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lesson.docxIntroduction
Topics to be covered include:
· Reinventing government
· New Public Management
· New Public Administration
· Managing change
· Transformational leadership
Public administration and the function of running the government bureaucracy did not get challenged until 1992 when the concept of reinventing government was proposed. Prior to that the model of a hierarchical, rule-bound, professional bureaucracy was in place from Washington, D.C. down through every city in the country. While budgeting had undergone some adjustments and management styles and what constituted evidence were discussed and challenged, the fundamental operations of government did not change. Reinventing government challenged the public sector to behave more like a business and adopt some competitive and market-driven principles of management and operation. Some people were excited about the possibility of this reinvention and others were quite threatened because of the radical change. We will look at the concept of reinventing government, how it works, and what needs to be in place in order for it to be implemented and show results. We also will look at how reinventing government (the New Public Management) compares to the more familiar adjustments that came out of the 1960s and 1970s (New Public Administration). Finally, we will look at how change occurs in management and some of the transformational ideas in leadership and operating government including collaboration and e-government.
What is Reinventing Government?
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· Citizens as Customers
Osborne and Gaebler (1992) created a sensation when they proclaimed that public sector administration needed an overhaul. Their book, Reinventing Government, set out the principles for how to make government more like a business and thus make government more efficient and effective. While this was not a new concept, their call to reinvent the concept of government hinged on an entirely new construct. They suggested that citizens were in fact customers and should be treated as such. They recommended new alignments of public leadership and management that focused on the concept of steering, not rowing, which eschewed strong bureaucratic structures for a nimble form of leadership that lead the organization in a direction but did not focus on the actual heavy lifting. That was left to the front line managers to decide how to grow and accomplish their goals. Their principles were taken on by the Clinton administration and leaders at all levels of government and “gained ascendancy in political circles because they altered the terms of discourse about government management and made new kinds of coalitions possible. RG [reinventing government] ideas sought to restore public confidence in government” (Saint-Martin, 2006, p.577).
New Public Management
Osborne and Gaebler (1992) created ten principles that shaped their plan for how to reinvent government using entrepreneurial-styled leadership and inventing new structures to implement the new ideas. Their 10 principles are outlined, one in each chapter, in their now famous book, Reinventing Government.
10 PRINCIPLES - REINVENTING GOVERNMENT
CATALYTIC GOVERNMENTSteering rather than rowing.
COMMUNITY-OWNED GOVERNMENT Empowering rather than serving.
COMPETITIVE GOVERNMENTInjecting competitiveness into service delivery.
MISSION-DRIVEN GOVERNMENTTransforming rule-driven organization.
RESULTS-ORIENTED GOVERNMENTFunding outcomes, not inputs.
CUSTOMER-DRIVEN GOVERNMENTMeeting the needs of the customer, not the bureaucracy.
ENTERPRISING GOVERNMENT Earning rather than spending.
ANTICIPATORY GOVERNMENT Prevention rather than cure.
DECENTRALIZED GOVERNMENTFrom hierarchy to participation and teamwork.
MARKET-ORIENTED GOVERNMENTLeveraging change through the market
In these principles, it is evident that all the structural and administrative rules on which public administration was based were under siege. Reinventing government was just that - a way to rethink how the public sector operates its service delivery, interface with citizens, and its day-to-day approach to governing. This was a radical set of tenets that shook the world of public administration. Let’s look at a few of these key principles to get a sense of what was being proposed.
Transforming to New Public Management
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· Steering Rather Than Rowing
Steering rather than rowing means that government is expected to be a catalyst for new approaches to delivering services. It cannot do this effectively if it is constantly in the mode of delivery. Instead, this principle focuses on new techniques that enable services to be delivered with less effort and more nimbly. By concentrating on how it’s done, rather than doing it, administrative leaders are providing a catalyst for new approaches that will make service delivery more effective. Chief among these ideas is to contract out to private and nonprofit organizations to actually provide services. The government would be in the business of defining services and ensuring that they are delivered equitably and responsively. This is a radical departure from the expectation that government delivers services, it does things that can be measured, and it trains workers to deliver those services and perform those activities. The implications for downsizing were significant and challenging to a system that had moved in the same direction for over 100 years.
Entrepreneurial Government
Reform in government is not new and previous lessons have discussed numerous recommendations for improving management and administration in the public sector. Reinventing government was a rethinking of how government should view itself and how the public should view government. Equating government with a business was a new concept that went beyond the original ideas of scientific management and others who wanted more business-based methods to be incorporated as bureaucratic norms. Government as a business meant that it would need to be entrepreneurial, not rule-bound. It would need to have a different relationship with the public, not relate to the public with red tape. It would frame the realm of public services as selections, like products, that would be chosen and not expect one size to fit all. This was a revolutionary idea in public management.
