David Walker, Comptroller General for the US, has been making news lately with his "fiscal wake up tour" across the country and is quoted in this most recent government failure.
Contributing to the problems at those agencies is the difficulty of valuing some of the complex, one-of-a-kind systems they own. After new accounting rules for property went into effect in 2003, about $325.1 billion in military equipment appeared on the books for the first time, according to a Treasury Department analysis.
This is something that I also find symptomatic within corporations when it comes to talent management and professional development....everyone has their own unique system or way of measuring (if they do it at all).
This leads to the inability of a professional to create long term, transferable value from one employer to the next. Not only is this bad for the professional, but puts a hiring company in some what of a "guessing game" when hiring...especially if the hiring process was transactional and not one based upon a longer term relationship where the two parties could "feel each other out."
Perhaps, within industries themselves (rather than from company to company), we could get to a point where we could define successes or be able to identify where a professional is "above par, at par, or below par" amongst their professional peers when it comes to wanted skill sets or traits. Preferably, in such a way that a "leader board" could be created. To use a sports metaphor, it would be like golf... not like baseball.
Russell Glass
Ryan Money
Dan Hilbert
Jeff Hunter
Gerry Crispin
Richard Florida