Paper #1

In this Assignment you will compose a written “mock” memo. You will pretend you are in a management position and write a memo to your employees based on the following scenario:

Scenario:

Imagine you are the director of a state department that employs 1,500 people. Because of state budget constraints, the governor has proposed an early-retirement incentive package that would affect nearly 20% of your department’s employees — meaning that in 6 short months, your department will likely be losing around 300 employees from all management levels — from the executive office to the front lines. The governor has instructed all department heads to plan for this wave of early retirements, and to prepare for effective succession and knowledge transfer.

Your Memo:

In a memorandum to the governor, describe at least four distinct organization management challenges raised by the early retirement proposal, and apply one theory of effective management to each management challenge as you lay out your department’s plan for preparing for effective succession and knowledge transfer. These management challenges have been examined in your readings for this unit. Given this, please use those readings as a foundation for your memo.

Additionally, imagine the governor is contemplating privatizing your state agency. Address the issue of what kinds of management challenges might come from the governor attempting to privatize your state department.

How would this new private-sector department deal with a similar retirement issue?

Compare those private sector management issues to your above-discussed public sector management challenges.

Paper #2

Source: Newton-Small, J. (2011, July 23). The inside story of Obama and Boehner’s second failed grand bargain. Retrieved from http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/23/the-inside-story-of-obama-and-boehners-second-failed-grand-bargain/

After you have completed reading the above-cited article, write an essay discussing the various leadership theories implied by the article. Specifically, you should identify three leaders in the article and discuss a leadership approach/style that would move each of those three leaders close toward a so-called “grand bargain.”

No approach/style will be a cure-all, so you need to use your best judgment from all you have learned in the previous units. Be sure to identify the historical context and associated practices of each leadership approach/style/theory discussed. Also, use specific examples when making a point. Your essay should be grounded in the facts of the article, as well as the readings.