Thursday, 2 July y

Change Management Notes

- Government’s incapability to anticipate & respond to terrorist attacks in 9/11 and the many
deaths caused by the hurricane in 2005 is proof that govt fails to deal with the new
problems of the 21st century & needs to improve high performance in such cases

- Both public and private sector have worthy goals; well designed, rational processes, strict
accountability, effective leaders. But the difference comes about in regards to their
purposes, culture and contexts in which they operate

- Greatest challenge to bringing about change in the public sector is not finding solutions but
working around 4 obstacles :

1. Agency leaders not chosen cause of their commitment to reform or cause they have a
record in leading reform efforts but are appointed on basis of their command of policy,
technical expertise in the agency’s work or pol connections

2. Once a person is selected to lead an agency there is limited time to see a change effort
thru cause period of tenure is usually short, so focus on reforms that can be implemented
quickly and that are less time consuming

3. Rules governing areas of procurement, personnel, budgeting originally applied to prevent

public sector wrong doing have actually made them less flexible than the private sector,
as in the idea of keeping agencies in the field of power given to them innovation is
limited. Public sector managers know that penalties for failure greater than awards for
accomplishment

4. In a democracy everyone has a stake in an agency’s activities, so agencies always being

watched and are likely to meet with someone’s disapproval at every step

- Agency leaders have been able to work around these obstacles, and have courted support
of key stakeholders & rededicated employees to mission and undertake reform so
comprehensively that aspects that limit it are avoided and lay groundwork efficiently so
progress continues after leadership changes hands

- Many federal orgs have worked on deep change & performance improvement, like OSHA
redefined its missions/goals, GAO adopted talent mgmt practices found in private sector

- 5 principles that characterise successful public sector change efforts that can achieve
desired results ;

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• Improve performance against agency mission :
- Public sector orgs aren’t created to maximise shareholder wealth but are supposed to
promote particular aspect of public’s welfare. Effective and efficient execution of their
mission is what taxpayers pay for.

- But sometimes the mission can get blurred cause of shift of political parties & change in
agency leaders

- Mission is subject to varying interpretations

- Sometimes employees feel estranged from mission of agency and dont see how their
individual effort could effect the agency’s performance so only focus on producing outputs
( to which pvt sector measures like return on invested capital dont apply) rather than
achieving outcomes, and as they lose sight of overall mission they may only come to
protect their own turf

- OSHA dealt with this employee prob with a rededicated commitment to mission, helped
employees in discovering reason why agency was created (to reduce no. of deaths, injuries
at the workplace) this was intended to stimulate innovative thinking and helped in making
agency’s reorientation impossible to doubt

- Once a mission is set then agency leaders should work for improved performace against
the mission, should choose clear performance improvement goals & formulating specific
initiatives (David walker focused on addressing personnel & skills gap a priority in the
face of office’s inability to perform its mission in the face of employee downsizing)

• Win over Stakeholders:

- Stakeholders fall into 2 groups, external and internal

- External stakeholders ; in regards to Special Operation Forces ( SOF) a group of soldiers,
defence department officials and members of congress launched a campaign to revamp
SOF to improve its preparedness in the face of terrorism etc due to this the SOF was
reconstituted headed by a 4 star general. And after this to prove capability of SOF to
current stakeholders senior military officials & political leaders were invited to examine
the exercises. SOF also wanted US diplomats to know how helpful SOF could be to them
by inviting ambassadors to a six week training course. GAO has own way of winning over
stakeholders, it pin points the ones who have the most interest in an issue and work on their
concerns; like if issue is on job classification then they focus on chairman with jurisdiction
over that issues as well as members with local interests

- Internal Stakeholders; public sector employees stay at agencies for a long time mostly
longer than the agency leaders themselves. They know a lot about how agencies run and
where they falter so can help leader seeking change. Leaders can elicit operational