Citizens as Customers
Public managers had a difficult time taking on this shift and some were not clear on how to do so.“There was this sense that the real problem was that good people were trapped in a bad system and that freeing administrators to do what they knew how to do best would yield vast improvements. What was not part of the debate was the role that legislatures might have played in creating those constraints, to begin with” (Buntin, 2016)
Osborne and Gaebler suggested that citizens should be treated as customers. This would be a way to be more accountable by focusing on what the customer wants and relating to them with service rather than dictating what could or could not be in public service.
Citizens Owning Government
There was criticism that citizens should not be treated as customers and in fact, they are owners of government. Thomas (2013, pp.787-788) concluded that the era of reinventing government is the “New Public Management – The Public as Customer.” He compares this to “New Public Administration – The Public as Citizen” and “Governance and Co-Production – The Public as Partner.”
The public as the customer is using the business principles of New Public Management. Customers are users of the government and the services it offers. This differs from seeing the public as a citizen - the collaborative model of New Public Administration where citizens are engaged through participation in the decision process. And finally, the public as a partner is when citizens actually engage in the production of government such as recycling or citizen watch - they add value to the production process by being actively engaged.
Disagreements aside, the notion of reinventing government is a radical reform that gave an opening for many other forms of rethinking what government operations and leadership could be. Perhaps it was the dawn of the new millennium that created an opportunity for rethinking solid structures such as the public sector. Out of reinventing government, came a large volume of scholarship on leadership and transformation of the public sector. Additional types include extensions of new public management, collaborative leadership, and transformational leadership which includes e-government.
Entrepreneurial Characteristics
To guide the emphasis on entrepreneurial performance, Osborne (1993, 352-356) distills six characteristics that are found in most entrepreneurial organizations. Government administrative agencies should adopt these in order to be effective in the new fast-changing world. They are part of the 10 principles in the original list in Reinventing Government (1992) but demonstrated here show their entrepreneurial intention.
CATALYTIC GOVERNMENTAllow managers the flexibility in personnel and operations to steer and not be bound by inefficient rules.
COMPETITIVE GOVERNMENT Find new ways to do existing work that makes government competitive with comparable private sector providers. Unleash the productivity of government employees.
MISSION-DRIVEN GOVERNMENT Stop being driven by rules and budgets. Make rules and budgets serve the mission.
RESULTS-ORIENTED GOVERNMENT Hold managers accountable for what they do with staff and budget resources. If they are freed from rules and budget barriers, they can achieve more results.
CUSTOMER-DRIVEN GOVERNMENT The public should have choices in service providers. This makes government staff more competitive and effective. Housing vouchers and charter schools are examples.
ENTERPRISING GOVERNMENT Instead of an exclusive focus on spending money, put some focus on generating revenue through innovative fees and leverage of others to help solve problems that government is normally fully responsible for. Development impact fees are an example where new construction pays for the impact they cause by expanding roads for new traffic and helping expand infrastructure capacity caused by new residents.
REFLECTION Can government serve the public and be accountable while also acting like a business?
Strategy Change
While principles are a good start, there also needs to be a change strategy. How does government implement these principles and how does it keep the bureaucratic inertia from retaking control? Osborne (2007) followed up with 5 strategies for implementation that would specifically embed the principles of reinventing government into the administration of the public sector. This would go from the administrative system of operations, into the various government organizations, filter to the work process, and then to individual employees. This strategy recognizes the hierarchy of government bureaucracy and that addressing the system first is what is required. If the bureaucracy is a rule-bound institution that protects itself, then it is the system that must change first. This represents what Osborne created as “The 5 Cs” strategy for implementation. Each level is a level of a specific change strategy that reflects the principles of reinventing government.
THE CORE STRATEGY Refers to the steering principle and has three approaches to implement it.
THE CONSEQUENCES STRATEGY Refers to the consequence for performance in the bureaucracy.
THE CUSTOMER STRATEGY Represents treating citizens as customers through strategies for choice and quality.
THE CONTROL STRATEGY Flattens the hierarchy to shift the locus of control to the line staff.
THE CULTURE STRATEGY Refers to the changing the bureaucratic culture to reflect the entrepreneurial purpose shift that is represented by reinventing government.
