Essay question answers in paragraph form

¶ … Peter Senge (the fifth discipline), what must leaders do to create learning organizations, including shared vision and team learning?

Learning organizations are considered as organizations that will dominate the future because of the significance of discovering people's commitment and developing the learning capacity at every organizational level. As a result of their likelihood to dominate the future, leaders must take the necessary steps to create learning organizations. There are five major steps that these leaders should carry out i.e. systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, creating shared vision, and team learning. In systems thinking, the leaders should focus on the entire pattern of change rather than snapshots of distinct parts of the system. This is followed by the discipline of personal mastery through prioritizing things that matter and living in accordance with the highest aspirations. Leaders should help people change their mutual models of the organization, their competitors, and their markets. The creation of a shared vision is through the discipline of translating individual vision into common vision based on a set of principles and guiding practices. Team learning is developed through dialogue that involves learning the process of acknowledging the interaction patterns in teams that weaken learning.

2. How would you get managers to rethink the world view or mental models with which they operate in practice?

The discipline of managing mental models or rethinking the world view with which the organization functions is one of the major aspects of building learning organizations. In order to get managers to rethink the world view or mental models, the major step is to help them understand the flaws with the prevailing mental models. Managers can understand these flaws through provision of critical feedback relationships, which is achieved through systems thinking because most models are systematically flawed.

3. How can information sharing be enhanced across employees, teams, departments, and organizations?

Information sharing can be enhanced across employees, teams, departments, and organizations through creating an environment of openness. Notably, such an environment can be created through integrating the two different aspects of openness i.e. participative and reflective. Participative openness basically involves the liberty to speak one's mind while reflective openness makes individuals to look inward through challenging one's own thinking.

4. What are the specific challenges of "government by network" in achieving results that matter to the public?

According to an analysis of the previous and current situation, there is considerable evidence that citizens are still disconnected from their government. The disconnection is demonstrated through the lack of trust in public institutions and the belief that government is wasting huge amounts of money most of the time. As a result, governments are increasingly depending on non-profit organizations, private contractors, and other non-governmental partners to accomplish their work. In attempts to create government by network that leads to accomplishing results that matter to the public, the specific challenges are disconnection from citizens and struggles with severe management problems.

5. Kettl asserts that the service delivery systems failed in the response to Hurricane Katrina. Describe the key failures in this case.

While the 9/11 attacks is one the major problems that affected the core of the American society, the scale of its destruction cannot be compared to Katrina's devastation level. Moreover, the breadth of the government's response in terms of service delivery systems is worse than that of 9/11 attacks. According to Kettl, service delivery systems failed in response to Hurricane Katrina to an extent that it's regarded as the biggest administrative failure in the history of the United States. One of the key failures in this incident is the abandonment of the most serious obligation to provide for the common failure. Secondly, there was lack of coordinated action in response to the disaster because of non-existent or weak command and control among emergency response agencies and experts.

6. What solutions does Kettl propose to non-routine problems that cross organizational boundaries, i.e., several organizations share responsibility for a piece of the problem and/or response?

Since lack of coordinated action is one of the key failures for service delivery systems in response to Hurricane Katrina, Kettl suggests some solutions for non-routine problems that go beyond organizational boundaries. These solutions originate from the most important lessons for emergency response i.e. The lack of time in building partnerships during a crisis since management is effective on a longstanding foundation. One of the solutions to the non-routine problems that go beyond organizational boundaries is mutual understanding of significant problems requiring solution. The understanding of these problems is accompanied by shared recognition through working together in realize the solutions. The second solution is shared responsibility through collaboration that requires broad thinking and taking necessary steps.

7. Kettl observes that modern problems sit astride three fault lines in American governance. Briefly describe these fault lines and provide an example of a crisis or inadequate response for each.

The 21st Century problems or disasters can be attributed to three major fault lines in American governance i.e. devolution, privatization, and globalization. Devolution is modern problem within American governance that has generated a complex system in which various government programs have emerged to deal with different aspects. An example of a crisis brought by this governance system has occurred in the healthcare sector where several quality-of-care issues in approximately 75% of programs for the elderly have been identified by Government Accountability Office. In contrast, privatization is described as a governance system where all governmental levels continues to rely more on private, non-governmental, and non-profit organizations to accomplish the government's work. An example of crisis from this system is the decline of federal civilian employment during the 1990s. In contrast, globalization is an American governance system in which American leadership is regarded as good for the United States and the world. This governance system resulted in the September 11 terror attacks, which was one of the darkest moments in American history.

8. What does the effective management approach (or "secrets of rocket science") consist of in dealing with complex problems?

One of the major lessons that skillful leaders can learn from the several disastrous incidents and problematic governance system is the need to provide effective leadership in complex situations. The provision of effective leadership in complexities requires effective management approach, which is commonly known as secrets of rocket science. This approach consists of inter-organizational or inter-jurisdictional coordination, mutual understanding of the existing problems and potential problems, and mutual responsibility in providing solutions to the problems.

9. O'Leary and Gerard surveyed 304 U.S. SES executives on their views of collaboration. What skill sets of a successful collaborator did the survey identify? In your opinion, which of these skill sets are the most difficult to master and why?

According to the survey of executives about their views on collaboration, some of major skill sets of a successful collaborator include individual attributes, interpersonal skills, group process skills, strategic leadership, and substantive/technical knowledge. The most difficult skills set to master is interpersonal skills most executives are usually tempted to collaborate when their individual and organizational cost-benefit analyses shows that it will be an effective management decision. Actually, executives tend to focus more on creating a product, service, or result that cannot be generated by a single organization.