Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government Imposter Syndrome, Workplace Conflict and More
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We answer the career questions public servants may not be asking each other. Table of Contents 03 Executive Summary 03 How to Use This Guide 04 Build Business Acumen: 5 Tips for Pitching New Ideas 08 Imposter Syndrome: Overcoming the “Fake It ’Til You Make It” Mantra 10 Unleash Creativity by Rightsizing Productivity 12 Constructive Paths Through Workplace Conflict 14 The Rise of the Conscious Leader 16 3 Reasons to Grow Your Emotional Intelligence 17 The Tech Acumen Corner: Sharpen Your IT Management Skills 30 Conclusion: Some Tried & True Advice
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Executive Summary
How to Use This Guide
Have you ever pitched a bad idea? Or
For aspiring leaders: Leadership isn’t a title
had a looming feeling you’re not qualified
organization. Use this guide as a resource for
become frustrated with a colleague? Or to be where you are?
Have you ever struggled with any of these things and felt like there was no one to turn to?
Although countless professionals face
the same career woes, they don’t always share them with one another. Maybe it
– you can be a leader at any level of the
identifying and developing the “hard” and “soft” leadership skills you can cultivate.
For supervisors and managers: This guide can be a conversation starter with your team. Share what you’ve learned from the guide and invite
your colleagues to take their knowledge-sharing career journeys with you.
could detract from your reputation and
For those mid-career: Although you may
Whatever the reason, certain career topics
is always room for growth. Use this guide for
authority. Or you don’t know where to start. end up on the sidelines undiscussed and unacknowledged.
Unfortunately, these knowledge gaps lead to missed opportunities for growth.
In this guide, we aim to address some of those career questions that public
servants may not be asking one another. We highlight common professional
development taboos and practical tips to overcome them. With insights from fellow public servants and career coaches, we hope you can bridge your knowledge
gaps, get answers to your burning career
questions and find out that you’re not the only one asking them.
If this guide doesn’t address your career
question, submit it to us at info@govloop.com. We’d love to hear from you.
have years of experience under your belt, there fresh perspectives on thorny issues or recurring challenges.
For those new to government: Learning
the nuances of your agency’s mission, lingo and workplace dynamics is tough. This
guide provides insider insights from leaders
governmentwide who share their experiences and advice with you.
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Build Business Acumen: 5 Tips for Pitching New Ideas We’ve all had that experience: We come up with what we think is a brilliant idea, share it with a
colleague or boss and watch it go nowhere. It can be demoralizing, and it can leave us less likely to pitch new ideas in the future. As if what our organizations need more of is groupthink.
It doesn’t have to play out that way. While you won’t get takers on every idea you have, you can
improve the odds that innovation will find a foothold. In human resources (HR) parlance, this falls in
the category of business acumen, and it can help you make a bigger impact in your agency — and advance your career.
At GovLoop’s recent NextGen Training Summit, an expert panel shared tips and best practices for bringing new ideas to the table.
Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
1. Recognize that your idea is unrefined. When someone comes up with a new idea,
rarely is it spit-and-polish clean and ready to go. And that’s a good thing.
For a new idea to take hold, you need buy-in
from your coworkers, and one way to get it is to give them a sense of shared ownership. So, get people involved early in that creative
process, rather than presenting them with a finished product.
“You present somebody with this hacked together, half-beat-up thing and say, ‘I
need help,’ and there’s a place that they can
jump in and engage you,” said Michael Lawyer, Deputy Director of Performance Resource and Optimization for Field Policy and
Management at the Housing and Urban Development Department.
2. Don’t worry about winning over everyone. How many coworkers need to support your idea before it gets traction? Not many, according to the Rogers Diffusion of Innovation Theory.
13.5% Early Adopters
16% Laggards
34% Late Majority
34% Early Majority
2.5% Innovators
Rogers Diffusion of Innovation Theory Just 2.5% of the people in an organization fall into the innovators camp, but at the outset,
those are the only people you need. They can
help shape the idea and attract early adopters.
Say you have an idea for how your division
could do something differently. If your division has 50 people, then you need just one other
person, said Mel Kepler, Training Consultant at LMI, and a Gallup-Certified Strength Coach.
“That’s not that much. You can do this,” she said.
Pro tip: The Two Pizza Rule Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is credited
with the Two Pizza Rule, which stipulates that no team should be so big that it couldn’t be fed with two pizzas. Any
bigger, the team will see diminishing
returns in productivity and innovation.
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3. Be prepared to have your heart broken. This is one of the risks of shared ownership: Your good idea is no longer your own, and people might change it beyond recognition.
It can go one of two ways, Kepler said. You may decide that while it’s not what you envisioned, it’s still a good idea, or perhaps a better one. Or you may no longer want to be associated with it. If you feel burned, Kepler recommends following the Stop, Drop and Roll Rule:
Stop what you’re doing.
Drop your resentment.
