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Q & A

JLA: What can the public sector learn from business?

NM: There's more to cost control than cuts. Efficiencies mean better ways of doing things, even if up-front investment is needed to achieve savings downstream.

We need a critical look at what is and isn't core, a willingness to outsource some non-core functions and a determination to find synergies - a priority in business.

People aren't motivated to find extra savings, because they're clawed back without any benefits to the Department. Incentives are needed to share services and to stop re-inventing the wheel.

The twin system of politicians and public officials makes accountability confused, even where they have the same objectives. We need greater clarity, reflected in organisational structures.

Business has learned that without appropriate skills, the bottom line will suffer. The public sector has a crying need for better skills in commissioning, contract and project management.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT
by Nicholas Montagu

Change should never be an end in itself. It's expensive, unsettling and distracting, and unless it there's a good reason behind it that everyone involved can see, it won't work.

That said, most organisations, whether private or public, will need to change regularly to keep up with their customers' own changing needs, aspirations and expectations. The organisation that stands still, when demand is dynamic, will fail.

Customers are the starting point; the rationale for change. But the other vital group of stakeholders are the people in the organisation - every one of them, from top to bottom. The success of change depends on them, and on their commitment to it. That leads to the first imperative of change management; communication. Tell people what you're seeking to achieve and why: You must get their buy-in.

A key tool is to make them see how vital they are to the process. It's impossible to remind them too often of this, or of how much you value and depend on them. Whatever the size of the organisation, people must understand where they fit into the overall strategy and plan, and just what the articulated vision means for their part of the business. It's important to excite, as well as engage them.

Change tests both management and leadership - and if you don't recognise that managers at all levels are also leaders and equip them for that role, you'll stall. Never forget that, while there may be things that only the top team can do (and they must be rock solid and consistent in the messages they give out), managers lower down cut a lot more ice with their own people on a day-to-day basis than those at the top. You'll only freeze out the rear-gunners who oppose any change if you get your middle and junior managers on side as truly valued partners in the project.

Alongside the fun and the buzz of adrenaline and visible leadership, the humdrum bureaucratic apparatus is critical to success. Besides direction and project control, you'll need measures. It's not enough to know where you're going, and why; you'll want milestones, a clear allocation of responsibilities for delivery, regular evaluation of where you've got to, and a sharp audit at the end to learn lessons for the future. Change increases risk, and an effective system of risk management is every bit as essential as the charismatic leadership stuff. And don't ever sit back and preen on having reached your destination. Effective change management is iterative, and it's all too easy to slip back from lack of follow-through.

All of this may seem bog-standard good leadership and management practice... and of course that's just what it is! Embedding change, getting commitment and making it work isn't a distinct art or science; it's about understanding people, your own and your customers, recognising what the business needs to do the best for them, and getting their buy-in. That makes it the ultimate test of effective leadership and management. It means huge challenges and huge satisfactions...

...But even God got to rest on the seventh day.