How do we build a better government? With Jenny Mattingley 

Valerie Boyd: Today on Transition Lab, we’re so excited to welcome the Partnership for Public Service’s very own Vice President of Government Affairs, Jenny Mattingley. Jenny is a seasoned expert in government management and dedicated to helping the federal government work better. Here at the partnership, she leads initiatives to improve government performance and advocates for public servants. 

Previously, Jenny served in the Office of Management and Budget where she worked on critical programs to improve federal workforce policies. She also stood up the White House Leadership Development Program, where she focused on training initiatives for federal employees and led the government wide Performance Improvement Council, focusing on agency performance work. 

Jenny, we’re so happy to have you here for a conversation about your experiences and insights into the little-known world of federal management. Thanks for being here.  

Jenny Mattingley: Great. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here and talk about one of my favorite issues, which is federal management. 

Valerie Boyd: So I have to start somewhere that’s embarrassing to say in front of you and in front of a broader audience, which is I was in government for almost 20 years and in places that focused on like tough pressing national security problems, hair on fire every day, people cared about the management of government, but it probably wasn’t the top focus of discussion. 

So, for that half of the world, can you just talk to us about why government management matters? 

Jenny Mattingley: I feel like for most of the world, government management or federal management or even in nonprofit, right? Valerie, you and I are here at a nonprofit and management is part of what we do, but it’s not the first program mission thing that we do. 

But one of the reasons that I always feel like I’m standing on a hilltop saying, “This is important” and yelling at folks is because to get your program piece done, to meet your mission, do that work, you need the management pieces to work. And by management, I should clarify a lot of times for federal folks it’s mission support functions when you are, I like to call them mission enabling, right? That’s your H. R., your hiring, bringing in talent, whatever, skilling. It’s your I. T. Systems and processes. It’s going to be your acquisition. It’s going to be your finance, your budget, those things. If those don’t work, you can’t do your mission piece very well. 

And so, I think they run in the background for a lot of people and my supposition and kind of why we’re here talking about it, is that they need to run in parallel in terms of your prioritization of things and particularly for new folks coming into the government, if you don’t understand those things and hit the ground running on those it can really take you a long time to get the work done that you come in wanting to do.  

Valerie Boyd: It makes a lot of sense to me. It’s making me think about an example in my recent experience where two components of an agency were having a hard time communicating about their daily responsibilities, and it came down to the fact that their dashboards didn’t speak to each other. 

The IT systems about who was doing what were unable to communicate and that felt like a policy issue in some way in my head. It felt like, okay, we’ve just, we’ve got to get these things to work together, but that’s what you’re talking about everything comes down to management issues.  

Jenny Mattingley: Yeah, it’s absolutely what I’m talking about because it’s not, I mean, there could be a policy issue in there around data sharing agreements and things. 

But at the end of the day, it’s that two different IT systems were built with two different sets of requirements and never built to speak to each other. And maybe they were built 20 years ago and haven’t gotten budget investments to build those up since then and modernize them. And so, so you’ve got this issue where people coming in think this is a policy thing, or this is a blocker. 

It’s actually a mission support or a management issue that needs to be dealt with in terms of budgeting and prioritization and strategic planning. And so those are exactly the things that people need to think about.  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah. You’re making me think about challenges in IT investment. And we’ve talked about this before where it is shocking when you find out some resource constraints happening at certain agencies. Like we were talking about one example of an agency that is running on Lotus notes for their emails. 

Jenny Mattingly: Which I said that to somebody and people younger than us were like, “I have no idea what that is.” 

Valerie Boyd: Yes. Yeah.  

So I think we all assume that new leaders can come into agencies and hit the ground running, but they’re really confronted with these challenges and it’s a long-term investment process and planning process to turn something like that around. 

Jenny Mattingley: Yeah.  

And that’s, I think, where the tension is, I think, about a story of one leader years ago who came in to build better digital experience for that agency’s customers, you know, revamp the website, the processes, things like that, but the leader couldn’t ever get to that work because he spent all his time basically acting MacGyvering with, you know, I joke with like duct tape and string, the email systems and the basic IT Infrastructure to get that to work.  

