Memo to New Agency Heads: Listen to Staff

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If you buy a new car, it comes with an owner's manual.

If you buy a dresser from Ikea, instructions tell you how to put it together.

If you become the boss of a federal agency, good luck.

Jonathan D. Breul wants the next set of government managers to have more than luck. His 22 years at the Office of Management and Budget, rising to become the top career executive for management policies, taught him that the officials who come to town with any new administration need more than the on-the-job training they usually get.

So, now, in his current role as executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, Breul and three colleagues -- Mark A. Abramson, John M. Kamensky and G. Martin Wagner -- have produced two how-to volumes for those who will run government agencies and their senior teams, including political appointees and civil servants.

IBM funds the 10-year-old center, which conducts practical research with an eye toward making the public sector more efficient. The two books, "The Operator's Manual for the New Administration," and "Getting it Done: A Guide for Government Executives," offer practical lessons in an accessible, nicely packaged, well-written form.

The books aren't very long, which is a good thing. Each is less than 200 pages and they are organized in a way that allows readers to jump from topic to topic in order of interest. Bureaucracies run on memos and the authors creatively use that model to the reader's advantage. Each chapter of "The Operator's Manual" begins with information in memo form. For example, chapter three begins:

"Memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies

Subject: People"

Under the heading "develop effective relationships," the memo advises the new bosses: "It is crucial that you develop a good working relationship with your own employees. . . . Based on the experience of many previous agency heads in government, spending an appropriate amount of time with your union representatives to forge an effective working relationship can be beneficial."

Innovation, a topic too often overlooked in management discussions, has a chapter that encourages executives to "recognize that employees, especially those who are on the front line of your organization and who regularly deal with your agency's customers, often are the source of innovative services that can benefit your customers."

The companion to "The Operator's Manual" is "Getting it Done." It begins with a "to do" list of six items, including learning what actions must be taken quickly and assembling a political/career team.