Preparing for the Future

Michael Barzelay; Colin H. Campbell

doi:10.5771/9780815796077

Summary

While the Clinton Administration and federal agencies were busy making government cost less and work better in the near-term, the United States Air Force was regularly visualizing the competencies needed to assure the organization's long-term effectiveness. As a result of steady efforts to prepare for the future conducted under successive secretaries and chiefs of staff, the Air Force has developed a distinctive approach to strategic planning. This approach is fundamentally concerned with ensuring that the organization's future capabilities support effective performance of future tasks. Such tasks are shaped by ever-changing policy objectives and circumstances of implementation. After eight years, the Air Force has not only successfully refined its distinctive approach to strategic planning, but has also leveraged change in programmatic decisions, human resource management, and operational technologies. This study provides an inside look at how the Air Force came to formulate and declare its "strategic intent" for developing the organization's capabilities over a timeline of more than twenty years. Air Force strategic intent is not a plan, but a shared commitment to strengthening specific core competencies and critical future capabilities. Michael Barzelay and Colin Campbell reveal how one of the nation's most significant public organizations has reassessed its own strategic intent. Drawing lessons from the Air Force experience, this book provides a significant contribution to public management research on innovation and executive leadership. One key lesson is that preparing for the future is a responsibility that organizations can discharge effectively if they combine insights with practical knowledge of executive leadership and the dynamics of policy change. Preparing for the Future provides a fresh argument about innovation and leadership in public management, while breaking new ground in the analysis of managerial practices, such as strategic v

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2003
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-0844-5
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-9607-7
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 274
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Preface No access
1. The Degree of Departure from Previous Approaches No access
2. The Role of Organizational Characteristics No access
3. Contending with Constricted Latitude No access
4. Expanding the Horizons for Strategic Planning No access
5. Steps for Effective Implementation No access
6. The Plan for This Book No access
1. The Rice-McPeak Era: Supplying the Air Force with a Strategic Vision No access
2. The Gulf War: Changing the Air Force’s Self-Conception No access
3. Alliance Reversal:The Impact of the Gulf War on the Defense Policy Subsystem No access
4. Space-Based Provision of Military Intelligence No access
5. Origins of the Fogleman-Era Strategic Vision No access
1. Strategic Visioning and Long-Range Planning as Policy Management No access
2. The Strategic Planning Agenda No access
3. Moving toward the Corona Conference No access
4. From Strategic Vision to Long-Range Plan No access
1. Taking Stock of the Fogleman Round No access
2. The Next Round: Unfinished Business No access
3. The Ryan-Peters Visioning Process: General Ryan’s Approach No access
4. Conclusions No access
1. Innovating the Strategic Visioning Practice No access
2. Analyzing Process Designs for Effective Strategic Visioning:The Fogleman Round No access
3. Explaining Performance in the Ryan-Peters Round No access
4. Case Comparison:Toward Generalization about Strategic Visioning Practice No access
5. The Air Force Experience in Broader Focus No access
1. Planning and Shifts in Fiscal Circumstances No access
2. Persistent Disjunctions between Planning and Programming No access
3. Fixing the Corporate Structure No access
4. Conclusion No access
1. Origins of the U.S. Air Force Predator Program No access
2. Predator and Strategic Intent No access
3. Concurrent Visioning and Implementation No access
4. Conclusion No access
1. The Aerospace Integration Task Force Case No access
2. The Space Commission: Corrective Visioning in the Defense Policy Subsystem No access
3. The Air Force Futures Games Case No access
1. Taking the Lessons to a Wider Audience No access
2. Revitalizing the Role of Public Service in Government No access
3. Linking Policy Foresight and Strategic Intent No access
4. Linking Strategic Visioning with Policy and Expenditure Planning and Human Resources and Organizational Planning No access
5. Linking Strategic Planning and Policy Management to Implementation No access
6. Over to Policy Entrepreneurship No access
Notes No access Pages 241 - 256
Methodological Appendix No access Pages 257 - 266
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3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
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11. K No access
12. L No access
13. M No access
14. N No access
15. O No access
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18. R No access
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24. X No access