As a government Executive or senior leader, you are elected or appointed to “get things done” on behalf of your citizenry.
This blog is to promote AWARENESS of a critical aspect of getting things done that commonly challenges government leadership, the ability to execute, which can be a game-changer for what can be achieved.
Execution is the process of successfully connecting a Leader’s goal, initiative, or strategy to HOW the work performed by business units and the people within them, so that the desired result is achieved.
Yet governments are difficult environments in which to execute successfully:
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It can be very difficult to sort, organize, and prioritize among the countless demands for time and attention from multiple sources, such as customers, governing bodies, operating units, political officials, and of course, the crisis du jour – all asking to be addressed in addition to the daily mission-work of government with the same resources.
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The priorities and timelines of elected officials and social policy executives often differ from the requirements of effective execution, which are operational in nature.
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Leaders, who tend to change more frequently than staff, must navigate the static bureaucracy’s “ways of doing things,” priorities, and the scarcity of skills and tools for analysis and change.
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Government leaders may not be selected, nor taught to execute effectively. This skill is often not considered when appointing leaders in government.
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Leaders often do not know how to (or feel comfortable to) engage units outside of their area of authority for support to do work that depends upon the cooperation of external entities.
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Bureaucratic staff may not be practiced or skilled in adapting to changes that deviate their daily patterns to implement new initiatives, nor in adopting changes that result from leadership initiatives.
These truths of government can easily mislead and wear down the best-intentioned government leaders – which results in incomplete and poorly executed initiatives that do not successfully achieve the desired outcome, and in turn feed the cliché that governments can’t deliver.
Mistakes in government also take a long time to correct due to resource constraints and a commonly static culture.
Below are examples of common government initiatives to create improvement that are unable to overcome challenges with execution.
All these initiatives generated some benefits, yet the challenges faced by government leaders got in the way of them achieving their intended goals.
But governments can deliver! Government leaders CAN create deliberate and measurable results!
The key is to execute initiatives in a way that reveals how to achieve success.
The picture below illustrates the steps that must be taken to reach any goal and fulfill any initiative.
Successful execution links what a Leader wants to get done with a process of exposing reality and acting on it.
The solution to poor execution begins with Leaders being AWARE of the connection between their actions and the results that are achieved. Next is to take the steps to Execute effectively.