Roll with what’s happening.
you need to move on.
that’s inevitable when you get
engage with it. If you can’t get
If you can’t rescue your idea,
Yes, your idea changed, but
other people involved. And you can’t get anywhere without their buy-in.
4. Don’t worry about the haters. The Rogers Diffusion of Innovation Theory also
stipulates that 16% of the organization will resist the idea. You need to accept that as a given.
“It does not matter what brilliant, wonderful,
world-changing idea you have come up with — 16% of the population’s going to hate it,” Lawyer said.
But before giving up on them, see if they can become an asset, said Rachel Niebeling, a
Human Capital Consultant at LMI, a Certified Recognition Professional and an Employee Engagement Specialist.
If the new idea is good,
behind it, then figure out your next step, such as finding a new team to work with.
“Haters have a role to play,” she said. “Take the opportunity to sit down with them and ask,
‘What don’t you like about it?’ Be very curious,
and ask if they have any input that would make them turn from a hater into a supporter.”
Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
5. Find the right moment. Often, the success of a new idea is a matter of timing. However brilliant an idea might be, if
people aren’t ready to hear it, it will go nowhere. But timing is also about preparation. Lawyer recommends considering three questions:
* When will the right people be listening?
Once you flesh out your idea, figure out whose support you need to get some buzz before
going to the top of your team or organization. * When will the right information be at hand? If a new report comes out that is germane to
your idea, take advantage of that. For example, if you are working on an idea for improving
employee morale, you might present it after the latest Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey has been released.
* When will attention be on your topic?
If you’ve built a network of support and you hear that buzz growing, seize the moment. But don’t wait until that moment to get prepared. Have your pitch ready. Have your team ready. Get word out that you’re ready to go.
“You may not get a meeting with the secretary [of the agency], but you may know somebody who’s got a meeting with somebody who’s got a meeting with somebody. Get some energy and excitement going, and it starts to get there.” — Michael Lawyer, HUD
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Imposter Syndrome: Overcoming the “Fake It ’Til You Make It” Mantra Maybe you started a new job or just got a promotion, and you’re questioning if you’re qualified. Or maybe you got an assignment you feel woefully inadequate to complete. Where does this
unwarranted sense of insecurity come from? Those feelings of fraudulence have a name and need to be called out.
Nearly 70% of the U.S. population experiences imposter syndrome, and that energy can either fuel or cripple you.
What is imposter syndrome? • A collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. • Chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence, which override any feeling of success or external proof of competence. There is no cure, but here is a way to manage it. At the NextGen Training Summit, Michelle Rosa,
former President of Young Government Leaders and a program manager at a federal agency,
developed an approach to help us identify and respond to the imposter feelings we face.
Old mantra: “Fake it ’til you make it.” New mantra: “Work it ’til you make it.” Fake it ’til you make it carries this connotation
that you’re going to be found out and that you
got lucky, Rosa said. The “work it ’til you make it”
mentality says, “I deserve success, and I worked hard to get here.”
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Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
How you can rewrite your narrative Rosa developed an approach to help us T.A.M.E. the imposter syndrome.
Talk about it.
A ccentuate the positive.
We can’t talk ourselves out of imposter
Imposter syndrome is not all negative. There are
syndrome. But we can give it a name, remove
shame attached to it and be intentional about managing it.
• Identify the problem by giving your feelings a name: imposter syndrome.
• Give yourself permission to be vulnerable by sharing. Asking for help is not a weakness.
some good things about it.
• Those with imposter syndrome usually hold themselves to high standards.
• They strive for excellence in most things. • They typically seek challenging opportunities, which often fuels imposter feelings.
• Don’t feel like you have to suffer in silence. Quick Exercise: Take two minutes to identify someone you can talk to about imposter
syndrome. Write two or three lines of how you might start that conversation. In the next two days, reach out to this person and start that conversation.
M agnify the facts.
E stablish a healthy response to failure.
In other words, separate feelings from facts. Much of imposter syndrome is rooted in the way we feel, not in actual fact.
This is easier said than done.
• Be intentional about separating the two. • Probe your feelings by identifying and listing them.
• Learn to embrace failure. • Learn to not make failure personal, even when you’re owning mistakes.
“No matter what you do for a living, you are going to fail. And the sooner you embrace that, the sooner you accept that failure is a part of your job, the better positioned you will be to react in a healthy way whenever it happens.” — Michelle Rosa, federal program manager
Rosa shared a
liberating mantra that
she often says to herself when failure or doubt come knocking:
I am capable. I deserve success. I know more than I think I do.
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Unleash Creativity by Rightsizing Productivity You face many constraints as an employee: time, resources, regulations and culture, to name a
few. And our productivity-obsessed work culture can make it easier to focus solely on navigating
these constraints than tapping into your creativity. It’s a completely understandable and universal scenario. You become so overwhelmed with your to-dos, it’s difficult to see the art of the possible.
