TRAINING OF SENIOR PUBLIC MANAGERS

Transcription

1 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTES OF ADMINISTRATION ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE DES ECOLES ET INSTITUTS D ADMINISTRATION GT-WG III Public Administration: Challenges of Inequality and Exclusion Miami (USA), September 2003 L Administration publique Face aux défis de l Inégalité et de l Exclusion Miami (Etats-Unis), Septembre 2003 TRAINING OF SENIOR PUBLIC MANAGERS Domingo Bello Janeiro Director Galician School of Public Administration SPAIN

2 INTRODUCTION The deep reforms that have taken place in our socio-economical field during the 90s to a great extent supported by its effective integration in Europe- had as a consequence the substantial increase of resources and ideas in favour of training strategies capable of performing in a new scenery and facing new challenges. The capital impelling force of the new information technologies together with the phenomenon of economic globalisation shape new challenges towards training policies and lead into new ways of work and training organisation. The incorporation of the staff into a process of change and the transformation of the organisational culture require a renewed leadership of those who are responsible for management. The ability to motivate and convey a feeling of trustworthiness to collaborators as well as their role in the delivery of information and the allocation of tasks, related to the organisation and people s needs, constitute essential skills of the new senior public managers. Therefore, their function is enhanced and their strategic position highlighted not only by the decisions they must take but by the supposedly ability to engage their human team in a better fulfilment.

3 Thus, administrative management becomes leadership of people. In an organisational structure based on delegation and reliability, which values everyone s contributions and integrates them according to their mission, leadership may concern a wider number of employees. Leadership must be performed wherever there is a field of responsibility in order to obtain the expected results. In a citizen-centred administration which values public officers and encourages their involvement in the improvement of services, both senior public managers and leaders have to commit themselves, keep a service spirit towards society and create the adequate information for the taking of decisions by the politicians responsible. Senior managers are the people who must lead administrative reform. With this premise as a starting point, it is obvious that the necessity of facilitating them a suitable training is the main objective of the process of change towards a new organisational culture. The training of new senior managers and the development of the current ones constitute a main concern for the 21 st century, both in the private and the public field. Firstly, business schools or business management schools, and secondly, the Schools of Public Administration, are the organisations entrusted with meeting the shortages shown in this area by traditional university systems.

4 The need for taking into account senior managers with an appropriate level of knowledge and skills for the analysis of the changing reality, as well as an ability to monitoring and motivating human teams or to taking decisions in complex situations, is a common feature of organisations nowadays. The significant importance of public managers training is required by the effective decline of big burocracies even in public administrations, as a consequence of their unability to provide suitable answers to the double challenge of innovation and competitiveness. The difficult adaptation to change showed by this type of structural arrangement has constituted a key issue taking into account the deep transformations of the role of administrations in society during the last decades. Burocracy s decline and the rising of alternative plans for organisational design in the public field reveal the frequently combined strength of two megatrends. On one side, there is an efficient orientation towards the fight against the public sector financial deficit and the polices for expenditure reduction.

5 On the other side, there is a public service orientation characterised by an emphasis on service quality, the improvement of the relations with citizens, their consideration as clients and the achievevent of receptiveness. Nevertheless, these two trends reinforce a basic axis of postbureaucratic design in the public field: the attempt to build a new frame of responsibility for public services management, the typology of controls and their renewal, and the building of organisational structures which combine certainty and flexibility and which are clearly oriented towards effectiveness and efficiency of the administrative action. We mean orientations that go beyond the bureaucratic paradigm. In a more or less combined way the have been the base of the new patterns of organisational design that have started or are starting to transform public structures 1. The organisations progress depends, more and more, on the people who integrate them. A new notion of people management that values creativity, innovation and flexibility is consolidated in this new context; team work, quality of services to users, self-assessment and its continuous improvement; continuous training and a pleasure for a welldone job must be the main guidelines to be followed.

