Transforming Public and Nonprofit Organizations

STEWARDSHIP FOR LEADING CHANGE

JAMES EDWIN KEE

KATHRYN E. NEWCOMER

CHAPTER ONE
The Change Imperative

Public and nonprofit sector leadership in the 21st century is challenging and risky. Rapidly evolving global conditions and shifting political and economic influences are changing our ideas not only about “what” the government, nonprofit, and private sectors should do, but about how they should work together. Advances in information technologies and methodologies, as well as rising expectations of leadership, are driving and supporting changes in how public and nonprofit agencies accomplish their missions.

Unfortunately, the tragedy of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the multiple National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) disasters, the failed Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response to Hurricane Katrina, and the various scandals involving misuse of funds by the leadership of well-known public and nonprofit organizations (most recently the Smithsonian Institution) highlight the need for public and nonprofit leaders to anticipate and respond to many kinds of risk. Public and nonprofit leaders face new and still-emerging circumstances that require them to design and implement more effective ways of doing business, and to improve organizational performance in support of the public interest.

Public and nonprofit sector leaders need to be comfortable with change, while recognizing that change is risky business. Organizational change is inherently unsettling, requiring the modification of traditional structures and sometimes new ways of doing business altogether. Pay-for-performance, competitive sourcing, public-private partnerships, performance-based budgeting, an increased consumer orientation, and other initiatives often create a shifting environment in which public and nonprofit leaders must satisfy a variety of external constituencies while maintaining supportive internal organizational norms and values.

To meet the challenge of change in the public interest, we believe that public and nonprofit leaders in the 21st century must become transformational stewards. Transformation and stewardship are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing aspects of public service, and both are vital responsibilities of tomorrow’s public and nonprofit leaders. Transformational stewards are leaders who pursue organizational transformation effectively, while serving as stewards of their employees and protecting core public and nonprofit values. We contend that public and nonprofit leaders of the future require heightened creativity and initiative in anticipating and planning for risk, in addition to the skills and commitment to focus consistently on the public interest while implementing change.

The need for transformational leadership in the public and nonprofit sectors is most evident when we examine the pressures for change felt by today’s public and nonprofit managers. These pressures emanate from many sources: an aging and increasingly multisector workforce; resource constraints; new horizontal relationships among public, nonprofit, and private sector organizations; globalization; technology breakthroughs; and increasingly complex public problems. In many cases, demands for change conflict with one another, competing for the leader’s time and resources.

In this chapter, we begin by defining change in the public interest. We then identify some major changes underway that are affecting public and nonprofit organizations, particularly in terms of how public services are delivered in the United States.

WHAT IS “CHANGE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST”?

The concept of “the public interest” (or whether it can even be defined) is frequently debated in the literature (see, e.g., Sorauf 1957; Schubert 1960; Downs 1962; Goodsell 1990). In practice, the term is often synonymous with the notion of “general welfare,” the “common good,” or actions benefiting the “general public.” While difficult to define precisely, the public interest “has a day-to-day commonsensical, practical salience for the behavior of hundreds of thousands of Public Administrators” (Catron, cited in Wamsley et al. 1990). The concept is somewhat analogous to the legal term “due process,” which, while vague, becomes clearer in the discussion of particular cases and provides a unifying symbol of correct action (Sorauf 1957).

Former Irish Information Commissioner, Kevin Murphy, defined the public interest in the following way:

In very general terms, I take it that the public interest is that which supports and promotes the good of society as a whole (as opposed to what serves the interests of individual members of society or of sectional interest groups). In this sense I take it that the term “public interest” broadly equates with the term “the common good.” (Freedom of Information [Scotland] Act 2002)

The public interest is often contrasted with the concept of “private interest,” recognizing that what is good for general society may not be beneficial to particular individuals and vice versa. The “Tragedy of the Commons” is a classic representation of this concept: While individuals may gain from grazing their cattle on the commons, at some point (absent regulation in the public interest) overgrazing is detrimental to the entire society, destroying the pasture and the livelihood of all (Hardin 1968). Current examples of this conflict include overfishing in the oceans and global warming. Individuals may gain from inexpensive fish or cheap power, but the long-term cost to society in general may be significant and contrary to the broader public interest.

Sometimes it is easier to determine what the public interest is not. For example, it is not corruption or injustice, racism, authoritarianism, arbitrary actions, unethical decision-making, or antisocial behavior.

