The Renaissance in Government

13 Principles of Entrepreneurial Government

1. Steer, not row (facilitate vs. do it yourself )
2. Empower communities and customers to solve their own problems rather than simply deliver services.
3. Encourage competition rather than monopolies.
4. Be driven by missions, not rules.
5. Be results-oriented by funding outcomes rather than inputs.
6. Meet the needs of the customer, not the bureaucracy.
7. Concentrate on earning and making money rather than spending it.
8. Stop subsidizing everyone. “User-pay” through charging user fees.
9. Invest in preventing problems rather than curing crises.
10. Decentralize authority.
11. Solve problems by infl uencing market forces rather than creating public programs.
12. Reduce regulations; cut out bureaucracy and low risk taking.
13. Privatization (except for essentials not provided elsewhere).

Adapted from 1 Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Addison-Wesley, 1992.; 2 Governing, October 1992 (with a rebuttal by H. George Frederickson)