agency and department with the mission to “clean it up or shut it down” within the first six months of the next administration. It would scare the living daylights out of the entrenched interests in Washington but make the federal government worthy of our tax dollars. It would also dramatically reduce costs to the point of balancing the federal budget in months instead of decades.

Faulkner served on Gerry Carmen’s GSA cleanup team.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/gsa-a-top-to-bottom-gutting-article-1.1062586#ixzz1sLndcPS8

Federal Fiasco

BREAKING NEWS -
Conference with clowns and mind readers costs top GSA officials their jobs

By Charles S. Clark

Top officials of the General Services Administration left the agency on Monday as the GSA inspector general’s office readied a “scathing” report on wasteful spending at a Las Vegas training conference in 2010, The Washington Post reported Monday afternoon.

Martha Johnson submitted her resignation, and Public Buildings Service Commissioner Robert Peck and senior counselor Stephen Leeds were terminated. A fourth manager was put on administrative leave, according to the news report.

Organizers spent $835,000 for a conference for 300 employees held at a luxury hotel, the Post said, including $147,000 in airfare and lodging for six planning trips. The tally also included $3,200 for a mind reader; $6,300 on a commemorative coin set in velvet boxes and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle.

http://www.govexec.com/management/2012/04/lavish-conference-costs-top-gsa-officials-their-jobs/41651/?oref=top-storyy