3.4 Culture change
In looking towards a managing for outcomes environment it is clear that the public service will need to have a culture that is also concerned about achieving results for citizens – rather than simply achieving specified output targets. The system will only achieve a shift towards a results orientation if those in the front-line are focused on coordinating services and meeting the needs of citizens, in addition to delivering the services they are “contracted” to deliver.
This could be achieved by continuing to embed a performance culture across the sector, albeit one focused on outcomes, through the auspices of a performance management system focused on setting incentives for chief executives to deliver a results culture within their organisations. It may, however, prove more effective to tap into the personal goals of public servants, using personal and professional drivers to further engender a focus on the achievement of outcomes across the public sector.
Johnson and Scholes (2002) outline the need for all parts of a system to be addressed in considering the culture of an organisation – or in this case the culture of an institution. The cultural web identifies six interacting areas that combine to create the cultural paradigm an agency works within: stories; symbols; power structures; organisational structures; control systems; and rituals and routines.
This suggests that in attempting to shift the New Zealand public management system towards an outcomes focus we need to consider:
- how stories about “best practice and positive results” (for example, improved collaboration and more flexible use of resources) can be disseminated across the public sector as they occur;
- how key symbols (particularly the rhetoric of the system) can be utilised to support an increased focus on outcomes;
- how the power structures that sit around Ministers, and in Ministerial relationships with departments could be amended;
- whether the current organisational structures do hamper the effective achievement of outcomes, and if other forms might be more effective;
- how the primary control systems within the system (i.e. the financial and performance management systems) can be shaped to better support managing for outcomes; and
- whether the ways in which agencies engage with each other (i.e. the rituals and routines) need to be amended (for example, how can we provide for better collaboration in the setting of strategic directions in sectors; real consultation in the development of policy; and more integrated service delivery).
The paper seeks to answer these questions in subsequent chapters. Initially, however, it is important to understand the tools and frameworks that might help in the development of change processes.
3.5 How do we effect change?
Knowing what aspects of a system need to be focused on is one thing, but it is also important to understand how change can be effected, whether within an organisation or across an institution.
The change process associated with the State sector reforms can be seen as having addressed all of the aspects identified by Johnson and Scholes (2002), in addition to having clear political leadership and amending the rhetoric of the system. These tools, along with concepts of “change levers’, provide some insight into how the structural and systemic changes to be identified might be achieved.
3.5.1 Political leadership
Schick (1996) has noted that in New Zealand Ministers had a key role to play in progressing the State sector reforms, driving the changes through legislation and as a component of the more wide reaching changes to the economy. More recently, much of the impetus around providing for an increased focus on outcomes has been provided by comments ascribed to the Minister of State Services [see Mallard (2000:1); (2000:2); (2000:3); (2001): and (2002)]. The importance of political leadership in public sector reforms is reinforced by the example of the United Kingdom, where the leadership of the Blair government has been paramount in shifting the culture of the United Kingdom’s public management system towards a results orientation.
This suggests that Ministerial pressure and support for change will continue to be an imperative aspect of the jigsaw if New Zealand is going to continue down the road towards managing for outcomes. The role of Ministers within the system, and how they exercise their responsibilities will, therefore, become an important question to be considered in subsequent chapters.
3.5.2 Rhetoric
Rhetoric, the use of language to shape culture, has also proven to be an important change tool in the past. In discussing ways in which the system can be amended to provide for an increased focus on outcomes it is important to be clear about the perceptions of the current system and the ways in which language has helped to develop these perceptions. Over the years language within the New Zealand public management system has become value-laden and whilst the definitions may or may not be ones everyone would concur with, some words have taken on particular meaning.
The words (and associated concepts of) efficiency and effectiveness provide a good example of this. In common lexicon efficiency has taken on the meaning of least cost, whilst effectiveness is generally understood as pointing towards the achievement of goals. Efficiency and effectiveness are seen as equally important goals for a public management system, but how they are traded off against each other appears to be identified as an issue that needs to be resolved. Perhaps, instead, it is important to determine how the impact they have on systems and processes can be balanced.
Similarly concepts such as purchase and ownership, and outputs and outcomes, have also become value-laden over time. Like efficiency and effectiveness there seems to be a perception that they need to be traded against each other in the development of the public management system. As this paper explores this is not necessarily the case – a well-functioning public management system should, in fact, balance consideration of efficiency, effectiveness, ownership, outputs and outcomes in the management of government agencies and the government as an institution.
3.5.3 Levers of control
Simons (1995), Etzioni (1961), Ouchi (1980), and Dalton (1971) identify ways in which power and control can be considered within organisations. In doing so, they provide an indication of the different levers that can be utilised in looking to shape a managing for outcomes environment. A common theme throughout these theories is that control can be expressed and / or change effected through the use of both “hard” and “soft” management tools. In other words, we can look to coerce and restrain actors by using performance management and boundary systems, or we can try to influence the behaviour of actors through utilising existing beliefs systems and clan (peer) pressure.
It could be argued that over the last fifteen years, in focusing on efficiency and rules, the New Zealand model has tended to rely upon controls at the “harder” end of the spectrum. For example, the significant focus on the coercive and remunerative forms of power over the last fifteen years through the use of individual contracts for chief executives, the use of bonuses to support good performance, and strict performance systems based on explicit sanctions and incentives have supported these two forms of control.
Looking forward to a managing for outcomes environment, an agglomeration of the theories outlined above suggests that the system needs to ensure that the levers of control utilised are sufficiently flexible to conform to their individual roles, whilst also allowing for practitioners to apply rules in innovative ways that assist in the achievement of results.
