Client Articles
Vision-Based Diagnosis
Mobilizing for Transformational
Change in a Public Organization
MAX ELDEN
University of Houston, Clear Lake
STEVEN L. SANDERS
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Public organizations in the 21st century are under new and substantial pressure to change and reinvent themselves. In addition to a series of federal legislative actionsâ??most notably the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA; Public Law 103â??62) the executive branch, in the recommendations from the National Performance Review (NPR), has initiated an era of governmental reinvention. If this new effort is to have more lasting impact than earlier cycles of governmental efficiency and restructuring, new ideas and ways of organizing and managing change will be required.
Our overall purpose is to explore transforming an organization and promoting change that is fundamental, radical, or discontinuous. This approach to change has existed for some time in terms of general ideas, but only recently are these ideas emerging from successful practice. We will examine concepts and practical theories that have helped organizations in the private sector engage in successful transformation. At present, these ideas exist in a fragmented way; we will review these individual elements and synthesize them in the form of a general but nevertheless practical model.
This will create the framework for describing how such an approach has been used to implement the first phase of transformationâ??mobilizing employees in a public organization. We present a case study in which we describe the steps managers at the Kansas City Management Office (KCMO) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Farm Service Agency have taken to create a vision and prepare employees to participate in bringing forth this new organizational vision, and we describe the design and startâ??up phases of this project. In a final section, we will assess our model and the viability of the project and conclude with what is required to lay the groundwork for a strategy of organizational transformation in the public sector patterned after recent breakthroughs in private industry.
The Meaning of a Vision-Based Diagnosis
Review of the Literature on Reengineering and Reinventing
Magma as a Model of VBD
A Case Study at the Farm Service Agency
Mobilizing for Transforming Change
Appendix and References
Change in a Public Organization
MAX ELDEN
University of Houston, Clear Lake
STEVEN L. SANDERS
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Public organizations in the 21st century are under new and substantial pressure to change and reinvent themselves. In addition to a series of federal legislative actionsâ??most notably the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA; Public Law 103â??62) the executive branch, in the recommendations from the National Performance Review (NPR), has initiated an era of governmental reinvention. If this new effort is to have more lasting impact than earlier cycles of governmental efficiency and restructuring, new ideas and ways of organizing and managing change will be required.
Our overall purpose is to explore transforming an organization and promoting change that is fundamental, radical, or discontinuous. This approach to change has existed for some time in terms of general ideas, but only recently are these ideas emerging from successful practice. We will examine concepts and practical theories that have helped organizations in the private sector engage in successful transformation. At present, these ideas exist in a fragmented way; we will review these individual elements and synthesize them in the form of a general but nevertheless practical model.
This will create the framework for describing how such an approach has been used to implement the first phase of transformationâ??mobilizing employees in a public organization. We present a case study in which we describe the steps managers at the Kansas City Management Office (KCMO) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Farm Service Agency have taken to create a vision and prepare employees to participate in bringing forth this new organizational vision, and we describe the design and startâ??up phases of this project. In a final section, we will assess our model and the viability of the project and conclude with what is required to lay the groundwork for a strategy of organizational transformation in the public sector patterned after recent breakthroughs in private industry.
The Meaning of a Vision-Based Diagnosis
Review of the Literature on Reengineering and Reinventing
Magma as a Model of VBD
A Case Study at the Farm Service Agency
Mobilizing for Transforming Change
Appendix and References