OPINION
Voice of America Information War: Lost Beyond Saving, IF…
By The Federalist
Results from the 2015 Federal employee workplace survey are in.
Not surprisingly, there has been no material change in the agency’s position: its overall ranking at or near the bottom of the annual survey and within the range consistently reported for this agency since the surveys began years ago. It continues its long-maintained tradition of being one of the worst places to work in the Federal Government among Federal agencies of its size.
Let us recall the lead-up to the survey: senior agency officials harangued agency employees with a sales pitch about how much the agency has “improved:” a blatant attempt to influence employee responses.
This is a false, self-serving narrative.
It is a falsehood that has been repeated year after year, over and over again. It is devoid of any credibility.
Intent
In the immediate sense, this sales pitch is intended to disguise the true nature of this agency’s failed mission. It is intended to maintain this disguise to deny the scope of its failure and to otherwise deceive and misinform the new agency chief executive officer (CEO) John Lansing.
No doubt these senior officials will reiterate their usual mantra of “baby steps” as its description of “progress” in these surveys. They have been talking about “baby steps” for years. Think of it then as “arrested development.” It has been remarked that this agency needs “adult supervision.” The latest survey result demonstrates the need has not diminished.
The intended result of anything senior agency officials do is maintaining the preferred agency operational model of:
✓ Dysfunctional
✓ Defunct
✓ Broken
✓ Rudderless
Why?
These are necessary components for their self-preservation: making and maintaining the destruction they have wrought in the belief that it will be impossible to fix, holding American taxpayers hostage to a repetitive annual budget cycle of wasting public funds.
Follow the logic: these officials do not want things to improve especially if improvement cannot be directly attributed to them. They know that improvements made in spite of and not because of them expose their incompetence.
One of the best things that John Lansing can do for the good of the agency’s mission and its cost to the American taxpayer is to find a way to fire, remove or reassign those responsible for this continuing debacle, in order to promote the efficiency of the Federal Service.
Every employee in the Cohen Building knows by name the people responsible for this.
These failed managers are the visible personas of failures. They walk the halls of the Cohen Building smug in the belief that they are untouchable: walking advertisements for the damage they have wrought. If that continues to be the case, Mr. Lansing and Members of Congress should think less about reform of the agency and more about reorganization because that is the most effective way of dealing with a corrupt, defiant bureaucracy: transfer of functions.
We know these senior agency officials very, very well. The employees know these officials very, very well too. Collectively, we know them better than Mr. Lansing, the agency’s new CEO.
What we know is this:
They have been blowing smoke for years regarding the effectiveness of the agency.
To put it bluntly, there will never – that’s right, never – be any meaningful rehabilitation of this agency as long as these characters are still in the Cohen Building. They are inept. They are toxic. They are a daily, constant reminder of what is wrong with this agency and who is responsible. They will attack anyone – members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Members of Congress, Mr. Lansing – anyone they see as a threat to their positions. Character assassination is their specialty.
These individuals have no incentive to do things differently. You can be certain that they believe they can outlast Mr. Lansing and undermine anything he may want or intend to do to break the self-destructive cycle these individuals relish.
The employee survey demonstrates how badly these individuals have mismanaged the agency into complete mission meltdown. It is a reflection of deep, pervasive problems: the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Day after day, the agency’s perpetual state of being remains the same:
✓ Dysfunctional
✓ Defunct
✓ Broken
✓ Rudderless
The only effective exit strategy is reorganizing this agency and removing those responsible for this debacle.
The employees have done their part. They always have in these surveys.
It’s time for key decision makers in the upper levels of government to do theirs by supporting and passing congressional legislation to address the horrid state of this agency.
If Mr. Lansing has any hope of rehabilitating this agency, that level of support is necessary.
Sooner is preferable to later because the damage is being compounded daily and exponentially.