Faculty members at Virginia Tech University, in their “Blacksburg Manifesto,” noted that while it may be impossible to define the public interest in a given policy situation, the concept is still useful as an “ideal” and a “process.” The manifesto states:

In this vein, the “public interest” refers to a combination of several habits of mind in making decisions and making polity: attempting to deal with the multiple ramifications of an issue rather than a select few; seeking to incorporate the long-range view into deliberations, to balance a natural tendency toward excessive concern with short-term results; considering competing demands and requirements of affected individuals and groups, not one position; proceeding equipped with more knowledge and information rather than less; and recognizing that to say that the “public interest” is problematic is not to say it is meaningless. (Wamsley et al. 1990)

Simone argues that the term “public interest” encompasses “processes, principles and policies” (2006). In applying the concept of the public interest to media policy, Simone recommends “a participatory process as the preferred method for identifying and applying public interest principles. The ultimate goal of the examination is to discover ways to increase public participation in the ongoing dialogue” regarding the public interest. As an illustration of Simone’s approach, ensuring equal access to certain government services might involve all three facets: the policy to make the services available, the principle of equality, and the processes by which that access is ensured. An agency responsible for a particular government service will have to consider all three as it undergoes any change or transformation.

Accepting the notion of the public interest as a useful perspective to guide actions may further suggest an approach to the change process. Wamsley et al. (1990) suggests the following approach:

1. Tentative steps and experimental action, rather than a final “solution”

2. Curiosity and dialogue about ends as well as means

3. Individuals and institutions that “learn” as well as respond

4. Humility and skepticism about “grand designs”

5. Greater awareness of the potential of each individual to contribute to the dialogue about the public interest

6. Greater attentiveness to the words of public discourse.

Goodsell illustrates this approach to the public interest in discussing a National Park Service decision to limit visitors in certain national parks (1990). In its announcement the Park Service emphasized that the park ecosystem must be preserved over the “long run” and that visitors must be given a “quality experience.” Further, the Park Service noted that closing the parks when full respects their “carrying capacity” and indicated that indirect controls tried in the past had failed. Finally, the Park Service said that in an experimental park closing it had received only one complaint. This example demonstrates the importance of the process of determining the public interest.

The point of discussing these approaches and illustrations is not to argue for a specific set of public interest imperatives; rather, it is to suggest that the concept of the “public interest” is a multifaceted concern that leaders of public and nonprofit organizations must keep in mind as they work to change or transform their organizations. This concern for the public interest must capture existing policy and “official” expressions of the public interest; any fundamental principles at stake; the processes by which citizens and stakeholders are able to engage in dialogue about maintaining the public interest during the transformation; and the special trusteeship responsibilities that leaders have for their organizations and the public (both current and future generations).

While nonprofit leaders may not have exactly the same trusteeship responsibilities as public leaders, nonprofit organizations enjoy a special status in most countries: They are created for certain public purposes, generally have public purposes as part of their charter, and often are based on certain shared values or principles—all of which have to be considered in any change or transformation.

The concept of “change in the public interest” argues that the notion of acting for the good of the general members of society must be at the center of all public and nonprofit change and transformation initiatives. Thus, as public and nonprofit leaders contemplate and initiate change and transformation, their diagnosis of the problem, their strategizing about solutions, and their implementation and reinforcement of the resulting changes must all occur within the context of the public interest.

EVOLVING MODES OF SERVICE DELIVERY

In the United States, public services are increasingly delivered through networks of public, nonprofit, and private agencies. Approximately 88,000 government units (U.S. Census Bureau 2002) and 1.4 million nonprofit organizations (Urban Institute 2006) are currently operating in the United States. Federal, state, and local governments account for about 30 percent of the nation’s economy, and nonprofits account for about 8 percent. Nonprofit organizations are not only growing in size as a percentage of the economy, but they are also increasingly working with government agencies to deliver a variety of public services.

The nonprofit sector encompasses a diverse set of organizations, from small neighborhood associations and local arts organizations to multibillion-dollar hospitals and universities. Of the 1.4 million nonprofits, about 300,000 are registered with the Internal Revenue Service as 501(c)(3) “public charities,” a category that includes most arts, education, health care, and human services organizations; many of these are actively involved in providing public goods and services. The major charities reported raising about $1 trillion in 2004, about 25 percent from charitable contributions. More than 65 million individuals volunteered for nonprofit organizations in 2004 (Urban Institute 2006).

