I recently read an accompanying monograph to Jim Collins’ seminal work, “Good to Great,” entitled “Good to Great and the Social Sectors.” This monograph extends the principles of Good to Great from business to nonprofits of all types. Within this short monograph Collins provides some introductory thoughts on how organizations in the social sector can achieve greatness. Interestingly, while within the social sector there is often a focus on running nonprofit agencies more like a business, but this is not what Collins recommends. There are some tenets from the original principles that apply to the social sector, but overall Collins contends that business thinking is not the answer. Instead of addressing the operations of nonprofits with the ‘language of business,’ Collins challenges the social sector to embrace a ‘language of greatness.’ Over the course of several blogs I will be sharing five requirements that Collins discusses for public sector agencies to go from good to great.
The first issue explored in applying good-to-great principles to the public sector is how to define greatness. Since public sector agencies do not produce profits, it can be challenging to find a method of measuring improvement in such an agency. Collins gives a few examples of those types of public sector agencies that do lend themselves to bottom-line outputs that can be measured and improved, including police departments (lowered crime rates) and collegiate athletic departments (win records and graduation rates). Not all nonprofit agencies have metrics that can be evaluated easily. For instance, how do you evaluate improvement in a community orchestra or a domestic abuse center? Because there is such an incredible variety of public sector agencies, it is impossible to address each type in order to define how to measure greatness for each one. Therefore, to define what equates to great results for any of these organizations, it is useful to apply a framework for outputs of greatness; and Collins presents outputs of greatness as the following:
- Delivering superior performance – in the business world superior performance can be measured by profitability; but for the public sector, superior performance must be judged by how well an organization is fulfilling its stated mission.
- Making a distinctive impact – an organization must strive to make such unique and critical contributions to its community, that if it were to disappear it would be very difficult to find a way to replace those contributions.
- Achieving lasting endurance – exceptional results are long-term and not a result of a single charismatic leader, funding cycle or successful initiative.
Once an agency finds how it is going to define greatness, it can begin to determine how it is going to build greatness into its operations and legacy. How to do this will be the subject of coming blogs and will include the topics of leadership, recruiting the right people, defining the Hedgehog Concept and sustaining lasting excellence. People like to support winners, so when an agency finds a way to go from good to great, the public recognizes and supports it. Since public support is essential to nonprofits, these principles can be essential to enabling sustained successful implementation of a mission statement, and therefore long-term benefits to our communities.