I think there’s this, every time I watch shows on TV where they’re like, “look at the modern technology and things” I think, wouldn’t that be great if we had that? We do in some places and government works phenomenally well, despite these things, but if you don’t come in knowing them, or you don’t come in asking those questions about what those investments that are needed, what the barriers are in all these management spaces, you’re not going to be able to hit the ground running. 

Valerie Boyd: So is there a way for new leaders to come in and like figure out how to take this on because I can picture myself and many other serious people I know ready to walk into a job, work hard at getting things done, but really not knowing what you don’t know. I, you know, a further embarrassing confession, I think you know; I’ve worked in a secretary’s offices. I’ve worked at the White House, I had never heard of the president’s management agenda before I got here, or some of the requirements in place for planning long term across for an administration to invest in the management of government. So, what is your advice to a new appointee to start understanding this environment? 

Jenny Mattingley: That’s a good question. And I was thinking about it before coming on here today for this conversation. When you come in as a new appointee, you’ve been appointed because you support the president and the administration or because you are really plugged into a certain policy initiative. They’re not bringing you in because of your necessarily because of like, you know, federal management, right? 

That’s not why you’re coming in as a political appointee. And so, I think people come in very excited to jump right into whatever the policy is that they’re coming in to implement, but the challenge is you’re walking into a large organization in most cases. Some of these organizations, particularly if you’re coming in at the, you know, non-career or more senior level senior advisors, things like that. You’re also running a large organization. You have people underneath you that you have to do performance management for, you have to help make sure your folks are hiring people they need. And so, I think part of what you can do as a new appointee is come in knowing that you’re also going into the leadership of a company, not a private sector company, but these are still companies. They’re still businesses that need to run. And so, yes, you have a policy lens, but as a senior leader in the organization you have to care about the health of the organization too. And so, I think that’s a little bit of the mindset shift, you’re coming in and come in and ask the questions of your career folks instead of having them just hand you a binder. 

And you know, you and I laugh, I’m like, no more binders, lots of paper, but you know, how do we, how do we get it so that your briefing consists not just of all the things you need to know about that policy area, but what are some of those issues? Have you been able to hire? Are there going to be IT systems that need investments? Are there going to be budgetary or procurement issues like coming in and knowing that there’s a set of questions you should be asking is helpful to hitting the ground running?  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah, that does seem to be where so many discussions hit reality. Where people come in with great ideas about solving problems and then find out, well, the budget doesn’t allow for this, or we’re in a continuing resolution or judicial interpretations of different laws have had this effect. 

So, it’s a lot to catch up on.  

Jenny Mattingley: Yeah. And also because there are so many laws and policies that are different in the federal sector than you might have experienced if you were in a company in the private sector. You know to your point, you don’t even know how to ask about those things, which is where the career leadership in your agency is really helpful. Because they’ve navigated it, they do know where those things are. But I was thinking of 2 examples, you know, from the Trump administration, they passed a great executive order around skills-based hiring. So, part of the challenge, though, in implementation is that the hiring processes, it’s not, you know, it was the right policy and idea. 

But when you get into the weeds on the hiring processes, it is very hard to implement because there were so many things that need to be updated, whether by law or by practice, by culture, things like that to get to the vision. And, and I think for folks coming in and saying, “well, now I want to do this hiring” well, there’s 30 things underneath it that you got to fix. Same with currently thinking about bipartisan infrastructure law, right? Congress, White House, they’ve passed this giant thing, and people are having trouble hiring the talent they need to do that work. And so, you want to implement the policy. 

And you just butted up against a hiring system that’s incredibly complex and in need of fixing.  

Valerie Boyd: So, it’s not just the, it’s not just the policy or the governing structure for the policy, if it’s an executive order or a law, but it’s also the regulations, it’s the sort of handbooks and rule books for staff around implementing. 

So, I heard you say that working with the career leadership is one of the most important ways to catch up because they have been living this reality for a very long time.  

