Think about what you are in the process of doing with the President's Management Agenda. Yes, you're moving from red to yellow by the end of this fiscal year, on average; and yes, to varying degrees you're all assessing program, personnel, IT project and human capital investment performance and managing accordingly. But what's really significant, perhaps most important of all, is you're causing the federal government to become results oriented.

An organization that's interested in results:

• asks if its programs are working as anticipated, and if not, what can be done about it,
• ssesses whether its major investments in technology and people are sound and focused on the mission of the organization, and professionally managed, and if not, what can be done about it,
• asks whether it has the right people at the right place at the right time, properly trained and motivated, to best perform its mission, and if not, what can be done about it,
• is committed to providing its managers with timely and accurate financial information, in order that they might ask if the costs to achieve each goal are acceptable, and if not, what can be done about it,
• defines goals and accountability clearly, and
• understands why it exists and who it's serving.

A high performing, results-oriented organization understands that it does not exist for the benefit of its leaders or employees, but in our case, for the benefit of the citizens and taxpayers who have given us their hard earned tax dollars to spend most wisely and professionally. We should all take pride in the fact that this is what WE, political and career employees, are causing the federal government to become.

Your management accomplishments to date are summarized on the latest Management Agenda scorecard. Your more specific accomplishments will show you where you are behind other agencies, and thus who you might contact for advice on how to get to where you want to be. Note that every component part of the Management Agenda has been accomplished by at least one agency: all of this is possible. We CAN do this, all of it.

Yours truly,
Clay Johnson