Organizational Failure and Turnaround: Lessons for Public Services from the For-Profit Sector

As the performance of public services is increasingly scrutinized, it is now commonplace for some schools, hospitals, local authorities and other public organizations to be deemed ‘failing’ and for attempts to be made at creating a turnaround in their performance. This article explores the literature on failure and turnaround in for-profit organizations, presents a number of models or frameworks for describing and categorizing failure and turnaround, and examines the relevance and transferability of theoretical and empirical studies in the for-profit sector to the emerging field of failure and turnaround in public services.     

Organizational Failure and Turnaround: Lessons for Public Services from the For-Profit Sector

As the performance of public services is increasingly scrutinized, it is now commonplace for some schools, hospitals, local authorities and other public organizations to be deemed 'failing' and for attempts to be made at creating a turnaround in their performance. This article explores the literature on failure and turnaround in for-profit organizations, presents a number of models or frameworks for describing and categorizing failure and turnaround, and examines the relevance and transferability of theoretical and empirical studies in the for-profit sector to the emerging field of failure and turnaround in public services.     

The Role of Boards in the Failure and Turnaround of Non-Profit Organizations

This article reports on research that examined the role that boards play in the failure and turnaround of non-profit organizations. The article concludes that boards do often play an important hands-on role in turnaround, which is different from that described in much of the normative literature. As well as needing skills, such as leadership, those board members leading the change process need high levels of commitment, emotional resilience and a 'safe place' to formulate plans.     

Four lessons in adaptive leadership

The armed services have been in the business of leadership development much longer than the corporate world has. Today's military leaders need tools and techniques to face a fast-changing and unpredictable type of enemy--so the armed services train their officers in ways that build a culture of readiness and commitment. Business leaders need to foster an adaptive culture to survive and succeed, given that they, too, face unprecedented uncertainty--and new types of competitors. Michael Useem and his colleagues at the Wharton School incorporate exposure to military leadership into MBA and executive MBA programs. Highlights include direct contact in the classroom with leaders in the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Department of Defense, along with field-training exercises and battlefield visits. The programs are designed to help students connect viscerally to essential leadership lessons. Four are featured in the article: Meet the troops. Creating a personal link is crucial to leading people in challenging times. Make decisions. Making good and timely calls is the crux of leadership. Mission first. Focus on common purpose and eschew personal gain. Convey strategic intent. Make the objectives clear, but give people the freedom to execute on them in their own way.     

Developing public servants for the future

ABSTRACT

The majority of UK civil servants are ‘developed’ within a particular service or profession and there is frequently very little movement into other service areas. Many current leaders therefore have limited experiences in services and organizations other than their own. This paper presents a new graduate programme for the training and development of future public leaders in Wales. The programme is a leadership and development programme for civil and public servants, exposing them to a range of services. The intention is that, through these experiences, future leaders will approach problems from a multi-service perspective, will be better networked and ready to deal with complexity. Areas of good practice are highlighted, together with some of the challenges of developing leaders in this way.     

A '3Rs' Strategy for Public Service Turnaround: Retrenchment, Repositioning and Reorganization

Problems of public service 'failure' are high on the political agenda in the UK, and many national and local organizations are searching for effective turnaround strategies. Although little research on turnaround in the public sector has been undertaken, there is a substantial number of studies of decline and recovery in private firms. Evidence from these studies suggests that turnaround is more likely in companies that pursue retrenchment, repositioning and reorganization. The relevance of this '3Rs' strategy to the public sector is analysed, and the potential consequences for public service improvement are evaluated. This article will help managers to think more clearly about turnaround strategies that could work in their organizations.     

Level 5 leadership. The triumph of humility and fierce resolve

Boards of directors typically believe that transforming a company from merely good to truly great requires a larger-than-life personality--an egocentric chief to lead the corporate charge. Think "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap or Lee Iacocca. In fact, that's not the case, says author and leadership expert Jim Collins. The essential ingredient for taking a company to greatness is having a "Level 5" leader at the helm--an executive in whom extreme personal humility blends paradoxically with intense professional will. Collins paints a compelling and counter-intuitive portrait of the skills and personality traits necessary for effective leadership. He identifies the characteristics common to Level 5 leaders: humility, will, ferocious resolve, and the tendency to give credit to others while assigning blame to themselves. Collins fleshes out his Level 5 theory by telling colorful tales about 11 such leaders from recent business history. He contrasts the turnaround successes of outwardly humble, even shy, executives like Gillette's Colman M. Mockler and Kimberly-Clark's Darwin E. Smith with those of larger-than-life business leaders like Dunlap and Iacocca, who courted personal celebrity. The jury is still out on how to cultivate Level 5 leaders and whether it's even possible to do so, Collins admits. Some leaders have the Level 5 seed within; some don't. But Collins suggests using the findings from his research to strive for Level 5--for instance, getting the right people on board and creating a culture of discipline. "Our own lives and all that we touch will be better for the effort," he concludes.     

