Unleashing change : a study of organizational renewal in government

A Brookings Institution Press and Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation publication This is a hopeful account of the potential for organizational change and improvement within government. Despite the mantra that "people resist change," it is possible to effect meaningful reform in a large bureaucracy. In Unleashing Change , public management expert Steven Kelman presents a blueprint for accomplishing such improvements, based on his experience orchestrating procurement reform in the 1990s. Kelman's focuses on making change happen on the front lines, not just getting it announced by senior policymakers. He argues that frequently there will be a constituency for change within government organizations. The role for leaders is not to force change on the unwilling but to unleash the willing, and to persist long enough for the change to become institutionalized. Drawing on the author's own personal experience and extensive research among frontline civil servants, as well as literature in organization theory and psychology, Unleashing Change presents an approach for improving agency performance from soup to nuts—mixing theory with practice. Its analysis is innovative and empirically rich. Kelman's conclusions challenge conventional notions about achieving reform in large organizations and mark a major advance in theories of organizational change. His lessons will be of interest not only to scholars interested in improving the performance of the public sector, but for anyone struggling to manage a large organization. "Steve Kelman's creative research, augmented by his own considerable experience as a reform-minded federal official, gives this book unusual depth and authenticity."—Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, author of Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End

A Brookings Institution Press and Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation publicationThis is a hopeful account of the potential for organizational change and improvement within government. Despite the mantra that "people resist change," it is possible to effect meaningful reform in a large bureaucracy. In Unleashing Change, public management expert Steven Kelman presents a blueprint for accomplishing such improvements, based on his experience orchestrating procurement reform in the 1990s.Kelman's focuses on making change happen on the front lines, not just getting it announced by senior policymakers. He argues that frequently there will be a constituency for change within government organizations. The role for leaders is not to force change on the unwilling but to unleash the willing, and to persist long enough for the change to become institutionalized.Drawing on the author's own personal experience and extensive research among frontline civil servants, as well as literature in organization theory and psychology, Unleashing Change presents an approach for improving agency performance from soup to nuts—mixing theory with practice. Its analysis is innovative and empirically rich. Kelman's conclusions challenge conventional notions about achieving reform in large organizations and mark a major advance in theories of organizational change. His lessons will be of interest not only to scholars interested in improving the performance of the public sector, but for anyone struggling to manage a large organization."Steve Kelman's creative research, augmented by his own considerable experience as a reform-minded federal official, gives this book unusual depth and authenticity."—Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, author of Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End

Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 1 Introduction: Organizational Change and Improving the Performance of Government 12 2 The Traditional Procurement System and the Difficulties of Change 21 Part One: Initiating Change 48 3 Discontent on the Front Lines 50 4 Joining the Reform Coalition 70 5 Changes at the Top and the Unleashing of Reform 93 6 Initiating Change: Implications for Theory and Practice 107 Part Two: Consolidating Change 120 7 How a Change Effort Feeds on Itself: Theory 122 8 How a Change Effort Feeds on Itself: Evidence 146 9 From Attitude to Behavior 171 10 “Deepening” and Organizational Change 190 11 Consolidating Change: Implications for Theory and Practice 212 Appendixes 226 A Specifying Models and Determinants 226 B Methodological Considerations Involved in Using Only One Case 243 Notes 248 Index 308 A 308 B 308 C 309 D 311 E 311 F 312 G 313 H 313 I 313 J 314 K 314 L 314 M 315 N 315 O 315 P 315 Q 317 R 317 S 317 T 318 U 319 V 319 W 319 This is a hopeful account of effecting change and long-term improvement in large, complex organizations. Public management expert Steven Kelman presents his innovative blueprint for accomplishing reform goals, based largely on his orchestration of federal procurement reform in the 1990s. Unleasbing Change combines theory and practice in a soup-to-nuts analysis of how to garner support for reform-on the front lines as well as in the boardroom-and how to implement changes so they are sustained and become standard policy. "Drawing on the experience of procurement reform in the Reinventing Government initiative of the 1990s, as well as organization theory and psychology, this book presents a comprehensive approach to improving performance in big public sector organizations that addresses both theory and practice"--Provided by publisher.