Excellence in Government

Research data indicate that most of the factors influencing the success of change efforts are related to the “soft” side of change rather than the “hard” issues.  The critical factors that can scuttle change projects include resistance to change, lack of clear leadership and commitment, lack of required implementation skills, lack of sufficient employee involvement, unrealistic expectations and lack of effective coordination.  Clearly, for effective organizational change to take place the human side needs to be addressed.

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What is often termed a “performance culture” is typically one in which the organization gives individual goal attainment preeminence in its performance management approach.  When taken to excess, however, a performance culture can make employees feel insecure by continuously presuring them to exceed established productivity goals, and by routinely failing to acknowledge and reward outstanding team efforts in favor of individual competition and recognition.

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If a business process has at least a fair degree of complexity and multiple stakeholder interfaces, then redesigning the process to improve it usually requires collaboration not just to capture team knowledge about the process but also to involve stakeholders and subject matter experts in analyzing the process, identifying the desired improvements, scoping the improvement effort, defining measurable targets and developing and overseeing an implementation plan to make the improvements happen.

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Often the most difficult way to help a team improve its effectiveness is to ask members straight away to focus on what is impeding it.  Rather than provoke the  predictable defensiveness or finger pointing by beginning with the hard work of self-examination, it is often wiser to help the team work on a task that they are motivated to accomplish.  Right after they have completed (or failed to complete) the task is a good time to ask team members how they think their handling of the task reflected their teamwork strengths and limitations.

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Effective executive coaching requires the ability to sense what another person in a high ranking organizational position is thinking and feeling.  As a result, it is very difficult to acquire executive coaching virtuosity if you have no intuitive ”feel” for (or interest in) the implicit meaning of non verbal cues.  Effective executive coaching also requires the “counter intuitive” awareness to notice how a leader’s personal strengths may also be the source of some of his or her peformance liabilities.

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Research on leadership competencies has shown that, for complex executive roles, the critical indicators of superior performance are behavioral rather than cognitive in nature.  Simply put, this means that the particular ways in which organizational leaders actively use their knowledge or skills in given work situations is a better predictor of their ultimate  leadership  effectiveness than the breadth or depth of the knowledge and skills they possess.

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Self-assurance and a consistently calm demeanor usually go a long way in helping a facilitator win a group’s trust and cooperation. The very best facilitators show sensitivity by listening actively and intently, noticing concerns and reactions and never hesitating to ask about thoughts and feelings whenever it is helpful to do so.  They manage their emotions and show self-control even in difficult situations, and they avoid losing their temper, becoming embroiled in disputes or conveying displeasure when the atmosphere becomes strained or combative.

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A common fallacy among organizational leaders is the mistaken belief that increasingly complicated organizational problems require increasingly complicated decision support systems.  Planning in today’s turbulent environment is certainly the most important task facing top management in any organization.  However, what is necessary to help organizations cope with conditions of increasing uncertainty is a hands-on planning approach that offers a clear conceptual framework and a collaborative process of deliberation for viewing and dealing with all the salient aspects of reality.

 This is not intended to deny the value of technical experts and highly sophisticated management science tools in various aspects of the planning process.  It is, however, intended to try to place the use of these experts and tools in proper perspective.  Even world famous “gurus” and computerized simulations depend upon accurate specification of the overriding goals and constraints within which the organization must operate.  A collaborative process of deliberation is the only way to specify these goals and constraints accurately and completely.   

Furthermore, the genuine commitment of all employees must be developed, if even the most senior manager’s plan is to have any hope of being executed.  Experts and computers cannot be substituted for collaborative problem solving and integrative decision-making.  It is the underlying thinking, questioning, discussing, understanding and deciding processes, the human elements of planning, that are essential to any successful attempt to exert conscious control over the long-term course of an organization.

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