Promoting Innovation in Government
The challenge for senior managers in the public sector is to provide
incentives and support to call forth more innovation," according to Sandford
Borins, Professor of Public Management, University of Toronto, in his
recent report, The Challenge of Innovating in Government. Part
of that challenge, he says, is in creating an innovative organization
and environment that encourage innovation. He cites the lack of financial
rewards, the political environment, stringent agency controls, and public
domain of public sector intellectual property as major barriers to creating
an innovative organization in the public sector.
The report - a combination of two different perspectives on public
management innovation, the organization, and the individual innovator - is
based on research and surveys of over 300 Federal, State, and local government
reformers who received awards for their innovations. Award winning managers
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation, and the Departments of Labor, Defense, and Housing and Urban
Development participated in the survey.
Recommendations. The report defines the characteristics of an
innovative organization and analyzes how several public sector organizations
overcame obstacles to innovation. The report also provides recommendations
and practical advice for public administrators to use in recognizing and
rewarding individual and group innovators and for creating innovative
organizations. Recommendations for promoting innovation include:
- Support from the top. In the public sector, agencies succeed
when managers encourage innovation from all levels of the organization.
Borins found that even though front-line staff and middle managers initiate
a number of innovations, it is important that senior managers be supportive.
Senior managers have the responsibility to establish and support their
agency's strategic initiatives and communicate their support of these
initiatives to the entire organization. When senior managers communicate
and articulate their agency's mission and reinforce their commitment
to innovation, they empower their employees - giving them the scope
to experiment with new ideas and helping them draw the connection between
similar innovations and the current needs of the organization.
- Reward innovative individuals. Managers must support innovation
by rewarding the developers of successful innovations. Borins recommends
that organizations use group incentive awards in addition to achievement
awards to recognize groups or individuals for implementing cost-saving
ideas. Senior managers also must support awards programs that reward
innovation.
- Embrace diversity. Managers should seek employees from different
backgrounds and organizational levels to use their skills and experience
to solve problems. Sometimes innovation will come from frontline employees
who have an intimate knowledge of the work process and who are often
best able to create solutions. Innovation often depends on the ability
of employees to see things differently. As such, diversity in employee
backgrounds and the way they think brings a broad perspective to problem
solving.
- Learn from the outside. Managers should seek out and benchmark
best practices from the private as well as the public sectors, bring
in outside experts or facilitators, and participate in professional
net-works. Also, it is important that managers support and encourage
learning. For example, managers should encourage their employees to
attend conferences and workshops, as well as establish mechanisms -
such as internal seminars - that will encourage employees to share what
they have learned.
- Experiment and evaluate. Innovation often involves failures
as well as successes. When failures occur, managers should be quick
to recognize them, learn from the mistakes, and make corrections. On
the other hand, when experimentation leads to success, managers should
give innovation awards for experiments that achieved results, such as
improved performance or reduced cost.
For Further Information. You may read the abstract of The
Challenge of Innovating in Government.
Originally published Summer 2001