Our early work started out with a focus on performance measurement. This work centered on determining the agency’s measures of organizational success, collecting meaningful data and trend lines, and setting baselines. Based on this work, Finance developed what they have named their “SMART card” - their equivalent of a balanced scorecard – one that has five primary results areas of contribution to mission, customer satisfaction, complier treatment, employee engagement, and unit cost.
Since last fall, the organization has been moving from measurement to management of results. In support of that movement, PSG partners Lorraine Chang, Jeff Kober, and Mary Lofy designed and are facilitating a Managing For Results leadership development experience. Originally designed for delivery to 120 of the department’s mid-level managers, the program proved so successful in creating a focus on results, and a bias for action in improving customer satisfaction and complier treatment, that all of the remaining 400 managers and supervisors in the department have now signed up, including Finance Commissioner Martha Stark and her entire Leadership Team.
This Corner features this Managing for Results leadership experience. Here’s how it works…
Process.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle
The above quote from Aristotle sets forth the underlying principle for the design of this learning experience. Phase One of Managing for Results involves three days of training for the participants, broken up into a full day together, a half day of practice, followed by another full day of interactive classroom experience and another half day of practice. Managers (30 in a cohort) are brought together from across the agency and go through all four sessions together. Commissioner Stark kicks off the first session for each cohort emphasizing the importance that she is placing on her managers learning the skills and practices needed to engage their employees in producing the best possible results.
Phase Two of the program is being designed for delivery in half-day increments in response to managers’ desire to limit pullout time. Tool kits will also be introduced in Phase Two that managers can use “on the job” to reinforce and apply the key principles with their employees.
Content.
The content of the Managing for Results program is designed around the core competencies that managers need to have to successfully lead a results-focused, data driven organization. Phase One has been focused on what results are the most important and how managers are expected to engage others in them. Phase Two will focus on empowering employees, using data to produce results, and leading change. To give you a sense of what is covered in Managing for Results, the first workshop is devoted to six major areas:
- Leadership. This section addresses what it means to lead in a results focused organization. Lorraine, Jeff and crew address how leadership can occur at any level, covering positional, personal and spontaneous leadership. They also distinguish between leading by “control” versus “influence” (Often the most meaningful results are beyond our control, but not beyond our influence!) and the importance of paying attention to both results and relationships.
- Focus on Results. Managers learn that managing for results is different from the norm in three ways - It asks leaders to look at results from the perspective of what matters most to their customers and compliers,really taking on an external focus. It helps managers set priorities by engaging them in understanding what the real drivers are of each area of performance. It stresses that the underlying purpose of performance measurement is not about “gotcha,” but rather about learning and repositioning for improvement. Practice with all three of these aspects provides these managers with new sets of lens’ and new strategies to apply in their work.
- Connection to Mission and Values. This section introduces the organization’s balanced SMART card, its mission of “helping people pay the right amount on time” and its four values of Fairness, Transparency, Efficiency and Data-Driven Decision-making. Discussions and exercises help managers make the linkages between their work and the department’s mission and values.
- Understanding Customers and Compliers is another unique part of this training. Many consultants apply the concept of “customer” from TQM to the public sector, but few distinguish that compliance organizations like Finance interact primarily with compliers. (Their customer - the principal intended beneficiary of their work - would be all City residents/taxpayers who benefit from the collection of City revenues.
The leaders of New York City Department of Finance are very clear about this distinction between customers and compliers. Their mission reinforces that clarity –we help people pay the right amount on time. And, their SMART card measures complier treatment by asking their compliers to rate them on the extent to which they understand the information that is being presented to them, how clearly the information is communicated and whether they feel fairly treated.
The Managing for Results workshop helps Finance’s managers apply “best in business” strategies for improving service satisfaction and making compliance successful. This starts with seeking answers to three questions about their compliers:
Where are they coming from? – such as, assumptions they may hold about complying
What are their real needs? – such as, the basic need to be heard and understood, and,
How do they view us? – such as, stereotypes they might hold about tax departments, and ways to counter those stereotypes.
- Creating Extreme Satisfaction. Finance managers then learn to apply four proven strategies for improving service satisfaction – paying attention to detail, walking in their shoes, connecting emotionally, and providing one on one attention. They learn how to identify the most common complaints and put in place “service nets” that can prevent the problems from occurring or minimize their adverse effects. Finally, they learn strategies for recovering from service mistakes based upon how much at fault the agency is and how serious the impact of the mistake is on the complier.
- Making Compliance Succeed. While enforcing payment of taxes, fines and fees continues to be an important part of the work of Finance, the agency is relying heavily on a strategy of “winning compliance” to get people to pay the right amount on time. And, it works. In fact, voluntary compliance at NYC Department of Finance is 94.5%. During this final part of the training, managers learn five strategies for improving voluntary compliance, including building support for the rule, educating compliers to comply, making compliance easy, giving feedback on compliance and making compliance matter.
This combination of interactive classroom and practice experience has been very successful. The discussions have been lively – and challenging. Participant ratings of the program have stayed consistently in the 8 to 10 range on a ten-point scale. More important, Lorraine reports visiting these managers in their worksite weeks afterward and seeing how these managers have brought ideas from the training back to their work.
As one example, a manager from the Queens Business Center took the practice of “walking in their shoes” and decided to apply it back on the job. She had each employee walk through their processes as a complier – including waiting in line to pay. She proudly spoke of the new practices they had implemented to improve their compliers’ satisfaction – ideas that had come from her employees. She also spoke of the powerful effect of the experience on the employees themselves – having management listening to and implementing their ideas made them feel valued and engaged them like nothing before.
In sum, performance measurement and management remain as big a challenge today in public organizations as they were in the early 1990’s. Personally, I see a lot more performance measurement occurring. I don’t always see performance management – especially meaningful use of the data for learning and process improvements that our external customers would value. I consider Managing for Results an organized, compelling way to change that dynamic. Its application to a compliance organization like the NYC Finance Department provides an extra neat “twist” on the theme.
Let me know what you think – and if you’d like to see more of the curriculum for this transformational program. Click the link below to contact me via email.
Connie
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