Bert George

Don't be fooled by the title: this is not an HOWTO. How silly of us to even expect that... The book - as pointed out by the author on a few occasions - is more of an anthology of the research done on public management. In that regard, it's a good starting point for doing your own research on the matter.

The case studies did not speak to me: because of their peculiar, uninviting page layout - very different from the rest of the book - I almost always skipped them.

One thing I really missed in the book was at least the mention of the Creative Bureaucracy movement. Apart from public manager and street-level bureaucrats (public servants who interact directly with their clients/service consumers: citizens, businesses etc) there are also public servants who have no managerial duties and responsibilities, and have no direct interaction with service consumers (but are very much citizens themselves!), but who are very much responsible for making their organisations work and evolve. Something which requires a lot of creativity and stamina . The author doesn't say those public servants are non-existent or irrelevant, it just feels they deserve a bit more attention.… (mehr)