The Cost of Killing Creativity But this isn’t great news for you or your organization. When efficiency comes at the cost of innovation, it:
• Degrades the quality of the result, solution or service • Makes work less engaging for employees • Squeezes people out of the agency Productivity doesn’t need to come at the expense of creativity. We spoke to Carlos Rivero, Chief
Data Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia, about what it takes to unleash creativity despite constraints and to-dos. We distilled the following best practices from what our conversation.
For managers and supervisors… 1. Be a relief valve when constraints are pressing down.
2. Model a psychologically safe environment.
“My role as a leader is to serve my team and give
Everyone has a right to be heard, but they
they need to do. And sometimes, those resources
innovation and productivity faster than anything
them the resources they need to do the work are lifting constraints and catching bullets,”
Rivero said. For instance, the belief that people needed to be in the office was one constraint
that kept employees glued to their cubicles. But during the pandemic, employees have proven
they can be productive without that constraint.
So, Rivero doesn’t require them to be in the office. Everyone on his team works remotely.
If you’re a supervisor or manager, what are
some constraints you can help relieve for your colleagues?
don’t always have the opportunity. “That kills else,” Rivero said. Employees have ideas to
share, but when they’re not heard, or they don’t go anywhere, it chips away at their creativity and psychological safety.
A psychologically safe environment allows
people to share ideas without fear or secondguessing. Not every idea will be implemented, but to show that they value creative and
innovative thinking, leaders should explain why an idea may or may not work. This is where
communicating the mission is imperative.
Don’t stop letting people see the big picture and their contributions to it.
Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
For everyone… 1. Take time off work.
2. Be aware of your environment’s impacts.
“To be perfectly honest, my wife and I have this
It took more than a decade of experience
ever really stop working? It’s difficult to erect a
If your environment doesn’t support you and
conversation all the time,” Rivero said: Does one mental barrier after 5 p.m. that thwarts every
thought about work. And sometimes, our best ideas come when we’re not working.
Rivero thinks about it this way: During the course of your day, you ingest a stream of input. And
when you’re off work doing chores or on a run, your brain finally has a chance to pause and
process all that input. Creative solutions then coalesce to the forefront of your mind.
This puts breaks in a much more respectable
place. “When you take a break from the dayto-day, you come back not just with new
energy, but new thoughts, new ideas and
new concepts,” Rivero said. “As a society, we
need to value off-work time, not just because it’s time away from work, but because of
how it can fuel your ability to be creative and productive at work.”
So, when’s your next break?
for Rivero to arrive at this piece of advice:
your creativity, you need to change your environment.
“It’s really simple, but it’s very hard to do,” Rivero said. “I get it. It took me 15 years to get
to that point where I realized the environment wasn’t good for me.”
His moment of clarity came after he took a
leadership evaluation that told him he was an introvert. “Anyone who knows me knows I am
an extrovert through and through,” he said. He
was so jaded with putting himself out there and not being heard, it had changed his authentic personality. It was time to go.
“In many cases, we just have to be aware and
help other people become aware of when the
environment isn’t conducive to your growth and
development,” Rivero said. Check in with yourself and see what’s within your power to change.
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Constructive Paths Through Workplace Conflict Without the right tools, conflict resolution can be as fraught as the dispute itself. What’s more,
working things out is about way more than a productive conversation. It involves body language as much as spoken words and the tone in which you speak, according to Kevin Coleman, an Empowerment Coach and General Services Administration Analyst.
“We’re always going to have conflict,” Coleman said. “When you see it, you’ve got to know how to navigate through it vs. being absorbed by it.”
What Causes Conflict in the Workplace? The top instigator is harassment, including bullying, Coleman said. Other common ones are: • Increased workloads • Lack of skills and training • Negative work environment • Opposing personalities • Poor management or leadership styles • Unfair treatment, such as a leader favoring or disliking someone • Unrealistic expectations from managers
Try This: Have a conflict
at work? Identify what the cause(s) may be.
Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
3 Ways to Deal with Conflict in the Workplace 1. Stop the problem before it starts. “When
2. Seek third-party help to find common ground.
accepting your ideas, bring notice to it,”
when they all intersect, the only thing you can
Coleman said. “You could say, ‘I think my idea
find is common ground to get everyone on the
hasn’t been heard fully, so I’d like to reiterate it
same sheet of music,” Coleman said.
you are in a situation where people are not
so you can get a good understanding of where I’m going with this.’”
“Any time you see culture, values and beliefs,
3. Move on, but stay vigilant with the help of
a coach. “A coach doesn’t pour in information. They ask you those questions that you won’t ask yourself,” Coleman said.
