Mike Causey is on assignment. While he’s away, some readers are filling in with guest columns. Here’s the first in the series.

I’ve been with the feds for nearly 53 years, with 50 years at the same agency. For the last 40 years of my sentence (to be fair, while it’s been no vacation, I have no gripes about my career), I’ve been telling my peers, my management, the executive staff, my kids, (and maybe even Mike Causey), that if there was one single thing I could “fix” in government, it would be to make communication more effective. And, by the way, please note that “zero” communication is included here as “not effective.” So it’s really lack of communication I’m talking about.

How many of us have begun a new job, and after 3-6 months come up with that “Aha” discovery, only to be told by your (supposed) co-workers, “Oh, yeah, we know that.” Then you say “Excuse me, but why did I have to find that out for myself? It’s important to me being effective in my job.”

Or you’re working on the big software improvement project, and 6 months into it, you discover that there will be no funding to implement for the next 5 years. Like things might not change in 5 years? And your manager found out about the no funding 3 months ago. These are real stories.

I got an email recently from someone whose name I did not at all recognize, although the sender’s domain was my agency. Not knowing who was sending me the email, I had no idea what the sender was talking about. Come to find out, it was the deputy commissioner’s secretary (the administrative assistant to my boss’ boss) who got married over the weekend, changed her name, and maybe assumed everyone knew? It took a couple of telephone calls and emails to find this out. I certainly could have spent the time more productively than finding out that the boss’ secretary got married and changed her name. Oh well. (Or maybe better put, “Oh Hell.”)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the late 1800s, wrote:

“Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.”

So I think that misguided people withhold knowledge based on Emerson’s premise. That is, they don’t communicate, because they know something that you don’t, and that makes them (seem) powerful.

I had a colleague who was asked to make up an orientation package for new employees. He innocently included telling the new folks the staff’s grade structure. We’re talking no more than a dozen folks. He was told outright that it was inappropriate to tell someone what grade someone else was. Huh? Rather than refer the new employees to Edward Snowden to get the information, he simply told new employees what the grade structure was, who was what grade, but just didn’t write it down. My kind of guy.

My take away? Be as transparent as you can. Feds, you and I are paid by taxpayer money, and other than what we call PII (personally identifiable information), and sensitive information, just let it out. I never think that anything I know on my job belongs to solely to me. So, I communicate openly. Yeah. And guess what, I spent 28 years in grade because “Nick just tells it like it is.” But then, I never wanted that sort of “power”.

Talk to me at nick.st.amant@hushmail.com if you want to comment. — Nick St. Amant

Nearly Useless Factoid by Michael O’Connell

Fifty years ago today, Barbra Streisand’s television special “My Name Is Barbra” debuted on CBS. It went on to win two Emmys and one Peabody Award.

(Source: History.com)

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