Amidst these types of organizational challenges, in 2001, the City of Montgomery began its journey toward higher performance following the principles and teachings of the High Performance Organization Model. The City’s work focused on retooling the traditional “government” employee from delivering simply their “technical” expertise to possessing leadership, management, technical and team skills to develop broader ownership for the success of the organization and its work. It sought to develop the “culture” of the organization from one that featured a “stove-piped” approach to work where departments were focused within, to an organization where employees recognized the importance of the entire organization and supported and treated other employees and our citizens well. Lastly, the City sought to build organizational capacity, individual employee skills and abilities, and enhance the quality of the work it was performing through the use of employee teams. The goal of this high performance work is to create an organization that can deliver its services in a manner that meets the needs of the community, are of a high quality, and are sound in their financial performance.
Work to change an organization’s culture is long and difficult. At many points along the road, the “champions” of this effort (individuals from throughout the organization) became tired, discouraged and wanted to give up on the efforts and revert to the traditional government service delivery model.
However, the hard work of the Montgomery staff and the positives of this organizational transformation have been tremendous for the City of Montgomery and manifest themselves everyday in better service to our citizens, enhanced empowerment and ownership amongst our employees and a genuine feeling of camaraderie in our work and support for one another. The result is a better and higher performing organization—one that dispels the negative perceptions of government and works to reinforce the importance of our work and our profession as one of a higher moral purpose and one of critical importance to those who live and work within our community. In this day and age, this is an important goal for all of us in local government to strive to reach.
