Public sector strategy: community, not competition

There’s a common cliché about working parents—we’re expected to perform our jobs as though we don’t have children and parent as though we don’t have a job.

Working in the public service is a bit like this—we’re expected to deliver community outcomes as though there’s no financial imperative and perform as though we aren’t community-driven.

Guidance on how to tackle these challenges is scarce. Popular strategy literature provides useful tips, but the focus on market competition falls short for public servants.

For the public organisation, as much as the private company:

• Strategy is all about the way we choose to achieve our big-picture goals rather than getting lost in big-picture vision or tangled inside detailed plans

• Our strategic position should reflect our key capabilities and unique ability to deliver value

• Key systems should align to this position and be both complementary and reinforcing

• Strategy is all about trade-offs and choices.

The central difference between a private and public sector strategy is in the purpose.

While private companies aim to produce maximum profit through competitive advantage, public organisations aim to produce maximum value through community impact.

This means the shape of our trade-offs and choices is quite different. Public agencies face constant tension between worthy causes and commonly find themselves choosing between right and right—not right and wrong. The question sometimes is, “Which deserving initiative, programme, or group should we miss out on?”

The paradox here, like for the working parent, is that the stakes are high, and the outcomes matter. This makes those rade-offs more important than ever, as we use our limited resources to make as much difference as we can.

“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” – Michael Porter

The public organisation should not desire to compete. If others are willing and able to operate in our space—great! We should get the heck out or support that behaviour if there are gaps in the public good that private enterprise won’t manage.

Being different in this context means more than crafting a market niche. It means meeting otherwise unmet community needs that generate public value. Operational excellence is essential – we must be efficient and effective in serving the public. But when it comes to strategy, we need more.

Auckland Council Community Places faced this exact tension last year. For this team, pressure to increase non-rates revenue almost sparked a new strategic direction, including competing in the private events market and eroding the unique value offered to communities.

Instead, the unit chose a strategic position to add more value, which prioritised community good and leveraged existing capabilities around connection and equality of access, and the results speak for themselves.