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“[O] n day one, I will lay out my leadership vision directly to all VA employees on a national video conference with all VA sites.”

– Robert McDonald, Testimony to Congress, July 22, 2014

Well, the public wasn’t invited to that National Video Conference, so we don’t know what was said or who saw it.

But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that McDonald acted like a true quarterback and ran out to the huddle, and called the play.

Let’s assume he laid out his leadership vision so directly that VA employees took it to heart.  What did they do in that first month?

 

#1: The VA Branded Veterans as a Fictional Character that Lives in a Trash Can.

Haven’t heard that story?  That’s what YOUR VA thinks of you, my Brother and Sister Veterans:  You are a Grouchy monster that lives in Trash.

The sad thing is, a good number of Veterans are relying on Food Banks to survive.  I’ll bet many more are eating out of trash cans because the VA cannot properly help reintegrate them into society with a sustainable wage.

And we already know that many Veterans’ claims and health records often end up lost misplaced, or in the Trash.

Many Veterans feel like the VA treats them like Trash when they need help.

22 of brothers and sisters throw their life in the Trash Can every day.  226 of those Veterans that took their own life in 2013 were in Arizona – the state where the VA was FIRST discovered to put Veterans on Secret VA Wait Lists.

And not unsurprisingly, we learned in August 2014 that one of their lead attorneys may have directed employees to shred evidence of wrongdoing.

 

#2: VA Employees Committed Sexual Assault, Ran Drug Rings, and Took Veterans to Crack Houses.

In mid-August 2014, the Washington Times reported that a VA employee sexually assaulted a 16 year girl that was volunteering at a VA facility in Alabama.  As reported on the Veterans Law Blog, this is not a one-off incident – for a decade, the President, the GAO, Congress, and the American public have known about the problem of  Rape and Sexual Assault by VA Employees.

That same month, America learned that  VA employee brought a Veteran – recovering from a drug addiction – to a crack house to buy drugs, dodge the urine tests, and more.

At the end of August, we learned that a VA employee in New York was running a Cocaine Distribution ring using the VHA mail system.

(I PROMISE you, that this distribution ring goes WAY beyond New York.  If the Feds are truly investigating this, then soon we will hear about a massive drug distribution ring in the VHA/VBA mail that reaches around the US – from VA facilities in South Dakota to Texas, and from Oklahoma to Florida. Mark my words.)

Drugs and rape – this sounds like “Business as Usual”.

It  doesn’t sound like a Leadership Vision.

Is the REAL Vision of VA Secretary McDonald that of “Sustainable Mediocrity”?

Nothing against Mr. McDonald.  I’m sure he is a good person, and I probably wouldn’t mind having a beer with him.

But I worry that he isn’t going to lead the VA anywhere. I’m worried the reverse is going to happen – I worry that the VA Bureaucracy is going to lead him right off a cliff.

Why?

In a recent speech, Mr. McDonald outlined his theory on Employment at the VA.  He  pitched his theory as a way to make VA employees “….[strive] together to make our Department the high-performing customer service organization Veterans deserve and the American people rightly expect.”

What was this great theory? He called it Sustainable Accountability.  And it can be summed up in one sentence – quoting directly from Mr. McDonald:

“We are going to rate the relative performance of employees – everyone cannot be the best.”

That sentence angers me.

Tell someone you have low expectations, and they will deliver low quality.

Hell, the whole management philosophy of successful corporations  is that you set HIGH expectations for employees and demand that they all live up to them.

Let me ask Mr. McDonald – a  fellow Veteran – these questions:

* Every day I was in the military -and frankly, every day since –  I strive to be the Best I can be. Didn’t you?

* I demanded my troops were the best  that they could be – and if they weren’t I cut them loose.  Didn’t you?

* My friends and clients that served in combat did their best to accomplish their mission and bring as many of their soldiers home as possible.  Didn’t you?

* I have fired employees at my Firm that can’t “cut the mustard” and be the best at what I ask them to be.  Didn’t you do that at Proctor and Gamble?

* Didn’t you tell Congress you were going to make the VA the “BEST” at delivering services and benefits to Veterans?  Or did we all just hear what we wanted to hear?

Those are all rhetorical questions.  Here is the one that I really want to have an answer to:

Mr. McDonald – given what we ask our soldiers, sailors and airmen to do in service of our country (we ask them to be the BEST) –  why can’t everyone at the VA be the best?

Expecting anything less than that is telling the Federal Bureaucracy that you accept mediocrity.

And the VA Bureaucracy excels at giving America exactly that.

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