Apart from religious institutions, the largest number of nonprofit organizations provide human services (including relief organizations like the Red Cross and humanitarian organizations like Habitat for Humanity). Many nonprofits produce complex goods or services—health care, education, performing arts—that are difficult to judge in terms of quality. Further, many of the goods and services provided by nonprofits are paid for by persons other than the recipients. A donor to “Save the Children” might be an affluent North American, for example, while the recipient might be a child from a less developed nation. Because there is no profit motivation, nonprofits are not governed by the same contractual discipline of the private market and are valued most for their trust and reputation rather than for price or profit.

Nonprofit production of goods and services often serves as a “complement” to public production, supplementing or replacing government efforts to redistribute goods and services. Nonprofits also have lower labor costs (because they rely on lower paid personnel and volunteers) than government agencies and thus, arguably, might be more efficient in providing certain goods and services than government. They may have more flexibility and be able to make use of service charges and fees to partially cover costs—something government may not politically be able to do. For these reasons, government agencies are increasingly relying on nonprofits to share public duties and responsibilities.

Public-Private Partnerships

Public services in the United States are increasingly delivered through multiagent and multisectoral networks, via the creation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) that require new types of governance structures and new methods to ensure transparency and accountability. E. S. Savas defines a public-private partnership as “any arrangement between government and the private sector in which partially or traditionally public activities are performed by the private sector” (Savas 2000, 4). This is a broad definition that could accommodate a variety of arrangements, from contracting-out to the use of vouchers. The types of relationships that pose the greatest challenge are public-private partnerships that are ongoing relationships between the government and the private sector in which the private organization produces a public good or performs a public service that has traditionally been provided by the public sector organization.

Public-private partnerships have existed in the United States since its founding. During the revolutionary war, the Continental Congress authorized the use of privateers to harass the British Navy. Later, much of the West was developed through a variety of PPPs, including the transcontinental railway and homesteading. The production of transportation infrastructure has often been undertaken with PPPs, from the development of private toll roads and canals during the nation’s early history up to the present Dulles Greenway—a privately financed, built, and operated toll road from Dulles Airport to Leesburg, Virginia.

After World War II, PPPs were often used in urban infrastructure projects. For example, in urban renewal projects, local governments provided tax concessions and improved infrastructure for private development in central cities. The federal government supported these projects through a variety of grant programs and tax credits.

PPPs also have been used to provide a variety of public services and have served as critical mechanisms in such important policy areas as implementing welfare reform and providing health care to the poor and elderly. At the federal level, service contracting grew by 33 percent in domestic agencies during the 1990s (Eggers and Goldsmith 2004) and has played a key (and somewhat controversial) role in the war in Iraq, with the private sector feeding, housing, transporting, and even protecting armed services personnel.

Heterarchy Replacing Hierarchy

Administrative structures in government are moving away from hierarchy and “silo” delivery of programs toward a “heterarchy” of systems (resembling a network or fishnet) that interact to meet the needs of citizens. While the exact shape of this heterarchy is currently under discussion and is far from clearly defined, it is evident that public and nonprofit organizations are moving toward a networked approach to service delivery based on coordination and cooperation among multiple organizations from all sectors. In a heterarchy or network, authority is determined by knowledge and function—through horizontal linkages rather than the traditional hierarchical form of vertical authority.

The most recent examples of leadership successes and failures during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort clearly illustrate this trend. Organizations that emphasize leadership in a networked environment performed well. For example, during the first week of the relief effort, Coast Guard crews rescued an estimated 22,000 people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Jim Elliot, who helped oversee rescues from Mobile, attributes the success of the effort to a unified command with states and local industries before the hurricane roared ashore. “We know how to join with other organizations to get the job done,” he said (Barr 2005). Among other factors Elliot identified as important to the coordinated response were the cross-training of employees and cross-functional teaming.

CHALLENGES TO ENSURING PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

Government service (planning, funding, and providing services directly to citizens) is thus evolving into public facilitation and governance—the provision of public services through a network of public, private, and nonprofit actors. This change in the manner that government delivers services is partly the result of an aging workforce (half of all top U.S. civil service executives are over 50), but mostly the result of deliberate policy at the national level to reduce the number of federal employees despite expanding public responsibilities. Public governance requires a new type of public leadership—leadership that engages the “para-public sector” (nonprofit and for-profit organizations that operate primarily on government contracts) while maintaining public accountability (Kee, Forrer, and Gabriel 2007).

