How to Realize the Management Commission's Recommendations — From Public Leadership to Public Leadership

Get five suggestions for obvious ways to put the recommendations of the Management Commission into practice

It has not been short of comments on the Management Commission's recommendations since they were presented. In this article, we take a step further and give our perspectives on how the recommendations become part of the everyday lives of public leaders and create value for public organizations — and not least of all of us as citizens.
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Below you will find 5 suggestions on how you can get started with the realization without requiring extensive external course investments, but rather a link to the operations and development in and around the organization. And this is regardless of whether you are a leader in charge of civic operations, a top executive or a political leader in a public organization.
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Managers at all levels can act and have the opportunity to experiment with activities that support the recommendations of the Management Commission — thus following Recommendation 26: “All management development must combine knowledge, reflection and action based on concrete organizational objectives. Management development should not be given as a personnel good”

There is much that already works -- and much that can be improved

There is a lot that works well in public sector management. That is the basis on which the Management Commission's recommendations rest. This important point is highlighted by Allan Søgaard Larsen, and we are in complete agreement. At Resonance, we see it daily in our work with leaders at all levels, including political leadership. The managers work together with the employees to provide good service to the citizens every day. It needs to be recognised and strengthened.
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But at the same time, we see plenty of room for improvement. There is plenty of potential for optimisation and innovation in the public sector. The role of leaders in the necessary changes and initiatives is absolutely crucial. Leaders must take the lead, show courage and challenge the status quo. And so they have to be role models and walk themselves down the path they ask others to tread. In fact, the recommendations of the Management Commission call for public leadership!
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Here we offer a selection of suggestions on how you can show leadership and take the lead in realising the recommendations of the Management Commission. The specific activities that underlie these ideas depend on where you are a leader, at what level you are a leader, and what strategic focus areas and priorities you and the organization are already in the process of making a reality. The current efforts can be continued with the levers and new ideas contained in the recommendations of the Management Commission.
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1. Focus on the core task of everything you do

As trite as this sounds, in our opinion it is a very strong statement from the Management Commission to put citizens first in everything you do as a public servant. We still find too often that managers and employees forget to put citizens first on their own delivery, professionalism or personal well-being. Intentions are always good. No doubt about it. But focusing on core task rather than core professionalism can make a world of difference. As the management commission writes in its report: “The outlet in the citizen perspective must be the focal point of all strategy and prioritization, so that it does not become based on a 'random' cross-sum of the values and interests that exist in the organization.”
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At the recently well-attended Folkemøe, we had a visit from a member of the Management Commission, Emma Winther, who is head of the Centre at Give Care Centre in Vejle Municipality. Emma explained the link to the core task and putting the citizen first in terms of focusing broadly on citizens' everyday lives and lives, rather than skills and services alone.
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When we work with the core task at the center, you as a leader must work with the value and impact of what you create in your device in a larger perspective than the individual performance. So that we see the creation of value for the citizen as a whole, in terms of what other professional groups contribute — and not least what the family, the neighbour, the association, the workplace, the local community and the citizen can contribute to the welfare of everyday life. A simple approach is to map out the many actors and elements that make up the good life of the individual, through something as simple as a drawing and open dialogue with the citizen.

2. Communicate purpose clearly and often

Setting clear direction is understood by many leaders as having a clear plan. The plan is important. No one can disagree with that; we need to know what it is we need to do and how to get there. But a good plan is most strongly based on a clear purpose that is linked to the core mission, vision and strategy of the organization.
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We find that all too often it is taken for granted that everyone understands the purpose. Therefore, the purpose is often really undercommunicated. Leadership and clear direction start with a clear statement of purpose, e.g. in terms of what you contribute to? And what citizens will miss if you guys didn't exist? This formulation you need to create as a leader in your own communication. And you need to create it in dialogue with other managers and employees. It is your local purpose up against the overall purpose of the organization.
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Inspiration to work with this can be found, among other things, in Simon Sinek's use of the concept of The Golden Circle, which describes the connection between why, how and what you do — in that order. What you do is usually easy to answer. The how and why is immediately a little harder. Test yourself if you can tell briefly and clearly in less than 30 seconds why your organization is set in the world and how your local unit supports this purpose? What is your “elevator speech”?

