Board Eyes Only
September 5, 2014
From: Sean Sullivan, Board Member
To:

All Board Members

Subject: The state of the agency.
The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results are in, and they are dismal.
Drastic, immediate action is needed. The mission of this agency is vital to our nation. Poor leadership
has damaged the agency’s ability to perform that mission.
The Chairman must step down from chair. New leadership is necessary. Without new leadership, the
agency will continue to degrade.
The latest FEVS results continue a downward trend that began early in the Chairman’s tenure as the
agency’s chief executive officer. A trend of selective responses is as follows:
#
54
61
66

Question
Senior Leaders maintain high standards of honesty and integrity
Level of respect for senior leaders
Satisfied with the policies and practices of senior leaders

‘11
89.3
85.3
81.3

‘12
88.1
77.7
71.0

‘13
64.6
44.4
30.4

‘14
32.5
23.4
15.7

The Employee Committee that investigated last year’s results determined that attitudes were most
negative toward the Technical Director and the Chairman. [“The general consensus was that
management (Office Directors and the Chairman based on question 10) did not value staff input and
managed staff efforts too closely”; “When asked to identify levels of management that create concerns
related to generating motivation and commitment, most of the respondents from OTD identified the
Chairman and/or the Technical Director.”] The Chairman cannot fix the problem. He is the problem.
In addition to the survey results, the Chairman’s tenure as chief executive officer has coincided with the
resignation of a Board Member in protest over the way the agency was run, sustained discord with key
congressional staff on both sides of the political aisle, and – most ominously – diminished respect for the
Board as well as diminished attention paid to the Board from the highest levels of the Department of
Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The staffing of the Senior Executive Service positions over the past three years – a responsibility of the
Chairman alone – has been an unmitigated disaster. There are eleven positions, and four are currently
vacant. In the past three years, there have been two firings, two forced reassignments that are
appropriately characterized as demotions, one voluntary demotion, three departures and four
retirements. All of the departures and retirements that have occurred since I arrived were a result of the
employee’s unhappiness. Of the seven SESs currently serving, three have demonstrated sustained poor
performance warranting an adverse personnel action. This issue – the staffing of SES positions –
threatens the viability of the agency all by itself.
The technical staff has lost ten people within the past year alone. That is an annual attrition rate
exceeding ten percent. Many of the departures were not retirement eligible; they simply left for greener

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 Board Eyes Only
pastures. The budget submission to Congress in March of this year projected FTE usage this year at 116,
but the current FY16 proposal drops that to 107. The staff is voting with their feet.
I have since April written several memoranda (this is the eighth) outlining problems within the agency. I
have pointed out that the Office Directors are performing poorly and they are not being held
accountable. I have pointed out that the staff is not allowed to voice their opinions in the Board room;
they are intimidated by the threat of retribution if they do so. I have pointed out where the agency takes
one position, but does another (e.g., we supposedly value resolution staff-to-staff, yet we ‘bean count’
Board letters and make the production of a letter a perceived necessity for a positive performance
appraisal). Through these memoranda I have pointed out recent examples of some of the very issues the
staff complained about in last year’s FEVS, as identified by the Employee Committee report dated
January 2014. My memoranda have been met with denial, and a continued lack of corrective action.
The Chairman is not even capable of seeing the problems, and unless he can see them, he has no hope
of fixing them. When faced with bad survey results or reports of employee complaints, the Chairman
reaches premature conclusions that are unsupported by the evidence. He then asks questions of staff
members in a manner that reveals the premature conclusion he has already reached. The staff fears
negative career consequences for speaking freely in front of the Chairman and, as a result, staff
members tend to ‘hold their fire’ when responding directly to the Chairman. The Chairman is a poor
listener and regardless of what is said, what he hears reinforces his premature, incorrect conclusion.
The evidence bears this out. For example, the employee committee reported in January that “there
were many comments expressing concern that the ‘Open Door’ policy that encouraged staff members to
directly talk to Board Members has been effectively eliminated by the TD.” They also wrote,
“Communications are stifled between the Technical Staff and the Board. The Technical Director is
predisposed to his own opinions and biases.” Via memoranda dated May 15, 2014 and May 16, 2014, I
provided two specific instances where the Technical Director stifled staff communications to the Board.
In an email response to me on the first instance, the Chairman said he talked to 8 staff members and
“none of the staff I spoke to shared your focus or perception that the Technical Director is preventing
them from expressing differing professional opinions (DPO’s). When the staff briefs the Board, they
present a “consensus opinion.” I want to know what the staff collectively thinks.” He also wrote “The
staff I interviewed felt they were free to speak to the Board. And, of course, they discuss things with
their managers first. That just makes sense to me. And, of course, they need a good reason to speak to
Board Members. That just makes sense to me. (Staff member identified in my memo) shared that this
was simply chain of command.” In email reply to the second instance, the Chairman said “I have spoken
with (staff members involved) and it’s true that they did not initially support the communication. In the
end, they were Ok with it. However, they were not ‘overruled by the Technical Director.’”
So, the history here is clear. The FEVS taken in the spring of 2013 was very troublesome. The Employee
Committee investigated and in January 2014 found the TD stifled communications to the Board. I found
specific instances of the same in May 2014. The FEVS survey results from the survey taken between May
5, 2014 and June 13, 2014 are drastically lower than the 2013 results. And yet the Chairman talks to the
staff and concludes that I am mistaken, and that no problem exists.
As I have stated in our hearings on DOE safety culture, a leader who is surprised by the results of a
confidential employee survey has just found the biggest problem.
I write this because I have a duty to point out what is right for the agency and the country. Only a
change of leadership at the top can fix this.
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