We now speak less about government and more about governance. The trend in public sector employment has been to hire fewer full-time employees, especially at the federal level, and instead to contract out government jobs to the private sector. As Paul Light has alerted us, “the shadow government” continues to grow because our governments hire more and more contractors (Light 2006). As of 2002, Light estimated the number of contractors to be double that of full-time federal employees. “Doing more with less” frequently means doing more with contract employees or through a variety of contractual relationships with private and nonprofit organizations.

One of the most significant challenges in the leadership of complex networks is the issue of public accountability. Public accountability is the process by which public servants balance the interests of participating private market and nongovernmental organizations and government agencies in the provision of public services while maintaining a sense of accountability to the public being served. Under this concept, the public or nonprofit manager serves as facilitator between the public and the private/nonprofit sector. The manager is tasked with upholding the public interest while accruing the benefits of service provision via the para-public network of for-profit, nonprofit, and faith-based providers. These complicated delivery systems make ensuring accountability for both process and performance especially challenging.

In the nonprofit sector, new legal requirements also have led to increased oversight by boards of trustees and oversight and audit committees. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, for example, was enacted in 2002 in response to private sector corporate and accounting scandals such as Enron and Tyco. Although only a couple of its provisions specifically apply to nonprofit organizations, the act serves as “a wake-up call to the entire nonprofit community. Indeed, several state legislatures have already passed or are considering legislation containing elements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to be applied to nonprofit organizations” (Board Source and Independent Sector 2006). In response to the act, many nonprofit organizations are proactively taking steps to change their financial practices and enhance the transparency and accountability of their financial results.

OTHER PRESSURES FOR CHANGE IN PUBLIC AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Issues of structure and accountability are clearly among the important drivers of public and nonprofit change; nonetheless, other, equally important forces also influence how public and nonprofit organizations carry out their responsibilities. Among those forces are the increasingly competitive nature of delivery of goods and services, globalization, and the demand to be more performance-oriented—to prove to consumers, voters, and funders alike that public and nonprofit organizations are using their resources wisely and efficiently.

Competition

Nonprofit and public sector organizations and their employees are facing pressures to become more competitive and entrepreneurial, and they often find themselves competing with the private sector (e.g., competitive sourcing, bidding for contracts) to fulfill their organizational mission. In addition, the growth in the number of nonprofits creates a competitive environment for donor funds, and nonprofits may have to position themselves differently to obtain needed funding.

The “conservative revolution” that began with Reagan in the 1980s and continued through the Clinton and Bush presidencies favored nonprofit enterprises, manifested in a huge expansion in the contracting out of government programs. The number of full-time employees in public agencies has been reduced, but the number of private and nonprofit sector workers involved in public service has increased. This shift also intensified competition by making for-profit businesses eligible for grants and contracts that previously had been restricted to nonprofits (Hall 2005). Some nonprofit leaders have voiced concern that in a competitive fundraising environment the distinction between what is charitable and what is commercial gets blurred: “too many nonprofits are chasing the money and not their mission” (Eggers 2002, xvii).

Public sector employees increasingly find themselves competing with the private sector to “prove” that they can deliver goods and services as efficiently and effectively as their private counterparts. While “competitive sourcing” has existed in government for some time, the Clinton and Bush administrations (see, e.g., the President’s Management Agenda, U.S. Office of Management and Budget 2007) have placed new emphasis on this approach. Competitive sourcing requires public employees to depart from the safety of their program hierarchy and create “most efficient organizations” that compete directly with their private (and sometimes nonprofit) counterparts. While the results of such competition are heartening for public employees (U.S. OMB 2007), they nonetheless necessitate major changes in the manner that public organizations operate.

Globalization

The world is becoming flatter; Friedman, for example, notes that the U.S. role in the world’s economy has changed dramatically as a result of open-sourcing, outsourcing, insourcing, offshoring, and supply-chaining (2006). One consequence of growing interdependence is that the problems of the world can no longer be treated as distant concerns. Instant communication of problems, such as pandemics or agricultural failures, forces us to become more responsive; the changing nature of who produces the nation’s goods and services raises the problem of lack of oversight of health and safety issues in other countries (such as China).

O’Toole and Hanf highlight the growing influence of globalization on all levels of governance, asserting that “the globalized future of public administration is already emerging” (2002). The authors examine how increased interconnection of multinational authorities (e.g., United Nations, World Trade Organization, European Union) and the influence of international nongovernmental organizations are shaping policies at every level of domestic government.

