Improving how our government works is urgent business for America. In this book experts from the RAND corporation provide practical ways for government to reorganize and restructure, enhance leadership, and create flexible, performance-driven agencies.

The more than three dozen cases presented here will help you understand what high-performance organizations are and develop a clearer understanding of the preconditions to major change, the steps essential to getting started, and ways to overcome common roadblocks. This book details the eight characteristics common to high-performance agencies, illustrating each with concrete examples.

How can today's managers concentrate on what really matters to improve the performance of their organization, to reach outstanding goals? The answer is in What Makes an HPO. The five critical factors of the HPO Framework - Management Quality, Openness & Action-Orientation, Long-Term Orientation, Continuous Improvement & Renewal and Employee Quality - will help you turn your organization into an HPO. This book shows you what to concentrate on, how others have done it, and how to achieve it yourself. The HPO Framework is the result of a global five-year research project into the genuine success factors of High Performance Organizations (HPOs). The HPO Center, led by Dr de Waal, discovered what really works on the ground in every type of organization rather than what managers think should, or might have, worked. In his book André de Waal gives many real-life examples from a variety of sectors including Finance, Retail, Industry, ICT, High Education and Government, all illustrating the successful workings of the HPO Framework in organizations worldwide. Also included are many interviews with HPO leaders at Microsoft, SABMiller, Svenska Handelsbanken, HP, Tata Steel, Umpqua Bank, Unilever and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

How to stay on course and achieve extraordinary performance in a sea of change In today's change-or-die business environment, companies that achieve the highest levels of performance are "robust organizations"--those that adapt quickly and without losing their strategic direction. Distilling decades of research conducted by Rand, one of the nation's most respected business think tanks, The Four Pillars of High Performance explores the strategies to truly manage change. Using examples, author Paul C. Light extracts powerful lessons for managers and executives, and he provides readers with: Never-before-published research by Rand on the shared traits of the highest-performing companies Cutting-edge techniques for improving performance across an organization Valuable insights into the five major attributes of agility, alignment, metrics, incentives, and impact Case studies and vignettes drawn from the experiences of industry leaders in every sector

"This Memo to the CEO explains why the fusion of high performance with high integrity is the foundation of the contemporary corporation, and why it is necessary - not only to avoid the catastrophic impact of integrity lapses, but to sustain companies in today's ruthlessly competitive environment." "This Memo reframes crucial debates on corporate governance, pay for CEO performance, and the real sources of business ethics. It provides senior executives with a much-needed blueprint for fusing the twin goals of capitalism - high performance with high integrity - in the high-speed, high-pressure twenty-first-century global economy."--Jacket.

“Examples from all over the world make it fun to read…convincingly demonstrate[s] the power of incorporating frontline thinking into your organization.” —Marshall Goldsmith, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Triggers Too many organizations overlook, or even suppress, their single most powerful source of growth and innovation—and it’s right under their noses. The frontline employees who interact directly with your customers, make your products, and provide your services have unparalleled insights into where problems exist and what improvements and new offerings would have the most impact. In this follow-up to their bestseller Ideas Are Free, Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder show how to align every part of an organization around generating and implementing employee ideas and offer dozens of examples of what a tremendous competitive advantage this can offer—not just for revenue but for worker retention. Their advice enables leaders to build organizations capable of implementing twenty, fifty, or even a hundred ideas per employee per year. Citing organizations from around the world, they explain what’s needed to put together a management team that embraces grassroots ideas and describe the strategies, policies, and practices that enable them. They detail exactly how high-performing idea processes work and how to design one for your organization. There’s pressure today to do more with less. But cutting wages and benefits and pushing people to work harder with fewer resources can go only so far. Ironically, the best solution resides with the very people who’ve been bearing the brunt of these measures. With this book, you can unleash a constant stream of great ideas that will strengthen every facet of your organization.

A new approach to understanding and improving performance and public value This book presents the Public Service Value Model-an innovative, rigorous approach to defining public outcomes and quantifying results-to help readers understand and improve public service delivery. Filled with in-depth insight and expert advice, this guide will arm public service managers-whether in government, nonprofit, or even for-profit organizations-with a practical framework that can be used to define outcomes and manage trade-offs in public service delivery. Martin Cole (Hartford, CT) is Group Chief Executive of Accenture's Government Operating Group. Greg Parston (London, UK) is Executive Director of the Accenture Institute for Public Service Value.

At their best park, recreation, and tourism organisations can change the world for the better. They can be powerful forces for community revitalisation, environmental and historical education, fitness, connectedness with nature, and much more. But this great potential can only be realised by strong, effective organisations. High Performance Agencies is about the skills and approaches that can lead these organisations to reach their full potential, grow, thrive, and in the process make their communities better places. Because of the technological, demographical, economical, and political changes in society, the old ways of organisational management need to be retooled for the more dynamic environment. This book is written to be used as both a university text for management and administration of park, recreation, and tourism organisations, as well as a guide for practitioners in the field.

A Brookings Institution Press and Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation publication The era of strict top-down, stovepiped public management in America is over. The traditional dichotomy between public ownership and privatization is an outdated notion. Public executives have shifted their focus from managing workers and directly providing services to orchestrating networks of public, private, and nonprofit organizations to deliver those services. Unlocking the Power of Networks employs original sector-specific analyses to reveal how networked governance achieves previously unthinkable policy goals. Stephen Goldsmith and Donald F. Kettl head a stellar cast of policy practitioners and scholars exploring the potential, strategies, and best practices of high-performance networks while identifying next-generation issues in public-sector network management. They cover the gamut of public policy issues, including national security, and the book even includes a thought-provoking look at how jihadist terrorists use the principles of network management to pursue their goals. Contributors: William G. Berberich (Virginia Tech), Tim Burke (Harvard University), G. Edward DeSeve (University of Pennsylvania),William D. Eggers (Manhattan Institute), Anne M. Khademian (Virginia Tech), H. Brinton Milward (University of Arizona), Mark H. Moore (Harvard University), Paul Posner (George Mason University), Jörg Raab (Tilburg University), and Barry G. Rabe (University of Michigan).

Improving government on a macro level is only possible with public managers who herald change on a micro level. While many studies of government reform focus on new policies and programs, these public managers—building relationships built on trust—are the real drivers behind many successful reforms. In this second edition, chapter authors once again draw on their real-world experience to demonstrate the importance of values-based leadership. With new research and lessons from the first two years of the Obama administration, chapters focus on the concrete ways in which leaders build effective relationships and trust, while also improving themselves, their organizations, and those they coach. Surveying agencies both horizontally and vertically, The Trusted Leader also addresses how public managers can collaborate with political appointees and the legislative branch, while still engaging with citizens to create quality customer experiences. Two brand-new chapters focus on: “Effective Conversations”—the importance of one-on-one conversations to building trust, with a model for having such conversations. “The Diversity Opportunity”—the need to effectively lead across a diverse workforce and a diverse society to build trust in both realms. With the addition of chapter headnotes, the editors provide necessary context, while the new “Resources for Further Learning” feature guides readers toward additional print and web resources.