National Performance Review
During the Clinton administration in 1993, the federal government conducted the National Performance Review (NPR) in order to change the system of government at the top and start a chain reaction of adoption to reform the way the federal government works, based on Reinventing Government. The final report, “From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less,” was the result of a thorough review of the operating system of the federal government under the direction of Vice President Al Gore (National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPRG), 1997) . Sixteen Presidential Directives were signed to begin implementing the recommendations. As the recommendations began making their way through government agencies, NPR added six initiatives in order to keep the implementation moving down to the workforce level (NPRG, 1997):
1. Convert to performance-based organizations
2. Improve customer service dramatically
3. Increase the use of regulatory partnerships
4. Create performance-based partnership grants
5. Establish single points of contacts for communities (to deal with the federal government)
6. Transform the federal workforce (beyond the existing civil service structure)
New Public Administration
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Shortcomings
While Reinventing Government became a sensation, public administration scholars were not impressed. Those that adhered to the axioms of New Public Administration, ushered in 20 years prior to Reinventing Government, were quick to point out the shortcomings of the new entrepreneurial strategies (Frederickson, 1996). They saw similarities in the efforts to renew the bureaucratic function and to bring attention to the role of citizens in delivering government service. Frederickson outlines these differences:
Similarities
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Similarities in the Changes Sought by the New Public Administration and Reinventing Government |
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New Public Administration |
Reinventing Government |
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Too much trust in expertise and organizational capability and too little questioning of bureaucratic ways |
The bankruptcy of bureaucracy |
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Flexibility and the routinization of change; adapting to turbulence |
Innovation and entrepreneurial activity |
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Not enough concern for citizens' demands and needs |
Customer empowerment |
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An over-optimistic view of what government can or should accomplish |
From bureaucratic service to individual empowerment |
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(Frederickson, 1996, p. 264) |
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Public Servant Role
What public administration scholars could not support, however, was the diminishing of the public sector workforce. They felt the bureaucracy was being ridiculed when it should be lifted up to be better at effective public service (Frederickson, 1996). The concept of public service is essential to new public administration because the public servant is seen as the delivery mechanism for services, regulations, and operations of government as the public experiences it. To malign the public bureaucrat as someone who is not professional or effective was unacceptable to New Public Administration adherents (Frederickson, 1996).
Politics
The other major difference between the two approaches is the recognition of politics (Frederickson, 1996). Reinventing Government does not recognize the influence of politics and instead expects the spirit of entrepreneurism to dictate bureaucratic behavior. New Public Administration, however, clearly embraced that political power was an influential factor that administrators had to respond to as well as be responsible for (Frederickson, 1996). The power of public administration to be equitable and fair is expected to be part of government service. Reinventing Government focuses on rational man behavior and assumes that the best price, the best competition, the best customer service is what should be rewarded and prioritized.
Difficult Changes
The sweeping changes that have been suggested in Reinventing Government are not easy to implement. Even with the federal government’s efforts through the National Performance Review, turning bureaucracy into an entrepreneurial entity is very difficult to achieve. Consider the number of budgeting approaches that have been attempted over time (discussed in previous lessons). These have come and gone with some changes being adopted and others discarded as soon as a new political administration is elected. Osborne (2007) had his own suggestions for how to leverage implementation. It is important, however, to see these changes in the context of a general understanding of implementing change in public agencies and organizations.
Change Factors
Fernandez and Rainey (2006) identify eight change factors that managers should consider when trying to implement major changes. They indicate these are not steps to implementation, but rather conditions that should be included in order to improve the likelihood of success in implementing change. They may not be used in equal concentrations. There may be interactions between the factors that would affect their impact. Fernandez and Rainey recommend being mindful that these factors will contribute to the success of change implementation in a public organization.
1. Ensure the need
2. Provide a plan
3. Build internal support for change and overcome resistance
4. Ensure top management support and commitment
5. Build external support
6. Provide resources
7. Institutionalize change
8. Pursue comprehensive change
Meeting Unique Challenges to Public Sector Changes
The distinction between the public sector and the corporate sector make a change in the public agency more difficult. It is more difficult because, “doing what is “right” in government is a matter of responding to conflicts and negotiating with various interests much more than it is for a corporate executive trying to implement a strategy” (Cunningham & Kempling, 2009, p. 330). There are structural differences of accountability between the public and private sector that make some of the elements of reinventing government, designed from a corporate perspective, difficult to implement in public agencies. Cunningham and Kempling identify some of the specific factors that public agencies must address in order to make change work within the context of the specifics of the public structure.
