Change is Good - You Go First

21 Ways to Inspire Change

by Mac Anderson and Tom Feltenstein

Anderson and Feltenstein say "Change what needs changing...not what's easy. If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance a lot less."

Change is in the air. In the coming months we'll have a new governor and administration, several new congressional representatives, a number of new state senators and representatives, a huge number of new county officials, a new UT president, and we'll have another new agency director (3 of 5 new ones in less than one year). So, yes, change is inevitable. The challenge is how we embrace and prepare for this change. Are you preparing?

Anderson and Feltenstein suggest one way to inspire change is to re-recruit your best people. Bill Cosby says, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone." There are people of influence in our organization. They may not necessarily all be on a management team. Those folks are the key to moving the rest of us forward. Are you one of them?

Anderson and Feltenstein say, "Forget for Success." Peter Drucker believes it's easier for companies to come up with new ideas than to let go of old ones." Are you holding on to any old ideas that you need to let go?

Anderson and Feltenstein say change starts with belief. A team becomes unstoppable if they believe they can accomplish their goal. "A good leader inspires people to have confidence in their leader. A great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves." Are you among the great leaders in our organization?

They also suggest we must focus on our strengths. They cite McDonald's as a company who is really customer focused by "listening, learning, and leading." One of our organizational strengths has always been customer service. Are we focusing on the critical customer relationships?

As we prepare for all the coming changes in leadership across the state, we know that we are a strong and well respected organization. Our challenge is to remain so and share that message with our new leadership. Are you up for the challenge?

Free On-line Training

Do you know that the university has 250 courses on-line through SkillSoft and they are all free to UT employees???



We want every employee to participate in annual training. We recognize sometimes it is difficult to get away from the office for training. These on-line courses are designed so that you can start and stop as often as you need to until you finish the course.

So, if you have a few minutes during the day, take a look at the list of courses that are available and sign up!

Click here to access on-line courses

Who is SABA and what's the point?

By now all employees should have heard of SolutionPoint. It is the name we gave to our learning management system that is hosted by SABA, the vendor.

We have a common platform for our training data to make the most efficient and effective use of our resources. We only have to support one system. All our IT staff can support each other and all the training staff can as well.

Plus, it's easier (or should be!) for our customers. They have one point of contact to register for classes, check their progress toward a certificate, run a transcript or otherwise manage their own information. And, it means that customers can see ALL the courses offered by IPS agencies. You never know, there just might be a mayor who owns a manufacturing firm!

A single system also makes gathering data that is needed for reporting very easy. We can run reports whenever we need them, in whatever format we need, and we do not need any intervention from others.

It is almost time to redbid the system, so the SolutionPoint team is exploring ways to make improvements.

If you haven't used SolutionPoint yet - give it a try. Encourage your customers to use it as well.

HR 128

By now everyone should have heard of HR128. It is the UT Human Resource policy that encourages every employee to participate in at least 32 hours of training each year.

In IPS, we have moved beyond encouraging participation to expecting it. Your personal and professional development plan is a part of your annual performance review and goal setting. The IPS leadership team believes it is important for all employees to remain current in their areas of expertise and to be continuously gaining new knowledge, skills and abilities.

Take advantage of on-line classes offered by UT through SkillSoft, courses offered by UT HR, and courses offered by IPS agencies. In addition, there are many other opportunities to receive training. Work with your supervisor and agency director to determine the plan that is right for you and your agency.

So, we're nearly half way through the calendar year. How are you coming along on your development plan for the year?

IPS Leadership Academy

On behalf of the University of Tennessee Institute for Public Service, I am pleased to announce the launch of the IPS Leadership Academy, a two-year leadership training program for employees committed to the public service mission.

For the last week you received e-mail postcards touting this announcement from IPS. This really is a big opportunity for IPS employees, the chance to receive top-notch leadership training and to learn the ins and outs of the UT system, the institute and our agencies.

Any full-time IPS employee, who is committed to staying with IPS at least five additional years, is eligible to be nominated for the program. Employees may be nominated by their supervisors, agency directors, peers or they may nominate themselves.

Goals of the IPS Leadership Academy:

*To provide quality formal and informal training, mentoring, and coaching.
*To expand leadership capacity within the IPS organization.
*To promote sustainability of IPS and the goals of the organization.
*To promote succession planning for IPS.
*To create energy and vision for the future.
*To understand the culture and structure of the University of Tennessee system.

