Saturday, February 28, 2009

President Obama's Performance Management Slows to Crawl


President Obama is a committee man. He appointed a number of point people and study groups in his first month and a half in office. One appointment that failed was White House Performance Officer. Nancy Killefer didn't perform her obligation to pay taxes in a timely manner. She withdrew her nomination. Is the White House close to a replacement? Not so, says Federal News Radio.


Six weeks into the term, the White House is not any closer to naming a new deputy director for management and chief management officer. Several sources say the White House has rejected at least three potential deputy director for management candidates, and are not close to naming one. Desenberg says this delay causes concern.

"We are trying to be patient on that but it is getting a little late here," he says. "I know it has only been 40 days, but we were under the impression that a lot of these people were ready to go in first couple of weeks." Desenberg says some lawmakers are considering introducing performance management legislation in the next few weeks to address this issue.

Congress writing performance management legislation? That hapless group couldn't ask White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend why she ommitted the hospital with the highest patient death toll from her Katrina Lessons Learned report. Corporate owners, Tenet Health and The Carlyle Group, are grateful for Fran's pitiful analysis. But that's old news, however unresolved.

Setting targets and holding people accountable is junk management theory. Wall Street set aggressive goals and bribed executives to perform. They produced vaporware financial products, rating them AAA. Investing is dead for many people.

Greed and leverage brought down Wall Street. Big money and heady power killed the public's confidence in politics. Both need Dr. Deming's quality management theory, known as profound knowledge. Congress and the White House remain ignorant. Any performance management efforts from this bunch will harm the country.

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