Preface
Leaders of 21st century organizations face an imperative to change or transform their organizations in response to ever-growing demands for greater productivity and effectiveness in an increasingly interconnected world. Leaders of private sector organizations must continually reinvent their organizations in the face of changing consumer demands and world competition. Public and nonprofit leaders have only recently faced this pressure to transform business processes and delivery systems. However, events such as the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the widespread organizational failures to deal effectively with the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, and the challenge of dealing with worldwide hunger and pandemics such as bird flu have highlighted the need for public and nonprofit organizations to become more nimble, connected, and performance-oriented.
We invite public and nonprofit leaders to become more comfortable with the demands of change and transformation, to build organizations that are “change-centric,” to carefully weigh and prepare for the risks of change, and to develop a change-oriented leadership style that we call transformational stewardship. Transformational stewards continually balance the need for organizational change with the need to protect important organizational values and norms, always keeping the concept of the public interest at the center of their deliberations.
Although public and nonprofit sector change is inevitable and is occurring at an increasing rate, many managers and leaders of public and nonprofit sector organizations are not provided the training and tools they need to become successful change agents. Most books dealing with organizational change focus on the private sector, and they often make the implicit assumption that all change is the same.
We believe that public and nonprofit leaders face unique challenges and responsibilities. Foremost among those is the mandate to protect the public interest. We wrote this book to offer public and nonprofit leaders both theoretical knowledge and practical tools that can help them accomplish their change goals while protecting their organizations as well as the broader public interest.
Our analysis suggests that successful change is possible if the leaders initiating change efforts carefully weigh several important aspects affecting the contemplated change: its complexity, the needs and views of stakeholders, the external sociopolitical environment, and the organization’s change capacity. Moreover, leaders who understand and assess the risks of change are better prepared to follow strategies that either overcome or mitigate those risks, and are able to build organizations that welcome and are adaptable to change initiatives.
This book grew out of our lifelong interest in leadership and organizational performance, which culminated in a research project we recently conducted for the George Washington University Center for Innovation in Public Service (CIPS)
to study the challenge of change and transformation in the public sector (Kee and Newcomer 2007). In this book we expand our research to include the nonprofit sector and offer a tailored approach to assist leaders of change in both sectors. We also suggest a general approach to leading change, which we refer to as transformational stewardship—a balanced method that recognizes the need to transform organizations while protecting organizational values and stakeholders. Informing our recommendations is our belief that public and nonprofit leaders must keep the concept of the public interest at the center of their change and transformation initiatives.
ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK
The chapters that follow provide evidence of the need to change, discuss the findings from our research, introduce the concept of transformational stewardship, and focus on several key elements involved in successfully stewarding public and nonprofit organizations through major changes or transformation. The key elements we believe require attention in any change effort include:
• Transforming leadership—strong, widespread leadership throughout the organization that provides a foundation for change.
• Stakeholder communication and collaboration—understanding the perceptions of key stakeholder groups and designing appropriate communication and collaboration strategies to involve stakeholders in the change effort.
• Change-centric organizational culture—organizational cultures, structures, policies, and procedures that support change initiatives.
• Change implementation mechanisms—the development of specific change structures that take responsibility for leading the change effort.
• Performance measurement systems—systems in place to track performance and the capability to develop metrics to measure the success of change.
• Sociopolitical environment—understanding and taking advantage of favorable environmental factors while mitigating adverse factors.
• Analysis of the risk of failure—effective analysis of the risk factors in a change effort and the development of mitigation strategies to address those risks.
We explore these concepts in the three parts of this book. Part I, “The Challenges for Leaders,” comprises four chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the forces for change in public and nonprofit organizations, highlighting the need to protect the public interest. Chapter 2 outlines our concept of transformational stewardship and explains why that concept is relevant to keeping a high level of public interest and accountability in change initiatives. Chapter 3 provides leaders with a diagnostic approach, or model, for dealing with the change landscape. Chapter 4 discusses six case studies of public and nonprofit organizations, drawing important lessons.
Part II contains five chapters dealing with “Key Leadership Processes.” Chapter 5 begins with the important responsibility leaders have to communicate and collaborate with the organization’s stakeholders. Chapter 6 discusses the importance of organizational culture and how leaders must foster change-centric cultures to create organizations that are comfortable with continuous improvement and change. Chapter 7 offers approaches to building mechanisms for implementing change, including strategic management and change frameworks that foster a learning organization. Chapter 8 addresses the need to measure change performance, highlighting why performance measurement systems are such an important part of the change process. Chapter 9, contributed by Ron Carlee, examines the change leadership of emergency management functions in a networked environment.
Part III provides our “Vision for the Future.” Chapter 10 discusses how public and nonprofit organizations can develop transformational stewards throughout their organizations. Chapter 11 offers our “Invitation to Change in the Public Interest” for leaders of public and nonprofit organizations. The appendices provide two tools for leaders of change: a diagnostic tool for analyzing change risk and an individual 360-degree transformational stewardship survey.
We have written this book for all those who lead change efforts—not only leaders with positional authority within their public or nonprofit organization, but also all those who assume situational leadership roles in a change effort. Depending on the nature of the change, different types of managers may assume a leadership role; for example, the chief technology officer in an e-government initiative or the chief human capital officer in a pay-for-performance proposal may lead change efforts. Middle managers also play an important leadership role in communicating and translating change initiatives to their supervisees and colleagues across their organizations. We view all these individuals in a variety of organizational roles as potential change leaders, and we have written this book and tailored our guidance to them.
Depending on the current state of the organization and the need for change, outside leadership sometimes is brought in to transform the organization. In other cases, the organization may contract with a private firm to coordinate and synchronize skills and resources to implement the change initiative. In most cases, however, the individuals in an organization likely will assume the key change leadership roles. This book is designed to provide all those leading change efforts with the knowledge, methods, and assessment instruments they need to accomplish change goals.
The good news is that successful large-scale public and nonprofit sector change is possible. The case studies presented in this book clearly show that leading major public and nonprofit change efforts is complicated, unpredictable, and risky. But, with the right analysis and preparation, leadership can bring about successful change. We hope this book will provide change leaders with the tools and knowledge they need to evaluate their organizations and make informed choices on how to increase the effectiveness of their change efforts in the public interest.
James Edwin Kee
jedkee@gwu.edu
Kathryn E. Newcomer
newcomer@gwu.edu