Managing for joint outcomes: connecting up the horizontal and the vertical

Abstract

In pockets throughout the New Zealand public sector, ordinary officials are doing extraordinary things as they learn to do something very difficult: how to collaborate with people from other agencies. This occurs as they learn what needs to be done in managing for shared outcomes in complex policy cases. They appear to be doing excellent work in achieving desired outcomes for clients; yet they are doing so in spite of the public management system they work in, without much support from their organisations and the sector generally, and in the general absence of a learning culture. As there are no textbooks, they also confront the challenge of making it up as they go along. In several respects, therefore, their ways of working are unlike those assumed by traditional models of Westminster officials – and Kiwis may be better off because of it.