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I believe there are a number of reasons for this. First, whereas in most organizations the front-line agencies that do the actual work, in our case protecting the integrity of millions of dollars of PHS-funded research, command the administrative support services to get the job done. In OASH its the exact opposite. The Op-Divs, as the front-line offices are called, get our budgets and then have to go hat-in-hand to the administrative support people in the immediate office of OASH to spend it, almost item by item. These people who are generally poorly informed about what ORI is and does decide whether our requests are mission critical.
On one occasion, I was invited to give a talk on research integrity and misconduct to a large group of AAAS fellows. I needed to spend $35 to convert some old cassette tapes to CDs for use in the presentation. The immediate office denied my request after a couple of days of noodling. A university did the conversion for me in twenty minutes, and refused payment when I told them it was for an educational purpose.
Second, the organizational culture of OASHs immediate office is seriously flawed, in my opinion. The academic literature over the last twenty-five years on successful organizations highlights several characteristics: transparency, power-sharing or shared decision-making and accountability. If you invert these principles, you have an organization (OASH in this instance), which is secretive, autocratic and unaccountable.
In one instance, by way of illustration, I urgently needed to fill a vacancy for an ORI division director. I asked the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (your deputy) when I could proceed. She said there was a priority list. I asked where ORIs request was on that list. She said the list was secret and that we werent on the top, but we werent on the bottom either. Sixteen months later we still dont have a division director on board.
On another occasion I asked your deputy why you didnt conduct an evaluation by the Op-Divs of the immediate office administrative services to try to improve them. She responded that that had been tried a few years ago and the results were so negative that no further evaluations have been conducted.
Third, there is the nature of the federal bureaucracy itself. The sociologist Max Weber observed in the early 20th century that while bureaucracy is in some instances an optimal organizational mode for a rationalized, industrial society, it has drawbacks. One is that public bureaucracies quit being about serving the public and focus instead on perpetuating themselves. This is exactly my experience with OASH. We spend exorbitant amounts of time in meetings and in generating repetitive and often meaningless data and reports to make our precinct of the bureaucracy look productive. None of this renders the slightest bit of assistance to ORI in handling allegations of misconduct or in promoting the responsible conduct of research. Instead, it sucks away time and resources that we might better use to meet our mission. Since Ive been here Ive been advised by my superiors that I had to make my bosses look good. Ive been admonished: Dave, you are a visionary leader but what we need here are team players. Recently, I was advised that if I wanted to be happy in government service, I had to lower my expectations. The one thing no one in OASH leadership has said to me in two years is how can we help ORI better serve the research community? Not once.
Think about this the next time you want to put the government in charge of something.
I believe there are a number of reasons for this. First, whereas in most organizations the front-line agencies that do the actual work, in our case protecting the integrity of millions of dollars of PHS-funded research, command the administrative support services to get the job done. In OASH it’s the exact opposite. The Op-Divs, as the front-line offices are called, get our budgets and then have to go hat-in-hand to the administrative support people in the “immediate office” of OASH to spend it, almost item by item. These people who are generally poorly informed about what ORI is and does decide whether our requests are “mission critical.”
On one occasion, I was invited to give a talk on research integrity and misconduct to a large group of AAAS fellows. I needed to spend $35 to convert some old cassette tapes to CDs for use in the presentation. The immediate office denied my request after a couple of days of noodling. A university did the conversion for me in twenty minutes, and refused payment when I told them it was for an educational purpose.
Second, the organizational culture of OASH’s immediate office is seriously flawed, in my opinion. The academic literature over the last twenty-five years on successful organizations highlights several characteristics: transparency, power-sharing or shared decision-making and accountability. If you invert these principles, you have an organization (OASH in this instance), which is secretive, autocratic and unaccountable.
In one instance, by way of illustration, I urgently needed to fill a vacancy for an ORI division director. I asked the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (your deputy) when I could proceed. She said there was a priority list. I asked where ORI’s request was on that list. She said the list was secret and that we weren’t on the top, but we weren’t on the bottom either. Sixteen months later we still don’t have a division director on board.
On another occasion I asked your deputy why you didn’t conduct an evaluation by the Op-Divs of the immediate office administrative services to try to improve them. She responded that that had been tried a few years ago and the results were so negative that no further evaluations have been conducted.
Third, there is the nature of the federal bureaucracy itself. The sociologist Max Weber observed in the early 20th century that while bureaucracy is in some instances an optimal organizational mode for a rationalized, industrial society, it has drawbacks. One is that public bureaucracies quit being about serving the public and focus instead on perpetuating themselves. This is exactly my experience with OASH. We spend exorbitant amounts of time in meetings and in generating repetitive and often meaningless data and reports to make our precinct of the bureaucracy look productive. None of this renders the slightest bit of assistance to ORI in handling allegations of misconduct or in promoting the responsible conduct of research. Instead, it sucks away time and resources that we might better use to meet our mission. Since I’ve been here I’ve been advised by my superiors that I had “to make my bosses look good.” I’ve been admonished: “Dave, you are a visionary leader but what we need here are team players.” Recently, I was advised that if I wanted to be happy in government service, I had to “lower my expectations.” The one thing no one in OASH leadership has said to me in two years is ‘how can we help ORI better serve the research community?’ Not once.
Top U.S. Scientific Misconduct Official Quits in Frustration With Bureaucracy | Science/AAAS | News
For the haters, it isn't from Fox.
Think about this the next time you want to put the government in charge of something.
