Public Governance - Code for Chief Executive Excellence Public Governance - Code for Chief Executive Excellence Content Foreword . 6 Structure of the book . 9 Part one: Conditions and challenges for public sector chief executives in Denmark. 13 Fundamental traits and challenges for chief executives in a politically-led organisation . 15 Characteristics unique to Denmark. 15 Characteristics unique to the public sector . 17 Values in the public sector . 19 The challenge: executive management is tandem management. 19 New conditions and challenges for chief executives in a politically-led organisation . 21 Changes in the decision-making structure of the public sector. 21 The challenge: an expanded management universe . 23 The knowledge society – from openness to communication and involvement . 24 The challenge: an interactive public sector . 28 Governance – new methods of combining forms of co-operation and management . 29 The challenge: multiple competing management principles . 34 Part two: Public Governance - Code for Chief Executive Excellence. 37 Nine recommendations . 39 1. Clarify your managerial space with the political leader . 41 2. Take responsibility for ensuring that the political goals are implemented throughout the organisation. 45 3. Create an organisation which is responsive and capable of influencing the surrounding world . 49 2 4. Create an organisation which acts as part of an integrated public sector . 53 5. Require the organisation to focus on results and effects . 57 6. Possess vision and work strategically to improve the way your organisation accomplishes its assignments . 61 7. Exercise your right and duty to lead the organisation. 65 8. Display personal and professional integrity . 69 9. Safeguard the public sector’s legitimacy and democratic values . 73 Part three: Self-evaluation method . 77 Phase 1: The full Code - a first sounding . 81 Phase 2: My chief executive role and management style – focusing on the individual recommendations . 85 Phase 3: My chief executive role in the future . 109 Part four: The History of the Forum . 113 Aims and principles of the Forum . 116 Involvement of the chief executives . 117 Involvement of Danish and foreign researchers . 118 Public Governance . 119 The three themes . 121 The Forum’s code model . 122 3 Project phases and key events . 123 Workshop in Fredensborg . 124 Opening conference: Executive management makes a difference. 125 Workshop Conference: Debate on chief executive challenges . 126 The Midpoint Conference: On the trail of good public sector executive management . 126 Code seminars: Good public sector executive management in daily life – your turn to speak . 128 Camp Code I . 131 Camp Code II . 131 International development seminars: Management Excellence in the Knowledge Society and An International Perspective on Networks, Complexity and E-governance . 132 Conference: Public Governance – a code for good public sector executive management in Denmark. 132 The elements in the Forum’s knowledge generation . 132 The three research teams . 133 The three theme panels . 135 The three e-surveys . 137 Prize competition . 139 Process experiences . 139 Board and secretariat . 141 Appendix 4 Appendix (outline) . 143 1. Summary of the Forum’s three e-surveys . 144 2. The project’s activities in chronological order . 149 3. Conference, workshop and seminar programmes in chronological order . 151 4. The Forum’s publications . 162 5. Participant lists . 163 5 Foreword Almost two years ago, the chief executives in the Danish state, county and municipal administrations set themselves a common goal: under the title of Public Governance, they would develop a code for chief executive excellence which would apply across the entire Danish public sector. The background for this project was widespread recognition of the fact that excellence in executive management is a prerequisite for meeting the current and future chal- lenges faced by the public sector. The level of ambition was high: we wished to develop a code that would apply to the most important tasks of chief executives, but which at the same time would be specific enough to inspire individual top executives to reflect on and develop their managerial behaviour in their daily work. The Code which we now present is the result of a process that called for persistent commitment on the part of chief executives across the whole public sector, as well as a challenging and educational partnership between the research world and the chief executives themselves. At the same time, new networks and relations have been created across the boundaries of the public sector, and between the research world and the chief executives. The work on the development of the Code has already helped to sharpen the focus of chief executives on their own management practice; however, the real effect will only become apparent in the long term. Accordingly, the launch of the Code should be 6 regarded as the start of a new process, in which public sector chief executives will perform concrete work with the Code within their own organisations. The Code sets the agenda for excellence in public sector executive management, and we hope it will contribute to further debate on executive management in the public sector, not only in Denmark, but also internationally. We would like to encourage all public sector chief executives to make use of the Code, both individually and in co- operation with others. Forum Board, Forum for Top Executive Management May 2005 7 8 Structure of the book 9 Structure of the book The book is structured on the basis of the Forum’s Code model: Analysis of challenges Code: Recommendations Self-evaluation The book’s first part begins with an analysis of the challenges. This analysis encompasses both the enduring and the emerging challenges which especially characterise the public sector, and which chief executives in the public sector must act within, understand and communicate in their management of public sector organisations. This analysis forms the Forum’s diagnosis and its justification for the formulation of a Code. The analysis focuses on the common characteristics of public sector executive management, and describes four images of chief executive challenges which form the starting-point for the Code for Chief Executive Excellence. 10 Four images of chief executive challenges: - Executive management is tandem management - An expanded management universe - An interactive public sector - Multiple competing management principles The second part contains the Code itself, which consists of nine recommendations for chief executive excellence in Denmark. As illustrated by the Code model, the Code en- compasses the chief executive’s most important tasks. The nine recommendations are equal in value, and each of them demands commitment. The recommendations of the Code reflect the ways in which the chief executive, on the basis of personal leadership, can act within and create coherence between the primary top management perspec- tives: politics, organisation and the surrounding world. The individual recommendations are followed up by a manageable number of action- oriented questions relating to the chief executive’s management of the organisation, and which function as signposts towards the chief executive’s application of the Code to his or her own management practice..