Courage is needed for public sector innovation
New ideas that create value for society are called public sector innovation in the new book by Christian Bason. He argues however that these innovations are not actually new. Public leaders around the world are demonstrating how a significantly more conscious and systematic approach to creating innovative solutions can effectively address some of our most pressing societal challenges. In ‘Leading Public Sector Innovation – Co-creating for a better society’ it is argued that, in spite of significant barriers, it is possible to systematically apply the practices and tools of innovation that are embodied by organisations to create radical new value for society.
Simultaneous shifts for societal solutions
Real world cases show that cost savings of between 20 percent and 60 percent are possible while also increasing citizen satisfaction and generating better outcomes. In order to make such ‘pragmatic’ innovation much more likely, leaders in government must build an infrastructure of innovation – a public sector innovation ecosystem. The ecosystem is built through 4 simultaneous shifts in how the public sector creates new societal solutions:
- A shift from random innovation to a conscious and systematic approach to public renewal;
- A shift from managing human resources to building innovation capacity at all levels of government;
- A shift from running tasks and projects to orchestrating processes of co-creation, creating new solutions with people, not for them;
- And finally, a shift from administrating public organisations to courageously leading innovation across and beyond the public sector.
Executing these shifts within the government is the essence of leading public sector innovation. It implies specific challenges and new tasks for public leaders at all levels – from the politician over the chief executive to mid-level managers and institution heads. It requires closing the gap between recognising that innovation is important, and doing something concrete about it. Most of all, it requires courage according to Bason.
Public sector organisations are not up to the job yet
Unfortunately, most public sector organisations today are
ill-suited to develop the kinds of radical new solutions that are
needed. The rate of change and the turbulent environment
dramatically increase the risk that public organisations lose even
more of their touch with the enterprises and citizens they are
meant to serve. Research from the US, the UK and Denmark, amongst
others, shows that most modern public organisations’ innovation
capabilities are focused on internal administrative processes,
rather than on generating new services and improved results for
society. New ideas mainly arise from internal ‘institutional’
sources (mostly public managers themselves, and sometimes their
employees), and to a much lesser degree via open collaboration with
citizens, businesses or other external stakeholders. Innovation
efforts are typically driven by a few isolated individuals,
dependent on their personal initiative and willpower. At all
levels, from the political and regulatory context over strategies,
organisational models, management style, staff recruitment,
involvement and incentives, to the relationship with end-users, the
public sector is characterised by numerous barriers to innovation.
Add to that a lack of good and relevant data on how the
organisation performs, and we have an almost perfect storm crashing
down on any innovation effort. The result can at best be
characterised as random innovation, rather than strategic or
systematic, according to Bason.
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Document type: research
Contact details
The Policy Press
University of Bristol
United Kingdom
ISBN 978 1 84742 633 8 paperback
ISBN 978 1 84742 634 5 hardcover