Managing Risk and Performance: A Guide for Government Decision Makers

Chapter 3

Introduction to Risk Management for Government Managers

Thomas H. Stanton

Fellow, Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Effective risk management can help determine whether agencies and their leaders and personnel are successful or not. Upon taking office, savvy federal appointees to top positions conduct a survey of potential risks that could derail their agency's programs or policy initiatives. This is part of the pattern of fostering information flow that helps capable political officials to protect their positions and interests. By knowing in advance the strengths and vulnerabilities of their agencies, political appointees can increase their chances of achieving important policy goals without appearing before a hostile congressional committee to explain some unexpected failure.

Civil servants have a longer time horizon. For them effective risk management means that they may encourage prudent practices in their agencies' programs, processes, and cultures. It can be rewarding to spend one's career at an agency that knows how to manage its programs and risks; by contrast, agencies caught unawares by failure may experience large-scale flight of their officials into retirement or to more capable agencies. (For a review of differences in perspective between political appointees and career civil servants, see Maccoby 2006.)

Risk management is less developed in its applications to government than it is for the private sector. This book accepts ...