Building Service Excellence in Government.
B. Our Proposed Solution –
(Part II – continued from our July 2017 Edition)
Building A Sustainable Continuous Improvement Service Excellence Performance Framework for All Levels of Government for 25 – 50 Years.
What can and should we do today to “ignite that spark and fire” of inspiration to get us moving toward a more expanded level of performance excellence in the management of our government enterprises in the United States. Our proposed solution is described below.
- Create Our United States Vision for Our Entire Nation– Build It and They will come.
First and foremost, we need a compelling, riveting, and “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” stretch vision for our nation. As part of the vision building process, we will be looking to develop and finalize our vision by comparing our evolving visioning views to those of the “top 10 or top 20” countries on earth.
We would like to encourage the involvement of all best practice countries “anywhere on our planet” such as Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Hong Kong, Japan, Denmark, Austria, France, Belgium, China, India, South Korea, and Norway, and many others that are considered global leaders. Our GBN can and should help in identifying these proven best practices as we proceed.
- Create and Continually Improve our Outcomes / Impact Focus over the Next 25 – 50 Years.
As Bill Gates stated in his 2013 Annual Gates Foundation Letter:
“From the fight against polio to fixing education, what’s missing is often good measurement and a commitment to follow the data. We can do better. We have the tools at hand. But in the past year, I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improve the human condition. You can achieve amazing progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal in a feedback loop…. This may seem pretty basic, but it is amazing to me how often it is not done and how hard it is to get right.”
Our one clear, ambitious goal (Big Hairy Audacious Goal – a BHAG) in this endeavor is to build a government leadership and management framework and institution directly and immediately focused on the achievement of our citizen-based societal outcomes over the next 25 to 50 years.
What this means now is – We need to create a renewed commitment, purpose, and focus on measuring the impact of all of our government improvement actions on the exact OUTCOMES expected by our society. This translates into continuously finding responses to the following 4 essential strategic questions for our country:
Ø What national Outcomes are we seeking, across all major categories of our society?
Ø Who are the customers we are serving (both individuals and organizations)?
Ø How well are we performing in achieving our national outcomes in meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations?
Ø What plans do we have to get better and continually improve over the next 25 to 50years?
All accountability then relates back to measuring our progress related to these 4 questions. That is the value proposition we offer in this proposal. It is my judgment, that no other entity today is doing exactly this in a focused, structured way for our entire nation. We are committed to delivering on this value proposition as part of this proposal and the organization we will build to make it happen.
- Our Call to Action: Join Our Global Community of Practice on Best Practices in the Leadership and Management of Government.
Ø Strategic Institution Selection. We will select and engage the involvement of 10-20 or more governmental agencies in the US, to share best practices. Our scope seeks to include the involvement of most likely 10+ countries and a similar number of agencies “anywhere on our planet”.
Ø Public Leadership Benchmarking Workshop – the planning and initial stage of the selection process will be a kick-off workshop. At these workshops, leaders and their small senior leadership teams from each invited countries and their organizations will learn how to conduct formal benchmarking well so that that we address all, immediate, important, and urgent needs for improvement from a national level.
Ø Create Formal Benchmarking Partnership Agreements. Build our formal benchmarking partnership agreements with each country and each selected agency/government organization, to include senior leaders from each participating nation/organization. That would mean the total number of senior leaders participants would approximate 75-100 active participating members.
C. What Does This Mean for Our Global Benchmarking Network – Why Become A Partner in this Initiative Today?
Ø Our Value-Added Formalized Benchmarking Service
For over 20 years, our Global Benchmarking Network (GBN) is one of the leaders in structured, formalized global benchmarking on a truly international scale. We know good benchmarking, how to do it, and why, from both strategic and operational levels.
This USA based management of government global initiative proposed above also aligns very closely with our GBN Strategic Plan direction and the proposed multi-year activities described in our recent 2030 GBN Benchmarking Report. Initially, GBN can offer a distinct and unique value-added service to our peers and colleagues in government in the US and/or to the specific countries across the globe
that will be seeking to strengthen the management of their government on a holistic, systematic basis as they go forward. Or, more specifically, we can develop a county-by-country or region-by-region GBN-wide benchmarking service offering for use in supporting the management of government from a worldwide perspective.
GBN has members in 20+ countries and can leverage our strengths as a total organization.
Ø We Can Change the World – One National Government/ One Country At a Time.
As discussed at the beginning of this article, our governments in the United States and across the world face serious and immediate challenges today, as driven by recent events in the United States (law enforcement, crime, inequality, immigration), Europe (Brexit), Asia and the Middle East (Syria, etc.) and elsewhere. We need to establish ways for GBN to become more engaged in finding solutions to these entrenched global issues by offering solutions to improve the management of government overall. This US-based partnership proposal is one way for us to do just that.
Accordingly, to be on the leading edge of government improvement on a global scale, I propose this one major arena for our GBN to expand and leverage its strengths in world-class benchmarking. Many of our GBN member organizations have proven brands and reputations in performance measurement, process improvement, and targeted global benchmarking, in the strategic context of government performance excellence. That is what the world needs today – performance excellence in government.
What higher GBN priority is there? Let us, as GBN members, be an integral part of this noble endeavor. The world awaits our commitment and involvement.
Come and Join us in the United States and beyond! We look forward to your active participation and involvement. Please call or write to me at your earliest convenience to become an integral part of this evolving endeavor.
Contact
Dale F. Weeks
USA Global Leadership and Benchmarking Associates (GLBA), Minneapolis, USA
Phone: +850-591-1076
E-Mail: dfwglba(at)gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/dfglba/