Making Washington work : tales of innovation in the federal government
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Making Washington work : tales of innovation in the federal government
Brookings Institution Press, c1999
- : pbk
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Note
"An undertaking of the Ford Foundation's Innovations in American Government Program through the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and the Council for Excellence in Government ."
Includes bibliographical references and index
Contents of Works
- Jamming in the symphony
- Fast track product recall
- Transforming military supply
- Shutting down sweatshops
- Collecting taxes by telephone
- Banishing chlorofluorocarbons
- Boosting legal hiring
- Sharing tricks to pare costs
- Reclaiming relevance
- Motivating job safety
- Collaborative stewardship
- Reforging the community connection
- Getting new drugs on the market
- Rebuilding disaster management
- Keeping pensions secure
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Everybody knows federal agencies are brain-dead leviathans. Everybody knows that the watchword of federal management is "that's the way we've always done it." Everybody knows that any creativity within American government shows up only in the cities and states. Everybody's wrong.
In 1995 the Ford Foundation's annual "Innovation in American Government" award competition was opened up to federal candidates and a third of the winners since then have been federal institutions. This book profiles the 14 federal award winners from 1995 to 1998 and challenges the conventional wisdom about the federal bureaucracy's capacity to adapt. Examples include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which figured out how to identify and act upon business and government's shared stake in keeping dangerous products out of consumers' hands; and the Wage and Hour inspectors in the Labor Department, who deployed market leverage to put pressure on the garment-industry scofflaws whose sweatshops had evaded conventional enforcement.
The stories show how pressure, promises, and professional pride can galvanize federal managers and front-line workers to overcome what are admittedly imposing impediments to change, and persevere with new ways to deliver on their missions. And they illustrate the unfashionable truth that innovation is within Washington's repertoire after all.
Copublished with the Council for Excellence in Government
by "Nielsen BookData"