TED Newsmakers: Samantha Power to become ambassador to the UN, Jennifer Pahlka joins White House staff

News Samantha Power (left) and Jennifer Pahlka (right) speak at TED2008 and TED2012, respectively.

Today, Barack Obama will be naming a new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations – and sources say that it will be Samantha Power, outspoken anti-genocide official and TED2008 speaker. Power is expected to replace Susan Rice, who sources say will be named national security advisor.

Samantha Power on a complicated heroPower is a fascinating choice for this very important role. She’s been a longtime aide to Obama; when the president established an Atrocities Prevention Board in 2012, he named Power as its chair. Power also served as the National Security Staff’s Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights from the beginning of Obama’s term through February 2013, when she left to spend time with her husband and two small children. A statement at the time said she was “likely to return to the administration.”

Power’s TED Talk gives us the feeling that she will deeply embrace her role as UN ambassador. At TED2008, she spoke with intense passion about the rise of the anti-genocide movement in the United States in recent years. She also tells the story of Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil, a UN diplomat for 34 years who was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2003. Listen as she tells the story of how he tiptoed across difficult moral lines to save lives in the world’s most broken places, and the lessons she learned from his career.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Pahlka — founder and executive director of Code for America and a TED2012 speaker – announced big news of her own. She is joining the staff of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, serving as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Government Innovation for the a year.Jennifer Pahlka: Coding a better government In a blog post, she writes that she’s taking the role for two reasons –  to help the government embrace technological innovations, and to gain a deeper understanding of what it’s like to work inside government for when she returns to Code for America.

We’ll be closely watching what Pahlka does in this new role. In her TED Talk, she asks people who’ve given up on government to give their withdrawal a closer look. “Technology is making it possible to fundamentally reframe the function of government in a way that can actually scale by strengthening civil society,” Pahlka says. “And there’s a generation out there that’s grown up on the Internet, and they know that it’s not that hard to do things together – you just have to architect the systems the right way.”

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How to Manage a Staff That’s Overworked

There are few managers out there today who are not coping with this issue.  Many of us are working on departments that are expected to be more productive with a lower headcount.  However, when your staff begins to complain that they’re overworked, you have received a dangerous signal that they are burning out and may look elsewhere when the market improves.

A good first step in managing your team’s workload is to sit down with each employee individually and list the tasks they should be completing on a daily basis.  Note who is authorized to delegate work to them, and the type of assignments they should be prepared to accept both from you and your fellow managers.   If there are assignments coming in to the employee that you don’t feel they should be working on, take it up with the other manager so that the employee is not caught in the middle.

In the event that the employee is overwhelmed with tasks that are in their jurisdiction, help them prioritize the ones that are most important and backburner the others.  Encourage the employee to be open and honest with you about whether or not your expectations and timelines are reasonable.  Make sure they have the tools necessary to do their jobs well, and that you try to clear obstacles from their path.  If the job itself is causing burnout, switch things up as much as you can, and support your staff taking on new and varied responsibilities.

It helps to reassure your staff that work will always be there, and that they should devote energy to their lives outside of work.  As long as they are getting results, don’t balk if they leave early to hit the gym or take a class.  Don’t forget to model work/life balance as much as you can, because if your employees see that you devote adequate time to your personal life, they will be more likely to follow suit.

When your staff is worked to the bone, your first instinct might be to pay them more to keep them going.  In the absence of a formal raise, which may only be given at a certain time of year, you look to the bonus.  Surprisingly, though, most organizational psychologists will tell you that money is not a top employee motivator and that you should make an effort to customize rewards and recognition to the individual.  This might take the form of a comp day or a dinner out on the company, or even just a thoughtful e-mail.

Your reports may be the type to appreciate organization-wide recognition, so consider making use of your company’s “employee of the month” program or annual award ceremony.  If an employee successfully finishes a project, put an announcement on the Intranet site or in the e-newsletter, and plan an impromptu celebration.  Also, build in opportunities to acknowledge everyone on the team by writing down the dates of your employees’ birthdays and work anniversaries and taking time out of the business day to observe them.

Finally, it can never hurt to stop by your employee’s office every so often and reiterate your thanks for how hard they’ve worked during a hectic time.  By showing that you care about them and vocalizing your appreciation, they will likely continue to perform well and stay loyal to you when the tide turns.

Alexandra Levit is a career and workplace expert at the Intuit Quickbase Blog , a daily source for advice on how to be exceptional at your job. You can follow her on Twitter at @alevit.

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