Tools for Innovators Creative Strategies for Strengthening Public Sector Organizations

While many books hype the latest fad, here at last (!) is a ?realist's' toolbox designed for public administrators who need to know the costs as well as the benefits of managerial theories and technologies.

Today's public administrators must be more than effective managers of their agencies' internal operations. In order to thrive in the complex interorganizational relationships spanning governments, nonprofit organizations, and private firms in a global economy, public managers and their organizations must be capable of great flexibility and innovation to be truly effective. Today's public managers must move beyond competence to become creative innovators and agents of change.

Tools for Innovators introduces public managers to the tools that today's most innovative leaders are using to bring about change in their organizations. Steven Cohen and William Eimicke distinguish tools for innovation from traditional functional tools such as budgeting, human resource management, and organizational structure. The six key innovation tools they examine are:

• Strategic Planning
• Reengineering
• Total Quality Management
• Benchmarking, Performance Measurement and Management
• Team Management
• Privatization

They show what the innovation tools are all about , how to use them, their costs and benefits and perhaps most critically, how to use them together?showing how to integrate them into a single framework of management innovation. Concrete case examples of successful innovation efforts drawn from the authors' own experiences provide examples of the challenges managers face as they attempt to innovate. These cases discuss how innovations are introduced and adjusted to the specific needs of real-world situations.

The creative public manager must continually look for new tools and new approaches. Tools for Innovators will help in this search, enabling managers to meet the challenges of a changing public sector.

While many books hype the latest fad, here at last (!) is a?realist's' toolbox designed for public administrators who need toknow the costs as well as the benefits of managerial theories andtechnologies.
-- Mel Dubnick, Department of Public Administration at RutgersUniversity and former Managing Editor of the Public AdministrationReview

Today's public administrators must be more than the effectivemanagers of their agencies' internal operations. In order to managea complex set of interorganizational relationships spanninggovernments, nonprofit organizations and private firms in a complexglobal economy, they and their organizations must be capable ofgreat agility and change. Effectiveness is a necessary but notsufficient condition for success: Today's public managers mustreach beyond competence to be creative innovators and agents ofchange.

This book introduces public sector professionals to a set ofinnovation tools: Strategic Planning, Reengineering, Total QualityManagement, Benchmarking, Performance Measurement and Management,Team Management, Privatization. It shows how to understand them,use them and integrate them into any organization, and how theywill take public managers beyond competence to be creativeinnovators.

The creative public manager must continually look for new tools andnew approaches. Tools for Innovators will help in this search, andin meeting and surmounting the challenges of a changing publicsector.