Federal Manager's Daily Report

OMB director Mick Mulvaney recently told participants in the CXO Fellows Program–a leadership development program for federal employees in the IT, acquisition, HR and finance fields–to pursue improvements in agency operations even if a perfect solution to the problem is not at hand, said a posting on the CFO Council site.

It reported Mulvaney’s message in a talk to the group–not verbatim but in essence–as “If there is a process that can be done more efficiently, find a way to do it. That is also the vision behind the government-wide reform effort. The reform effort is not only about restructuring the workforce. It is to help ensure the government is providing better services to the American citizens.

“It’s also important to leverage expectations. Implementation might not always be 100% complete. A complete solution up front may not be realistic due to the size and complexity of Government operations. As a leader, it is important not to get hung up on creating a perfect solution as opposed to an 80% solution that far exceeds prior operations and processes with substantially less effort and cost. The bottom line is, work hard and do what you can for the mission and for the American people.”

He also advised being willing and able to work with people from all different perspectives and “to find common ground toward improvements, even if motivations for reaching the outcome differ, the summary said. Further, it said, he stressed asking questions when working on a team to know expectations and create clarity and that “even as a leader you need to ask questions and be prepared to receive questions.”