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This week I am pleased that Tobin Follenweider, Deputy Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration, is serving as Guest Curator for the 10 in 10.
For the last 20 years, Tobin Follenweider served in high profile finance and operations roles for the State of Colorado and the City of Aurora, Colorado. He is currently the Deputy Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration. Tobin’s career focus is to fundamentally change the way governmental organizations respond to leaders, customers, and stakeholders. He has streamlined processes towards customer needs, improved governance processes for stakeholders, and increased employee engagement and support. His goal is to create public institutions that are agile and change-ready.
Tobin's favorite leadership quote is:
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
I finished Team of Rivalsby Doris Kearns Goodwin last year. It is a tome but well worth the read. Aside from his gifts as a political strategist and orator, I was struck by Lincoln’s willingness to take responsibility for bad outcomes.
James Madison and the Founding Fathers created a form of government that had not existed prior, at least not in this form. Its strength has proved undeniable over the past 242 years, and I have been searching for how our form of government continues to improve and avoid stagnation. The article addresses the priorities for government institutions for the 21st century, including better fiduciary responsibility and more active community engagement.
As a Gen Xer, I grew up watching TV so I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that a fictional character, Captain Jean Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation), became one of my leader role models. Picard is a principled, supportive, and humble leader who generally does a great job of balancing authority and leadership. I think this Forbes article lays out his leadership style well.
I like the simplicity and directness of this article. Robert Schaffer points out that striving for innovation and improvement should not be an extraordinary event—it should be routine. Everyone who is a manager must be change-managers.
Marty Linsky is a provocateur. While at times infuriating, Professor Linsky thoroughly upended my ideas about instituting change. I often use his concepts.
Something I also use quite a bit is Tim Knoster’s “Leading and Managing Complex Change” model. There are numerous change management models, but I find Knoster’s model very insightful and actionable.
I have been working earnestly on process improvement for the last five years. I really believe in the efficacy of Lean, and I have had a lot of success with Lean within the State of Colorado. Unfortunately, a distressing number of Lean projects seem to fizzle out. Jeffery Liker wrote a book called The Toyota Way that helped me recalibrate my approach to Lean in the public sector.
I think that one of the fundamental requirements of a leader is to protect employees from meaningless work. Based on the information in this NPR podcast, an astounding 40% of the people surveyed were convinced that if their job didn't exist, it would make no difference at all.