What's Different About Public and Non-Profit 'Turnaround'?

This article reconstructs the literature on corporate turnaround in terms of its recurring features. It then tests these against the experience of four very different cases of the turnaround or attempted turnaround of public and non-profit organizations. It concludes that while some concepts from the corporate literature usefully highlight important aspects, other critical complicating features of what is needed to achieve a turnaround in public and non-profit contexts would be overlooked or poorly treated if the situation were considered simply in these terms. These complicating features deserve the attention both of practitioners and researchers.     

Theme: Whole of government accounting— international trends

This article reconstructs the literature on corporate turnaround in terms of its recurring features. It then tests these against the experience of four very different cases of the turnaround or attempted turnaround of public and non-profit organizations. It concludes that while some concepts from the corporate literature usefully highlight important aspects, other critical complicating features of what is needed to achieve a turnaround in public and non-profit contexts would be overlooked or poorly treated if the situation were considered simply in these terms. These complicating features deserve the attention both of practitioners and researchers.     

Comparing the content of regulatory impact assessments in the UK and the EU

The need for effective leadership in the UK public sector has been a prominent discourse in recent years. One aspect of this is a growing interest in talent management. This article examines the evolution of processes used for managing talent and developing leaders in the UK's National Health Service (NHS) by applying human resource management theory to an empirical case study. Our aim was to provide a constructive, but critical, analysis of the current role of managerial talent management and to comment on the suitability of the adopted approach in the NHS. Over the past three decades the NHS has come to adopt an increasingly ‘hard’ approach to talent management, i.e. rationalistic, managerial and narrowly focused on leadership competencies and senior management roles. This parallels a more general shift in the NHS from its traditional public sector ethos and humanistic values to more business-oriented values and ways of working.     

Leading for collaborative public service innovation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the critical leadership actions that support collaborative public service innovations, drawing on evidence from UK local government led partnerships. It concludes that success is more likely if leaders help the partnership to: build mutual trust; agree clear, well thought through, politically supported ambitions; invest time, resources and energy; galvanize managers and staff; make a long term commitment to achieving the objectives, learning, adapting and growing innovations together.     

Thinking about ... leadership. Warts and all

Does using Tyco's funds to purchase a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 dog-shaped umbrella stand make Dennis Kozlowski a bad leader? Is Martha Stewart's career any less instructive because she may have sold some shares on the basis of a tip-off? Is leadership synonymous with moral leadership? Before 1970, the answer from most leadership theorists would certainly have been no. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tsetung--great leaders all, but hardly good men. In fact, capricious, murderous, high-handed, corrupt, and evil leaders are effective and commonplace. Machiavelli celebrated them; the U.S. constitution built in safeguards against them. Everywhere, power goes hand in hand with corruption--everywhere, that is, except in the literature of business leadership. To read Tom Peters, Jay Conger, John Kotter, and most of their colleagues, leaders are, as Warren Bennis puts it, individuals who create shared meaning, have a distinctive voice, have the capacity to adapt, and have integrity. According to today's business literature, to be a leader is, by definition, to be benevolent. But leadership is not a moral concept, and it is high time we acknowledge that fact. We have as much to learn from those we would regard as bad examples as we do from the far fewer good examples we're presented with these days. Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be willfully blind to the reality of the human condition, and it severely limits our ability to become better leaders. Worse, it may cause senior executives to think that, because they are leaders, they are never deceitful, cowardly, or greedy. That way lies disaster.     

Intervention or Persuasion? Strategies for Turnaround of Poorly-Performing Councils

This article provides early results from a long-term evaluation of the turnaround strategies by poorly-performing local authorities in England. The history and theory behind central government interventions into local government is reviewed, focusing on the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). The journeys taken by 10 local authorities, after being labelled as 'poor' or 'weak', are described and these responses are located within the literature on theories of turnaround and public sector service improvement. The authors conclude by setting out a research agenda for the future.     

The Use of Budget Reforms to Modernize Governance in German Local Government

This article provides early results from a long-term evaluation of the turnaround strategies by poorly-performing local authorities in England. The history and theory behind central government interventions into local government is reviewed, focusing on the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). The journeys taken by 10 local authorities, after being labelled as ‘poor’ or ‘weak’, are described and these responses are located within the literature on theories of turnaround and public sector service improvement. The authors conclude by setting out a research agenda for the future.     

