think about more positive goals
Look at these goals:
▪▪Reducing the number of households with worst case housing needs.
▪▪Increasing the proportion of HUD-assisted families in low-poverty and racially diverse
communities.
yy Ending Homelessness
▪▪Reducing the number of homeless families.
▪▪Reducing the number of chronically homeless individuals.
▪▪Reducing the number of homeless veterans to 59,000 by June 2012 (jointly with the Department of Veterans Affairs).
Good as they are, they are all negative. It's like losing weight. Are you inspired by the thought of losing weight? Most aren't. The way to release all that weight, though, is to quit thinking about the weight, and to generate an inspiring vision of what it would be like to be healthy, and coincidentally without the weight. Inspirational exercise videos, exercise toys, anything that turns on positive feelings. I read about a sales office, where when a significant goal was met, the person who met it got to ring a huge gong. The effect was electric, everyone wanted to ring the gong, and sales went up a lot. How do we celebrate success? Oh wait. We don't. How much sense does that make? And on those goals- they are fine- however you need to add another goal- fostering the creation of self-sufficient, vibrant, healthy communities that TAKE CARE OF THEIR OWN PROBLEMS. Because that is what healthy communities do. Modern medicine manages and treats disease, which is why, outside of the emergency room, it is largely ineffective, and extremely expensive. A much more cost effective approach is healing. We need to spend more time healing, than managing disease. Many people don't like this idea, they think they will work themselves out of a job. You know, if I was good enough to work myself out of this job, I would be good enough to make 7 figures a year, and take a week's vacation every month. Keeping people dependent is an insult to their spirits. Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him and his family for a lifetime. This simply truth is so mundane it is invisible.
anonymous
shared this idea
8 comments
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This idea is right that some of HUD's outcome measures focus on the negative, but that certainly isn't the whole story. HUD's three other high-priority performance goals focus on the positive, with goals to assist 3 million homeowners who are at-risk of losing their homes, increase the number of families they assist get affordable housing by 207,000, and enable energy retrofits for 1.1 million housing units.
Moreover, Goal 4 of the Strategic Plan is to Build Inclusive and Sustainable Communities, which is all about creating healthy, self-sufficient communities.
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AFGE
commented
Private-sector researchers have recently uncovered a way to improve employee satisfaction that's within managers' control
In May 2009, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag put agencies on notice. Job satisfaction, he said, “needs to be built into the way we run government.” He made his comment at the Partnership for Public Service ceremony announcing agency rankings in the annual Best Places to Work survey. He followed through by including employee survey data and agencies’ efforts to improve their ratings in his agency-by-agency reviews for the fiscal 2011 budget cycle.
As a result, agency managers have been scrambling to figure out ways to improve employee satisfaction. Private-sector researchers have recently uncovered an approach that seems to work. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, in a recent Harvard Business Review article called “What Really Motivates Workers,” tell managers: “The key to motivation turns out to be largely within your control.”
Their advice? “Scrupulously avoid impeding progress.”
Amabile and Kramer surveyed more than 600 managers and then conducted a multiyear study of hundreds of knowledge workers, asking them to keep daily diaries to discover the top motivator of performance. Not surprisingly, managers and workers came to different conclusions.
Managers were asked to rank the impact of five workplace factors commonly considered significant motivators: recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress and clear goals. “Recognition for good work” topped their list.
However, the recognition factor was ranked dead last by workers. The researchers found that workers ranked “support for making progress” as their No. 1 motivator. “On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs...their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak.” However, “on days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.”
In a close analysis of thousands of diary entries, Amabile and Kramer found that “making progress” was linked to 76 percent of employees’ reported “best days.”
What are the implications of those findings? Managers have a lot more control over motivating employees than they might have thought. “Create a culture of helpfulness.... Roll up your sleeves and pitch in,” the authors wrote. “Provide meaningful goals, resources and encouragement, and ... protect [your] people from irrelevant demands.” They conclude by saying, “Recognition can’t happen every day. You can, however, see that progress happens every day.”
Does that approach really work? Think about your best bosses. Weren’t they the ones who made it their goal to deal with the bureaucracy and irrelevant demands so you could deal with the work? Wasn’t it a great feeling to make real progress because your boss had cleared the way? Great leaders seem to understand that intuitively. For example, Gen. Colin Powell often said his job wasn’t only to clarify overall goals but also to sweat the small stuff so his staff could focus on the big problems.
It’s a new year. Try this shift in management emphasis. Ask your employees what gets in their way of making progress and try to do something about it. After a few weeks, take some time to see if your efforts have made a difference.
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anonymous
commented
Here are some informal, creative and low-cost ways to honor star producers:
Show them that they have earned your trust by loosening the reins and giving them work-at-home and alternative work schedule options. If appropriate, give them more discretion and less day-to-day supervision.
- Thank them for their contributions in public forums, such as staff meetings, and explain to attendees what was special about their work.
- Invite them to serve in acting positions that would give them more responsibility, broaden their skills and provide grist for their résumés.
- Discuss their long-term professional goals with them. Then, introduce them to appropriate leaders in their fields and, if possible, arrange training and assignments that will help them achieve their goals. For example, if one of your star producers has set his sights on the Senior Executive Service, review SES requirements with him, try to guide him to projects and training that would help him meet those qualifications and introduce him to SES members who would provide insider advice.
