Government Can Perform with Seth Harris ILR '83

In May 2009, Seth Harris ILR '83 became the Deputy U.S. Secretary of Labor and the Chief Operating Office of the U.S. Department of Labor --- an $85 billion, 17,000-employee federal Cabinet agency. He found a complex organization without a direction, a plan, or effective accountability and management systems in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Using aggressive strategic planning, performance management, and performance measurement, Harris brought the department's 23 operating units together and led a transformation of the Labor Department into an effective, evidence-based, data-driven government leader in performance management and measurement and program evaluation. Despite well-publicized failures in various parts of the federal government over the past six years, Harris makes the case that government can be a high-performance organization and tells the story of how the U.S. Department of Labor produced dramatically better outcomes for the people and organizations it serves.

Seth Harris is a Distinguished Scholar at Cornell's School of Industrial & Labor Relations and Counsel at Dentons, a global law firm. He is a nationally recognized teacher, scholar, and practitioner of labor and employment law and policy. He served four and one-half years as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor, and six months as the Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor and a member of President Obama's Cabinet. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, he was a professor and director of labor and employment law programs at New York Law School. He also served in a variety of policymaking roles in the Labor Department for almost seven years during the Clinton Administration advising both secretaries of labor Robert Reich and Alexis Herman. Professor Harris is a graduate of New York University School of Law.

6:00-6:30pm, cash bar reception; 6:30pm lecture, gratis. Members and guests are invited to dine with the speaker at The Club following the lecture. The cost is $40 per person, inclusive of tax, gratuity and one glass of wine with dinner. Dinner reservations are required 48 hours prior to the program. Same-day cancellations and no shows will be charged.