Robust Organizations

Achieving Extraordinary Performance in Government



In today's change-or-die business environment, companies that achieve the highest levels of performance are "robust organizations"; those that adapt quickly and without losing their strategic direction. In today’s sea of change governments are keener to stay on course and achieve extraordinary performance and to build an accountable, productive, and efficient workforce. Doing so requires an intense focus on adopting and implementing a robust manpower system designed to manage the increasing uncertainty that surrounds global governance.



Distilling decades of research conducted by Rand, one of the nation's most respected business think tanks, Dr. Paul Light explores the strategies to truly manage change in his book "The Four Pillars of High Performance".



A robust manpower strategy focuses on four basic components of a high-impact government:



1. the alertness that comes from recruiting and retaining high quality manpower,

2. the agility that comes from up-to-the-minute training, teamwork, and delegation,

3. the alignment that comes from strong leadership, measurement, and a strong link between performance and rewards, and

4. the ability to adapt to creative ideas, the willingness to take risks, and incentives for imagining new ways of performing old tasks.



Building a robust manpower system involves a series of simple but reinforcing steps that helps workforce understand its obligations as essential elements of a high-impact government. Paul Light provides in his book "The Four Pillars of High Performance" a deep understanding of the elements of success in sustaining what works. His systematic study of the characteristics of organizations that move beyond the sporadic innovation and the irreplaceable wizard will prove invaluable as both public and nonprofit organizations struggle to devise new strategies to serve shared social purposes.



Dr. Paul C. Light is NYU Wagner's Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service and founding principal investigator of the Organizational Performance Initiative. Until joining NYU, Dr. Light served as the Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, founding director of its Center for Public Service, and vice president and director of the Governmental Studies Program. He has served previously as director of the Public Policy Program at the Pew Charitable Trusts and associate dean and professor of public affairs at the University of Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.



Light has written 18 books, including the award-winning Thickening Government and The Tides of Reform. He is also a co-author of a best-selling American government textbook, Government by the People. His research interests include: bureaucracy, civil service, Congress, entitlement programs, executive branch, government reform, nonprofit effectiveness, organizational change, and the political appointment process.

Dr. Paul Light will be giving a detailed training module titled "Developing and Deploying Strategy in Government" in the Madinah Institute for Leadership & Entrepreneurship’s next executive education program; Leadership Program on High Performance Governments which will be commencing May 7th and ends May 11th, 2011 and will be held in Madinah, Saudi Arabia.



If you are interested in learning more about the Leadership Program on High Performance Governments and other upcoming executive education programs please visit www.mile.org or view videos of professors in action on http://www.youtube.com/user/milemadinah.