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Self-sufficiency, responsiveness, tax based |
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"I’m a taxpayer, I have a right to..." How many times have you heard someone says this or said it yourself. Our expectations of government are shaped by its tax-based structure. We feel we are entitled to efficient, effective and fair service. Recall the impetus that drove California’s Proposition 13. Listen to the political rhetoric today. Bipartisan calls for "less government" and "no new taxes" permeate the sound-bytes on the evening news. The evidence shows that there is a gap between expectations and reality.
Yet the institutions that we demand these things from (fairness, efficiency) have slow and inefficient built right into them. Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot told us that. So we retool and redesign and envision and implement quality. In doing so, we have to remember to take stock of what our constituencies expect. Or our efforts to "fix" the problem won’t fix anything at all. Constituency expectations are critical in the private as well as the public sector. Shareholders expect dividends, customers expect value, workers expect the union to provide benefits. In government and in business, when we focus on the new paradigm - on creativity, on integrity, on quality and participation - we must satisfy our constituencies or our effort will be for naught. |
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manipulate & abide > listen & interact with |
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David Osborne and Ted A. Gaebler, REINVENTING GOVERNMENT, Penguin Books (1992). Authors outline "...the governmental fiscal dilemma: the decades old political problem of government funding has been posited traditionally as either raising taxes or cutting spending. The public accepts neither choice. There is no lessening of demand for quality services, and there is no desire to increase taxes. For Osborne and Gaebler the answer is not I in the liberal/conservative debate over more or less government, but in the wrong kind of government. Only through reinventing our governmental structures can we achieve better government" (from William Kay, A Third Way) Robert L. Hollings, REINVENTING GOVERNMENT: AN ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY, Nova Science Publishers, Inc. (1996). The first section briefly explores: historical roots of reinventing government, how reinventing government relates to another management theories, OpenSystems theory, information management, rediscovering performance auditing, effectiveness of reinventing government efforts. The second section is an annotated bibliography of books, videos, book reviews, national, state and local attempts at implementation, uses in advertising, and recently published materials. Appendices list associations, publications and conferences concerned with reinventing government GOVERNING, incorporating City & State, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. 2300 N St. NW Suite 760, Washington D.C 20037. (202) 862-8802. FAX (202)862-0032. Subscription/Circulation/Service Number (800) 829-9105. This information-packed magazine includes sections on management, taxation, education, communications, environment, and regulation, including a special section on "The Business of Government". Focus on open management systems and creative, thoughtful approaches to governing. Quality Community The creative solutions to community problems that are emerging from the quality community movement may help solve the problem of applying scarce resources to meet constituency expectations in the public sector. Jump Back to Resources and References for Quality Community Nautilus 6 (Governance) |