Learn to Recognize Constructive vs. Destructive Communication Characteristics of constructive conflict • A focus on the issues, not tangents • Cooperation • A commitment to resolving the conflict • Respect for others, especially by listening to them • Honesty and openness
Characteristics of destructive conflict • Emotion-driven, rather than logic-driven, engagement • Argumentativeness • Ignoring others’ ideas and input • Rejection of information without fully understanding it
• Encouragement of all stakeholders to speak up
• Refusal to agree or concede on an idea or information
• Promotion of self-awareness, such as word choice, posture and facial expressions
• Criticism
6 Ways to Prepare for Important Conversations 1. Strategically prepare. Do your due diligence before the meeting by asking yourself what potential outcomes you want to see, what you need to discuss and how you want to approach it.
2. Express intention. Be clear on why you want to have the conversation.
3. Make it a safe, no-judgment zone.
4. Uncover assumptions. That way, you go in open-minded.
5. Recognize and respect. Recognize what the
issue is and respect the reason why the other person feels how they do. You don’t have to
agree, but you don’t have to be disagreeable.
6. Model the way. Show the other stakeholders the preceding characteristics to keep the conversation productive.
Try This: “Communicate with others the way they want to be communicated with. When you know
how to communicate with people the way they want to be communicated with, that’s half the battle to resolve conflict,” Coleman said.
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The Rise of the Conscious Leader The social unrest of 2020 elevated the perennially important topic of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), causing many
Relational
agency leaders to strive for more conscious leadership. But saying they want to be more conscious and taking actions
toward achieving the goal aren’t the same, said Tiana Sanchez, a Corporate Trainer and Author.
Organizations with successful conscious leadership look at
DEI through three prisms: relational, ethical and tactical. Each
has subsections, but the foundation for all is caring. “We need to live, breathe and demonstrate care all the time in our work
Tactical
Ethical
environment,” Sanchez said. “When we care about others, we are placing value on that person.”
The relational prism: Employers must relentlessly value employees. That means
being “others-centered,” or focusing on yourself last, and promoting a feeling of connectedness among employees.
How to achieve it: 1. Assess professional needs individually,
based on ability, culture, education, gender and race.
2. Consider psychological needs based on
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which states that some needs, such as a feeling of safety, must be met before others.
3. Emphasize HR workers. They are the
relationship brokers who can help ensure those needs are met.
4. Invest in employees, both by correcting the devaluation – the reduction or
underestimation of the worth of something or someone – through equitable career
development offerings and by protecting
them physically and psychologically. “When you give more, you are naturally going to get more,” Sanchez said.
Takeaways: • Employees want to feel valued and appreciated.
• Employers optimize productivity when they give more, not when they only take.
• Devaluation can lead to resignation.
Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
The ethical prism: “We want to
be good people,” Sanchez said, or at least “good-ish.” But to achieve it, leaders must take concrete actions. This is about being
dynamically just, or fair in a way that adapts to changing environments.
How to achieve it: 1. Implement policies that explicitly call for fair and equitable processes and then follow
through on them. “How damaging is it when what we say differs from what we do?” Sanchez said.
2. Ensure fair and equitable hiring, recruiting and interviewing protocols.
3. Remedy employee pay and wage disparities. 4. Set boundaries to create a work/life blend, not just balance. This includes doing selfcare check-ins to assess how you feel at various points in the day.
Takeaways: • Review corporate policies to ensure that they are truly equitable for all.
• Policies that do not promote racism do not necessarily promote equity.
• Policies should explicitly describe fair practices.
The tactical prism: “Act like the person
you want to be. Act like the company you want to be,” Sanchez said. This is about action.
How to achieve it: 1. Recognize that training may not always be the solution, but is often part of it. “We’ve
been dealing with issues like this for years upon years upon years. And if it were that easy to fix, then we should already have fixed it with training,” Sanchez said.
2. Don’t be a box-checker. Many organizations provide DEI programming or assessments just to say they did.
3. Treat the workplace – physical or remote – as you would a home by applying
guidelines, rules, principles and morals that lead to good practices.
Takeaways: • Training is not always the best answer or
the sole solution to address bias, inequity or exclusion.
• Establishing a fair and equitable structure is not just an exercise. It’s an imperative.
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3 Reasons to Grow Your Emotional Intelligence If you have not heard of emotional intelligence (EQ), you should get it on your radar. EQ is the
ability to understand and manage emotions, so it is a potentially priceless skill at your agency.
The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on physical,
mental and emotional health has only increased
emotional intelligence’s importance. For example,
a GovLoop survey conducted in January 2021 found that emotional intelligence is a top three learning
priority for our community members as it relates to leadership and management.
Speaking at the 2021 NextGen Training Summit, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Cory McGookin suggested that emotional intelligence has “broken through” as a crucial quality for government employees.
McGookin shared three reasons why public-sector workers should flex their EQ muscles.
Start Self-Improving Not only can emotional intelligence help
you understand others better, but it can also help you understand yourself better. Over
time, EQ can produce dramatic personal and professional growth.
“If you can educate your understanding of emotions, I think it is going to give you an
advantage,” McGookin said. “You’re going to have an advantage over your peers and a competitive advantage for promotions and things you want.” > Picture two new employees at the same
agency. Of the two, which person is more likely to advance the agency’s mission? The likely choice is the individual who is constantly improving themselves as a potential teammate.