Jenny Mattingley: Yeah. And they know, you know, career leaders, particularly those who have been in agencies for a while, they know where the pain points are, I guess, and they know where the conversations can happen to get things done. 

I think, you know, you said a few minutes ago about where the investments are needed. Those are sort of long term and it’s hard because most political appointees serve on average of 2 years give or take. And so, when you’re looking at years out investments, the career folks are the ones who have had to or will have to keep that, you know, fire going in terms of trying to make these investments. 

And so, stepping in where you can to help. I like to talk about getting rid of some of the burden, right? Because there are a lot of policies and regulations and agencies that don’t necessarily come from a law, or maybe they’re just years of practice and myth around, here’s how we have to hire, or we can’t do, you know, this training because of this thing. 

And it turns out when you peel back the layers. It’s really just practice and myth. So how do we simplify and almost like take this burden reduction or deregulatory approach in terms of the processes into side agencies? And I think leaders, political or career can have an outsized impact in trying to have those conversations. 

Valerie Boyd: So, you’re reminding me about something you’ve said before, which I still I’m not sure I believe, that a lot of the rules around Federal performance management and overall management of government have not been updated since the 1970s. Am I getting that right?  

Jenny Mattingley: It’s not just performance management. 

There’s a whole host of laws that really, some came in in the fifties and a lot were done in the seventies with some minor tweaks in the eighties. So, there’s a lot around the way we, you know, pay federal employees, the way we hire them, the way we develop them, how we assess leaders that really haven’t been updated in decades. 

And so, we’re looking at building these policies and systems, you know, think about AI and people coming in and wanting to leverage AI you’re working on 1970s hiring systems and so trying to hire the right talent. Those systems were never created for that, or you want to get user feedback. You know, you want to make sure constituents are being served by the government. You come in having these policies. There’s a 1970s law that often blocks agencies from getting that real time user feedback. And so, I think there’s an unknown tension there that people aren’t aware of between really outdated laws and the things people want to do in terms of the work.  

Valerie Boyd: So, I know we don’t want to spend a ton of time on laws around this, but I think despite having a very educated audience at the partnership for public service. 

I also think there’s a lot of very serious people who have never heard of GPRAMA before.  

So this was fairly new to me. So can, can you give us a little bit of the basics on that and how it’s led to the Presidential management, the president’s management agenda,  

Jenny Mattingly: Right? All these things you’re learning now, you can have more acronyms. 

Valerie Boyd: Yeah, because that’s what I needed. 

Jenny Mattingly: That’s right. Don’t we all,  

Valerie Boyd: But for, for people who’ve been in government, but not on the management side, can you give us a quick, like, “this is the way Congress thought about how to create some attention to long term management issues.” 

Jenny Mattingley: And I’d say not just Congress, but how administrations have the Bush administration was really keyed into the idea of the government performance and results act and President Bush’s administration had a looking at agency organizational performance. So not just mission support, but other related functions and they had a red, yellow and green system. Are you green on target or are you like red warning flags going? And people probably remember that was under the part system. And so, people probably remember some of those red, yellow and green, but it was an easy way to say what’s working, what’s not, and to hold agency leadership accountable for those management things. 

Fast forward a couple of years, Congress passed something called the Government Performance Results Act Modernization Act, GPRAMA. 

Valerie Boyd: the M is…  

Jenny Mattingley: The M is the modernization act because we have to have act twice in that sentence. And so, they passed that, which tries to set up a series of routines to go across administrations in terms of focusing on these management issues. 

And so, what it requires is each incoming administration to set up some cross agency or federal agency priority goals. So, what are those big, tricky issues that require a whole of government response? Think personnel issues, think acquisitions, sort of the business functions or the mission support functions of government. 

And then also agencies have agency priority goals. So not only do you have a president’s management agenda, but each agency has strategic plans, agency goals, and think of it a little bit as both a program and policy agenda, as well as an agency specific management agenda. And so, these are meant to drive progress and have kind of regular updates so that people, including the public, can see how agencies are doing. 