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knowledge from them to lay intellectual foundation for change efforts and also gain
employee support needed for change to succeed. In the face of change some employees
will be receptive, some will be resistant and some will be on the fence. So it is important
for the agency to keep on board the ones who are receptive and take into account their
values (why they came to the agency in the first place) in accordance with the goals.
Changes dont work themselves, employee support is important. Interviews can help
understand who is amenable to change, lack of change receptivity can also be linked to
lack of skill & will and this can be brought about by training programs to improve skills
and make employees more confident, and with confidence will be able to tackle changes
better. As far as will is concerned, employees can be exposed to already similar changes
and how they worked to increase their belief in the feasibility of the change being brought
about, to increase will GAO gave rewards on performance, expertise etc

• Create a Road Map:

- It is important to have a transformation process in mind, how to get from the current
agency status to improved performance, change effort road map has 3 phases:

1)Identify performance objectives; in applying change it is imp to start from the top & reach
grass roots to get support of a broad no. of employees. Agency leader/senior officials need to
define mission. Agency leader should then create a team of individuals who are respected by
peers, support need for change, & represent areas of the agency affected by the change. Team
will identify areas of performance requiring most urgent attention & outlines biggest
obstacles to reform. Team can do all this by holding internal fact finding thru interviews w
senior managers, headquarters, field staff & outside experts. Can also look at internal reports,
articles by ppl who have studied the agency. Change team can then hold redesign workshops
to develop recommendations for improving performance. OSHA held redesign workshops to
develop a model for higher performing field enforcement office, workshop concerned
handling of informal complaints => current complaint process was put forward and it was
asked what problems it had and ideas suggested for improvement

2)Set priorities; once suggestions are given, next step is to decide which one to adopt and in
what sequence (what areas should agency focus on, where need for improvement is more imp
or where results will come the fastest or where external shareholders care most about). 2x2
matrix needed, one part would recommend implenting those suggestions that are likely to
have most impact on improving performance against mission while posing least amount of
difficulty. Sometimes a suggestion may be difficult but will have a significant impact so
should be chosen. Sometimes also quick processes to be chosen which wont have significant
impact (OSHA’S breakthrough; 8 weeks of hard work to improve response time to employee
complaints)

3)Roll out change program; important to implement change in areas that would be most
receptive, so these areas to become first pilot offices. (OSHA; staff members of these areas
made members of change team to make sure ideas suggested by workshop were suited for

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implementation in the field. Then orientation/training began, reps of change team present to
guide in the 1st month and see what worked/didnt work). Once pilot is done then change
implemented in more areas likely to improve performance against mission. To keep rollout
on track as it spread in more offices, people from next offices in the list would be in the office
where change was implemented to then learn and implement changes in their own offices
with members of change team.

-managing design/rollout of change needs steering committee which is made up of agency

leader and senior managers of areas most affected by change. The committee approves
sequence of steps, sets milestones for processes and outcomes, sets deliverables, approves
change team recommendations & defines expected contributions from work units &
individuals. Committee takes takes of guiding the initiative & intervening to correct the
course

• Take a comprehensive approach :

- Full range of factors like leadership, structure, processes, infrastructure, people and
performance mgmt need to be integrated & aligned. But govt tends to focus just on element
the person/team driving change knows best

- Special Operations needed holistic approach for change, and all broad elements had to be
integrated. Generals from each military branch, to get equipment fast cost efficient plan
was put forth. Technology that used laser to pinpoint targets was adopted. To put
equipment to use soldiers were trained day & night.

- Comprehensive approach may even require integrating activities across org borders, so
navy, airforce were integrated in missions as well.

- It is important to address all elements even if they’re difficult to tackle

• Be a leader, not a bureaucrat ;
- Formulate a vision, be aware of present realities, develop broad base of support, set a clear
path, hold ppl accountable for results/commitment for change

- But two probs make such work difficult for public sector leaders :
1) nature of bureaucrats to respect barriers & they find ways to see over and around them.
Many rules and civil service limitations present, but you can always see what has or has
not been done in the past to achieve more flexibility

2) Public sector leaders face a perception that just cause they’re political appointees they
might not be committed to improving performance so it becomes very imp for them to
prove their commitment/sincerity to stakeholders. Also agency employees in the past
have seen change programs come and go without having an impact & public interest

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neglected, so imp for agency leader to prove to employees that he is committed to make
the change a reality

These five principles are highly likely to help agencies in achieving the change they desire