Motivation & Leadership In Public Sector

Leadership & motivation in the Public SectorSome lessons from experiences in the private & public sector

Laurent LedouxEIPA 24/06/08

[email protected]

Dedicated to

MatthiasMoyersoen

Agenda

2 Why PS modernization has not always (yet) led to higher motivation

3 Possible next steps

1 A quick & dirty overview of possible theoretical frameworks

Key elements in the evolution of organizational models

A quick & dirty overview of possible theoretical frameworks

“Bureaucratic” Model

Developed in the Public Sector

“Commitment” Model

• Stable environment with heavy demand

• “Sound” management: – Simplifying work tasks– Following rulebooks– Establishing tall hierarchies

• 1st rewards: economic (incl. security)

• Compliance: Command & Control

Imported in the Public Sector

• Growing turbulence: 3 C’s - Competition, Customers, Change

• “Sound” management:– Ensuring client-focus– Stimulating initiative, innovation,… (commitment)– Cutting down hierarchies (flat)

• Eco. rewards not enough to buy commitment

• Partnership

Developed in the Private Sector

Imported in the Private Sector

• Transactional leadership– Tasks first– Workers resist imposed change

• Transformational leadership– People first: commitment through meaningful task purpose– Committed workers initiate changes when their purpose is

threatened or they see a better way of accomplishing it

What is there behind the «Commitment» model ? A simple HRM model* ?

Neworganisational

& leadershipforms

Motivation Individual &

organizational performance

Workerautonomy

• What performance?

• Is it better to talk about value creation?

• How do you measure?

• How do you attribute it?

???

• What is motivation? (continuum from intrinsic to extrinsic; PSM)

• Can it be abstracted from the social context? (PO fit & alignment of interests)

• Dynamic (commitment) or static (satisfaction)?

• Can the worker really participate?

• Does the worker internalize the new regulation forms?

• Which job/ org. design?

• Is leadership compatible with autonomy?

* Adapted from Steijn, Bram: “HRM in the public sector: a neglected subject”, PUMA/HRM (2002)13


You focussed yesterday on Public Service Motivation and its applications*

Leadership

Individual Public Service

Motivation

Individual & organizational performance

Basic psycho. needs

“satisfaction”

* Adapted from Vandenabeele, Wouter: “Leadership promotion of public values: PSM as a leadership strategy in the Public Sector”


Today’s focus

Promotion ofpublic values

Promotion ofnew designs& behaviors

• Job/org. design

• Perf./Mem-bership behavior

• …

• Politics & Policies

• Public interest• Compassion• Self-sacrifice• Democratic

governance

• Autonomy• Competence• Reletadness

& Security

Today’s focus

Controlled Extrinsic motiv.• External

regulation• Introjection

Basic psychological needs satisfaction can be viewed as generic «intrinsic» rewards produced by and reinforcing self-management events*

Intrinsic rewards

Self-management

Energy

Judgments

Opportunity(Autonomy)

rewards

Accomplishment(Competence)

rewards

FromTask

Activities

FromTask

Purpose

* Adapted from Thomas, Kenneth & Jansen, Erik: “Intrinsic motivation in the Military: Models & strategic importance”

Sense of

Relatedness& Security

Sense of

ChoiceSense of

Competence

Sense of

ProgressSense of

Meaningfulness

Experiencing

Relatedness& Security

Choosing

ActivitiesMonitoring

Competence

Monitoring

ProgressCommitting to

Purpose


A few building blocks to increase generic «intrinsic» rewards*


Relatedness & Security-Team spirit

- Team KPI’s & rewards

Choice- Delegated authority & trust- Security (no punishment for honest mistakes)- A clear purpose & information

CompetenceChallenge –Knowledge -

Pos. feedback & Skill recognition -High, non-comparative standards -

ProgressA collaborative climate -

Milestones & celebrations -Access to customers -

Measurement of improvement -

Meaningfulness- A non-cynical climate- An exciting vision- Relevant task purposes- Whole tasks

* Adapted from Thomas, Kenneth: “Intrinsic motivation at work”

«Architectural» & «charismatic» roles of leadership to increase generic «intrinsic» rewards


Leading forRelatedness & Security

Team building

Leading for Choice

Handing off

Leading for Competence

Coaching

Leading for Progress

Scorekeeping& Cheering

Leading forMeaningfulness

Inspiring

Agenda




The recent fall of job satisfaction in the Public Sector cannot be equated to a fall in motivation

Why PS modernization has not always (yet) led to higher motivation

• Recent surveys (early 2000) in various countries show that job satisfaction in the PS is currently under pressure

• However, the reasons for this lower job satisfaction do not necessarily hint at a lower “motivation”

• It rather possibly hints to the contrary, ie a growing willingness to get things done and frustration by a system that hinders it

• 2 Examples*:

– USA: lower morale of civil-servants between 2001 and 2002 would be due to:- growing complaints about bureaucracy in their organization- the unmet need to address under-performing co-workers

– Netherlands: job satisfaction decline in 2002 would be essentially due to:- growing dissatisfaction with organisation & management, essentially with a

leadership style still too much characterised by “management by control”

* From Duvillier, Thibaut & Co: “La motivation au travail dans les services publics”

Explanations for the fall in job satisfaction (and motivation?) can be partly found in the incoherence of many HRM modernisation programs*

Incoherence can take many forms


Syndromes Incoherence Nature

Proto-modernisation Internal Change in a limited number of HRM variableswhile the others are maintained unchanged

Pseudo-modernisation Discursive Growing formalization of several HRMVariables through “objectiving” instruments

Post-modernisation Contextual Changes in all the HRM variables but withoutmodifying the way things are done

Turbo-modernisation ProcessualHasty top down approach, imposed withoutdiscussion on final objectives with lower and therefore without their buy-in

