While reading the Jossey-Bass chapter on accountability, I began thinking about performance accountability. An organization's results are an important way of showing how successful it is at the work it is doing and I think an organization should seek to improve its outcomes. Community members want to see that a program is beneficial as quickly as an organization can provide that information; impact studies cannot be done toward the beginning of a program, so it is often necessary to study the program's outcomes. I would agree with the authors, however, that the focus on creating measure outputs and outcomes could tempt leaders of an organization to create quick fixes for its immediate challenges. This, in turn, may prevent an organization from moving toward its mission to the community.
I haven't thought much before about the challenges of achieving accountability in performance and mission, when these things could potentially conflict with each other. How can an organization achieve performance accountability to the community and be successful in their short and medium-term goals while still remaining loyal to its mission?
Hayley-
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up some really good points in your post. Reading it reminded me of some discussions we had in our Program Evaluation class last semester. I think it is important to have a neutral party involved in the planning of the measures that will determine how well the organization is meeting its goals. There is always that chance that leaders of an organization will take shortcuts along the way to make themselves look good (or just because they are lazy), but having too many evaluative tools in place could cause an organization to focus on things that they don't need to simply because they do not have time to do all of the things they are promising to do. It's all about balance.