Reinventing Government – the New Public Management

1
Reinventing Government the New Public
Management

• Denhardt Chp. 9

2
Reinvention

• An effort to improve quality and productivity
• Requires increased entrepreneurship
• An entrepreneurial government is...
• Streamlined
• Flexible
• Responsive

3
Principles of a reinvented Government

• Catalytic steer (recognize options) dont row
  (single objective)
• Community-owned (empower, dont just serve)
• Competitive with private enterprise
• Mission- and customer-driven, results oriented
• Anticipatory (prevent, dont cure)
• Decentralized (participation and teamwork)
• Market-oriented

4
Issues

• Do the differences between the goals of
  businesses and government agencies create
  fundamentally different incentives?
• Should market forces drive public organizations?
• Should economic principles be paramount?
• Is administrative efficiency an appropriate goal?
• Measuring productivity

5
Federal productivity programs

• OMB Office of Management and Budget (Executive
  Office of the President)
• Goals
• Improve Federal financial management
• Reduce fraud, waste and abuse
• Privatize where possible
• Encourage use of new technologies

6
1984 - Grace Commission Presidents Private
Sector Survey on Cost Control

• Business leaders identified areas where
  productivity could be improved
• Anti-government slant alienated managers

7
1993 GPRA Government Performance and Results
Act

• aka National Performance Review and National
  Partnership for Reinventing Government
• Cut red tape, reduce size of Federal government,
  put customers first and empower employees
• Federal agencies had to
• Develop strategic plans and measures of
  performance
• Produce annual performance plans and reports
  (1998 GAO evaluation of agency compliance -
  Justice Dept. example)
• One thing that was accomplished the Federal
  workforce was reduced by more than 300,000
  employees

8
Quality of life issues

• Compensation
• Working conditions
• Worker opportunity for growth
• Autonomy
• Responsibility
• Authority
• Social relevance
• Balancing personal life

9
Job Enrichment

• Better performance through
• Task diversity
• Autonomy
• Clear feedback on performance
• Methods
• Expanded work / team work
• Vertical loading (devolve management
  responsibilities to workers)

10
Result The new management

• Some common precepts and buzzwords
• Clearly defined goals and objectives
• Simple structure, lean staff
• Precise measures of output
• Just in time
• Loose and tight central direction coexists
  with individual autonomy
• Stick to what you know- avoid excessive
  diversification
• Customer service / customer orientation
• Employee empowerment - those closest to the task
  should know the most

11
Techniques to implement the new management
fads or helpful tools?

• Management by Objectives (MBO)
• Quality Circles
• Organization Development (OD)
• Total Quality Management (TQM)

12
Management by Objectives

• Top develops broad goals
• Rest of organization develops objectives and sets
  performance criteria
• Performance criteria can be amount of work,
  quality of work, effectiveness of work, timely
  completion, and costs
• Requires lots of time, effort and paperwork to
  implement
• May be a sneaky way to ramp up production
• Best applicable when output is quantifiable
• Application can promote cynicism throughout the
  workplace

13
Quality circles

• Small groups that meet to identify and solve
  workplace issues
• Requires support of top management
• Care not to cut out middle managers
  (recommendations still go through chain)
• Requires training group members in
  decision-making techniques
• Groups may ask for resources that are unavailable
• Results may not benefit the employers bottom
  line

14
Total Quality Management (TQM)

• Emphasis on quality service, customer orientation
  and program excellence
• Employee involvement
• Enhanced communications
• Standards and measures
• Extensive training and recognition

Commercial consultant website
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• Difficulties in implementation
• Resistance to change and to participatory
  management
• Lack of funding
• Lack of knowledge
• Personnel regulations
• Lack of attention and support from senior
  managers
• Like psychoanalysis feels good but absence of
  measurable gains over the short term

16
Benchmarking and Best Practices

• Survey experts and academics to identify like
  agencies and programs with excellent reputations
• Visit them examine how they work
• Input-process-output
• Work processes, personnel practices, performance
  standards and measures
• Develop benchmarks for local use
• So obvious it may not require management
  experts
• Same solutions not applicable everywhere