Strengthen Relationships Self-improvement is not emotional intelligence’s only benefit. It can also bring people from all walks of life closer together.
“We evolved to be social and survive in groups,” McGookin said. “So, these emotions are very important. They can’t be downplayed
or pushed aside. We need them. We are social beings.”
Emotional intelligence can help government employees navigate workforce behaviors.
> Consider a seemingly tense coworker. Is this person having a bad day, or are they doing something that makes them nervous, such
as public speaking? Tapping into EQ, you can understand the difference and assist your coworker accordingly.
Boost Moods The self-awareness that comes with EQ can help people better regulate their feelings and boost their mood.
“You can choose to be optimistic,” McGookin said as an example. “It may not be easy for you, but if you slowly move in that direction, you can rewire your brain to think that way. It becomes easier.” > Ultimately, emotional intelligence
provides the clearest picture of your
emotions. Using this information effectively, you can avoid negativity and embrace
the moods that lead to mission wins and healthier work environments.
Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
The Tech Acumen Corner: Sharpen Your IT Management Skills IT — which touches nearly every aspect of agency operations and services — has become a critical career competency.
And the federal HR agency corroborates. The ability to manage technology is a fundamental aspect to becoming a federal executive,
according to the Office of Personnel Management’s executive core qualifications, a framework for
leadership development. To achieve business acumen, leaders must be able to make “effective use of technology to achieve results.”
But IT management skills are not just important for federal service, of course. They are essential for
state and local governments too as they navigate surging ransomware and the increasingly hybrid work environment.
We want to help you build your tech acumen. So we spoke to subject-matter experts from industry to
learn about how to manage technologies, people and processes effectively for you and your agency.
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Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
Industry Perspective
Best Practices for Business Resilience: Cloud Spotlight An interview with Brad Bowers, Director of Enterprise Technology, SHI At the onset of the pandemic, the resilience of government agencies relied heavily on cloud
technologies. They were critical solutions that enabled sudden telework and continuity of operations in the heat of crisis.
Now, agencies must consider cloud services in
the context of a lasting hybrid work environment. How should they approach adopting, using and
managing this technology for continued resilience, while addressing legacy IT challenges?
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is one of those organizations.
To catalog one of the world’s largest collections of scientific artifacts, the museum’s IT department needed to digitize about 30 million items from the fields of archaeology, biology, botany and paleontology. The growing number of high-
resolution images, staff files and supporting data quickly caused a data explosion, resulting in insufficient data protection.
Brad Bowers, Director of Enterprise Technology
IT staff recognized their traditional storage
approach for success: Don’t rely on one provider.
aging, overworked drives were failing on a weekly
at SHI, a tech service company, shared one
Instead, like a good investor, diversify your cloud portfolio by taking a hybrid cloud approach. A
hybrid cloud is an environment in which agencies use on-premise infrastructure and private and public clouds for IT and business needs.
You don’t have to know all the technical ins and
outs of the cloud, but understanding the range of available options to drive business outcomes is
essential. This allows you to be the driver of your own destiny.
“While all of the major cloud providers offer broad sets of solutions, they don’t offer
everything. And some are more geared toward certain types of capabilities than others,”
Bowers said. The key is to leverage what each
provider excels at. Then, agencies can benefit from a well-rounded technology stack. It lowers risk and drives better performance, so if one service goes down, it doesn’t bring the whole agency down. Many organizations are already taking this approach. In a 2018 Gartner survey, 81% of
respondents said their organization works with two or more cloud providers.
solution could not meet the challenge. Their
basis. With more than 2 million online visitors a year and data that needed to be readily
accessible for researchers worldwide, finding a new solution was urgent.
So SHI partnered with the museum to evaluate
their storage and find the best solution. Of several options, they found hybrid cloud to be the best
fit, combining cloud-based storage technologies with on-premise infrastructure.
The hybrid solution also enabled the museum to provide a high level of service to internal users. The seamless deployment process allowed
scientists and researchers to continue digitizing
without disruption. And, it significantly shrunk the museum’s data center footprint. It reduced file
storage costs by 60% and saved the IT team up to 50% in time management.
“We leverage decades of cloud, business and security expertise, to pull disparate pieces
together and ensure there is a holistic plan to help agencies address their cloud concerns, move to the cloud successfully and build a resilient environment,” Bowers said.
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Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
Industry Perspective
What You Need to Grow Data Literacy An interview with Andrew Churchill, Vice President, Federal, Qlik In a perfect world data isn’t siloed in disparate
optimize research and results. In doing so NIH has
mission delivery. And it’s secured appropriately, so
that was personal protective equipment (PPE)
systems and enables collaboration for broader
the right levels of authority are entrusted to users. But even in this perfect world, if employees don’t
been able to help deliver necessities – whether or targeted data for clinical trials – at the right moment to the right place.
have the appropriate training to effectively use
Qlik designed its data and analytics’ platform
useless. That’s how critical data literacy is for
the way they think. Traditional tools use filters.
data, the technical and policy achievements are agencies and professionals alike.
