In Plain Service

  In any given Federal agency, you will find a myriad of GS-15 and GS-14 non-supervisory staff. Management always feels they are unnecessary. Lower graded employees and supervisors often think they are the cushy dream jobs of the federal service. Neither is true. These Senior specialists perform a role similar to engine oil. They lubricate the connections among policy, technology, law, and operations. They cool down unrealistic expectations before pressure damages quality or burns out the workforce. They clean up conflicting procedures, seal organizational gaps, and protect the agency from repeating earlier mistakes. Their knowledge is not fully captured in manuals, databases, or organizational charts. Organizational-memory research shows that knowledge resides in individuals as well as routines, structures, and prior decisions. Knowledge-management research also distinguishes explicit information from tacit knowledge developed through experience. Tacit knowledge must be transferre...

This August, the United States marked 2 anniversaries that deserve more than ceremonial recognition. On August 1, Social Security Disability Insurance turned 70 years old. On August 14, the Social Security Act itself turned 91. They mark 2 moments when America decided that economic security should not depend entirely on whether someone could keep working tomorrow. It is an opportunity to ask whether the systems built decades ago are still delivering that promise as effectively as they should. The question is not if Social Security will survive, but whether we are willing to build the next version of it. [1][2] The Social Security Act was born during an economic crisis that exposed how quickly a lifetime of work could be wiped away. President Franklin Roosevelt created the Committee on Economic Security in 1934 and gave it the job of developing a national system of economic protection. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins chaired the committee alongside Treasury Secretary Henry Morgen...