Murphy’s Laws: A Key Explanatory Tool for Public Sector Disputes in the UK

This article reports on the use that the public makes of the budgetary and financial reporting produced by Spanish local authorities. The authors show financial reporting influences voting behaviour. Although citizens cannot decide how much tax they have to pay or the volume or quality of the services, they can control public management when it comes to election time. Accounting information can reflect the results of public policies and consequently serve as a vehicle for communicating the economic effects of political management. The authors make a strong case for more ‘popular’ financial reporting so that government accounts can be understood and properly used by non-specialists.     

Gender diversity and financial statement fraud

This study investigates the role of gender diversity in fraud commission and detection with a view to identifying whether companies with more female corporate leaders are less likely to be involved in financial statement fraud. Using a bivariate probit model, the role of female corporate leaders in financial statement fraud commission and detection is examined for Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2018. The representation of female corporate leaders increases the likelihood of fraud detection, thus reducing firms’ propensity to engage in fraud. The finding confirms that women are risk averse and more committed to ethical practices than men in corporate leadership positions. Moreover, this impact of gender diversity is contingent upon the nature of ultimate controllers of listed companies: more female representation in top leadership roles can mitigate fraud commission or detect fraud effectively in non-state-owned enterprises, but not in state-owned enterprises. In addition, the recent anti-corruption campaign initiated by Chinese President Jinping Xi is a powerful form of public governance. Female corporate leaders play a more positive role in mitigating fraud commission and detecting fraud commission in the post-campaign period than in the pre-campaign period.     

7 transformations of leadership

Most developmental psychologists agree that what differentiates one leader from another is not so much philosophy of leadership, personality, or style of management. Rather, it's internal "action logic"--how a leader interprets the surroundings and reacts when his or her power or safety is challenged. Relatively few leaders, however, try to understand their action logic, and fewer still have explored the possibility of changing it. They should, because leaders who undertake this voyage of personal understanding and development can transform not only their own capabilities but also those of their companies. The authors draw on 25 years of consulting experience and collaboration with psychologist Susanne Cook-Greuter to present a typology of leadership based on the way managers personally make sense of the world around them. Rooke and Torbert classify leaders into seven distinct actionlogic categories: Opportunists, Diplomats, Experts, Achievers, Individualists, Strategists, and Alchemists-the first three associated with below-average performance, the latter four with medium to high performance. These leadership styles are not fixed, the authors say, and executives who are willing to work at developing themselves and becoming more self-aware can almost certainly move toward one of the more effective action logics. A Diplomat, for instance, can succeed through hard work and self-reflection at transforming himself into a Strategist. Few people may become Alchemists, but many will have the desire and potential to become Individualists and Strategists. Corporations that help their executives and leadership teams to examine their action logics can reap rich rewards.     

Leadership development in the age of the algorithm

By now we expect personalized content--it's routinely served up by online retailers and news services, for example. But the typical leadership development program still takes a formulaic, one-size-fits-all approach. And it rarely happens that an excellent technique can be effectively transferred from one leader to all others. Someone trying to adopt a practice from a leader with a different style usually seems stilted and off--a Franken-leader. Breakthrough work at Hilton Hotels and other organizations shows how companies can use an algorithmic model to deliver training tips uniquely suited to each individual's style. It's a five-step process: First, a company must choose a tool with which to identify each person's leadership type. Second, it should assess its best leaders, and third, it should interview them about their techniques. Fourth, it should use its algorithmic model to feed tips drawn from those techniques to developing leaders of the same type. And fifth, it should make the system dynamically intelligent, with user reactions sharpening the content and targeting of tips. The power of this kind of system--highly customized, based on peer-to-peer sharing, and continually evolving--will soon overturn the generic model of leadership development. And such systems will inevitably break through any one organization, until somewhere in the cloud the best leadership tips from all over are gathered, sorted, and distributed according to which ones suit which people best.     

The preventive services agenda— delivering value for money

The strict limitations on UK public expenditure suggest a much stronger role for preventive services in the future. However, to do this, preventive services must be able to demonstrate good value for money in the use of public funds. This article identifies some research findings concerning value for money in preventive services and suggests lessons to be learned for the future.     

三边互动的图书馆领导生态初探

图书馆的领导者、被领导者、领导环境的三边互动，构成了图书馆的领导生态。本文以图书馆领导活动作为研究对象，着重剖析领导活动的主体——领导者，分析领导活动的基础——被领导者，解析与领导过程直接相关的因素——领导环境，从各种类型特点的利弊探讨如何运用和谐的图书馆机制，积极改善图书馆人文环境，促进三边的良性互动。