Weekly Roundup: March 17-21,2025

Leadership

5 Techniques to Build a More Powerful Speaking Voice. In an era where the human elements of leadership matter more than ever, mastering your “vocal presence” isn’t just an enhancement to executive capability—it’s an essential dimension of how you inspire, connect with, and mobilize others toward shared goals. Through conscious practice of breath coordination and vocal techniques, you can develop a more commanding, authentic, and engaging presence that will resonate deeply with your audience. The article outlines five simple, functional exercises to improve vocal presence.

Employees Won’t Trust AI If They Don’t Trust Their Leaders. AI adoption in the workplace is growing rapidly, but employees remain skeptical due to concerns over trust and benevolence—both in AI and in leadership. The most effective approach is an “AI-leader combination,” where leadership fosters AI literacy, facilitates open discussions, and frames AI as a supportive tool for career growth. By aligning technological transparency with empathetic leadership, companies can cultivate both cognitive and emotional trust, ensuring successful AI adoption.

How to Learn from a Failed Negotiation. Even the best negotiators sometimes fail. When that happens, it is important to consider went wrong so you can do better in the future. Start by understanding the types of failure you can experience, why you’ve failed, and how much it matters. Then follow a five-step process: accept the failure, analyze why it happened, consider what lessons apply to future negotiations, pinpoint and fix your weaknesses, and, finally, come back to the table with confidence.

Artificial Intelligence

VA’s CAIO Looks to Scale AI Use Cases Across Agency in 2025. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continues to expand its use of artificial intelligence, with Chief AI Officer (CAIO) Charles Worthington stating that the agency plans to scale AI use cases across the department in 2025. Worthington – who also serves as the VA’s chief technology officer – said the number of AI use cases in the VA’s inventory increased by over 100 from 2023 to 2024, and he predicts that number will only grow. “The big theme for 2025 is to scale useful AI products across the VA,” Worthington said. “We’re focusing on trying to figure out what are some of the VA’s most pressing challenges and then line up where we think AI can help with those challenges.”

DAF Highlights Recent AI Implementation Successes, Challenges. The Department of the Air Force (DAF) has undergone significant changes recently to automate its procurement processes and address risk management issues. DAF has used NIPRGPT – an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) generative AI experiment – across its operations in the Space Force and Air Force. “As of right now, today, every Department of the Air Force employee can access that on their computer without an individual cost of that unit,”. The DAF has used many of its generative AI tools to conduct risk assessments in procurement processes. AI has allowed the DAF to reduce its risk assessments to occur between two and three hours, rather than days.

Technology

Army Launches 2.0 Update of Unified Network Plan. The U.S. Army has rolled out an upgraded version of its Army Unified Network Plan, advancing from unifying the network to operationalizing and continuously modernizing the network through 2026 and beyond.

The Army Unified Network Plan 2.0 (AUNP) moves beyond phase one of the service’s  2021 plan, which the Army completed in 2023. This new iteration outlines the goals for fiscal year (FY) 2024 to 2026 – labeled as phase two – to integrate advanced capabilities to support joint and multi-domain operations, while also setting a path for ongoing transformation beyond 2026 – phase three – to ensure the network remains adaptable in the face of evolving technology and emerging threats.

GSA’s FedRAMP Revamp: ‘Throughput’ Boost Meets Cut-Down Staff. The General Services Administration (GSA) is set to unveil its plan to revamp how the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) operates with a goal of increasing the pace of authorizations, leaving sources familiar with the program wondering how that end will be achieved with recent cuts to the FedRAMP workforce.

IRS Flagged for IT Controls, IT Modernization Misspending. The IRS is coming under fire from two government watchdogs that say the agency needs stronger IT controls to safeguard taxpayer data, and that the agency misspent funds designated for business systems modernization. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report identified five new deficiencies in internal control involved with IRS financial reporting, and that four of them related to information systems and are sensitive in nature. While GAO officials provided limited public detail about the deficiencies – which were uncovered during an audit of the IRS’s fiscal year 2024 financial statements – the GAO report makes clear that the consequences could be weighty if the issues are not corrected.