Valerie Boyd: You led the Performance Improvement Council.  

Jenny Mattingley: That’s right.  

Valerie Boyd: Can you tell us how that fits into this structure?  

Jenny Mattingley: Absolutely. So, it’s a government wide council of senior folks, career folks, typically some political appointees who manage the government in each agency, the organizational performance. And so are you. Do you have your strategic planning in place? Is it aligned to budget? Is it aligned to your priorities? And so, you’ll see everything again from program priorities to these sort of missions, support, business priorities. And so this was a gathering to get senior folks together to talk about the issues to talk about best practices to share, share problems and challenges solutions. 

And so, there’s the council. There’s also staff behind it that staff these councils. There’s more than the PIC, which is the Performance Improvement Council. You know, you’ve got your C suite councils, right? Large Chico’s and CIOs and CFOs. But the staff behind there works closely with OMB, with the White House, with agencies to think about what are these cross-agency priorities. 

So that’s where you get the President’s Management Agenda, because it helps them all work together on these.  

Valerie Boyd: I have to ask, and this might be a risky question, but where have you seen administrations use these tools well? Like, what have been some of the best practices.  

Jenny Mattingley: That’s a great question. You know, we’ve actually looked back all the way back to Reagan, even before the framework of a President’s Management agenda, almost every administration has had some sort of management focus. I think where it works well is where they’ve picked a handful of items. You know, it’s easy to think we’re going to take on everything, but where you pick a handful of things so that agencies can really focus, because it’s one thing to say, we’re going to Reform hiring. 

It’s another thing to really get people marching down that same path. And so, I do think each management agenda has been helpful in elevating those issues. I think the challenges that, right, we change every 4 years or every 8 years. And, so, it’s hard. And that’s why I sort of like this idea of having folks come into government and think about it in their own separate agencies, because that’s where they can make a lot of change. 

Yes, we need a general whole of government thing, but they each have been implementable in each agency. And that’s where I think change needs to happen.  

Valerie Boyd: So, I heard you say that 4 years is not enough time to get some of these priorities accomplished to change a culture around hiring, for example, so time is of the essence. 

How can a team that’s preparing to govern right now think about maximizing their time and getting their management agenda organized as soon as possible in their first hundred days.  

Jenny Mattingley: Are you talking transition team for White House transition or for each agency team coming in? 

Valerie Boyd: Well, that’s a great question. I’m thinking about a White House transition team, but they are also focused on management of agencies.  

Jenny Mattingley: You know, it’s interesting because you’ve got the transition teams coming in and obviously, they’re really focused on staffing up. That’s a big thing of getting political appointees in place, getting other things, but it’s not that they have to actually recreate the wheel on the management agenda. 

I guess that’s the silver lining, and the fact that it’s taken forever to make some of these changes is that is that there’s a pretty good body of work out there about what the challenges are and maybe some best practices. And so, I think part of this is making sure that they’re, like I said, every administration has focused on these and there’s a nice little Venn diagram. 

If you look at from Reagan all the way through to President Trump and President Biden, they’re often focused on customer service or customer experience on it. Modernization, something to do with, you know, procurement contracting, something to do with personnel, whether it’s senior executive service or hiring or something around the workforce.  

And so, there’s a lot of work that’s been done in these areas already. So how can you come in and say, what are my top three priorities going to be in this management space and really dig into those from the get go and stand on the shoulders of all the work that’s been done before and say, I’m going to bring in whether it’s stakeholder groups, whether it’s talking to career leaders, whether it’s working with the career folks who are in the policy councils. They probably are pretty aware of what’s gone on in the past and can help bring you up to speed. 

And so, I think that’s part of it is transition teams aren’t alone in this. There’s a lot of folks out there to support them and help them understand what’s been done and kind of lift out some of the best practices. So, I think coming in intentionally, thinking that you’re going to have a management agenda and pick three items would go a really long way to making progress. 

Valerie Boyd: That feels like particularly good advice in this cycle, where we have two candidates who very much can stand on the shoulders of recent work, either their own from a few years ago, or from the administration they’re part of.  

