On the ludicrous search for the magical performance system.

• Author: Behn, Robert D.
• Position: Managing public agencies through perfect system

The search is on. Public officials everywhere--in national, states, and provincial capitols--are looking for the best performance system. For once they find this system, they will (they believe) have solved their performance problems. And public officials everywhere are desperately trying to solve their performance problems. That is why they keep searching for the ultimate performance system.

They won't find it.

Why? Because it isn't there. The magical performance system doesn't exist. Even a good performance system doesn't exist. Systems don't improve performance; leaders do.

Still, the concept of a performance system is deceptively seductive. The system does the work. That's why any system is so alluring. A system is like an engine. You push the start button, and the system does the work.

Thus, to many, the challenge of improving the performance of public agencies (and nonprofit and for-profit organizations, too) is to find the right system--the perfect system. Sure, this system might be elusive. It might be hard to find. Indeed, it might be difficult to comprehend when first sighted. It might not stand out like a mountain.

But it's there. It's got to be. Someone has already discovered it. Someone has already perfected it. We just have to find this clever someone, this magical system.

Then, all we need do is import this system into our organization, set it up, and push the start button. Once the system is going, we can move on to something else.

Sorry. It doesn't work that way. There is no system; there is no start button.

If you want to improve the performance of any organization--in the public, private, or third sector--you have to give performance your constant attention. You have to give it your personal attention at the operational level.

You can't just create a set of performance measures and look at them at the end of the fiscal year--or six months after the end of the fiscal year when the annual report comes out. You have to check personally on the measures on a monthly--or even weekly--basis.

I make a clear distinction between "performance systems" and "performance management." A performance system is a government-wide effort. One kind of performance system is performance measurement, another is performance budgeting. It is a system just like a procurement system or a personnel system. The Government Performance and Results Act is just one example of such a "system."

Like all systems, a performance system is based on rules. Like...