Exploring Digital & Global Education   Discovering Work and Learning Strategies for the New Millennium

Two thoughtful articles written by Editor at Large Blake Harris appear in the Feb. issue.

Introduction: Harnessing the Innovation Engine by Blake Harris

The Return of Entrepreneurial Government by Blake Harris

A few quotes pulled from the article on Entrepreneurial Government:

Citizens want their governements to be as responsive and efficient as other modern organizations.

"Any management system unable to generate continuous innovation will appear increasingly antiquated and will find itself outpaced by other organizations for whom innovation has become second nature. That is as true for government as for any other organization."

"H. Alan Raymond said...'Organic management guides an organism, not a machine. In this mode, the chief executive officer develops a corporate culture by 'plugging' in the right people or by 'genetically splicing the right genes' in order for the corporate evolution to move in the right direction. The CEO becomes the catalyst of the creation, but not its pilot. He or she is in a sense the ultimate artist of the organization. Just as the development of the organic corporation will strip away many layers of costly, obsolete middle management, this development will also strip away many layers of costly, obsolete government bureaucracy, and entire government agencies in some cases.'"

"As Michael Hammer and James Champy pointed out in Reengineering the Corporation, 'Companies that earnestly set out to 'bust' bureaucracies are holding the wrong end of the stick. Bureaucracy is not the problem. On the contrary, bureaucracy has been the solution fo the last two hundred years. Bureaucracy is the glue that holds traditional corporations together. The underlying problem, to which bureaucracy has been and remains a solution, is that of fragmented processes. The way to eliminate bureaucracy and flatten the organization is by reengineering the processes so they are no longer fragmented.'"

"Commercial management generally fails today not because it did not take internal factors adequately into account, but because it has failed to perceive or take into account changing external factors. The same is true of government."

Breaking Old Rules: Four Themes for the 21st Century

by Alan A. Altshuler and William B. Parent.

The four themes are Accountability for Outcomes, Responsiveness, Competition, and Problem-solving regulation. The complete story is available online.

Alan Altshuler is director of the Innovations in American Government program and professor of Urban Policy and Planning at the Kennedy School of Government. William Parent is the executive director of the Innovations in American Government Program, funded by the Ford Foundation and administered by Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The Program selects 10 award-winning entrires each year from about 1,500 applications. The winners each receive $100,000 to replicate their programs. The Ford Foundation asked them to summarize the major lessons that the award winning programs of the past 10 years have taught us about government and innovation. The descriptions of each of the 10 lessons are available online.

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