{"id":17420,"date":"2015-05-13T22:11:19","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T22:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2015\/05\/13\/when-bad-people-happen-to-good-government\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:38:18","slug":"when-bad-people-happen-to-good-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/opinions\/2015\/05\/13\/when-bad-people-happen-to-good-government\/","title":{"rendered":"When bad people happen to good government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><img decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" alt=\"\" alternate=\"Steven L. Katz is author of the book Lion Taming: Working\" assetid=\"27302235\" assettype=\"image\" class=\"imgAsset middle\" credit=\"Courtesy\" cutline=\"Steven L. Katz is author of the book Lion Taming: Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses, and other Tough Customers. He held senior positions in the executive and legislative branches.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/-mm-\/50117b4bfe181f32492ec4d414638d7c08e560e6\/r=500x400\/local\/-\/media\/2015\/05\/14\/FederalTimes\/FederalTimes\/635672018689213790-Steve-Katz-Photo.png\" title=\"Steve-Katz-Photo [ID=27302235]\" width=\"245px\"\/><\/em><br\/><br\/><em>Steven L. Katz is author of the book<\/em><br\/><br\/>Lion Taming: Working Successfully with Leaders, Bosses, and other Tough Customers<br\/><br\/><em>. He held senior positions in the executive and legislative branches.<\/em><br\/><br\/>Two of the most famous sayings in Washington are: &#8220;You can&#8217;t legislate behavior,&#8221; and, &#8220;It&#8217;s impossible to fire anyone in government.&#8221; Neither is true.<br\/><br\/>Congress legislates behavior all the time, guiding our actions through laws that either prohibit bad behavior or incentivize good behavior. Such laws prohibit, protect, and serve as the motivation for behavior all around us. It is visible in the criminal and tax codes, immigration laws, and laws governing the drugs and foods that we can and cannot consume. Such statutes as No Child Left Behind set the stage for the behavior of teachers and students alike. Large segments of government exist to regulate, evaluate and enforce not just laws, but behavior.<br\/><br\/><strong>Related: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.federaltimes.com\/story\/government\/management\/blog\/2015\/04\/28\/government-locker-room-culture\/26517943\/\" title=\"Link: http:\/\/www.federaltimes.com\/story\/government\/management\/blog\/2015\/04\/28\/government-locker-room-culture\/26517943\/\">How to change government&#8217;s locker room culture<\/a><br\/><br\/>Government does fire people, and takes myriad other personnel actions. That is why so many cases are filed and require careful review at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Labor Relations Authority each year.<br\/><br\/>What is true is that agency officials rarely fire someone quickly enough to satisfy:<br\/><br\/>\u00a0<br\/><br\/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Congress who considers the civil service due process protections to be a protective labyrinth;<\/li><li>Managers who are frustrated with the impact of bad people on their organizations, the talent deficit they create, and the amount of time and energy required to manage them;<\/li><li>Employees who cannot believe that a coworker has performed so poorly for so long without anyone in management taking notice.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Additionally, managers are deterred from acting when bad people happen to good government because of the general distaste for human conflict, and fear of the entanglement and blowback from litigation in the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recently, in the wake of the revelations and investigations into whistleblower reports and retaliation at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Congress leaped into action to legislate behavior and fire people in government. It did so by changing the laws to prioritize and expedite the MSPB&#8217;s decision-making in VA whistleblower retaliation cases. The more expansive Veteran&#8217;s Affairs Retaliation Prevention Act of 2015 is working its way through Congress now. The legal, civil service, and accountability communities are debating the merits and impact of the bill with each other and with Congress to determine the right balance that should be set into law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whatever the outcome, having effective laws or regulations on the books does not necessarily change the culture, climate, or behavior in any federal agency. Bad people happen to good government in many forms. As hard as it is to stop criminal behavior such as theft, fraud, or espionage, it is even harder to stop bad behavior and misconduct. It is also harder to manage it when it takes the forms of abuse, harassment, discrimination and retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is because laws passed to prohibit, deter and punish are meted out based on what people do, but management must cope with how people do it. In addition to the familiar list of problems, other cases of when bad people happen to good government are not dealt with, either because their bosses protect them, or avoid taking actions that would force the problems to surface and reflect badly on the manager&#8217;s own performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One answer to these challenges is found in tools that every agency has in its possession \u2014 performance critical elements and standards. However, agency officials including its leadership, legal, and human capital specialists must rethink and rewrite these measures in ways that define and reward good behavior. This incentivizes people in ways that both strengthen the agency and mission, and will impact their performance reviews and careers directly. Such an approach can address a wide range of behaviors that you may need to promote and begin to suppress others that you wish to curtail. The key is to write the critical element and the standard with a<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>thou shalt<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">emphasis versus<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>malum prohibitum.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After all, there are already laws that clearly state it is illegal to discriminate, harass, and retaliate. Yet is difficult to identify an agency that specifies, rewards or requires the positive underlying treatment of others in the workplace. Instead we legislate and regulate the negative, and then we manage the negative by spending most of our human and financial resources trying to prove that it occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I know firsthand that such performance mandates work because I helped to develop and implement one from my position in the Senior Executive Service together with the agency head, general counsel, and director of human resources where I worked. It successfully focused on civil, equitable, and respectful treatment of fellow employees and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this case, the phrase &#8220;necessity is the mother of invention&#8221; played an important role. The new performance critical element and standard was a common sense realization that occurred after being briefed by the most depressed EEO Director I have ever met. The briefing, given to the new agency head and myself shortly after our arrival to our new positions, identified an extraordinarily large number of lawsuits for harassment and discrimination, and court decisions against the agency. In addition, there was a pattern of settlements triggered by counterclaims and lawsuits that generated money and reassignments within the agency for both offenders and victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Curiously, all this information had been kept secret in briefings from everyone that included the former agency head, the Senate Committee staff that briefed the new agency head prior to his confirmation hearings, and in early meetings with the General Counsel. It was even absent from a Government Accountability Office report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The silence around such behaviors, culture and climate is a built in social response that permeates government and is an important reason why proactive institutional performance standards are necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The culture and behavioral change resulting from such performance standards is produced by requiring managers to work with the good people in tackling challenges instead of burying the problems and conflicts \u2014 and then rewarding them for their initiative and assistance. This has the effect of isolating the bad people together with their attitudes and conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Agency leadership must fully support managers and employees seeking to uphold the new standards. Those who violate the performance standard become self-identifying \u2013 including managers \u2013 in the eyes of the agency head, through a new consensus and openness about changing the culture and an emphasis on civil, equitable, and respectful conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since managers possess most of the power, control, and influence in any organization, it is essential to start your drafting with supervisory employees in mind, and then draft a commensurate set that incentivize employees, and require managers for recognizing and rewarding employees who facilitate and contribute to the success of the agency, including managers, and fellow employees to achieve the success of the standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Such performance standards when consistently applied become an effective tool for government agencies that need to reset the culture and climate of the agency. It will also provide the basis for taking steps against the bad people that happen to good government whether through a personnel action, or when the opportunity presents itself through agency rightsizing, downsizing, or restructuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just don&#8217;t make the mistake many agencies do after getting rid of bad people: hiring them back as contractors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bad people happen to good government in many forms. Misconduct is even harder to stop than criminal actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":37900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":26,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[972],"class_list":["post-17420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management","category-opinions"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"36NZXGVDBZEZLLK6V7OQWGCIOI","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinions\/2015\/05\/13\/when-bad-people-happen-to-good-government\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>When bad people happen to good government - Federal Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bad people happen to good government in many forms. 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