High-Performance Government

497 Pages·2004·1.87 MB·English

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HIGH-
PERFORMANCE
GOVERNMENT
Structure, Leadership, Incentives
E D I T E D B Y
Robert Klitgaard & Paul C. Light
This book was made possible by the generosity of donors to the Pardee
RAND Graduate School, particularly Paul Volcker and Eugene and
Maxine Rosenfeld.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klitgaard, Robert E.
High-performance government : structure, leadership, incentives / Robert
Klitgaard, Paul C. Light.
p. cm.
"MG-256."
This volume comprises thirteen essays that address the primary problem
areas identified by the Volcker Commission, along with the text of the
Commission report itself.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8330-3740-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-8330-3662-9 (hardcover :
alk. paper)
1. Government productivity--United States. 2. Political planning--United
States. 3. Organizational change--United States. 4. Administrative
agencies--United States--Reorganization. 5. Executive departments--United
States--Reorganization. I. United States. National Commission on the
Public Service. II. Title.
JK468.P75K585 2005
352.3’67’0973--dc22
2004029557
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objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges
facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s
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Preface
Early versions of most of the chapters in this book were presented in
August 2003 at the Pardee RAND Graduate School in a two-week
course convened by Paul C. Light. Then, at a PRGS conference in
March 2004, the authors presented their revised papers to each other
and to five distinguished experts: Mark Abramson, Eugene Bardach,
Steven Kelman, Barbara Nelson, and Hannah Sistare. These experts
made presentations at the conference and contributed written
commentaries afterwards, which assisted the editors and authors in
generating the final versions assembled here. Jim Dewar, Lynn
Karoly, and Jane Ryan later provided helpful comments, and Janet
DeLand was the book’s speedy and efficient editor.
The course, the conference, and this book were made possible
by the generosity of donors to the Pardee RAND Graduate School,
particularly Paul Volcker and Eugene and Maxine Rosenfeld.
iii
Contents
Preface...................................................................... iii
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
by Robert Klitgaard ....................................................1
CHAPTER TWO
Urgent Business for America: Revitalizing the Federal Government
for the 21st Century
by the National Commission on the Public Service [the Volcker
Commission] ..........................................................9
PART 1. WHAT BROAD CHANGES WILL TRANSFORM GOVERNMENT
IN THE FUTURE?
CHAPTER THREE
Governing the Market State
by Gregory F. Treverton............................................. 89
CHAPTER FOUR
High-Performance Government in an Uncertain World
by Robert J. Lempert and Steven W. Popper.......................113
PART 2. VOLCKER COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION 1:
REORGANIZE BY MISSION
CHAPTER FIVE
Organizing for Reorganizing
by Susan M. Gates ..................................................139
CHAPTER SIX
Four Ways to Restructure National Security in the U.S. Government
by Lynn E. Davis....................................................161
v
vi High-Performance Government
CHAPTER SEVEN
Using Public-Private Partnerships Successfully in the Federal
Setting
by Frank Camm.....................................................179
PART 3. VOLCKER COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION 2:
ENHANCE LEADERSHIP
CHAPTER EIGHT
Improving Government Processes: From Velocity Management
to Presidential Appointments
by John Dumond and Rick Eden...................................217
CHAPTER NINE
Developing Leadership: Emulating the Military Model
by Al Robbert .......................................................255
CHAPTER TEN
Broadening Public Leadership in a Globalized World
by Gregory F. Treverton............................................281
PART 4. VOLCKER COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION 3:
CREATE FLEXIBLE, PERFORMANCE-DRIVEN AGENCIES
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Economic Complexities of Incentive Reforms
by Beth J. Asch......................................................309
CHAPTER TWELVE
Measuring Performance
by Jacob Alex Klerman..............................................343
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lessons from Performance Measurement in Education
by Laura Hamilton..................................................381
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Choosing and Using Performance Criteria
by Robert Klitgaard, Johannes Fedderke, and Kamil Akramov.....407
Bibliography .............................................................447
About the Editors and Authors .........................................487
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
Robert Klitgaard
When we think about the performance of our government, we tend
to focus on four questions:
1. Who should our political leaders be?
2. What policies should be chosen?
3. How big should the government be?
4. How can public managers do better, given the organizations they
inhabit, the personnel rules they face, and their incentives for per-
formance (or lack thereof)?
Each of these questions is vital. But focusing only on them can
lead us to ignore some deep causes of underperformance, those
“givens” in the fourth question: organizations poorly aligned to their
missions, malfunctioning systems for selecting leaders, and ineffective
or perverse incentive systems.
This book incites us and invites us to address these deep causes
of underperformance. Chapter 2 is the report of the Volcker Com-
mission, a devastating nonpartisan indictment of public service in
America. Low-performance government provides too little service for
too much money. Breakdowns and failures are a serious risk, if not
already widespread. The Volcker Commission is a call to action, the
most important critique of the federal government since at least the
1980s.
The rest of the chapters ask us to consider new approaches to
structure, leadership, and incentives. The authors are researchers at
1
2 High-Performance Government
the RAND Corporation—most of them are also professors at the
Pardee RAND Graduate School. In the past 15 years, they and other
RAND researchers have produced more than a thousand studies of
public management across an array of government agencies. In this
book, the authors step back from specific research findings to address
the Volcker Commission’s deep questions. How might structural re-
forms be successfully undertaken? What practical steps would result
in better leaders? How can we create performance-driven, flexible
public agencies?
Chapters 3 and 4 show how the challenges facing government
are compounded by a changing role of the state and by increasing un-
certainty. Gregory Treverton argues that ten years from now, the
lines between state and market will be even more blurred than they
are today. In areas from health care to anti-poverty programs, from
homeland security to military procurement, government must work
in tandem with the private sector and civil society. In these partner-
ships, government faces new challenges of structure, leadership, and
incentives that transcend the borders of the public sector.
In Chapter 4, Robert Lempert and Steven Popper speak of the
“deep uncertainty” in issues ranging from counterterrorism to global
warming. Our government organizations and our analytical tools
are ill equipped to deal with such problems. Fortunately, the informa-
tion revolution may offer relief. Lempert and Popper describe new
computer-based tools for handling complex problems that involve
deep uncertainty and many interested parties. These tools enable
more-effective collaboration across offices and agencies. In the future,
they may allow a kind of “virtual restructuring”—reorganization
without the need to shuffle organizational boxes.
Better Structures
Government structures should follow missions, as form follows func-
tion—at least, so both the Volcker Commission and common sense