I recently taught a performance measurement class to city and county officials, during which I imparted a key lesson: Measuring performance in public service delivery isn't the same as managing performance. The former wields the yardstick periodically; the latter strives to align people, processes and technology to improve service delivery and customer satisfaction, and attain results.

Recent public opinion polls highlight the continuing erosion of citizen confidence in elected officials and public institutions. This isn't a new condition caused by problems in Iraq, New Orleans or K-12 education.

In The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis, authors David Osborne and Peter Hutchinson argue that the U.S. has been at war with the public sector since the Proposition 13 tax revolt began in California in June 1977. What's new and troubling is how far civic institutions have sunk in the public eye.

To respond to the citizen confidence challenge, start with measuring the perception and satisfaction of citizens and businesses through polls, focus groups, surveys, customer advisory boards and even by walking around. Our customers tell us where we are succeeding or falling short, and where we fall short tells us where we must get serious about managing performance.

Sometimes the performance shortfall is fairly small, and can be fixed by tweaking the existing system. In other cases, the performance deficit is so large it can only be addressed by serious innovation - by introducing entirely new ways of doing business. Quite simply, successful innovation begets performance, so innovation should be priority for CIOs, public managers and leaders.

Why Is Innovation so Difficult?
Many impediments conspire against innovation, such as government's defensiveness and risk-averse organizational and political leaders. Not understanding citizens' expectations and the shortage of courageous leaders willing to bear the burden and responsibilities of innovation are other issues.

Perhaps the most significant factor is government culture, as illustrated by historian Elting E. Morison in Men, Machines, and Modern Times. When World War II began, the British Army still used light artillery from the Boer War and World War I, which had been around for more than 40 years. But by the late '30s and early '40s, it was pulled by trucks instead of horses.

Some officers sensed these weapons could be improved by increasing their "rapidity of fire." A time-motion expert was engaged to suggest ways to simplify the firing procedures. "Puzzled by certain aspects of the procedures, he took some slow-motion pictures of the soldiers performing the loading, aiming and firing routines," Morison wrote.

"When he ran these pictures over once or twice, he noticed something that appeared odd to him. A moment before the firing, two members of the gun crew ceased all activity and came to attention for a three-second interval extending throughout the discharge of the gun. He summoned an old colonel of artillery, showed him the pictures and pointed out this strange behavior. The colonel too was puzzled. He asked to see the pictures again. 'Ah,' he said when the performance was over, 'I have it. They are holding the horses.'"

Every organization incorporates vestigial routines because they've always been there. The routines are transmitted to successive generations of workers and codified in our standard operating procedures. They may be legitimate contributors to performance - or they may not.

Some Questions
To what extent does your government culture support norms that no longer contribute to performance-focused, customer-driven programs and practices? What's the Innovation Quotient (IQ) of your organization? What roles and mechanisms exist for incubating and generalizing innovation?

These questions haunt me because I believe complacency is innovation's enemy. Complacency