PAUL CORRIGAN
“MOTIVATION, INCENTIVES AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CHOICE”
Those of us interested in bringing about radical improvement in public service outcomes recognise that innovation and change are difficult. Too often it is assumed that all improvement and innovation ‘speaks for itself’; as if improvement simply happens because it is the right thing to do. In fact, the conservatism of most organisational cultures makes improvement and innovation very hard indeed.
Therefore, those of us interested in improvement and innovation recognise that different forms of motivation drive different forms of this process at different times. These motivations can overcome the conservatism of those against improvement and innovation. It is strong individual motivation that drives public service professionals to become innovative and transform the way in which they work.
In most organisations individuals are allowed to be innovative in their work with only minimal interference. Motivated by their own drive for improvement, individuals develop improvements within their own sphere of work. Their colleagues and their superiors recognise this individual motivation and, unless their organisation is deeply conservative, they are encouraged to develop that innovation. If it works, the organisation gains from it; if it fails the individual loses.
The same driver is there if an individual leader is motivated to improve their organisation. The conservatism of the organisation needs to be overcome but that is what organisational leadership is all about. It takes time but, if the leader will take the risk and drive the change, then all that is necessary is skill and persistence. So one way of driving an innovation across an entire service is to develop leaders with the individual motivation to change their organisation.
And while leadership is important, what is necessary to bring about change throughout an industry or service, is the motivation for that entire industry. And for that we need to construct powerful incentives.
These motivations need to clearly offer organisations success if they take the innovation throughout their organisation and failure if they don’t. In public service this does not necessarily have to involve financial motivation but almost certainly must involve publication and the public.
If the public know that one organisation is moving forward and improving (and if they have a choice) they will choose that organisation. If they clearly know that one organisation is failing, then that organisation will be driven out of business.
Over the last 10 years the English education system has clearly labelled some schools as failing. The public have been regularly given that information and in many places have the opportunity to act upon that knowledge. If a school fails to innovate, the cost of that is clear in terms of its future.
For a whole public service to improve, the motivations for success and failure need to be clear across the service.
Paul Corrigan is Director of Strategy and Commissioning, NHS London
Top three public sector innovations
1 FEEDING THE BRITISH PEOPLE During world war two the British population were fed to such an extent that nutritional inequalities were reduced.
2 THE HUMAN GENOME Completed in 2003, the Human Genome Project (HGP) was a 13-year project coordinated by the US Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. The goals included the identifying of all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA and determining the sequences of the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA.
3 PUTTING A MAN ON THE MOON in 1969, American Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. His mission was part of the Apollo programme undertaken by NASA between 1961 – 1975.