FORM A GUIDING COALITION This is the most important factor the authors found in public sector programs. Given the nature of public sector actors – elected, appointed, and interest groups – a coalition is essential. Finding common ground is expected in the public structure of accountability and the leverage to use power to get things done. A coalition is an effective strategy for finding that common ground.
RECOGNIZE AND RESPOND TO PEOPLE WHO MIGHT BE RESISTANT TO CHANGE This could be a factor to take into account in any organization – be it public or private. In the public realm, however, resistance could be politically based, entrenched within civil service rules, or played out with transparency in public meetings.
ARTICULATE ENVISIONED OUTCOMES The challenge in the public sector is that there may not be political agreement on what the outcomes should be. Often it is easier to generate consensus on the allocation of resources with a vague understanding of what outcomes might occur.
FOCUS ON CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT This is challenging in the public sector when there are uncertainties around grants and funding coming from other levels of government (state and federal) that may shift due to political considerations, not fiscal issues. Any time administration changes or newly elected officials come into the legislature (or the party in control changes), and agendas shift. This makes for an unpredictable environment in which continuous improvement is challenging to attain.
Transformational Leadership
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Making Government Work Better
Leadership
Bernard Bass (1990, p. 21) defines transformational leadership as, it “occurs when leaders broaden and elevate the interests of their employees, when they generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group.”
Traits of the transformational leader include (Bass, 1990, p. 22):
· “Charisma provides vision and sense of mission, instills pride, gains respect, and trust.
· Inspiration communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses important purposes in simple ways.
· Intellectual Stimulation promotes intelligence, rationality, and careful problem-solving.
· Individualized Consideration gives personal attention, treats each employee individually, coaches advises.”
Collaborative Public Management
In the public sector, collaborative public management is akin to transformational leadership in business. The art of collaboration requires similar traits and skills in order to take on meaningful change in an organization. O’Leary and Vij (2012, p. 509) define collaborative public management as, “public managers who work collaboratively find themselves not solely as unitary leaders of unitary organizations. Instead, they often find themselves facilitating and operating in multi-organizational arrangements to solve problems that cannot be solved, or solved easily, by single organizations.To take on reinventing government would require significant collaboration and inclusion of citizens, whether as customers or part of the mission. To manage by mission requires a transformational leader as well as a collaborative enterprise that engenders trust (Bryer, 2009).
eGovernment
One of the more practical outcomes of considering reinventing government and collaborative public management is the creation of e-government. While early iterations of e-government were limited to “online” information about government, it has evolved into a participatory mechanism to: engage citizens through surveys, real-time election returns, and public meeting streaming allows citizens to be co-producers of services such as reporting street problems to communicate interactively with citizens by being able to pay bills and fines, pay taxes, communicate directly with elected officials, and other interactive applications (Cropf, 2017).
eGovernment can be considered a strategy for change management in the public sector (Hazlett & Hill, 2003).
“Citizens, influenced by private sector experiences, are expecting public services that are not only of high quality but also integrated across different public bodies and agencies” (Hazlett & Hill, 2003, p. 446).
While there is healthy skepticism that e-government can achieve these expectations, it does provide a vehicle for citizens to engage and for government to steer and not just row. Allowing citizens to engage government at their own pace, on their time schedule, and to browse the opportunities for a variety of interactions, leaves citizens as collaborators at minimum and governors at the other extreme.
Conclusion
Reinventing government upended the way managers and public administration scholars thought about the normative process of government. The ten principles of how the government could be managed more entrepreneurially put into motion new expectations about running the federal government down to city hall. Treating citizens as customers were difficult for traditional public administration scholars to conceive and was rejected by some. But reinventing government principles were designed to shake up the status quo of hierarchical, monopolistic, rule-bound bureaucracy and unleash the managerial steering to guide government interactions with the public. It eschewed the traditional mechanisms of service delivery in a one-size-fits-all package and expected innovation, partnerships, and collaboration to support the new approaches to public management. The refinements of reinventing government did not change its central principles but instead developed implementation strategies to carry out the mission. At its core, reinventing government is a change in management and requires collaborative management and transformational leadership. Finding new ways to work collaboratively with other actors in the government arena as well as the citizens is challenging. However, collaboration can provide citizens with access and engagement that supports reinventing government principles and moves away from a professionalized bureaucracy that does not engage the public. Finally, e-government is a modern means to generate collaboration as well as move forward the principles of reinventing government. E-government is moving beyond a one-way information portal to a sophisticated co-production and collaborative venue. This frees up public administrators to be more mission-driven and steer rather than row as citizens take on more engagement. While e-government has not yet attained these transformational goals, it is an exciting opportunity going forward.
