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Welcome to the first "white paper" of the Public Governance Institute. It was prepared in concert with our private-sector volunteer partner, Daryl Conner’s consulting firm Conner Partners of Atlanta, Georgia. We ask you to absorb the next 6 pages and grasp the following set of realities, assertions, and advisories. They all deal with leading purposeful change in the public arena.
Here's a preview of the paper's key points:
• When a major change is being announced, introduced or legislated, a new order is being "installed" as public policy. For the typical policy-maker, this is the end of the struggle. In reality, the struggle is just beginning -- for the road from "installation" of the new order to "realization" of the intended results is a long and hard one. Detours are common, and a startling number of initiatives end up as part of history's garbage heap. When it comes to "making change," never have so many officials called for so much to bring about so little.
•The drive to create a Department of Homeland Security -- "DHS" (see Part Three) -- risks becoming a stunning example of a major policy change that is “installed” rather than “realized." We can't say it better than U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, who notes that the 22 federal agencies coming into the new Department "have different personnel systems...different cultures...different information systems...different information management systems...different locations." He was quoted in the 9/27/2002 Washington Post, which called DHS "the largest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947."
• Whether it's DHS or another major public-policy change undertaking (say health, pension, tax or economic reform), at the point of "installation," this is what the responsible executives need to know: (1) Who will resist and why? (2) Are we committed enough to sustain the effort through hardship and adversity? And (3) how much change can be accepted by the groups and institutions being affected, and on what timetable?
• Facing a global landscape filled with new demands and directions, no nation can afford a government that is ineffective in delivering change. The best executives already know this. What they still need, in order to satisfy their own imperatives, are proven methods and tools that move beyond "advocating" better policies or "announcing" laws that outline new visions. The vision needs to produce real results that address real problems.
• After nearly three decades of documented research, the findings of ODR® have revealed clear patterns to the pitfalls to which leaders who fail at change fall prey. Fortunately, there are similarly plain patterns of success used by those who consistently deliver what they aspire to accomplish. The point of this paper is to explain those patterns -- and move the diagnostic more forcefully from the realm of private companies to the world of public governance.
And one opening note on style: Wherever you see a bold word or phrase, that signals the introduction of a new term (or a common term being deployed in a new context). Italics are reserved for book and magazine names.
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