Administrategy: A Guide to Strategic Management in Public Administration
By Maciej Kisilowski & Izabela Kisilowska
About the book
If you manage a public-sector organization – a school, a hospital, a cultural institution, a local- or central-governmental agency – congratulations! You have got a unique opportunity to influence the world around you. Administrategy is a practical guide which will help you make the best of this opportunity.
Combining rigorous research in dozens of governmental agencies throughout Central and Eastern Europe with the presentation of world’s best practices, the book offers step-by-step suggestions on how to manage a successful governmental agency while advancing your own professional career.
Administrategy is also an invitation to rethink some entrenched paradigms of our public administration. Creating a fantastic hospital, developing a country or a city, supporting an economy on its path to global competitiveness are challenges that require a good strategy and creative team of talented, energetic employees.
It is in our national interest to strategically align public institutions around clear goals and professional organizational culture, so that the work in public administration attracts the best and brightest.
Advance Praise
Administrategy is a clever book with an important message: government strategy should and can work just like business strategy. Big ideas at the top must translate into motivation and behavior change throughout the organization. This books shows you how. Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO, New America
A practical, inspiring guide to public administration reform in Eastern Europe that urges managers to pursue public values at the same time as they develop personally fulfilling careers for themselves and their team. The authors borrow from the successes of private businesses in knowledge-intensive industries, but they stress the distinctive values and rewards of public service in national environments where there is much good work for committed strategic thinkers to accomplish. Susan Rose-Ackerman, Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University, Co-Director, John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Public Policy
Innovation and proactiveness in our public institutions is not the goal that can be left for future generations. Administrategy shows public managers how, here and now, they can transform their agencies and institutions into learning, knowledge-based organizations. I recommend this inspiring read. Robert Firmhofer, General Director of the Copernicus Science Center, Central Europe’s renown museum of science
Public administration requires constant improvement and is in permanent search for signposts. We try to improve our effectiveness, creatively engage in our tasks, and above all increase the satisfaction of our citizens. I have no doubts that Administrategy will become a good guide for us in that efforts. Robert Biedron, Mayor of the City of Slupsk
In Central and Eastern Europe, we often still believe that the most talented individuals end up in business, where they can expect good salaries, recognition, and fame. Promoting the highest leadership and managerial standards in public administration plays a secondary role in our region, even though there is no well-functioning state without outstanding public administration. This book shows us how to catch up. Slawomir Lachowski, bestselling author & former CEO of Commerzbank Poland |
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Figuring out what ought to be done can be very difficult for any manager, public or private, but figuring out how to actually get it done and how to do it in a way that advances life goals is often even more difficult, as myriad ignored consultants’ reports and stalled bureaucratic careers can attest. This unique book provides valuable advice for formulating, achieving and benefitting from governmental decisions. Every aspiring government official should read it. Michael E. Levine, NYU professor and former Dean of Yale School of Management
Innovative Administrategy is a goldmine of ideas, not only for making our agencies more effective, but also for the further, thoughtful development of our cities. Zygmunt Frankiewicz, President of the Association of the Polish Cities
The effectiveness and efficiency of our public administration is largely determined by its people – both ordinary civil servants and managers. The latter, however, face the problem of the meagerness of our literature for public managers. Administrategy attempts to fill this gap. It offers a very interesting approach to the topic, especially in combining personal success of a manager with an organizational success. Ludwik Wegrzyn, President of the Association of Polish Counties
Administrategy is a book for ambitious public managers, whose goal is not to fit in with the environment, but to shape it. The authors correctly diagnose the specificity of public-sector management. They recommend leveraging experiences of private businesses from the knowledge-based sector. An undoubted strength of this work is an intelligent synthesis of knowledge and experiences of public administration from many countries. Readers will also find here suggestions on how to combine the work for the common good with an individual career advancement of managers and their teams. Andrzej Los, Union of Polish Metropolises
I believe that, for the last 20 years, I have enjoyed the support of the citizens of my town because I have instinctively implemented my administrategy. Now, for the first time in Poland, we are getting world’s best practices of public management collected in one book, and presented in a sharply practical and authentically engaging form. Robert Perkowski, Mayor of the Town of Zabki since 1996
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About the Authors
Izabela Kisilowska and Maciej Kisilowski combine a unique educational background at the world’s leading academic institutions with practical experience of work with public agencies and public managers in Poland and Central Europe.
Maciej is Associate Professor of Law and Public Management at Central European University in Budapest. He specializes in executive education of senior business and governmental managers. He leads the Initiative for Regulatory Innovation research center, which conducted a comprehensive study of managerial processes in governmental agencies throughout Central Europe. He holds a doctorate and a master’s degrees from Yale Law School, an MPA in economics and public policy from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as well as an MBA with distinction from Insead. His research appears in leading journals, including Law and Social Inquiry and International Business Review, while his commentary on current affairs has been featured, among others, in Foreign Policy, Politico, Project Syndicate, EU Observer, and Euronews.
Izabela works for a leading global strategic consultancy. For a number of years now, she has advised Polish and Central European companies and public-sector institutions. She holds a PhD in Politics from University of Cambridge, where she studied on full scholarship funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She also researched processes of political decision making, among others, at Department of Political Science of Yale University and at Freie Universitaet in Berlin.
Izabela and Maciej are married and are happy parents of Adam and Aleks.
Official Partners of the Polish Edition
Polish edition of Administrategy, which in October 2016 will be the first to be published in the region, has won the official endorsement of the following entities:
- Association of the Polish Cities
- Association of the Polish Counties
- Polish Confederation of Private Employers
- Union of the Polish Metropolises
- Tygodnik Powszechny, a leading opinion weekly
- THINKTANK, a liberal think tank
- Unit for Social Innovation and Research “Shipyard”, a leading centrist think tank focused on promoting civic participation
- Allerhand Institute and Centre of Analysis of the Jagiellonian Club, two leading conservative think tanks