 We also wanted to talk about how agency leaders can come in with this focus. 

We touched a little bit on how political appointees can come in and talk to career leaders about what they’re facing. Are there other tools available? I want to ask about the White House Leadership Development Program, which I don’t know if everyone’s familiar with. What resources or programs exist through the White House or OPM to help agency leaders think about managing government better? 

Jenny Mattingly: I think from a career perspective when you’re talking about career leaders, because even for career, and I’ll switch back to the politicals in a moment, but even for career leaders, right? There’s a tyranny of the now we’re busy trying to drive results and whatever the thing is, and it feels really tough to tackle some of these other big mission support or business issues but having at least setting up and thinking intentionally right now about transition and what issues you want to bring forward. 

That’s a way to start. And I, Valerie, I heard you say in a meeting earlier today about what was the phrases. This is an opportunity.  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah. Transition is an opportunity for management excellence. It’s the best thing an executive told me recently. I think he’ll recognize his words here, but that that he greets the arrival of new leaders as an opportunity to say, here’s 3 things that we can do together to make this place run better. 

And we’ll all be proud at the end of this experience. And I love that because there’s a lot of preparation around transitions. And it’s just a great way to start off on the right foot.  

Jenny Mattingley: Right. And thinking about it, what I love about that is the framing of we’re going to change it and make it better. 

So, you’re not actually lifting up and saying, “well, we can’t do all these priorities because of outdated IT systems or because we don’t have a budget.” What can we do? And what are these challenges? I’m lifting up so we can tackle them together. And that maybe sounds overly simplified a little bit in terms of when people are, and it’s very rosy, thank you, in terms of where we’re coming into a transition. 

And that’s a lot of anxiety and a lot of just you know, unknowns. And so how do we actually think about it in, hey, if I raise these 3 issues in a positive way, in a way of like, here’s my ideas for tackling these, and here’s why you should care about tackling them to help you come in and do your job better. 

I think that’s a place to start. And then there’s the agency teams coming in. There’s not specific, it actually baffles me why there isn’t, there’s not specific onboarding for political appointees coming in that really, maybe there are in some places, but it’s really ad hoc and coming in and saying, you’re about to walk into leading complex teams, complex missions, complex organizations, depending on what level, here’s what you need to know about. 

Managing our organization, political appointees actually oversee and supervise career senior leaders. How do you do their performance management? What are the challenges? How could it be done better? Right? And so, embracing this kind of leadership mentality coming in would love to see them think about that. 

And that goes back to walking in and saying, okay, I’m coming in the door. I can’t change everything right away. I have this X, Y, Z mission to meet. So, what are they going to be the biggest blockers I’m going to hit and how can I help fix those?  

Valerie Boyd: You know, I have to take a sidebar into ethics because I feel like that’s one area where appointees do get an onboarding. 

Everybody learns stories of things to avoid and the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest. Often everyone signs a pledge. And that said, I’ve heard you talk about how. Management issues are where people get tripped up the most. Are we talking about ethics issues or more broadly?  

Jenny Mattingley: Usually, I’m sure. 

I mean, I’m sure there are tons of stories where we could go into in different ways that people have gotten tripped up. But the ones that I always think about are management issues where maybe there was an instance of poor performance, and it led to, you know, whether by an employee or a program that was failing, and it was failing because constituents weren’t getting their services. So, 3 they called up their members of Congress. I always say members of Congress focus on where their constituents are calling them up and complaining. I’m not getting this service. Nobody’s calling me back. And so that all of a sudden becomes the target of a congressional investigation or something. 

What it was is that the website wasn’t made with user feedback because of a 1970s law called the Paperwork Reduction Act, right? Where agencies couldn’t go get that user feedback to make sure their forms were working. So now you have angry constituents driving Congress, driving an investigation that all of a sudden sidelines the entire policy work that the politicals wanted to do in that agency because of a website or a form. Right. And so, I think that’s where it’s like, some of these things seem really bizarre and wonky. And they actually drive much larger problems for folks.  

