A Dozen Easy Principles for Public Sector Program Success

This post is adapted from a memo I prepared for my department’s management back in 2013. At the time, the Department of Environmental Services (DES)‘ new Director engaged the services of Denison Consulting to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. DES is Arlington County’s second largest department, with 15 Bureaus and nearly 1,000 full-time, part-time and contracted employees doing everything from transportation, development and streets, trash and recycling, facilities and water/utilities. Getting a handle on this sprawling group and moving it all in the right direction was the goal. A culture survey was given to all employees that Denison measured on four essential traits and twelve focus areas of organizations:

1. Adaptability: (Creating Change, Customer Focus, Organizational Learning);
2. Mission: (Strategic Direction & Intent, Goals & Objectives, Vision);
3. Consistency: (Core Values, Agreement, Coordination and Integration); and
4. Involvement: (Empowerment, Team Orientation, Capabilities Development).

These are all benchmarked for comparison to thousands of other companies and public agencies across the country. Each of the Department’s 15 Bureaus was benchmarked against each other. My Bureau, the Division of Transportation’s Commuter Services Bureau, stood out as an outlier of amazingly good results. It scored much higher than the other 14 Bureaus and against the other public sector state and local agencies DES was benchmarked against. Something good was happening here! Department management asked me to put together an explanation of why I thought this was so.

It was not a surprise to many that Commuter Services ranked so highly on the Denison Culture Survey. For years the Bureau has been locally and nationally recognized, as one of the most innovative and impactful units of it’s kind in North America. What follows is an adaptation of the explanation memo accounting for the success:*

A Dozen Easy Principles That Have Guided Our Commuter Services Team to Success

1. Put the Customer FirstWe are public servants. We are here to serve. We may work for the government but we pride ourselves on not being bureaucratic and amazing our customers by going beyond their expectations.

Read the rest of the list here.