The Fiscal Wake up Tour

Several weeks ago, 60 Minutes profiled U.S. Comptroller General David Walker–the Nation’s top accountant. Fed up with the lack of response by politicians inside the beltway, Mr. Walker has taken his message on the road in what he calls the “Fiscal Wake up Tour.” He is trying to create a renewed sense of urgency to solve a decades-old problem: the Nation’s soaring debt. So concerned is he that he says this threat is greater than that posed by terrorism, and that our precarious financial situation threatens the very survival of our republic. His hope is that this issue will be a major issue in the upcoming presidential election, and that politicians and taxpayers alike will start making the difficult decisions before we have no choices remaining.

Senator John McCain, current and former presidential candidate and erstwhile conductor of the Straight Talk Express, has joined this discussion with this online ad. In it, he discusses some of the more outlandish instances of pork barrel spending, and what he would do about it if elected (for instance he would seek a line item veto to selectively eliminate unrelated and unnecessary provisions of bills). It remains to be seen, however, whether this issue has any significant hand in shaping the ‘08 election, and whether taxpayers can be convinced that change must occur before they feel the consequences of the problem. If Mr. Walker is correct, however, this issue will be shaping our lives one way or another.

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The Gift of Influence

Chris Widener, President of Made for Success, has worked with numerous U.S. Presidential candidates, pro athletes, and CEOs over the years, teaching them how to become successful leaders that people will want to follow.  His focus is on how leaders influence people to change their thinking, beliefs and actions; nothing that it’s not a corporate title that empowers a leader; it’s how well they can connect with people on an emotional level. Mr. Widener says, “When we lead, it is not something that we can just decide to start doing, it requires other people to decide whether or not they will follow.”

In this audio presentation, Mr. Widener expands upon two basic primacies that define great leaders: character and skill. In context, character refers to a person’s being, and skill refers to the ability and talent of that person. Mr. Widener emphasizes that character and skill are the two most important characteristics when leading with influence. Without one of these characteristics, you are either a great person who can’t add value to a company or problem, or you’re a talented individual whose unpopular and difficult personality limits your success.

At each seminar, Widener asks his audiences to write down the most important characteristics that they believe a leader must emulate. After collecting the audience’s responses, Widener writes them on a white board and asks the audience to define each characteristic that they have come up with as being either a character trait or a skill. The results are mind-boggling. Whether the seminar was full of CEOs or high school students, the audience defined almost 90% of the characteristics as character traits.  If character is so important for becoming a successful leader, why do we spend so much time improving our skills? When was the last time you critiqued your character? Honestly and impartially?

Mr. Widener concludes this audio presentation with his advice for building character, and it is something any change agent should consider.

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Government Innovators and the Avian Flu Market

In preparation for the bird flu pandemic, the University of Iowa has unveiled a new tool to help public health officials better predict when the next outbreak will strike. This will help planners coordinate resources and vaccine supplies more effectively, while targeting those locations most vulnerable to infection.

“Surveillance efforts of state, federal and international health agencies focus their time almost exclusively on the spread of influenza today and yesterday, with no systematic attempts to quantify what might happen tomorrow. This tool will now fill the void in the surveillance tools available to the public.”

“The real goal behind the tool is to change the way people think about public health information. We are trying to come up with a new way to plan for the future, one that is easy to use, efficient, and inexpensive.”

The Avian Flu tool is a great example of how IT systems can aid in the planning and innovation for the future. In order to stay ahead of this rapid pace of innovation, Change Agents must make these kinds of technological investments.

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A New Mission for CIOs

A Baseline article released last week talks about how chief information officers are planning to significantly increase their IT spending this year. Additionally, it also seems as though CIOs are shifting the focus of this spending.

The article explains, “the typical mission for CIOs over the past couple of years has been to use information systems to cut costs and improve corporate efficiencies.” In the new paradigm, however, ”CIOs are focusing more on growth and improving service than on cost reduction.” Contrast the typical mission of cutting the bottom line with the new trend of growing and improving services with technology. An increased the top line will result from CIOs pushing four key areas of their business: technology, agility, information and innovation.   These areas are detailed below:

1. Technology, which can help improve operational scale and performance.
2. Agility, which, when mastered, can help manage the speed, scale, cost and risk of corporate transformation through applying change management disciplines.
3. Information, which gives managers the business insight and understanding that’s required to act in a changing environment.
4. Innovation, which calls for bringing new ideas to market by evolving current capabilities, implementing new capabilities and gaining market acceptance for change.

Success for CIOs is going to depend largely on being able to deliver on promises to grow and improve service. “[M]aking technology initiatives happen rests on the skill of the company’s information-technology workforce—systems have to be delivered and, when deployed, they have to work well.”

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The Project

Founded in 1998, The White House Project’s mission is to advance women into leadership positions by critical mass. The White House Project recently partnered with The Women’s Funding Network and Fenton Communication to develop www.shesource.org, an online database designed to help producers, journalists, etc. find female experts within their particular areas of interest. The resource is simple but very powerful — keep an eye on SheSource.org as the database grows and the site launches their blog in the coming months.

Learn more about The White House Project.

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