Local Memo

7/29/2019 Local Memo

1/23

To: Government Executives

From: Executive Session on PublicSector Performance Management,Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government

Re: GET RESULTS THROUGHPERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Sponsored by the Smith Richardson Foundation, Inc. andthe Visions of Governance in the 21st Century Project


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s a bipartisan group of current and former govern-ment executives, business leaders, public manage-ment scholars, and journalists, we urge you to make

results-focused management a priority. Embrace perform-ance management, the use of goals and performance meas-ures, as a critical aspect of your work.

Make management a priority,in addition to policy and political priorities.

Responding to crises and debating policy can consume all ofyour time if you let it. Even experienced leaders can neglectinvestments in management. We urge you to recognize thissyndrome, and resist it. Make management a priority.

Embrace performance measurement to help youmanage.

Performance measurement can help you drive progresstoward your goals. Resist the tendency to treat performancegoals and measurements as just a legal requirement. Dontsquander a powerful lever for change.

Executive Session on Performance Management I

A

Executive Summary

Get Results Through Performance Management: An Open Memorandum

to Government Executives (State and Local Version) by the Executive

Session on Public Sector Performance Management

Copyright 2001

Visions of Governance in the 21st Century

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing

from Visions of Governance in the 21st Century,

John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University,

79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

www.ksg.harvard.edu/visions


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10. Fact-based.

Measures have to be firmly rooted in reality, and seen as suchwithin and beyond your agency. Treat measurement accura-

cy as an essential and integral component of your perform-ance measurement system.

AN IMPORTANT CAVEATFavor performance over punishment.

Be careful about linking performance measurement torewards and penalties. Poorly structured incentive systemscan backfire, discouraging workers and even rewarding dys-functional behavior. For this reason, we urge managers, leg-islators, and oversight agencies to emphasize the use of per-formance measures for communication, motivation, feed-back, learning, enlistment, alignment, and coordination.Make sure they work for communication and motivationbefore trying the trickier tasks of sanctioning and incentives.

5. Broadly used.

Performance measures are powerful when used on a regularbasis. Performance management cannot be a paper exercise.

Talk about your goals and progress measurements to electedofficials, the press, your managers, and the whole agency.Routine use of performance measures signals that even asother urgent issues arise, your priorities cannot be set aside.They are, in fact, priorities.

6.Visible.

Make performance information visible. Write it clearly.

Distribute it widely. Post it where people will talk about it.Place it where people will use it.

7. Interactive and informational.

Invite your agency to explore with you why performance isstrong in some places and weak in others. Promote the orga-nizational habit of analyzing past performance to craft bet-ter plans. Pose your questions in ways that encourage use of

performance measures as a learning tool.

8. Frequent and fresh.

Up-to-date, detailed data let you detect performance prob-lems. Outdated reports make it hard to reconstruct theevents that might explain performance variations. Fresh, fre-quent outcome-focused performance reports show whenvariations arise. This, in turn, makes it easier to find and fix

the causes of poor performance.

9. Segmentable.

The ability to segment information (by geographic region,client characteristics, industrial sector, intervention strategy,or whatever breakdowns matter for your agency) makes iteasier to interpret results, draw lessons, and improve per-formance.

IV Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government Executive Session on Performance Management V


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s a bi-partisan group of current and former govern-ment executives, business leaders, public manage-ment scholars, and journalists, we urge you to make

results-focused management among your top priorities. Wecall on you to embrace performance management the useof performance goals and measures as a management tool as a critical aspect of your work. Sound boring? It is any-

thing but. Frankly, as a government leader, you have a limit-ed number of tools available for advancing your prioritiesthroughout your organization. Performance goals and meas-urement are among the most powerful.

Those of us signing this memorandum have met togeth-er on a regular basis over the last two years as participants inthe Executive Session on Public Sector PerformanceManagement of the Kennedy School of Government,

Harvard University, under the aegis of the schools researchprogram, Visions of Governance in the 21st Century. Wecame together because of a conviction that performancemanagement is essential for government agencies seeking toimprove outcomes and rebuild confidence in government,and a recognition that few government leaders appreciatehow or why that is the case. We have seen that few govern-ment leaders understand clearly enough, and early enough,

the leveraging power of performance management. It is ourhope to persuade you of its potential and to encourage youto pursue performance management aggressively.

Executive Session on Performance Management 1

A

An Open Memorandum

To: Government Executives

Re: Get Results Through Performance Management

Make a Difference. Manage with Performance Measures!

From:

Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government

Walter D. Broadnax

Ray E. Corpuz, Jr.

Joseph A. Dear

G. Edward DeSeve

John D. Donahue

Mortimer L. Downey

Michael J. Farrell

Jane F. Garvey

Harry P. Hatry

Commissioner Randy R. Johnson

Robert S. Kaplan

Elaine C. Kamarck

Rhoda H. Karpatkin

Steven J. Kelman

Herman B. Dutch Leonard

Paul C. Light

Jerrold T. Lundquist

David B. Luther

Shelley H. Metzenbaum

Congressman James R. Moran

Mark H. Moore

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

Marvin T. Runyon

Pamela A. Syfert

Jeffrey L. Tryens

John P. White

Mayor Anthony A. Williams

Peter B. Zimmerman

Christopher J. Zook


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