Leading public organisations

1. Leading public organisations Paul ‘t Hart Utrecht University Netherlands School of Public Administration ANZSOG

2. Exemplary organsations in the public sector?

3. Public sector ‘heaven’ The institutionalised organisation/program (Selznick, 1957) • A clear, coherent mission (public value proposition) • A made-to-fit, learned ‘technology’ (operational capacity) • Firm internal support • Firm external support Effect: ‘strong brand’, ‘taken for granted’, ‘infused with value’ ‘autonomous’

4. Public sector ‘hell’ The ‘impossible job’ organization/program (Hargrove/Glidewell, 1990) • Fuzzy, contradictory mission • Low respect for professional authority • Low-legitimacy clienteles • Intense conflict among constituencies Effect: conflict-ridden, under-resourced, rudderless, ‘permanently failing’, hyper-scrutinised

5. Diagnosing public organisations 1. Mission coherence? 2. Mission specificity? 3. Mission salience? 4. Own operational capacity? 5. Partners’/networks’ operational capacity? 6. Staff support for mission/OC? 7. Regulatory/oversight support for mission/OC? 8. Political support for mission/OC? 9. Clientele support for mission/OC? 10. Clientele status/coherence 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

6. Diagnosing public organisations (II)

7. Q:Examples of the 4 strategic conditions?How do public organisations get (themselves) out of ‘heaven’?

8. From heaven to hell: mission & capacity drift

9. Forms of mission drift • Mission conflict: competing values, non-decisions, de-prioritisation • Mission creep: ambition, displacement

10. Forms of capacity drift • Chronically limited capacity: wicked problems, ‘impossible jobs’ • Eroded capacity: complacency, conflict, cutbacks

11. From heaven to hell: support drift

12. Forms of support drift • Critics’ feast: conspicuous, repeated, high-visibility delivery failures • Hollowing out: anti-policy/agency interest group lobbying • Political turnover: ‘new brooms’…

13. Mission, delivery and support drift:Failures of leadership? • Not addressing changes in the operating environment • Not addressing changes in the authorizing environment • Not addressing erosion of internal management, culture & practices

14. Reversing the momentum?

15. Leading public organisations:Moore’s strategic triangle

16. Leading public organisations: UP, OUT and DOWN

17. BUT: the nature of the central leadership task you face may vary from place to place, role to role and time to time….

18. Leadership challenges in the four conditions?

19. Leadership challenges in the four conditions

20. Leadership challenges: what to emphasize when/how?

21. If leadership in/of organisations is about facilitating the engagement with change, then what in your experience is the core work of leadership?

22. Leadership work • Task 1: Scanning/monitoring: how are we – really – travelling? What is, will be or might be happening ‘out there’ and ‘to us’? • Task 2: Building the case for change: how are we going to adapt to ‘X’? • Task 3: Bringing people along: down, up & out • Task 4: Sustaining momentum: bolstering and consolidating gains

23. Task 1: Scanning and monitoring • The top-down view: Devise and monitor performance indicators, commission reports

24. Task 1: Scanning and monitoring • The top-down view: Devise and monitor performance indicators, commission reports, boards • Another possibility: Think and act politically – engage and listen ‘up’, ‘out’ and ‘down’

25. Task 2Building a case for change • The top-down view: Articulate a vision, create a sense of urgency, drive the change methodically

26. Task 2Building a case for change • The top-down view: Articulate a vision, create a sense of urgency, drive the change methodically (Kotter et al) • Another possibility: Stir the pot, keep people focused on the real issues & resist avoidance behaviour (Heifetz)

27. Task 3:Bringing people along • The top-down view: (Over)communicate, use carrots/sticks, co-opt critics, offer side payments, create and celebrate quick wins, persevere in the face of imperfection

28. Task 3:Bringing people along • The top-down view: (Over)communicate, use carrots/sticks, co-opt critics, offer side payments, create and celebrate quick wins, persevere in the face of imperfection • Another possibility: Empower the people/systems that need changing

29. Task 4: Sustaining momentum • The dominant view: Remove obstacles to the realisation of the vision (by manipulating venues, procedures, resources) and initiate yet more change

30. Task 4: Sustaining momentum • The top-down view: Remove obstacles to the realisation of the vision (by manipulating venues, procedures, resources, coalitions) and drive yet more change • Another possibility: Nurture and consolidate newly emergent norms and expectations, and protect the people/teams/networks who invent and epitomize them

31. Why the Top-Down View is Often Less Helpful Than Assumed:Technical vs adaptive challenges of change

32. “What’s the problem?” • Technical challenges: • Known/agreed upon nature of the problem • Known/agreed upon nature of the solutions

33. “What’s the problem?” (II) • Adaptive challenges: • Unknown/disagreed upon nature of the problem • Unknown/disagreed upon nature of the solutions

34. Adaptive challenges • ‘Situations in which the disparity between values and circumstances cannot be closed by the application of current technologies or routine behaviour’(Ronald Heifetz)

35. Most change processes involve both technical and adaptive challenges

36. BUT: The key problem in many change processes is that adaptive issues get treated as if they are technical issues (top-down, project-managed) (thus creating inappropriate dependencies on ‘leaders’, who do not have the answers either)

37. What kind of leadership would be required to instigate ‘adaptive work’?

38. The work of ‘adaptive leadership’ • Identify the adaptive challenge: naming realities and framing problems (and accepting the risks involved in doing so)

39. The work of ‘adaptive leadership’ • Identify the adaptive challenge: name realities and frame problems (and accept the risks involved in doing so) • Regulate the level of distress: keep people focused on the problem (by recognizing and neutralizing avoidance reflexes)

40. The work of ‘adaptive leadership’ • Identify the adaptive challenge: name realities and frame problems (and accept the risks involved in doing so) • Regulating the level of distress: keep people focused on the problem (by recognizing and neutralizing avoidance reflexes) • Give the work back to people at a rate they can stand: resist pressures to come up with top-down solutions (inappropriate dependencies)

41. The work of ‘adaptive leadership’ • Identify the adaptive challenge: name realities and frame problems (and accepting the risks involved in doing so) • Regulating the level of distress: keep people focused on the problem (by recognizing and neutralizing avoidance reflexes) • Giving the work back to people at a rate they can stand: resist pressures to come up with top-down solutions (counteracting inappropriate dependencies) • Protect voices of leadership without authority: embrace dissidents, challengers, front-line staff, clients, watchdogs

42. The Productive Zone of Disequilibrium disequilibrium limit of tolerance productive zone threshold of change technical problem work avoidance time Source: Heifetz and Laurie: Mobilizing Adaptive Work: Beyond Visionary Leadership

43. ‘Technical’ vs ‘adaptive’ leadership

44. Another Complication: The emotional dimension of change

45. Change often induces feelings of….. • Uncertainty • Insecurity • Loss • Anger/frustration ….among staff, stakeholders, political masters

46. An analogy: Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s model of bereavement

47. Emotional dynamics of change

48. So: Change hurts, and people and organisations are driven to protect themselves from that hurt by mobilizing defense mechanisms. Good change leadership acknowledges the ‘zone of loss’, creates a holding environment for it that allows people to vent, ‘let go’, and move on

49. “The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.” (Walter Lippmann, 1922)