So, what does your agency need to grow its data literacy?
We spoke to Andrew Churchill, Vice President of Federal at Qlik, a data and analytics’ solutions
provider, to gain insights into the key attributes for driving this competency. No. 1 is curiosity.
“It’s not about having all the answers yourself,”
with this in mind: to allow people to navigate data “With Qlik, I can traverse based on my curiosity,” Churchill said.
The coupling of data literacy and supporting
technology ultimately leads to the empowerment of employees.
“It will bring about engagement from folks who may have felt like they shouldn’t speak up,” Churchill said.
Churchill said. To drive impactful and sustainable
Traditional approaches to data often served
curiosity to identify opportunities and investigate
and inclusion efforts may be slowly but surely
data literacy efforts, it’s important to have the
them further through data and with your peers. “Data is a team sport,” he added.
But here’s the catch: To support your workforce’s curiosity, people need to have the right
capabilities to follow their mind’s questions. Today, that capability can be at their fingertips through
data and analytics’ platforms with democratized data, which means these platforms provide
seamless user access to data without directly involving IT teams.
One of the most important medical research hubs in the country, the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), has been leading the fight against COVID-19 since the earliest days of the pandemic. With
a fast-paced rollout of funding and programs,
streamlining operations at the NIH was imperative to avoid duplication to both save budgets and
the top ranks of agencies. Diversity, equity
changing leadership’s upper echelons. But
with the democratization of data, there will be
increased access to information for a broader, and therefore more diverse, portion of the workforce. When a broader range of people feel they can
speak up, it leads to a diversity of thought that is
invaluable for bringing innovative perspectives to problem-solving.
“This is something we can foundationally
support from an IT perspective,” Churchill said. “We can directly empower those with data
literacy programs to get a bigger, more diverse
set of the workforce engaging and speaking up with data.”
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Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
Industry Perspective
The Post-Digital Era Imperative: Radical Digital Talent Transformation An interview with Michael Ramsey, Area Vice President, Public Sector, Udacity Agencies have been conducting one-off digital
projects for years. Think automating call centers or processing claims using artificial intelligence (AI).
But in today’s world, organizations and their people must think, behave and execute in an inherently digital way.
This is more than traditional IT saying the
organization can take advantage of AI or data
science. You need employees at every level to be conversant in the digital world.
“It goes beyond awareness,” said Michael Ramsey, Area Vice President of Public Sector at Udacity, a digital talent transformation provider. You need
to be digitally fluent enough to understand how
technology can help you in your job, with the ability to identify mission-aligned use cases and apply them successfully.
The challenge is: How do you build this kind of digital fluency and mastery?
Let’s look at the Air Force as an example. The military is generally a gold standard when it
comes to equipping individuals with the skills they
need to execute a job. However, there’s a significant difference between training an engineer to build or service a plane and training an engineer in emerging technology.
Technology is changing so quickly, the pace makes it difficult to ensure service members have the
technical acumen to develop and iterate needed programs fast enough, a common challenge across the public sector.
To transform the workforce, the Air Force’s digital
talent transformation platform had to meet several needs: scalability across continents and time
zones, accessibility to learn while working, tangible training outcomes for real-life application, and career growth paths for employee satisfaction. Udacity met these needs, and the pilot project outcomes were threefold:
– Service members became fluent or established mastery in emerging tech domains such as AI,
data science, programming and cybersecurity, with 83% of graduates saying it had a positive impact on career development.
– The Air Force at large saw a 118% return on
investment for every dollar spent, with more
than 50% of participants able to apply newly learned skills to their day jobs and 10% being promoted into unfilled, much-needed roles. – The nation benefited from a more digitally
savvy Air Force, allowing the organization to stay ahead of adversaries in the new digital battlefield.
To experience similar outcomes at your
organization, Ramsey recommends keeping two things in mind:
1. You don’t learn how to drive by watching videos or passing a multiple-choice test. You have to get behind the wheel, make some mistakes,
receive feedback and get course-corrected. Practical hands-on experience is what you
need to succeed and apply your learnings in the real world.
2. For agencies, you must be able to see
measurable outcomes for your employees and
organization. Everyone can invest, but you need
to be able to show the success of your program at scale.
“You won’t see digital fluency have an oversized impact across your organization until you can
do it at scale,” Ramsey said. You need not only
technical specialists to have digital fluency, but
leaders and employees organizationwide too. This
is how agencies can successfully accomplish their mission in this post-digital era.