6 In order to achieve the people s involvement required by a quality organisation, it is needed to rely on the staff, to grant them wide autonomy regarding the activities they carry out, to incorporate their contributions to improvement processes, to give them public appreciation and to promote their professional and personal development. 1 Francisco Longo. Burocracia y Postburocracia en el diseño organizativo. De burócratas a gerentes? Las ciencias aplicadas a la administración del Estado. THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC SERVANTS TRAINING Nowadays, modernisation of public administrations is shaped as an essential element in the progress of society and as a milestone of the welfare state, able to progressively guarantee the best life quality to citizens. The Administration must evolve keeping pace with society, assuming that the changes operating in the community have to imperatively imply transformations on their management methods and on service delivery. Within the Public Administration modernisation process we must highlight, not only the attempt to achieve an increasing responsibility before the citizen, but the attempt to achieve a new culture of the Public Function. This implies that the delivery of public services, be carried out

7 on equal terms to those expected in the private business field, and let s even say with more professionality, competence and quality. The realisation of such attempts depends on the application of a series of strategic actions. The updating and a higher professionalisation of the human resources are undoubtedly sine qua non conditions in any substantial success. Taking this into account, training shows itself as a tool suitable for satisfying the adaptation needs of the management methods to the society s demands. At the present time, society demands a new type of training for civil servants, emphasising aspects such as creativity and intuition. Public servants are expected to have a good ability to acquire new knowledge that activates the response of the working centres according to the new social demands, the ongoing technology evolution and the steady competitiveness of the modern world. SENIOR OFFICERS AS KEY TO MANAGEMENT Nowadays, public management constitutes an activity where a paradigmatic jump is taking place. It is moving from classical notions and concepts towards attempts of higher level aimed at a more scientific and strict guided knowledge 2.

8 If a senior management that has great conceptual capacity, epistemologic solidity and adaptability is not available, organisations tend to stay out of competitiveness in front of a reality characterised by both economical and political complexity, uncertainty and globalisation 3. 2 Bernardo Kliksber. Cómo modernizar el Estado y formar los gerentes sociales necesarios? Algunas sugerencias para la acción. De burócrata a gerentes?. 3 Ibidem The most valuable management skill is not necessarily the one of knowing how to adjust oneself to the preconceived planning of the project to its itinerary, but the ability to innovate, experiment, modify, improvise and guide talents that normally feel unmotivated or are suppressed by the rigidity of the design and the centralised management procedures. What is conducive to success is the ability that managers have to design and to manage simultaneously, and to try new ideas and methods constantly, whatever the circumstances that surround them 4. Senior managers are people who must lead the administrative reform. Taking that premise as a starting point it is obvious that the necessity of providing them with an adequate training is the main aim of the process of change towards a new Administration organisational culture.

9 In a citizen-oriented administration that values public employees and promotes their involvement in the improvement of services, there, senior officers and public leaders must involve deeply, keep a service spirit to society and generate the information required by policy makers to take decisions. Therefore, both the senior officer and the public leader are considered as real internal enterprising people; a kind of active starter 4 Rondinelli engine of the Administration. Every manager is in his/her field the most accountable person, the most enterprising person. The combination of all those enterprising people will benefit Administration and will allow to face, with a higher chance of sucess, the new challenges of the services to society. The importance of the added value they bring forward demands a main concern by the public anthorities towards them. If the engines fail the possibilities of allowing for a new Administration then get exhausted. Thus, the definition of a specific organisation of the senior Public Function and its implementation constitute one of the most important internal challenges that Public Administrations must face in the future. The differentiation between political and administrative activities that is stated in the Organisation and Operation of the State General Administration Law has meant a first step on that direction.

10 Being a senior manager doesn t depend on a certificate or on certain modern organisation techniques. First of all, it depends on the assumption of the position obligations, on a sense of a well-done job, on a constant search for improvement and professionality and for orientation towards the fulfilment of the social needs which are the very same reason of our work. This conscience cannot only be created by means of an adequate training, but it can be stimulated, developed and given a perspective of future. CONTENTS OF MANAGERS TRAINING Among the conditions that training must enhance in the new manager in order to achieve the right fulfilment of the functions he/she has been entrusted with, we must underline the following ones: negotiation, organisation and communication ability, skills for managing his/her staff, as well as initiative and self-motivation. Training, oriented towards different organisational levels, must be intensified in a first moment in the area of managers, considered as real instigators of change. The present senior manager must not be a mere supervisor on rules or procedures, but he/she must be an active agent able to stimulate his/her staff, to provoke initiatives and to overcome the continuous changes and difficulties that management entails.