I believe there are a number of reasons for this. First, whereas in most organizations the front-line agencies that do the actual work, in our case protecting the integrity of millions of dollars of PHS-funded research, command the administrative support services to get the job done. In OASH its the exact opposite. The Op-Divs, as the front-line offices are called, get our budgets and then have to go hat-in-hand to the administrative support people in the immediate office of OASH to spend it, almost item by item. These people who are generally poorly informed about what ORI is and does decide whether our requests are mission critical.
On one occasion, I was invited to give a talk on research integrity and misconduct to a large group of AAAS fellows. I needed to spend $35 to convert some old cassette tapes to CDs for use in the presentation. The immediate office denied my request after a couple of days of noodling. A university did the conversion for me in twenty minutes, and refused payment when I told them it was for an educational purpose.
Second, the organizational culture of OASHs immediate office is seriously flawed, in my opinion. The academic literature over the last twenty-five years on successful organizations highlights several characteristics: transparency, power-sharing or shared decision-making and accountability. If you invert these principles, you have an organization (OASH in this instance), which is secretive, autocratic and unaccountable.
In one instance, by way of illustration, I urgently needed to fill a vacancy for an ORI division director. I asked the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (your deputy) when I could proceed. She said there was a priority list. I asked where ORIs request was on that list. She said the list was secret and that we werent on the top, but we werent on the bottom either. Sixteen months later we still dont have a division director on board.
On another occasion I asked your deputy why you didnt conduct an evaluation by the Op-Divs of the immediate office administrative services to try to improve them. She responded that that had been tried a few years ago and the results were so negative that no further evaluations have been conducted.
Third, there is the nature of the federal bureaucracy itself. The sociologist Max Weber observed in the early 20th century that while bureaucracy is in some instances an optimal organizational mode for a rationalized, industrial society, it has drawbacks. One is that public bureaucracies quit being about serving the public and focus instead on perpetuating themselves. This is exactly my experience with OASH. We spend exorbitant amounts of time in meetings and in generating repetitive and often meaningless data and reports to make our precinct of the bureaucracy look productive. None of this renders the slightest bit of assistance to ORI in handling allegations of misconduct or in promoting the responsible conduct of research. Instead, it sucks away time and resources that we might better use to meet our mission. Since Ive been here Ive been advised by my superiors that I had to make my bosses look good. Ive been admonished: Dave, you are a visionary leader but what we need here are team players. Recently, I was advised that if I wanted to be happy in government service, I had to lower my expectations. The one thing no one in OASH leadership has said to me in two years is how can we help ORI better serve the research community? Not once.
Top U.S. Scientific Misconduct Official Quits in Frustration With Bureaucracy | Science/AAAS | News
For the haters, it isn't from Fox.
Are you challenging the Constitution? (we are a government based system)
I see it time and time again. People who hate our system of voting stating that we can't rely on our voters.........
I tend to think that THE PEOPLE run the country, not a select few of brainwashed individuals.
Think about this the next time you want to put the government in charge of something.
Top U.S. Scientific Misconduct Official Quits in Frustration With Bureaucracy | Science/AAAS | NewsI believe there are a number of reasons for this. First, whereas in most organizations the front-line agencies that do the actual work, in our case protecting the integrity of millions of dollars of PHS-funded research, command the administrative support services to get the job done. In OASH its the exact opposite. The Op-Divs, as the front-line offices are called, get our budgets and then have to go hat-in-hand to the administrative support people in the immediate office of OASH to spend it, almost item by item. These people who are generally poorly informed about what ORI is and does decide whether our requests are mission critical.
On one occasion, I was invited to give a talk on research integrity and misconduct to a large group of AAAS fellows. I needed to spend $35 to convert some old cassette tapes to CDs for use in the presentation. The immediate office denied my request after a couple of days of noodling. A university did the conversion for me in twenty minutes, and refused payment when I told them it was for an educational purpose.
Second, the organizational culture of OASHs immediate office is seriously flawed, in my opinion. The academic literature over the last twenty-five years on successful organizations highlights several characteristics: transparency, power-sharing or shared decision-making and accountability. If you invert these principles, you have an organization (OASH in this instance), which is secretive, autocratic and unaccountable.
In one instance, by way of illustration, I urgently needed to fill a vacancy for an ORI division director. I asked the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (your deputy) when I could proceed. She said there was a priority list. I asked where ORIs request was on that list. She said the list was secret and that we werent on the top, but we werent on the bottom either. Sixteen months later we still dont have a division director on board.
On another occasion I asked your deputy why you didnt conduct an evaluation by the Op-Divs of the immediate office administrative services to try to improve them. She responded that that had been tried a few years ago and the results were so negative that no further evaluations have been conducted.
Third, there is the nature of the federal bureaucracy itself. The sociologist Max Weber observed in the early 20th century that while bureaucracy is in some instances an optimal organizational mode for a rationalized, industrial society, it has drawbacks. One is that public bureaucracies quit being about serving the public and focus instead on perpetuating themselves. This is exactly my experience with OASH. We spend exorbitant amounts of time in meetings and in generating repetitive and often meaningless data and reports to make our precinct of the bureaucracy look productive. None of this renders the slightest bit of assistance to ORI in handling allegations of misconduct or in promoting the responsible conduct of research. Instead, it sucks away time and resources that we might better use to meet our mission. Since Ive been here Ive been advised by my superiors that I had to make my bosses look good. Ive been admonished: Dave, you are a visionary leader but what we need here are team players. Recently, I was advised that if I wanted to be happy in government service, I had to lower my expectations. The one thing no one in OASH leadership has said to me in two years is how can we help ORI better serve the research community? Not once.
For the haters, it isn't from Fox.
Are you challenging the Constitution? (we are a government based system)
I see it time and time again. People who hate our system of voting stating that we can't rely on our voters.........
I tend to think that THE PEOPLE run the country, not a select few of brainwashed individuals.