Public and nonprofit managers increasingly are seeing the impact of global actions on their service delivery. For example, international agreements can force modification of local law, and local governments are entering into international agreements with the power to impact national policy. One illustration of the latter is the use by state and local governments of tax breaks to encourage the location of global companies in their jurisdiction. O’Toole and Hanf conclude that: “internationalization shapes the perspectives of U.S. administrators…[the] professional orientations of those involved are molded by their interactions, especially collegial ties with others working on similar challenges…as a result, administrators are likely to develop a more transnational perspective” (2002). Globalization creates the situation in which a public manager’s closest working partner may be located across international and intersector borders rather than in the office across the hall.

The nonprofit sector also is becoming more international (Anheier and Themudo 2005). Oxfam, Save the Children, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and Greenpeace have become “brand names” among international nonprofit or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The free flow of funds across borders means that a donor can fund nonprofits in any continent; indeed, the activities of major nonprofits often span the globe. While globalization has enabled nonprofits to operate across national borders, it also has further eroded traditional boundaries between the public and private domain and what is considered “commercial” versus “charitable” (Hall 2005).

The Performance Imperative

Leaders of public and nonprofit organizations are being pressured by their funders (legislatures and donors) to become more performance-oriented. Beginning in the 1980s, the for-profit sector began to be influenced by the works of Peters and Waterman (1982), Senge (1990), and others to create more competitive, performance-oriented, creative learning organizations. The global “new public management” movement of the 1990s (Kettl 1998) produced success stories, especially in the “Westminster” nations (Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K.), that inspired more dialogue on the need to reinvent government.

In the U.S. federal government, the National Performance Review of the Clinton administration, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), and the President’s Management Agenda under George W. Bush instituted policies that required managers to document and report data on performance. At the turn of the century, nonprofits began to ask the same types of questions: How can we better focus on our mission, reduce bureaucratic structures, and become more performance-oriented and accountable to our clients and donors?

Just as government is being asked to become more “business-like” and “accountable for results,” nonprofit organizations are feeling the pressure to mimic their private and governmental counterparts (Oster 1995). Some of this pressure is coming from donors and other stakeholders, but some is internally generated by nonprofit leadership that is trying to better fulfill the mission of the organization. Both public and nonprofit organizations also are experiencing increased expectations from their constituents, boards of trustees, and legislatures for service delivery to be more consumer-friendly and results-oriented.

THE CHALLENGE FOR LEADERS

The one common element in all these forces for change is the need for public and nonprofit leaders to adapt and transform the way people and processes perform. But change is not easy. While potential rewards may be great, change carries risks for the organization, leaders and managers, and other stakeholders. This is true in the private sector as well as the public and nonprofit sectors, but there is reason to believe that change in the public and nonprofit sectors is more “risky” than change in the private sector.

A private-sector CEO has to satisfy his or her board of directors, and ultimately the stockholders, but can often proceed in relative secrecy, without a great deal of collaboration. In contrast, public and nonprofit sector leaders have significantly more stakeholders. They include those internal to the organization, such as unions, senior political appointees, and nonprofit boards of directors, and those external to the organization, such as political leadership (both elected and appointed), donors, suppliers, and citizens/consumers. Generally speaking, organizational change in the public and nonprofit sectors must be transparent, requires extensive consultation, and is usually conducted in a highly visible arena. Additionally, the nature of political (and nonprofit board) leadership creates a short-term horizon for many of the stakeholders, making long-term change initiatives more problematic.

While change in the ways of conducting business is usually called organizational change, the reality is that change is not organizational unless it is first individual change, and then team change. At these levels, a number of stakeholders with interest in the change efforts emerge. Each of these stakeholders has distinct and often very different perceptions, expectations, and “stakes” in whatever change is being proposed. In addition, the perceptions, expectations, and stakes of the leader influence the course of change. While local stakeholders are more prominent in the leader’s daily environment, the increasing complexity and scope of the managerial role in government and the nonprofit sector—with its increased emphasis on public-private partnerships and intergovernmental arrangements—means that all stakeholders must be on the leader’s radar to some degree.

Collectively, these relationships and their influences on the change process constitute the “change landscape.” Becoming aware of and thinking critically about this landscape are critical first steps toward deliberately negotiating it with proficiency and skill.