11 The role that senior officers play in the modernisation process can be defined in two key words which are closely linked: motivation and responsibilisation. Motivation of senior officers shows certain differences regarding other civil servants. The senior manager doesn t only place his/her professional aims in improving wages but he/she feels more motivated if he/she assumes challenges, if he/she can commit himself/herself to his/her management outcomes. In order to do that, it is necessary that he/she feels autonomous when carrying out tasks, without being under excessive control when managing the human or economic resources available. Management autonomy is related to the responsibilisation for the outcomes obtained, and that responsibilisation must be accompanied by a reasonable and objective mechanism of awards and penalties. The personnel s incorporation to a process of change and the transformation of the organisational culture require a renewed leadership of those who hold positions of responsibility in the organisation. The ability for motivating and transmitting trustworthiness to collaborators as well as their role in the distribution of information and the

12 assigning of tasks, in accordance with the organisation s and people s needs constitute essential elements for public managers. Their function, therefore, is increased and their strategic position acquires, if possible, greatest importance, not only due to the decisions they must take but to their supposed ability to engage their human team in a better performance. Administration management becomes then people s leadership. In a organisational structure based on delegation and trustworthiness, which values everyone s contributions and integrates them according to their mission, leadership affects a higher number of workers. There where is a field for responsibility leadership must be carried out in order to obtain the expected results. The White Book for Public Services Improvement 5 studies in depth the challenges that Public Administrations must face considering the deep transformations that are taking place in society at the moment, regarding their relations with citizens and the delivering of services. In this way, it establishes specific compromises for the renewal of those things that affect people s management. Thus, a particular aim is to reinforce the managerial skills of public senior managers by means of the following specific actions:

13 1. Approval of a senior management statute, which will influence the ability of interdiscipline management and the responsibility for the outcomes. 2. Design of specific programmes for updating senior officers managerial knowledge, adapted to their requirements and based on the best practices of public and private resources. 5 The White Book for Public Services Improvement was presented to the Council of Ministers of the Spanish government on 4 th February, Introduction of pilot experiences in public organisations, turning their budgeterial schemas more adaptable and making managers accountable for their design and implementation. Top management towards an adaptive planning is another subject that the White Book considers. The said planning must combine the setting of the view of each body with the definition of the mission that the organisation must carry out. The process of bringing together the mission and the view and the fact of reviewing and updating both constitute the hard core of this new planning.

14 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE GALICIAN AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITY IN THE TRAINING OF SENIOR OFFICERS (A REFERENCE TO THE GALICIAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION) The Galician Government (Xunta de Galicia), in its Programme for the Administrative Reform, promoted the passing of Law 4/1991 of 8 th March for the Reform of the Galician Civil Service; its article 27.2 nd establishes as a necessary requirement the obtaining of the diploma of senior officer for the fulfilment of specific positions freely appointed. In order to obtain this Diploma it is necessary to pass a course at the Galician School of Public Administration; its objectives are: to improve the performance and motivation of those people who must assume responsibilities of the highest level within the autonomous Administration. to count on a staff able to be in a position to adapt the organisational structures to the reform and modernisation processes according to the social demands for effectiveness, efficiency and quality of public services.

15 to rationalise the processes of career promotion and job provision, free appointment being sometimes subject to the possession of the diploma of senior officer. The Galician School of Public Administration is the centre entrusted with the issuing of this diploma and the validation of similar ones. The EGAP has organised since 1993 thirty regular courses for the issuing of the mentioned diploma, as well as other three adapted to top managers, with a total of nine hundred and eighty participants respectively. With all this the EGAP and the Galician Autonomous Administration get included in the core guidelines which must inspire the modernisation of the senior Civil Service. CONCLUSIONS In a research carried out by the Ministry of Public Administrations in the 90 s amongst more than three hundred senior public servants, the training of senior officers was pointed out as the most decisive factor in the contribution to the modernisation of the Administration. This factor was set in front of the introduction of new technologies, the creation of a new administrative culture or the decentralisation of the decision-taking. In the same study, further on, the same group of people are asked about the qualities they consider more important to fulfil top positions in the

