Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard has written a book, Performance is the Best Politics: How to Create High-Performance Government Using Lean Six Sigma.
The book shares the stories of city employees pursuing excellence in city services. It also explains how Fort Wayne became a national leader in using business practices to produce better government services for residents.
Mayor Richard wrote the book in response to dozens of requests from government organizations wanting to learn about how Fort Wayne is cutting costs while providing excellent services. Since 2000, Fort Wayne has saved more than $10 million using Lean Six Sigma. Data based decision-making and empowerment of employees are key components to the success of the program.
Government leaders from Chicago, Ill., Tennessee, Milwaukee County, Wis., Albany, Ore., Brazil, Puerto Rico, the United States Army Infantry in Hawaii, and South Korea, to a name a few, recently visited Fort Wayne to meet with Mayor Richard and his leadership team for a High Performance Government Executive Overview session. Several more sessions are planned for 2007.
Much of the interest in Fort Wayne's accomplishments comes from the national recognition received from author Michael George. In his book, Lean Six Sigma for Service, George says, “All of these people and their organizations were impressive, but it's the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, that really amazed me ' perhaps because I, like most people, had low expectations when it came to government services of any sort'¦ What's really intriguing are the dozens of city employees who are reducing lead times, streamlining processes, providing better quality service to citizens and holding down costs.”
Any net proceeds from the book will be given to a non-profit organization to support training city employees on high performance government practices.
The book will soon be available online at www.performanceisthebestpolitics.com.