The inaugural class of the IPS Leadership class will be made up of 15 to 18 participants, who will meet for a week beginning in September. Following that initial session, participants will meet quarterly for up to two days at UT campuses and institutes across the state.

Deadline for nominations is June 11 and the inaugural class will be announced on June 25. I hope all of you will look over the application and consider submitting a nomination for the first ever class of the IPS Leadership Academy. Click here for more information.

Update of TN Code Annotated

IPS received some very exciting news today. As of May 10, 2010, the Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS), the Law Enforcement Innovation Center (LEIC) and the Naifeh Center for Effective Leadership are officially recognized in the Tennessee Code as part of the Institute for Public Service! In Senate Bill 3680, sponsored by Sen. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), all three agencies are recognized to provide studies, research, training and educational conferences using professionals in their respective fields.

Although MTAS has been recognized in TCA for some 60 years, the agency has never been a part of the IPS code.

I’d like to thank and recognize Anthony Haynes and Lou Hanneman, who work in the Nashville office of UT Government Relations, for their hard work in getting this language included in Tennessee Code.

This is big news for us and definitely a milestone in the history of IPS!

Guest Blog from Paul Bowman - IPS Scholarships

The deadline for applications for the Mary and Jack Jinks Scholarship and for the newly established Marie and Jim Murphy Graduate Scholarship is May 15, 2010.

The Jinks Scholarship, named for Vice President of Public Service Mary Jinks and her husband Jack, is an academic scholarship for a child or grandchild of an IPS employee or retiree. Eligible participants may attend any University of Tennessee campus including Chattanooga, Knoxville, Martin, Memphis and Tullahoma or must have been admitted to attend. The Jinks established the scholarship as a way to promote public service and recognize young leaders who may show an interest in the field of public service.

The Murphy scholarship for graduate students was funded in early 2010 through the generous support of Marie and Jim Murphy. Marie Murphy served as executive director of the County Officials Association of Tennessee (COAT) and wanted to create the opportunity to help relatives of COAT and employees and relatives of the UT County Technical Assistance Service (CTAS). Jim Murphy is currently a member of the UT Board of Trustees. The Murphy Scholarship is available to both COAT and CTAS for graduate education at UT.

The deadline is EOB, Friday, May 14th in the Central Office for applications to either scholarships if you are delivering it in person or emailing them to me and must be complete.

If you are mailing the application it must be postmarked by Saturday, May 15th to be considered. Please mail scholarship completed applications to:

Institute for Public Service
ATTN: Paul Bowman
University of Tennessee
105 Student Services Building
Knoxville, TN 37996


Further inquiries and questions may be directed to me. Both scholarship applications can be found here .

Thank you for your interest and especially “thank you” to the many individuals on this distribution list who have contributed to these scholarships.

Guest Blog from Kevin Lauer - Disaster Response

Kevin wrote this report to Mike Garland. I thought it should be shared with the entire IPS staff:

Per our discussion the other day, here is a quick summary of our assistance that we have provided this past week during the Greater Nashville area Disaster Response.

I received a phone call from TEMA at 1:45 Sunday morning requesting that the TN Fire Chiefs Mutual Aid plan be activated and that 3 Swift Water Rescue Teams from East TN be deployed to Nashville. I contacted the District Coordinators with the request and they filled it with Knoxville Rescue Squad, Bradley County Fire Rescue and Hamilton County Rescue responding to Nashville. In this initial deployment, 25 personnel with 6 rescue boats were deployed. These crews worked in Nashville, Williamson County, and Cheatham County rescuing 100’s of people in just the first 12 hours. They were joined by the Rutherford County EMS Special Operations Response Team once the situation was stabilized in Rutherford County. All of these crews would work several deployments over the next several days.

Clay County requested assistance of the Mutual Aid plan due to the fact that the fire stations were flooded and could not respond. Fire crews from Putnam Co., Livingston, and White Co. responded and provided coverage to Clay for about 24 hours.