Leadership expert William Bridges once noted that change is inevitable, but transformation is optional (1991). However, when we examine the nature of problems that government and the nonprofit sector must address—terrorism, global warming, bird flu and other potential pandemics—the failure of public and nonprofit organizations to learn and evolve is unacceptable. So while transformation may be optional in some theoretical sense, if public and nonprofit leaders and managers are to uphold their responsibility to act in the public interest, they are compelled to learn how to transform their organizations to succeed in the face of new challenges. Change and transformation are difficult, however, requiring sound methodology and change-centric leaders who can balance the need for transformation and the need to be good stewards of their organization and their employees.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF TRANSFORMATIONAL STEWARDS

Transforming operations and ways of doing business is challenging and often difficult to accomplish successfully; a large number of change efforts fail. By identifying and understanding the major challenges they face prior to implementing changes, leaders will have the opportunity to strategize and adjust their plans and processes accordingly, and to develop the skills needed in their organization to navigate the perilous change course.

In an effort to capture a variety of change practices and to illustrate the concepts that we have identified as the most significant to change leaders, we examined six case studies, all involving large-scale change efforts in the public and nonprofit sectors. These cases all involved complex changes that were undertaken to transform the current state of the organization and to change the ways the organization provides goods and services. We examined the change initiatives involved in the following cases drawn from federal, state, local, charitable, and religious organizations:

• The delivery of human services in Fairfax County, Virginia

• The U.S. Coast Guard’s strategy to recapitalize and integrate its “Deepwater” assets

• The transformation of the Veterans Health Administration

• The initial stages of a significant unfunded federal mandate, REAL ID, that requires a fundamental restructuring of the states’ driver’s license systems

• The change in leadership of N Street Village in Washington, D.C., under conditions of fiscal crisis

• The restructuring of Hillel, the Jewish nonprofit that serves college students throughout the United States.

We also drew from our own experiences of changes that occurred in state government and at George Washington University. Collectively, these experiences and cases provided rich material for our analysis.

To engineer successful public and nonprofit sector change, leaders must carefully anticipate and analyze change complexity, their stakeholders, their external sociopolitical environment, and their organization’s change capacity—initiating change while managing the risks of change. Leaders must adapt and help others adapt to changing mission requirements, new requirements, or environmental forces; stay competitive with the latest innovations and technology; and continue to provide quality services to citizens.

If change is such a risky business, why engage in it? The answer, of course, is that it is often more risky not to change. In our two nonprofit cases, not changing might have led to the demise of the organizations, as they were facing significant fiscal crises brought about by poor leadership as well as internal and external forces. In the Veterans Health Administration case, the very existence of a public veterans’ health care system was in question, with political pressure to privatize it. The system was a “burning platform” that could not survive in its current configuration. With the increased pressure and new responsibilities expanding the Coast Guard’s mission of protecting our harbors and ports, not changing could have led to mission failure. Fairfax County human service systems might have been able to “muddle along” without changing, but at a high cost to servicing the county’s expanding population. Finally, REAL ID presents a change mandated by Congress, and while negotiations continue regarding its implementation, the inevitable outcome of production of national identification cards will occur, one way or another.

In Chapter 2 we develop further our notion of transformational stewardship. Then in Chapter 3 we provide a more complete discussion of our model for leading change in the public interest. Chapter 4 describes the six cases of public and nonprofit changes we researched to both inform and test our model. Each of the case studies is used throughout the remainder of the book to illustrate the model and expand our vision about the role of public and nonprofit leaders as transformational stewards.

SUGGESTED READINGS ON THE CHANGE IMPERATIVE

Kettl provides clear guidance on how leaders should both predict and prepare for change in order to succeed. Discussing how management challenges have changed in government, he highlights why recent events—such as 9/11 and Katrina—demonstrate that the government needs to change its approach to be able to respond to serious problems effectively.

This acclaimed book is useful for academics and practitioners alike. Friedman highlights how the world has become interconnected and explains why these changes cannot be ignored. Globalization is a concept that transformational stewards cannot ignore if they are to lead in the public interest; this book is an excellent starting point.

Morgan provides a farsighted view of a manager’s/leader’s changing responsibilities at the close of the 20th century and into the 21st century. He prepares leaders for dealing effectively with waves of change, including new technologies, management styles, and employee values; market fluctuations; and globalization. He discusses how to “read the environment” for emerging change issues and to manage proactively, including promoting creativity, learning, and innovation throughout the organization.

Wheatley provides a clear way of thinking about organizations for a chaotic future. Using examples from many areas (particularly physics), she argues that relationships are the fundamental key to an organization’s success. Leaders of nonprofit, public, and private organizations will all find guidance on participation and cooperation in this book.