Synopses & Reviews
The strategies adopted by our governments and public officials can lead to significant change in citizens' lives --smoking bans, carbon markets, even the reunification of a country like Germany. Equally, strategic failure can result in highly visible disasters, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
This book is about how strategies take shape, and how money, people, technologies, and public commitment can be mobilized to achieve important goals. It considers the common mistakes made, and how these can be avoided.
Written by Geoff Mulgan, a former head of policy for the UK prime minister, and advisor to governments round the world, it is packed with examples and shaped by the author's practical experience. The author's central point is that we as citizens deserve governments that pay more attention to the long-term, rather than to tomorrow's opinion poll or newspaper editorial. The evidence shows that those governments that have learned how to be strategic have helped to make their citizens healthier, richer and happier.
The book is essential reading for anyone involved in running public organizations--from hospitals and schools to national government departments and local councils--but also for anyone interested in how government really works.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: From Tangled Knots to Virtuous Circles
Part I
2. What is Public Strategy?
3. Public Action: The Dynamics of Supply and Demand
4. A Framework for Adaptive Strategy
Part II
5. Locating Strategy: Structures, Processes, and Cultures
6. Knowledge: How Can Governments Know Enough to Govern?
7. Implementation: Moving from Words to Action
8. Positive Risks: Taking Innovation in the Public Sector Seriously
9. Negative Risks: Strategies for Resilience
10. Joined-up Government
11. Changing Minds and Behaviour
12. Winning (and Losing) Public Trust
13. Metrics: Measuring Social and Public Value
14. Persistent Leadership
Part III
15. Separating the Urgent and the Important: Strategy as a Public Good