High-Performance Partnerships - National Academy of Public ...

Public managers tend to be risk averse, and tackling
complicated issues and sharing authority can
be risky. Swift public and media scrutiny creates
a tendency to emphasize control. As such, it is
difficult for the public sector to accept some failure
as a consequence of proactively and creatively
solving complex problems.
can only be addressed by those that focus significant
energy on ensuring that every participant
understands every aspect of the partnership.
The manager must primarily be a coach, not a
commander. A high-performance cross-sector
culture is not conducive to pyramidal organizations
where issuing orders is the norm. Effective
managers must be able to marshal peer, leadership,
and even external stakeholder support.
These approaches and skills sets are not
reserved for the leadership team. They are
needed throughout every level of a partnership,
from the first line team leader to the chief
operating officer. The following sections compare
management approaches in a high-performance
partnership with those in typical
public, nonprofit, business, and civic organizations.
These broad-based comparisons help to
illustrate prevailing management styles. In the
emerging performance-oriented multi-sector
environment, broader management attributes
will become increasingly relevant.
PUBLIC SECTOR
MANAGEMENT
Governments are in the public’s eye and have
strong fiduciary responsibilities, making them
very process oriented. Rules and regulations
abound, making the transition to a performance-based
partnership difficult. Governments
should not become laissez-faire about their
accountability, but high-performing ones have
learned that onerous rules and regulations can
inhibit results. Public organizations must have
more entrepreneurial and flexible management
styles to be true partners.
The public sector represents an entire community’s
interests, so it naturally has more structure
than other sectors. Organizing work and
responding to diverse constituencies are strengths
for many public administrators. Successful ones
must be adept and tenacious in breaking through
bureaucratic red tape. Those who have learned to
achieve results through cooperative approaches—
not only direct line authorities—do well with
cross-sector partnerships.
NONPROFIT SECTOR
MANAGEMENT
Stereotyping nonprofit organizations is difficult
because they differ in size, service area, funding
source, and maturity. However, the design lab
participants identified several areas where their
management differs from a high-performance
cross-sector partnership environment.
Nonprofit organizations are focused on their
mission because they serve a particular purpose—education,
social, health, or cultural.
Values and social norms are prevalent in nonprofit
decision-making so it can be difficult for
managers to recognize and deal with public
and business partners’ motivations, constraints,
and interests.
Reputation and results are more personality
dependent in the nonprofit sector than in the
public sector. Managers sometimes are selected
based on their commitment to the mission
rather than for their professional skills. Staff
bench strength and good financial and administrative
systems can be limited.
The public sector contributes stability and
longevity to a cross-sector partnership.
Political winds may change, but governments
rarely go out of business. The same cannot be
said for a nonprofit organization dependent on
securing scarce resources for its survival. As a
result, nonprofit managers often are more
adept at responding to change and adversity.
131 Powering the Future: High-Performance Partnerships