Valerie Boyd: That’s a great point because when one of these things happens, it creates an enormous distraction and it is important to resolve. 

Of course, but you spend the next 6 months responding to investigation requests from the inspector general and the G.N.O. And it’s really important to avoid that happening. 

So, your paperwork reduction act example is a perfect appropriate one. As I was thinking about this conversation this morning, I recalled my first job in government 22 years ago, sort of a not safe for work example, but I was… 

Jenny Mattingley: Now I’m really intrigued. 

Valerie Boyd: I know I’m really worried about whether I should say this out loud, but I had. I was waiting for an internship to start. My resume had gotten into a system and an agency hired me as a GS five. I never really heard about that since then, but I was a temporary employee for a couple of months to help on the desk of someone who had recently been removed because she was running an escort service from her government computer. 

Jenny Mattingly: So that’s definitely a problem.  

Valerie Boyd: So, I think we all really know better than to do that kind of thing. A definite and sanitizer situation. Yeah. But like, but really people do get removed from government jobs.  

Jenny Mattingley: Absolutely.  

Valerie Boyd: For misbehavior in a variety of ways.  

Jenny Mattingley: Yeah. But that goes back to, it’s funny you bring that up because I think those are the. 

Those are the ones that are easy, right? There’s misconduct. There’s something about the people. There’s the ethics rules. People understand that it’s these other things that seem innocuous, right? That take people way off track, right? Where maybe they were supposed to deliver. I mean, you think about think about the Affordable Care Act, right? 

Obamacare, when that went in and the website crashed, people couldn’t get in. That was a massive distraction. Look, there were a lot of complicating factors and there were some tech issues.  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah,  

Jenny Mattingley: Right. Like, and that goes back to, are we able to beta test? Do we have resources? Do we have the talent to run these things? 

Do we have the timelines to realistically roll out these programs, given the resource constraints? And so those are conversations that when you’ve got political appointees with a very short window of time, but there’s a longer timeline to actually implement something well, that gets that tension. And then all of a sudden, you’re looking at a system where the implementation didn’t work, and it’s a lot of times these underpinning business issues.  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah, as you said, there really is a whole range of, of issues, and one more example from that first government job was a few years later, I was in an ethics training and the leader of that office that I had been in previously was the example used in our ethics training about how industry executives had thrown her a birthday party and her job was to be involved in the regulation of those executives. 

And I think her argument was that those have been her personal friends and colleagues for decades across a distinguished career. But it gets to your point that sometimes these things are more of a gray area  

Jenny Mattingley: Yeah, and, and they are not only a gray area, they’re just an unknown area, right? 

They go back to the, wasn’t it Cheney? You’ve got known knowns and known unknowns and unknown unknowns, right? And so, trying to figure out how to, because you are coming in, you’ve got, if you are coming from the private sector and coming into a political appointment, right? You are used to doing business in a certain way, and you’re used to a whole different regulatory scheme, ethics scheme, you know, business processes, and so coming in and thinking that that is going to be the same when you come into government, it’s a lot to navigate because it’s not the same, right? 

And so, I think coming in and thinking about how do you get away from the unknown unknowns and go to, saying, okay, I know I’m walking into something different. So, I’m just going to ask a lot of questions and figure out what are the things that both I need to know personally as a process in terms of being a good leader. 

And that goes to your ethics point. It goes to, understanding performance management, understanding how to lead employees, understanding how to set a vision and get by and write all those leadership things that people get trained on. And then how do I run an organization? Because there’s being a leader, there’s running the organization. 

And then how do I do those things? Both of those leading people running the organization to meet whatever the mission is that I came in to do.  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah, I definitely want to pull on that thread about where managing in government is different than managing in the private sector, because I think we can’t skip over that where there is an assumption that that efficiency can be rung out in in every little step. But then. The challenge is, there are laws and practices around procurement and acquisitions. For example, each step is meaningful or required in a certain way. Are there other examples that you’ve experienced where managing and government is difficult? 

So much different than managing a business. 

