Episode 9 of the Government Mechanic is the first of our special episodes called “Under the Hood” where we look at the key elements of any organization: mission statement, strategic goals, priority actions, performance metrics and even communication style. In this episode, looking under the hood of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is Brenda Cochran, a dairy farmer for 50 years; Kathleen Monahan, an organizational consultant with 40 years of government experience; and Dr. Lynn Sandra Kahn, organizational psychologist in the federal government for more than 35 years and host of The Government Mechanic. The conversation concludes that family farmers are not represented in the USDA strategic plan at all and the plan itself is poorly written. Where, we asked, are the performance measures?