GAO Details Cloud, Process Automation Efforts. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is taking steps to use cloud-based services and implement automated processes into its capabilities that the government watchdog uses to assess federal agencies’ operations. Dave Hinchman, GAO’s director of IT and cybersecurity, said the organization is taking steps to integrate cloud technology and more automation to improve its workload efficiency and combat exposures to cybersecurity threats. “This is looking at proactive cybersecurity tools that can track anomalies that are spotted in the network, as well as blocking malicious attacks, which every federal agency deals with,”

Space Force to Offload Legacy Capabilities for Commercial, Allied Tech. The U.S. Space Force is strategizing a shift in its approach to space technology acquisition, planning to offload legacy capabilities in favor of commercially available and allied technologies, according to a senior official. “We are looking at offloading some of our legacy capabilities to commercial or to our allies,” Vice Chief of Space Operations, Gen. Michael Guetlein, The Space Force’s new space tech acquisition approach comes as the services prepare to deliver proposed cuts to their upcoming fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget request.

Risk and Resilience

Trump ‘National Resilience Strategy’ Pushing Risk Management to States. President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) on March 18 that seeks to shift some responsibilities for risk management from the Federal government to state and local governments through the creation of a new “National Resilience Strategy” and a review of government’s critical infrastructure and preparedness policies.  The National Resilience Strategy is set to be published within the next 90 days, according to Trump’s EO issued on Tuesday evening, and would outline priorities and methods to improve the United States’ resilience to disasters – including those caused by cyberattacks. Following its debut, the strategy will be reviewed and updated at least every four years, according to the EO. 

Workforce

DoD Cuts 21K Civilian Employees, 40K More to Meet Reduction Goal. The Department of Defense (DoD) has cut nearly 21,000 civilian employees as part of its ongoing workforce reduction effort, with about 40,000 more cuts needed to meet its goal of trimming up to 8 percent of its civilian workforce, according to a Pentagon official. Overall, the DoD aims to reduce its civilian workforce by 5 to 8 percent. This would cut 50,000 to 60,000 positions from the department’s nearly 900,000 civilian employees. The 21,000 cuts stem from employees voluntarily joining the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), which has been the largest part of the DoD’s workforce reduction effort.

White House Nominates Sean Plankey as CISA Director. The White House has officially nominated Sean Plankey to become the next director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is a component of the Department of Homeland Security. The administration’s pick of Plankey to head CISA had been the subject of off-the-record talk among cybersecurity professionals for the past few weeks. Plankey served at the tail end of the first Trump administration as assistant director for infrastructure security at CISA.

Federal wildland firefighters secure permanent pay raise, but work is ‘far from over’  After years of pushing for pay reforms, federal wildland firefighters have secured a permanent pay increase through the spending package Congress passed last week. The continuing resolution, contained a provision to create new pay tables for all federal wildland firefighters, including all temporary and seasonal employees.

Reorganization

Trump orders a plan to dismantle the Education Department while keeping some core functions. President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress. Republicans said they will introduce legislation to achieve that. The order says the education secretary will, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.” Trump said his administration will close the department beyond its “core necessities,” preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants, and money for children with disabilities.

Housing and Federal Lands

Interior Department offers buyouts, early outs to staff as it looks to build housing on federal lands. The Trump administration has launched an initiative to identify federal lands suitable for building affordable housing, with two agencies forming a partnership to develop the plan. The departments of Interior and Housing and Urban Development will tap into government-managed, “underutilized” lands by transferring them to states and localities to build housing. Leaders of the agencies noted that Interior controls more than 500 million acres of land that could be used to address the shortfall of 7 million housing units in the United States. 

THIS WEEK @ THE CENTER 

RECENT BLOGS

• Case Studies in Resilience: A Future Shocks Challenge Grant Competition by Dan Chenok. Blog Co-Authors: Joseph P. Mitchell, Director of Strategic Initiatives & International Programs, National Academy of Public Administration, Cristina Caballe Fuguet, Vice President, Global Public Sector IBM, and Dave Zaharchuk, Research Director, Thought Leadership, IBM Institute for Business Value. To help government move forward, the National Academy of Public Administration, IBM Center for the Business of Government, and IBM Institute for Business Value are announcing a new and second round of the Future Shocks Challenge Grant competition.
• Building Bridges Through Disagreement: Leadership Lessons from Conflict Resilience by Michael J. Keegan. I recently had the privilege of interviewing Bob Bordone and Joel Salinas, MD, on The Business of Government Hour to discuss their new book, Conflict Resilience. In this post, I’ll unpack the key themes from our conversation, distill leadership lessons from their book, and provide recommendations for how government executives can apply these tools to lead more effectively through conflict.

ICYMI – Conflict Resilience: A Conversation with Robert Bordone and Joel Salinas M.D. This week Michael Keegan welcomes authors Bob Bordone and Joel Salinas, M.D., to discuss insights from their new book, Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In. They explore core elements of conflict resilience and offer practices and skills to grow from disagreement.