At year beginning periods like this one many public organizations, expectedly, refocus their resources, efforts and capacities to test their continued relevance to the purpose and commitment they have penned down in their mission statements. I am going to assume that most, if not all, public sector organizations do undertake this exercise, for whatever it is worth to their organizational survival. I will equally assume that it’s an exercise that once undertaken, is taken seriously with the sole purpose of testing how realistic our mission statements are once we have began our program and project implementation duties. This discussion assumes that there is general, or at the very least sufficient, consensus that institutional leaders’ preoccupation in setting their organization’s mission statements is largely to specify and recast the general aims of their organizations so as to adapt them, without serious corruption, to the requirements of their institutions’ survival.
Public organizations often find themselves facing failure to achieve their set targets purely because at the very mission setting stage, there was not enough definition of the mission in realistic terms, especially in relation to other activities of the organization. This state could largely be because, often we fail to commit resources to a very necessary step in the process of establishing realistic missions that will be fully complemented and actualized by the subsequent programmes and projects. In setting their mission statements, public sector leaders must, without fail, take account of two main areas.
Firstly, leaders and managers must assess what has often been referred to as ‘the internal state of the polity’, which is largely a thorough look at what are the organizations thrusts and strivings; what constitutes its inhibitions and; what competencies exists within the organization. Any leader worth his/her salt would invariably want to set organizational goals with a keen eye to the capabilities of the organization and also paying closer attention to what may often be irrepressible demands of forces within his/her organizations. This assessment is critical for relevance and commitment to purpose, but more importantly it creates room for clarity and organizational realism. Afterall, what benefits is there for public organizations to set missions that are unrealistic and consequently unachievable?
Secondly, public leaders must assess and understand the external expectations that determine what must be sought or achieved if the institution is to survive. In some quarters, this would be scanning the critical external factors whose effects would be fundamental to the organization’s efforts towards achieving its mandate as set through its mission. These are the opportunities and threats that provide that necessary and conducive external environment crucial for the institution’s relevance and sustainability over time. This is critical within public sector organizations because they continually have to operate within what I consider multiple external environments that all presents varied and complex challenges for the organizations continuity.
I need not at this stage go into the details other than to simply state that public organizations necessarily operate within political, economic , social and complex structural and/or institutional environments that are very fundamental in giving meaning to these public organizations. Leaders and managers of public organizations can only better understand their organizational purpose and commitment if they clearly know and effectively deal with challenges posed by these environments. I need not, nor want to suggest that this is not the culture in our public sector organizations, but I am suggesting that we may wish to make this a permanent feature of our year beginning activities, simply to be on top of the purpose and commitment we may have set in the past. Issues of realistic plans, accountability, improved performances, efficiency and effectiveness, all require that we continually ensure that our public institutions are relevant and have inbuilt systems and mechanisms to self renew their purpose and commitment.
A critical aspect in this assessment of the external factors is the understanding of the relational necessity between public managers/leaders and what may be externally set goals and composite overall directions, where there is an expectation that public institution leaders must respond to payoffs externally demanded. This is mainly visible in the relationship between public institutions and the political environment, particularly the interface between politicians and administrators.
Politicians as overall supervisors of public institutions are invariably key stakeholders in setting mission statements but for their purposes they become even more concerned and demand institutional relevance and expect tangible accomplishments from their subordinates. To that end there will always be demands of a political nature that must be met by the public institution leaders. It is how these demands are met and the parameters within which they fit into organizational mandates that is, however, very critical.
I am raising the above issue to argue that within our public sector set up, I have an expectation that the extent to which public organizations are able to renew their commitment and purpose to their missions and mandate, is in itself reflective of the interrelations of political aims and organizational strategies of public organization and this may even de-emphasize the subordination of the administrator to the politician. I argue from a perspective that organizational efficiency and effectiveness in public offices is a function of how policies permeate the entire administrative setup in public organizations. I am therefore suggesting that as we begin the year and hopefully embark on these renewal assessments of our relevance and how realistic we still are through our missions, we should not loose focus of the need to understand the critical role played by the nature and content of the politicians-administrative interface.
If our missions are to forever be tied to our organizational purpose and commitment, politicians and administrators must establish a more mutual interface that can re-engineer the path of organizational efficiency and effectiveness in our public service. I am very convinced that where we are today, in so far as this interface is concerned and the extent to which we require this synergy of efforts, we can redefine it further and make the interrelation of politicians and administrators a critical means towards a renewal of our purpose and commitment to the efficacy of public service institutions’ delivery mandate.
*Molaodi teaches Public Administration at the University of Botswana
