The Effective Public Manager: Achieving Success in Government Organizations, 5th Edition

CHAPTER TEN

SHAPING ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND STRATEGIES

Up to this point, we have largely focused on how to manage the internal elements of your organization and the people, systems, tasks, information, and money you need to get work done. We have offered ideas for making those internal organizational resources more effective and responsive to the challenge of doing more with less. But every public manager works within an institutional environment that is structured by the policies and political processes that establish and authorize public programs and institutions.

Because politically driven policy processes define the goals of public organizations, managers may feel they have little influence on their mission, priorities, and assignments. ...