- Help your star employees seek professional mentoring, such as the leadership coaching available through the Treasury Department’s Federal Consulting Group, fcg.nbc.gov.
- Give them choices to attend local and out-of-town meetings, conferences and other relevant events.
- Assign them to special projects that will expose them to the front office, political appointees and other top-level staff, and — if appropriate — to the media.
- Give them first dibs on selecting projects they will work on. Also, invite them to design projects that would advance your office’s goals and give them higher levels of experience.
- Take them with you to top-level meetings and introduce them to high-level attendees.
Allow them to participate in short-term details that would give them exposure to controversial issues, political appointees and other leaders in their field. You may help arrange such details by discussing possibilities with other managers. Alternatively, consider offering them more formal detail programs, such as those offered by the Office of Management and Budget, which every year selects a group of feds for two- to three-month detail assignments that involve helping to produce the president’s annual budget.
-Ask your star producers to write articles about their work — perhaps a case study, a “how-to” or “lessons learned” — for your office’s or agency’s newsletter or intranet site.
- Encourage them to use government time to attend educational events, such as relevant lectures and brown-bag lunches that are sponsored by your agency, nonprofits and think tanks.
- Send them to prestigious management fellowship programs for feds, such as the Partnership for Public Service’s Excellence in Government Fellows Program, Harvard University’s Senior Executive Fellows Program, Brookings Institution’s Legis Congressional Fellowship or the Voyagers Program of the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council. Also consider federal leadership development programs in the Catalogue of Federal Government Leadership Development Programs (FedLDP) available online at www.opm.gov. Or search for “federal training programs” on Google.
- Review with them criteria for awards honoring outstanding feds and professionals in their fields. Then, if possible, plan assignments that would increase their eligibility for such awards, and — if they fulfill the appropriate criteria — nominate them for awards.
Organizations that might sponsor relevant awards include ones dedicated to public administration, such as the Partnership for Public Service and the American Society for Public Administration; professional organizations for government professionals, such as the National Association of Government Communicators; and professional organizations devoted to your star producer’s field.
Worried that résumé-stuffing credentials and contacts will send your star producer flying from your office? Remember: A caged bird won’t sing. The more inspiring, enlightening and dynamic your star producer’s job becomes, the more likely he will be to stay. -
Jordan
commented
HUD is tied for last…..
Annual rankings of federal workplaces
Washington Post
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 It's something every worker can relate to: Your office isn't meeting its goals, customers aren't happy, there's turmoil at the top - and morale is plummeting.
It happens in the federal government, too, where agencies facing intense public scrutiny, shifting priorities and unstable leadership can see nose dives in worker satisfaction. Both the Securities and Exchange Commission, a critical player in this battered economy, and the Office of Management and Budget, the agency responsible for implementing President Obama's government reforms - hit the skids in the fifth "Best Places to Work" rankings, a closely watched report of federal employees.
The rankings account for the perceptions of more than 263,000 workers at 290 federal organizations. It is compiled by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan think tank devoted to promoting public sector careers, and American University's School of Public Affairs.
***The primary factor in job satisfaction, however, remains effective leadership from senior agency bosses***, the survey concluded. Over the years, senior leadership has scored low in the survey, and the Obama administration is no exception.
***The Department of Housing and Urban Development*** and National Archives and Records Administration ****tied for last among large agencies***.
The survey gave several examples of how an agency's leadership can affect results. The Federal Labor Relations Authority, stagnant during George W. Bush's administration, saw its scores more than double thanks to strong reviews for agency leadership. It earned the biggest year-to-year jump among small agencies.
Scores on the survey's 100-point scale ranged from an 81.8 for NRC to a 57.1 for HUD and the National Archives. The survey is emerging as an important management tool for agencies looking to spot trouble areas, said Partnership President Max Stier.
"Particularly in an environment like the government, where you don't have profit and loss statements and stock prices, this information becomes even more important," Stier said.
The partnership (which maintains a content-sharing arrangement with The Washington Post) compiled the rankings using data from the Office of Personnel Management's Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Agencies not part of OPM's survey asked workers to complete similar questionnaires.
To review the full rankings please visit www.BestPlacestoWork.org. -
Dave
commented
Where are the Arts related goals? Creative Community Builder's Handbook: How to Transform Communities Using Local Assets, Arts, and Culture [book]
HUD is not apparently including arts in its community development strategy. This is unfortunate, as there is lots of evidence that this is critical to CD success. Previous HUD publications on CD have at least given lip service to the arts; this needs to get good emphasis, in the Strat Plan.
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Susan Forson
commented
This goal is so much like "losing weight". A goal of getting healthy is much more motivating, and likely to work.
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BeautyByNature
commented
There are so many Duplexes and apts here at the KI Sawyer Air Force Base in the Upper Pennisula of Mich , There are a lot of them here that could be use to house homeless families and elderly if they would do something about it. Its shame that those places are going to waste here, there are plenty of room in them. It should be looked into. Deborah
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ann commented
There are different ways of being homeless and unless you are drug addicted,single mother,elderly ,or have a mental disorder, there is no help. because i am unemployed, never have been before. single father of two. I have a house and a payment but cant live in it due to the may flood ,it is un healthy.Because i had flood ins. No FEMA. I am lost no home no job