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Ad
Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
Industry Perspective
Coaching Is Not Just for the Elite An interview with Alex Haig, Head of Government Programs, Regional Vice President, BetterUp, and former U.S. Army officer When it comes to learning new things, everyone experiences “the forgetting curve.” It’s the phenomenon of losing information at an exponential rate over time, a kind of ordinary memory loss where people can forget an average of 90% of what they learn within a month. Traditional professional development often plays out this way. For example, let’s say you get promoted to be a supervisor. You receive training for a week to support your new role – and that’s it. Now, you’re on your own. “It is very much a one-and-done episodic training event,” said Alex Haig, Head of Government Programs and Regional Vice President at BetterUp, a leadership development platform provider. Training programs also often occur outside the flow and context of a person’s work. They are designed to be repeatable and applicable to most participants, resulting in generic content and little practice. “What they’re missing out on is the ability to have learning stick, and to have support not just through an event but across their career,” Haig said. In an interview with GovLoop, Haig explained how coaching can help both individuals and organizations.
How Coaches Help Individuals Coaching ensures that individuals don’t miss out on the opportunity for continued growth. It’s an advantageous intervention for “the forgetting curve” – a living, breathing support for your professional development. But more, coaches can provide a safe
the chain of command and wargaming things
with a coach before I had difficult conversations and before I had to make high-stakes decisions
relating to my soldiers,” Haig said. With coaching,
individuals can work out the intricate interpersonal aspects of leadership with a fresh set of eyes that are professionally certified to help.
How Coaches Help Organizations At the same time, coaches aren’t just beneficial for individuals. For agencies, science-based coaching providers such as BetterUp provide professional development with demonstrable return. Continual whole-person assessments grounded in behavioral science and supported by artificial intelligence (AI) track granular changes in specific competencies that agencies value. Success metrics are determined from the agency’s standpoint, not BetterUp’s, so you know outcomes will be aligned to the mission. Coaching also acts as a force multiplier for agencies. “With exposure to elite coaching, individuals take the tools of the trade and more effectively lead and inspire their teams,” Haig said. The mere act of working with a coach can be a force multiplier for cultivating good leadership throughout an organization. BetterUp brings together world-class coaching, AI technology and behavioral science experts to deliver professional growth at scale — improving resilience, adaptability and effectiveness.
space or a layer of psychological safety for fostering
“It doesn’t matter what level you are at, you
higher-quality performance.
can benefit from coaching professionally and
Haig speaks from experience. “Looking back on my
time in the Army, there were countless times where I would have benefited from stepping outside of
personally,” Haig said.
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A GovLoop Guide
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Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
Industry Perspective
How to Manage the Big Quit An interview with Steve Dobberwosky, Director of Strategy and Value Services, Cornerstone OnDemand The COVID-19 pandemic has caused something
“If organizations want to survive and thrive in this
workplace upside down, and people are
Dobberowsky said. Agencies must provide
like whiplash for the workforce. It turned the
considering different career opportunities in the hopes of finding greater flexibility, better pay, safer work environments or other benefits.
“I call it ‘the great reprioritization’ instead of ‘the great resignation,’” said Steve
Dobberwosky, Director of Strategy and Value
Services at Cornerstone OnDemand, a talent
management solutions provider. “We’re just doing what’s more important to us as employees.”
In other words, workers are getting in the driver’s seat, as Henry Vasquez, Manager of Product
Management at Cornerstone put it. They want
more control over their career growth and skill
development, instead of getting motion sickness
from the passenger’s seat. And this can be either good or bad news for organizations.
If you’re an agency with a role-based approach
new world, you need to be part of the change,” development around what employees want to
grow in. With a skills-based approach, you can
provide these opportunities for employees and, at the same time, allow greater organizational flexibility to fill your skills gaps. Instead of
heavy-lift hiring for roles, you can turn to detail assignments or rotations to meet your needs. But to make the shift isn’t necessarily easy.
Dobberowsky shared three takeaways to consider:
1. Don’t feel burdened to do all the work yourself. There’s technology that can
help, particularly with identifying gaps. For
instance, Cornerstone has a skill detection
capability that can scan skill sets and identify the ones that are most relevant to you and
your organization. You have control over the process, but you don’t have to build it alone
to talent management, you may not be flexible
2. But, your people’s data has to be good
hire – those looking for new opportunities. The
HR teams is inconsistent data due to
enough to empower – and ultimately retain and role-based approach focuses on filling whole positions instead of focusing on skills.
This approach is also not sufficient for the current and coming talent market that regards skills as
a currency. Gartner found that a third of the skills needed in 2017 are already obsolete – meaning
people need both new and more skills. That’s why building critical skills is the No. 1 priority for HR
leaders across sectors and regions, according to
another Gartner survey. It’s the approach NASA is taking in its workforce vision as well.
enough. One of the big challenges for
disparate systems. The same titles can be spelled differently, or the same positions
can have different descriptions. In order for
technology to work for you, your data has to be pretty good.
3. And “pretty good” is a deliberate term – it doesn’t have to be perfect. “If you wait for perfection, you’re already behind,”
Dobberowsky said. You just have to start somewhere and you have to start now.