3. Create solutions together across organisations and around the world

Recommendation No. 4 of the Management Commission's report reads: “Public leaders must think of citizens and the surrounding community as active partners in the task solution.” Let's compare this with recommendation number 3: “Politicians and public leaders at all levels must create clear and coherent courses across relevant entities for the benefit of citizens.”, it is pretty clear that no single manager or professional entity can succeed by shutting themselves away from their own professional self-sufficiency.
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The solutions and quality of life often have to be found across the organisation and the outside world. For example, at this year's People's Meeting Resonans, we have worked together with several hundred other actors to find new ways to health in Denmark — and it is very clear that in order to counter the increasing mental and physical health challenges according to the latest national health profile, we need to work even more across the public, private and voluntary sectors than we already do fortunately in many places.
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The concrete recommendations from the activities at Folkemødet are, among other things, that we should work towards a more flexible labour market, where there is room for chronic illness, to gain an increased understanding of the economic framework conditions of the private and voluntary sectors in the concrete partnerships, and to cede some of the classic position of power in the public health sector by having increased trust in the voluntary and private sectors.
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There are also many inspiring examples of successful peer-to-peer solutions, including when youth volunteers in the street sports NGO GAME support other young people in ways that the system cannot — thus creating new avenues for social communities and physical movement for, for example, young people in vulnerable residential areas.

4th. Make a 100-Day Plan and Get Started Experimenting Quickly

A crucial step for you as a leader to contribute to few strategies and visions connected to the operation and realized in practice is to work agile and innovatively in learning loops, for example over 100 days. In Resonans we experience great energy and drive among managers and employees when the many words, methods and abstract thoughts are translated into concrete actions. Actions that can realize new types of value on the complex public bottom line — and where public organizations need to be bold and innovative through experimentation as a way of working.
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A crucial part of experimenting is testing new pathways for transversal and outward leadership in organizations and the outside world. For example, all level 2 and 3 leaders in Nordfyn Municipality are currently translating the newly elected city council's visions into organisational innovative experiments. By working in practice with the cross-border leadership role, recommendations 7 and 8 of the Management Commission are supported. The recommendations focus precisely on the fact that politicians have confidence in management as a driving force in implementing and implementing the policy framework and decisions in operations.
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In general, we at Resonance find that trust, including the political and administrative level, increases when politicians are given the opportunity to get closer to the reality of the operational management and the professional staff — and not primarily receive information through cases and the strategic communication of the management and management managers.

5. Turn everyday life into your training ground

This idea supports, among other things, the recommendation to make management development practical.
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The headline could also have read: Don't fall into the skill development trap! Many educational institutions and consulting houses will queue up with offers of courses and classic skills development. However, we believe that classic leadership courses offer only limited benefits, which is supported by, among other things, a number of outstanding results in this McKinsey study. The Management Commission itself points to evaluations that indicate that classical competence development produces too low learning effect and too few behavioral changes in practice. Generic courses are simply too hard to transfer to everyday experienced dilemmas and paradoxes.
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And the answer is not better courses... The answer is -- drop the courses! Take your leadership training into the real world and strengthen your leadership identity! Turn everyday life into a training ground. Plan how you want to train your leadership in concrete management activities, such as dialogues, meetings, presentations, problem solving, etc. Do it in dialogue with other leaders in your area and, of course, together with your own manager. Observe each other and give feedback afterwards. Ask employees for feedback and thus create closer dialogue and involvement in what good management is all about. It will also strengthen the overall feedback culture in your organization. (Now don't do courses in feedback. Just do it based on a few simple rules of the game!).
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These activities can have a direct link to your work with your own and employees' specific strengths and weaknesses. And there can be a strong correlation to your work with 100-day plans and an experimental approach. And then there's an added bonus: Every time you head away on a leadership course, you're missed in daily life. When you exercise in daily life, you are present with your colleagues and retain the feeling with the core task and results.

Let dialogue lead to action

Many are calling for continued dialogue on the recommendations, and we strongly support this. But dialogue does not do it alone. There needs to be action. It is in the actions that the recommendations are tested by in reality. And it creates both opinion formation and quick results. Have fun with the realization!