Navigating the Balance: Internal and External Focus for Government Leaders
How self-promotion, skills-based hiring, and time-use policies shape effective governance
In this week’s TL;dr for Good Government Files, we’re highlighting the importance of understanding both internal and external dynamics in government work. Two of the featured articles focus on internal issues: the necessity of strategic self-promotion to advance in your career, and the shift towards skills-based hiring that values competencies over traditional degree requirements. The third article looks outward, exploring how cities can better meet residents’ evolving needs through innovative time-use policies. Together, these pieces remind us effective leadership requires attention to both the internal workings of an organization and the external impact on the communities we serve.
Why the Reliable Office Workhorse Rarely Gets Ahead
Hard work alone doesn’t always lead to career advancement, as many office workhorses discover, reports Rachel Feintzeig for the Wall Street Journal. To move ahead, it’s crucial to not only perform well but also to be seen and recognized for your contributions. Here are three takeaways.
Strategic Self-Promotion: It’s not enough to just work hard; you must make sure others know about your achievements. Alison Fragale, a professor of organizational behavior, advises that instead of saying “fine” or “busy” when asked how you are, “Share your most recent win and its impact—this project is going to save us $3 million a year, or that client just reupped their contract because they were blown away by our proposal.”
Redefining Your Role: First impressions can be hard to shake, and being seen as a reliable workhorse can trap you in roles that don’t lead to advancement. Lia Garvin experienced this firsthand when her bosses doubted her readiness for higher-level projects. She started “sending weekly emails outlining her accomplishments to higher-ups,” and reframed her contributions by using assertive language like “lead” and “drive” to shift perceptions.
Making Invisible Work Visible: Much of the extra work employees do, especially in the current work-from-home environment, goes unnoticed or unacknowledged. Tessa West, a psychology professor, notes that “80% of us play multiple roles at work,” often without additional compensation. She suggests making sure your boss recognizes this extra effort, particularly in performance reviews, as “stars often say no to things and protect their time.”
Skills-Based Hiring Smashes Through ‘Paper Ceiling’
Skills-based hiring is gaining traction across state and local governments as they move away from traditional degree and experience requirements in favor of emphasizing practical skills and competencies to fill growing vacancies. While the movement is growing, reports Route 50, the transition is complex and requires significant cultural and procedural changes within HR departments. Here are the takeaways.
Breaking the “Paper Ceiling”: States are increasingly recognizing that degree requirements can be unnecessary barriers to hiring qualified individuals. As Blair Corcoran de Castillo from Opportunity@Work highlights, prescriptive job requirements have “limited access to good job opportunities” for some employees and caused individuals without degrees to take “as much as 30 years to make what a bachelor’s degree candidate can make, on average in their first job.”
Cultural and Procedural Challenges: Shifting from degree-based to skills-based hiring is not just about changing job descriptions — it’s a cultural overhaul. Leslie Scott, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives, points out, “You’re having to train hiring managers to look for skills rather than degrees,” which requires new tools, resources, and a significant shift in mindset. Says de Castillo: “Most people evaluate others based on the way they were evaluated. So, it is a huge cultural issue.”
Flexibility and Stakeholder Involvement: Implementing competency-based hiring requires adaptability and input from various stakeholders. Matthew Brown, Indiana’s state personnel director, emphasizes the need for flexibility, stating, “You have to be somewhat adaptive or else it’s just not going to get you the results you want because you aren’t getting the right people for the job.”
A Closer Look at Time Helps Cities Keep Pace with Residents' Evolving Needs
Cities worldwide are increasingly adopting time-use policies to better meet the evolving needs of residents, according to a Bloomberg Cities report. By focusing on how people spend their time, city leaders aim to improve overall well-being, access to services, and civic engagement. These innovative approaches include strategies like the 15-minute city concept, 24-hour access to amenities, and dedicated roles like “time policy officers” to address time-related challenges. Time use can be a unifying framework for cross-departmental collaboration, ultimately leading to more holistic and effective governance. Three takeaways:
Holistic Time Use: Cities are increasingly recognizing the importance of time in improving residents’ overall well-being, not just by speeding up services but by allowing residents to gain more control over their schedules. As Marina Lafay, a councilor from Strasbourg, notes, “When we [do] studies, we see that a lot of people want to slow down,” indicating a shift towards a more balanced lifestyle that includes better opportunities for civic engagement and personal care.
Cross-Collaboration: The role of time policy officers and city-wide initiatives like Barcelona’s time pact highlights how cities are fostering cross-departmental collaboration to address time-related challenges. Giulio Quaggiotto, an expert on public-sector innovation, emphasizes that if cities “create a new connective tissue between different departments [geared at collaboration around time use], all of a sudden, you can now provide much better solutions.”
Innovative Solutions: In Bogotá, the focus on time use has led to the creation of hyperlocal one-stop shops designed to reduce the burden on unpaid caregivers. As Secretary for Women’s Affairs Laura Tami explains, this approach helps “women to break free from time poverty, regain their economic autonomy, and pursue their life projects,” showcasing how time-related policies can drive significant social change.
In Other’s Words
Statistician and author Nate Silver on free speech
Free speech is actually risky. Words can inspire action, including actions that you might not want ... we are going to trust people’s ability to hear different arguments and have arguments and understand that the arrow of history doesn’t always bend toward better, whatever outcomes you might want. That it actually is very bumpy and transient in some ways.
Psychologist and author Jordan Peterson on listening
Don’t treat people as instrumental means to my predetermined end. This is particularly true of people with whom I may think I disagree. It’s highly probable that I don’t understand where they are coming from, what they mean, or anything about the particulars of our disagreement. If I listen, instead of winning, I learn. And that’s better than winning.
Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl on freedom
Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Onward and Upward.