Public Sector Careers

Dear HBR:

Harvard Business Review

Careers, Business/management, Work, Advice, Harvard, Help, Mentor, Workplace, Business, Management, Challenges, Entrepreneurship, Hbr, Office, Business/careers, Business/entrepreneurship

4.6 • 782 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are your workplace dilemmas different because you’re in the public sector? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Bernie Banks, a retired U.S. Army general and a professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. They talk through what to do when you want to effect change as a middle manager in the military, you’re battling misperceptions of public-sector work as you switch to the private sector, or you want to boost the morale of your team of government workers.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Dear HBR from Harvard Business Review.
0:03.9	I'm Dan McGinn.
0:04.9	And I'm Alison Beard.
0:12.3	Work can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.
0:15.3	We don't need to let the conflicts get us down.
0:17.8	That's where Dear HBR comes in.
0:19.9	We take your questions, look at the research,
0:22.5	talk to the experts, and help you move forward.
0:32.5	Today we're answering questions from workers in the public sector with Bernie Banks. He's a retired U.S.
0:38.0	Army General General General, and a professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern
0:41.3	University. Professor Banks, General Banks, thanks for coming on the show. Well, thank you very much.
0:46.3	It is an honor to be with everyone today. So what's the biggest misconception about government
0:52.3	work? One, that government doesn't have a profit motive, and consequently, the stakes associated with the decisions they make are not as great.
1:02.1	Two, that government moves at an inherently slower speed than industry.
1:07.5	Three, that people in government service don't face the specter of being hired or laid off to the same extent as those in the private sector.
1:19.9	And then finally, that those who opt to go to the government sector aren't as qualified as their counterparts in the private sector.
1:29.5	Why do you think that belief is pervasive?
1:32.6	Because people tend to stay in the government sector to a greater extent for a career,
1:39.5	whereas in the private sector, people don't stay with the same company.
1:43.3	I find interesting the idea that the public sector is all lumped together because obviously
1:48.1	a state transportation department is very different than the Army or the State Department,
1:54.5	right?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Harvard Business Review, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Harvard Business Review and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.