Effectiveness and Efficiency
Seven Leadership Practices for Meeting the Mission Challenge
in an Era of Declining Budgets
By
Pat Peck
peck_patrick@bah.com
Ted Sniffin
sniffin_ted@bah.com
Mike Isman
isman_michael@bah.com
Marc Austin
austin_marc@bah.com
Effectiveness and Efficiency
Seven Leadership Practices for Meeting the Mission Challenge
in an Era of Declining Budgets
Executive Summary
Looming cuts in federal spending will require dramatic
changes in how agencies operate, how they are
structured, and the expanse of the mission they continue
to support. They will have to achieve enormous levels
of efficiency, while increasing effectiveness, to continue
delivering mission-critical services and capabilities
under reduced levels of funding.
To assist government leaders, Booz Allen Hamilton
conducted a series of studies and workshops
examining how agencies can make “smart cuts” that
reduce costs without impacting mission performance.
We found that successful leaders used similar
managerial methods or practices to achieve their
cost-cutting and mission-performance goals:
• Know the Agency’s Mission/Know Its Capabilities.
Understanding the agency’s changing mission
responsibilities as well its strengths and weakness
enables leaders to set a clearer vision for change.
• Reassess Stakeholders’ Needs. Seek to understand
stakeholders’ current challenges and needs, not
last year’s, as they engage in planned changes.
• Align the Agency’s Budget—and Budget Cuts—
with Its Mission. When trimming budgets,
understanding what is not mission-critical is
just as important as understanding what is.
• Make Fact-Based Decisions. Implement aggressive
information gathering, robust analytics, and rigorous
performance measures to improve the quality of
decisions.
These seven common managerial practices are
the underpinning of a framework we call Enterprise
Effectiveness and Efficiency, which can help agencies
balance the...