Jenny Mattingley: Yeah. I’ve come in and out of government a couple of times, and I think what’s tough, particularly if you’ve been in the private sector for most of your career is understanding the bifurcation in how agencies are set up with, or really among the branches, right? 

This is our constitutional foundation. There’s three branches and Congress holds the purse strings, right? So it’s not that you have a board of directors that helps set a strategic plan and helps determine how you’re budgeting things. And then you’re bringing in money and you work with your budget office and your human capital and bring everybody together. 

Agencies are able to do that once they have their product funding, but that comes from a completely different branch. So do the laws that are passed and all of a sudden you’ve got a mandate to do X, Y, Z, whatever Congress has just passed a law to do that might be completely different than what you came in to do. 

But the folks in your agency have to carry out the laws that Congress passes, and so I think it’s a really odd system compared to what you’re used to in the private sector. You determine a course, you can go do it. If your investors, your board, your customers don’t like it, you change course. We don’t have that flexibility in government in the same way. 

But that’s where I go back to saying the opportunity piece, which I love about like transition is an opportunity. What can you control in those situations? And what can you make work better, make more efficient, streamline again? Like let’s peel back all these policies that are holding people back and say, it’s a moment to look at it and go, do we actually need this policy anymore? Is it outdated? Let’s unburden folks.  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah. We’ve gone through several parts of the thought process and maybe not in precisely the chronological order, but we’ve talked about how transition teams need to think about a management agenda, build on the shoulders of the ones before them. We’ve talked about how individual appointees can get up to speed on the management issues they might be facing. 

How agency leaders can manage this from a big perspective, a little bit about how the White House manages their process and the importance. And we’ve talked about why this is different than the business perspective. However, just because things are slow, doesn’t mean that they,  

Jenny Mattingley: They can’t get better. 

That’s what I’m saying. I do think there is right. There’s a balance in coming in and saying, how do we make things better? That’s, that’s where I think, there’s an opportunity on both the career side for transitions and the folks coming in, if you think about the management and the leadership piece, how do you make it better? 

Valerie Boyd: Exactly. 

Jenny Mattingley: I mean, my framework has always been, can I leave something better when I walk out the door than it was when I walked in the door?  

Valerie Boyd: Yeah.  

Jenny Mattingly: Right. And a lot of times that’s about process. Maybe I came in wanting to create big, bold change and got into the weeds of fixing processes because that’s what needed to be fixed so that we could get to big bold change. 

So, I would just, my challenge to folks is to really come in and be open to the way you thought you were going to walk in and lead and do may not be exactly that same way, but you actually could make a mark in making things better. This is my like we can all make change and you know, but we can all be leaders in our own right and come in asking questions knowing there are a bunch of things you don’t know and coming in and thinking I’m here to be a leader and to manage an organization and do mission.  

Valerie Boyd: Exactly. There are people who are coming in to manage government better.  

Jenny Mattingley: That’s right.  

Valerie Boyd: That is their job. There are also people who are coming in to create policy change and they may find that they have a management challenge to it systems that don’t speak to each other that needs to be fixed. 

And the great thing is that fixing that management problem leaves the agency better off and allows you to accomplish your policy priority.  

Jenny Mattingley: That’s right. This is our Better Government thing. We all have a part in it. 

Valerie Boyd: I like your pitch. I buy it. Well, Jenny, I knew this would be a fun conversation and, it is such a delight to talk to you always. I feel like I learned something since the day we met. And I will say too, that every every time an issue comes up about the effective management of government in this organization, it’s like, oh, Jenny worked on that X number of years ago. 

So, you really have this incredible history that that is informing important recommendations for better government management in the future. 

Jenny Mattingley: Well, thank you for that. And if my one takeaway of leaving, you know, things better than when I walked in is to get more people engaged and invested in government management and knowing that this is a priority to help everybody, then I’ve done my job. 

Valerie Boyd: Well, check one off. You’ve got me.  

Jenny Mattingley: That’s right. So, it’s a good day. Well, thank you for letting me come and join the show. 

Valerie Boyd: Thank you again.