Cheatham County was hit exceptionally hard and requested a higher level of assistance in addition to the rescue crews previously mentioned. An Incident Management Team was requested to assist with the massive undertaking of managing this very complex incident. This was the first deployment of this team in Middle TN after the initial training was provided in Nashville back in January. (A previous deployment occurred last year in Sevier Co during a large wildland interface fire.) An advance team of senior officers from Knox, Roane, and Rutherford County was deployed and were joined by 2 members of the Cookeville Fire Dept later on Monday. Over the course of 6 days, 17 members of our regional IMT’s worked in Cheatham County providing assistance in all areas of incident management. IMT members responded from Knox, Roane, Rutherford, Cookeville, Oak Ridge, Knoxville, Pigeon Forge, Williamson, Chattanooga, Memphis, and Germantown. All of these are senior fire, EMA, and special ops officers/ chiefs that have experience in large scale incidents and have received the necessary training. I also spent the day there on Wed. meeting with our team and with Mayor Orange. He was VERY pleased with the assistance that we provided to them during this crisis. In addition to the IMT members, we also sent fire tankers to Ashland City from Fairview and Lasscasses (Rutherford Co.) to provide water for fire fighting, since there water system was practically wiped out.

I also received a request from Metro Nashville Water for fire tanker support to assist with the decontamination/ clean-up of the Wastewater Treatment Facility and other public infrastructure that has been shut down. Crews from Bedford Co. and Lasscasses have been hauling non-potable water for Metro Water for several days and will be possibly through this week. This relieves a tremendous burden on the water system as they attempt to get it up to full-capacity.

Throughout this event Gary West and I have been in constant communication with TEMA as part of the State’s Emergency Operations Plan providing support for the ESF-4 (firefighting) operations, in addition to rescue and haz-mat, as well as with countless cities and counties providing assistance, advice and support. This is what we have been working so hard for the past 3 years developing the Mutual Aid system and infrastructure including the Incident Management Teams, databases, District and County Coordinators and 100’s of fire department and rescue contacts. There is no doubt that this plan works and that lives were saved and that cities and counties will be able to recover faster out of this project that we developed with the TN Fire Chiefs Association and TEMA.

It has been a long week and I am sure that I am leaving out some information but that is a snapshot of the some of the highlights.

Thank you for your support as we have and continue to work on this project.

Kevin

Kevin J Lauer
Fire Management Consultant

Congratulations to all our staff who responded so well to the disaster last week.

In Times Like These...

The last five days have been surreal in some respects. I remember thinking early last Friday that it was a shame we didn't have enough water to put the boat in the lake on such a nice day. What a difference a day can make!

Although East Tennessee received a good bit of rain, the pictures and reports that started coming out of Middle and West Tennessee seemed unbelievable. As the days have passed, we've heard more news about our colleagues and the destruction they have faced. As they begin to rebuild, I know we can count on our staff to pitch in and help - because that's what we do in times of need.

In the meantime, I know your thoughts and prayers are with the Albert Tieche family who, as far as I have heard, have suffered the most severe damage. I know the Mike Simmons family (CIS), the Josh and Bonnie Jones family (MTAS), the Ann Mitchell family (CIS) and the Jon Walden family (CTAS) also all suffered damage. I'll keep you updated as we learn more.

The Top Ten List - Public Adminstration

A recent article in the Tennessee Town and City (April 26, 2010) summarized a presentation from Toni Samuel, Executive Director of the American Society for Public Administration. Toni's "list" came from James Svara, professor of public administration at Arizona State University.



Top Trends in Public Administration

1. New Governance
2. New Leadership Styles
3. Generational Change and Succession Planning
4. Strategic Management - Performance Measurement
5. Citizen Focus
6. Reorganizing Work Structure and Process
7. E-Government and E-Democracy
8. New Thinking about Service Delivery
9. Innovation
10. Ethics and Transparency

We are talking about many of these same issues within IPS, so our work truly reflects what is going on in the environment around us.

See Toni's complete PowerPoint Presentation here.

Public Service Recognition Week

Celebrated since 1985, Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) is a nationwide public education campaign honoring the men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county and local government employees and ensure that our government is the best in the world. Each year, the President and Congress designate the first full week of May as PSRW and activities are held nationwide and around the world in celebration of public employees who put service above self.

From the steps of the Capitol to the smallest towns, public servants use the week to educate citizens about the work that they do and why they have chosen public service careers. Throughout the week, communities take this occasion to host events from open houses to parades recognizing and thanking their local unsung heroes.

Click here to read more about Public Service Recognition Week.