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Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
Industry Perspective
The IT System That’s Key to Career Advancement but Often Overlooked An interview with Steven T. Hunt, PhD, Chief Expert for Work and Technology, SAP Innovation Office If you consider how technology is driving career advancement, there are two ways to look at it. “One way is the opportunities technology creates to build new capabilities,” said Steven T. Hunt, Chief Expert for Work and Technology at SAP Innovation Office. “We can use learning technology to develop
“There are people within your organization who might have unique and interesting
opportunities that you would be a great fit for,” Hunt said. “You have to create a way to get
yourself on the radar screen, beyond your own immediate social network.”
skills to do things that other people want to do but
That’s where employee profiles come in, providing
don’t have the time or ability to do.”
an online hub for people to share their interests and
The other way tech is driving career advancement is by enabling people to connect through online communities and platforms. SAP is focused on both of these aspects and ultimately reinventing the employee experience through a unified talent
skill sets across geographic locations. SAP’s talent management solution, for example, helps make large organizations feel smaller by enabling employees to find and connect with colleagues on a desired career track or interests.
management system.
Foster a learning mindset and culture
Although many agencies have some form of a
Employees steer the ship of their career
talent management system, it’s often underutilized. These systems are designed to help people be more effective in their jobs. But like other benefits, there are myriad reasons why employees don’t tap into all that’s available. As a former government employee who now works closely with senior HR leaders, Hunt understands the challenges and benefits of fully embracing talent management systems, both as an individual contributor and manager. He offered some advice for those looking to grow in their careers and those also supporting career growth.
Make yourself visible “As an individual contributor, there are likely opportunities for you, but people need a way to
development, but managers have a big impact. When managers have a learning mindset, coupled with the right technology to facilitate learning, employee growth flourishes. Managers can use talent management systems to facilitate coaching and ongoing career and wellness check-ins with employees, and to take a more people-centric approach to managing teams. “There are things managers should be doing such as checking in with employees regularly and revisiting goals. But even good managers can forget to do these on a consistent basis,” Hunt said. “The technology helps managers and employees have regular check-ins to discuss their roles and ongoing development.”
discover you at work,” Hunt said. With the rise and
Investing in technology as an enabler for career
popularity of social media and online networking
connections and learning opportunities ensures
communities, it’s easy to think about building
that growth isn’t an annual discussion but an
virtual connections externally rather than within
ongoing dialogue that’s top of mind for employees
your organization. But that mindset should also be
and their managers.
applied internally.
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Conclusion: Some Tried & True Advice We hope you found this resource helpful. Regardless of where you are in your career journey, your work as public servants matters. That’s why GovLoop has a stake in your professional growth.
To close, here are 10 tips that Dave Uejio, Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, shared at the 2021 NextGen Training Summit. He said they were lessons that have traveled with him throughout his career since his first HR job in government. We hope they will help guide and refresh your calling in public service, too.
1. Be humble, hardworking and people-
centric in everything you do. If it’s true that public servants make a great impact, it’s
also important to approach the work with
humility and an eagerness to learn from the people you serve.
2. Ensure you know why you’re in public
service. If you know your “why,” others will notice it too.
3. Have a grateful attitude. It will help
“turbocharge” your work – and you’re likely to be better at your job day-to-day.
4. Good work will speak for itself. Your work builds your reputation, not the other way around.
5. Be kind and don’t take relationships for
granted. Who knows — your next coworker
or supervisor may be the person you ride the elevator with.
6. Listen. Hearing is one thing, but listening is what builds relationships for the long haul.
It’s key to gaining the respect of peers, even when they may not agree with you.
7. Respect and foster organizational tension.
A diverse organization naturally has tension – and a strong organization builds tension into its structure.
8. Build trust. Trust goes both ways – you need to be trusted, and you need to trust others.
9. Always continue learning about your
organization. “We don’t work in a vacuum,” Uejio said. Know the ways your work intersects with others.
10. Stay resilient amid transitions. “Millions of people depend on our work no matter who is in office. It’s our duty to center the public in what we do,” Uejio said.
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Tackling Professional Development Taboos in Government
About GovLoop GovLoop’s mission is to inspire public sector professionals by serving as the knowledge
network for government. GovLoop connects
more than 300,000 members, fostering crossgovernment collaboration, solving common
problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to the public sector.
For more information about this report, please reach out to info@govloop.com. govloop.com | @govloop
Thank You Thank you to BetterUp, Cornerstone, Qlik, SAP, SHI and Udacity for their support of this valuable resource for public sector professionals.
Authors Pearl Kim, Staff Writer John Monroe, Director of Content Nicole Blake Johnson, Managing Editor Mark Hensch, Senior Staff Writer
Designer Nicole Cox, Jr. Graphic Designer
1152 15th St. NW Suite 800 Washington, DC 20005 P: (202) 407-7421 | F: (202) 407-7501 www.govloop.com @GovLoop