16 Administration; the asnwers to this question underline, in first place, organisation and communication skills, followed by the ability to manage teams and, thirdly, the capacity for initiative and self-motivation. The conclusions to which senior managers come about their own needs can be shared, and in fact they respond to what it could have been expected beforehand. What turns out to be more difficult is the design of performing public actions. In my opinion, the training effort for providing our managers with the qualities required to fulfil their tasks should rest on the learning from the experience accumulated during these last years within the own Administration. In any case, the present weight of public managers in the decisiontaking process of our Administration is reduced and, as a scarce good this must be cared, trying to create the conditions for its development and its reproduction. It is particularly important not to mix up the non-political manner of the manager with the lack of motivation or compromise with the task to be carried out. The search for a change, efficiency, modernisation, quality in the service rendered, these are elements inherent to the objectives that the senior officer must pursue and respond of to the officer right above him/her. The professionality that must prevail in his/her work must never be on bad terms with hope and motivation for the obtaining of the best accomplishments. On the contrary, a real senior officer is required to have an ability to motivate

17 himself/herself and thus to be able to motivate his/her staff towards a successful performance of the tasks they are entrusted with. Sometimes, as it often happens in the private field, the professional challenge and a specific empathy will be the agglutinating factor of his/her compromise. From there on, if the public manager is able to analyse and interpret the environment, if he/she organises his/her human resources and materials in the most convenient way, and if he/she knows the dynamics of informal networks and internal system of the Administration in ordes to maximise at every moment the achievements acquired with the resources available, then he/she will the best ally of his/her boss, that is to say, of the policy - maker, serving efficiently to the general interest at the same time. Managers and leaders in the public field are enterprising people who mobilise the rest of the civil servants. In the absence of the effects characteristic of the market mechanisms, it is them who have the mission of motivating and transferring every to the administrative units. They are protagonists in the delivery and genesis of public policies: they are the connector between the citizens, the people working at the Administration and the political groups which, from their respective governments, manage the Administration; finally, they are responsible for implementing the public policies adopted according to the priorities established. The challenge consists of managing Public Administrations with each of their units towards a more intelligent Administration in order to make

18 true the other changes and to help the sustainability of that new State dynamism that is being required. In the current international context, knowledge has become (and the White Book points it out this way) a decisive factor of economic progress, a source of sustainable competitive advantage. No doubt, own technologic innovation may create more employment than the development of external patents, but the value added through knowledge is not only centred on those matters where it is generated but it extends to every field where knowledge is applied, transferred, distributed and managed. Differently to energy resources or goods investments, knowledge increases with use, multiplies when it is shared and enriches itself when it is used in an intelligent manner in organisations. Because of that, it generates increasing returns and facilitates continuous competitive advantages; from the Galician School of Public Administration we are trying to contribute to the development of this knowledge. In short, our goal is an intelligent Administration for a complex context where senior managers are able to create and manage adaptive organisations which don t respond in a passive way to events, to in-service strains and to surrounding pressures, an Administration that, nevertheless, can develop strategies allowing for modification of its structures and behaviours and take advantage of arising new situations.

19 In the threshold of new millennium, organisations are improving their operation and progressing in quality of the goods they generate, or the services they render, because of the revalorisation of the role that both the people and the knowledge play in the fulfilment of the organisation s mission and in the pursuit of their objectives. Both factors are critical for the progress of any organisation. The renewal of the public management cannot be stopped and it is involved in a full transformation process. The world has changed and public management is not an exception. Using the resources in the most efficient way in order to be able to satisfy the citizens demands and to take advantage of the opportunities of a competitive and globalised world for getting societies more in agreement with collective wishes, all this requires changes, imagination and innovation; furthermore, it requires highly-trained managers in order to face these changes. How can an adequate detection of the needs be carried out in order to adapt the managers training programmes to the new surrounding necessities? There is no doubt about the changing nature of the content and the procedures used in the working place; there is the importance of training as a tool for the development of a work strength, based upon the knowledge and defence of the essential values of the public matter. Leadership and management of human teams are essential qualities to managing in the globalisation era.

20 Although the huge amount of work that it still has to be done, I have an optimistic view of the way that, in not many years, has been run by modernisating ideas, both in the academic or scientific discourse and in the offices of the agencies and ministries. What until not many years ago seemed an utopia it is being considered more and more necessary, or in the worst of the situations, unavoidable. Certainly, the main responsibilities for the good operation of that updating and modernisation process of our public management rest with the policy makers and the managers themselves. But the Schools of Public Administration are living more and more immersed in society and sharing their problems as well as their aspirations and hopes. Good evidence is the task that my School is fulfilling in the field that we have dealt with throughout this paper. I want to take advantage of the opportunity given to participate in this Annual Conference of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration, to congratulate you for all the work that you have been carrying out and to wish you the very best sucess in this new encounter. Thank you very much.