* From Pichault, François: “Leadership et modèles de gestion des ressources humaines”

Sense of

Meaningfulness

• Possibly an equally or more cynical climate than before– Conscious dismantling of reforms by the followers of the Copernic initiators – High increase in salary of top managers to attract people from outside but most appointed top

managers finally came from the administration and since then, most top managers recruited from outside have left; While top managers wages increased, little was done for middle managers (broke the psy. contract)

– Despite this, top managers were probably not enough extrinsically rewarded for intrinsically motivating their people

– Top managers were given a formal mandate but very little powers to implement them (their capacity to (re)allocate resources is still very much constrained)

• Difficulty to formulate an exciting vision– No real interest in reforms by most politicians (ST versus LT preoccupations)– Too often a one-time check-in-the-box requirement– Growing motivational dilemma due to real of apparent divergence between public values and

managerial values

• Despite some improvements thanks to BPR’s, whole tasks are still rare and silos strong

– Most work remains activity-centered rather than purpose centered

• Devotion to the “cult of rigorous PSM” but too little attention to its concrete outcomes

Elements of incoherent modernisation program may affect the sense of meaningfulness*


* Based on a personal interpretation of the «Copernic» experience so far and other reforms in Belgian administrations

Sense of

Choice

Elements of incoherent modernisation program may affect the sense of choice*

• Despite all the promises, little authority and trust were delegated and this, at all levels

– Still too much micro-management and approval procedures (controls rather than commitment perspective; no real empowerment; pseudo-modernization)

– Too often only trivial decisions have been delegated; delegation happened also too often in a “one-size-fits-all” fashion: all signs that low trust remained, at all levels

• Despite nice words on the need to be innovative, zero-defect mentality is still prominent and is often not justified nor correctly implemented

– Finance Inspectors are not yet “controllers”, partnering with management to reach objectives– Ex-ante controls are still much more numerous than serious ex-post controls, even for tasks where

mistakes would not be catastrophic– Too many people still spend too much time on playing “gotcha”

• Horizontal communication is still very much constrained by top management



Sense of

Competence

Elements of incoherent modernisation program may affect the sense of competence*

• Too often absence of a burning platform to request people to “stretch” themselves

• Too many had found refuge in doing some things well (craftmans) but often in things that led to little value creation

– When there are well managed, BPR’s can help change that

• Training incentives have not been set-up to stimulate the acquisition of needed competencies

– No real investments in people’s development and bad use of financial incentives

• Knowledge management is still very much hindered by “knowledge is power” attitudes

• Absence of benchmarking makes it difficult to follow high standards



Sense of

Progress

Elements of incoherent modernisation program may affect the sense of progress*

• Too few quick wins – too many civil servants expend energy in reforms with few visible results

• Some KPI’s start to be followed but too often they still focus on inputs, not enough on outcomes

• Mobility & internal labor markets promotion is still too much hindered by power games and not conceived as a positive factor for pers. & org. dev.

• Celebration of milestones is too rarely allowed (considered inappropriate)



Sense of

Relatedness& security

Elements of incoherent modernisation program may affect the sense of relatedness & security*


• HRM remains too impersonal – Increase of the importance of instrumental values (eg competencies) while PS essentially based

on respect of terminal values (equity, respect,…)

• Pay is not enough treated as an equity issue (perceived fairness), that can supplement intrinsic motivation

– Equity is a principle of fairness that basically says that your outcomes (rewards) should be proportional to your inputs (performance)

– Too many people have the illusion of “doing well” while those that really do the work are not fooled; Inequity is often hidden because performance is not measured

– Great divergence, implicit or explicit, in individual and organizational interests

• New dynamic young recruits are quickly (less than 3 years) neutralised or “expulsed”

• Opportunity of forthcoming large departures (due to pyramid age) is not fully or systematically exploited


Applying theory to a personal case: «my» story in the PublicSector in a cartoon by Kroll*

Why PS modernization has not always (yet) led…

Why I finally left:

• Negative regular check-up of my job along the 5 elements of intrinsic motivation

• Growing realization of the contradictions between my Public Service Motivation (PSM) ideal and its daily application

• As a result, growing difficulty to set high expectations for my own intrinsic motivation

* Published in TeleMoustique in 2001

Rootcauses for incoherent modernisation & motivation issues can be found to a great extent in a lack of political & managerial leadership

People neglected(or used by politicians)

No holistic approach(& too little IT investm.)

Lack of managerialleadership

Impersonalideal of neutrality

Ambiguous objectives

Lack of politicalLeadership

Reformlevel

UnderlyingBeliefsLevel

Incoherent modernisation& its consequences

(Fall in job satisfaction, motivation,…)

Syndromes


Agenda




In order to increase structurally intrinsic motivation in the public sector, we need to adress rootcauses and current deficiencies in political & managerial leadership

Invest massively inpeople with a focuson increased perf.

Test coherencyof programs & invest

massively in IT

Give managers realpowers to fulfill their

mandates

Make HRM morepersonal & objective

Request reformsKPIs & benchmark

Make ministersaccountablefor reforms

Possible next steps

Granted: “easier said than done…”(To be discussed)

Final remark : understanding motivational drivers is key to understand misunderstandings regarding New Public Management

Possible next steps

• Understanding how motivation “works” may help bridge between old and new public management

• Besides a few specific factors and Public Service Motivation, is it fundamentally different to motivate people in the public sector?

• Generic “intrinsic” motivation should not be confused with Public Service Motivation– PSM is probably not enough to motivate people in the long run if the 5 basic psychological needs are not

sufficiently satisfied

• Many modernization programs in the Public Sector have probably greatly suffered from a lack of attention towards the 5 “intrinsic” rewards discussed in this paper

Business

Motivation & Leadership In Public Sector