The book by Goldsmith and Crawford aims to investigate the major ways cities can use data and technologies to become data-smart and responsive. The important peculiarity of the book is that it departs from both entirely theoretical and technological approaches, using case studies of specific U.S. cities and the departments of city councils. These case studies helped the authors single out several most common barriers to the true responsiveness of cities and elaborate on the ways to overcome them. Particularly a successful overcoming of barriers is perceived by the authors as the major deliverable of change management in public administration.
According to Goldsmith and Crawford, modern city leaders tend to face three barriers to responsiveness. The first one is that the definition of a good work, performed by a civil servant, remains to be highly narrow. In this regard, the major issues deal with impersonality and the lack of customization to citizen’s needs and wants. It is proposed that customization experience of retail stores is used by change managers to overcome this challenge. Furthermore, it is suggested that civil servants are encouraged to go beyond their strictly defined functional obligations in order to deliver more responsive services to citizens. In other words, customer orientation shall become an important principle of public administration, whose implementation shall be achieved with the help of new technologies and big data (Goldsmith and Crawford 4-5)
The second barrier, addressed by Goldsmith and Crawford, is common for many organizations worldwide. Inability and/or unwillingness to share information often constitute an important obstacle to the successful performance of organizations. That is why, it is advised to create a system, containing an aggregate of information from all the city agencies. However, as such system is going to contain a lot of personal data, it is crucial to ensure its security via a set of both management and technological tools. At the same time, it is important to promote the spirit of collaboration instead of competition across different city agencies.
Finally, the book contains a lot of examples of situations, whereby authorities tend to focus on activities, rather than solutions.
In view of the above, a change manager in public sector needs to promote the orientation on customer, creation of the aggregate information systems, a focus on solutions, as well as collaborative spirit.
Exercising the above functions requires specific knowledge and a range of important skills to be possessed by change managers. Addressing the required areas of knowledge, it is worth mentioning that change managers need to have a good understanding of customer service in different industries and new technologies, especially the functioning of large data systems and ensuring system’s security. A change manager also requires developed strategic planning, organizational and problem-solving skills. Problem-orientation is especially important with regard to promoting the solutions-based, rather than activities-based approach. Importantly, a change manager shall have systemic thinking and strong leadership skills. Systemic thinking will help a manager to develop a good understanding of an administration as a system and tackle specific information- and cooperation-related deficiencies within it. Leadership is essential, because the major task of a change manager is to make the existing system change. If he/she is not a strong leader, capable of insisting on a new vision of the way a system is to function, the system will be highly likely to overplay and return to the pre-change state.
Furthermore, it is crucial that a change manager has highly developed communication skills. Quality communication of change and ensuring an engagement of stakeholders into its implementation represent the cornerstones of successful change management. Persuasion and negotiation are also crucial, especially with regard to the promotion of collaborative spirit and changing employees’ attitudes to public service.
Finally, it is important that a change manager has specific change management-related skills, such as understanding the scope and process of change, creating a comprehensive plan of change, overcoming the resistance to change, as well as implementation the change, monitoring the implementation process and evaluating the results of the change.
The Trial Court, where I work, faces some of the barriers, addressed by Goldsmith and Crawford in the “Responsive city”. The lack of customization can be viewed as the most important issue, being faced by the Court. Adhering to a variety of instructions and procedures, Court employees lack the opportunity to adapt to the unique needs of citizens. For instance, the consulting authorities and capacities of the Court employees are highly limited, so that citizens sometimes lack answers to important proceedings-related questions. This often happens, if citizens face atypical situations or have special needs. At the same time, the Court has modern information systems that allow sharing data between different departments, so that no specific requests are to be made. Finally, the focus on activities, rather than solutions prevails due to the need to adhere to a variety of instructions.
Works cited
Goldsmith, S., Crawford, S. The responsive city. Engaging communities through data-smart governance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014. Print.
