The April issue of Public Management (PM) magazine explains how to achieve organizational excellence by using eight key strategies.

1. Delight your customers. Local governments have multiple types of customers and customer relationships: transactional relationships in which customers receive and pay for services (utility customers, renters of facilities) and the more complicated relationships with residents, nonprofits, and business partners with whom local governments work in building a community.
2. Get results from vision and strategic planning. Excellent, high-performing organizations know where they are going. They have clearly defined their vision (a picture of success for three to five years ahead); their mission (why they exist); and their strategies (levers for accomplishing the vision).                        
3. Create a culture from your values. Author and management guru Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” While vision and strategy are critical, this statement underscores the importance of creating a quality work culture from the values your organization identifies
4. Understand and incorporate both leadership and management. Local government managers need to understand the difference between leadership and management and incorporate the critical work of each in their organizations.
5.  Pay attention to engagement and passion. Managers need to pay more attention to those things that make employees feel valued so they have a higher commitment to the organization.
6. Maximize performance. While employee engagement is an important focus for managers, maximizing employee competence is also critical work.
7. Measure progress. If managers wish to influence behavior and performance, they should examine what their organization measures and rewards.
8. Manage change. Leading change is about winning hearts and minds for the change effort