‘The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.’ This adage might have worked for Napoleon, but it won’t cut the mustard for current day public sector leaders. With the current tightening of the Treasury’s belt and a forthcoming election, they are likely to have to make promises about what they can achieve.
But here’s the rub – no leader can achieve these promises alone; they depend entirely on other managers to provide strategy. When, as chief executive, you are presenting your updated strategy to your managers, it’s your chance to explain your vision and win commitment. But how is the message received? According to Hay Group research, in the average public sector organisation, more than half of all managers and supervisors lack clarity, close to half believe they lack the necessary autonomy, while a quarter feel they are not free to experiment and more than a quarter feel that underperformance is tolerated.
In our experience, there are three major tools with which others can help a chief executive. One is to align the organisation with the strategy. This doesn’t mean just a simple, inevitable reorganisation but an organisation design that expresses what does and doesn’t matter. Often, the logic of an organisation is inherited, unexamined and untested. If senior teams discuss the principles of the design, it becomes easier to make decisions.
Secondly, pay some attention to shaping both formal and informal rewards. Reward sends a loud and clear message about what the organisation aims to achieve. And it is not just a technical issue about pounds and pence. What you measure communicates your priorities. One organisation we know recently removed a measure of customer satisfaction from performance targets to simplify them. The first question staff asked was: ‘Is customer satisfaction not a priority any more?’ At least they asked the question; in other organisations people might just assume that customer satisfaction was no longer important.
Finally, live the vision. Leaders rightly spend time negotiating externally. But they also need to directly connect with their workforces internally to make their promises real. It is important to be honest about sacrifices and the choices and rationales behind the decisions and headlines. Strategy is as much about what is not done as about what is done. Too often these are ignored in communication because there are some for whom aspirations won’t be met.
It is when these three elements are mixed together that organisations will come together to provide for their communities.
Jody Goldsworthy is a public sector expert at the Hay Group
