The Monitor Bureaucracy Index™ (MBI™) is used to characterize the organization's current performance, as well as to understand the organization’s unique challenges and imperatives for improvement. Using this data-driven diagnostic assessment, leaders can develop a targeted improvement program defining what areas need to be prioritized and where management’s attention should be focused.

Can every organization become a "High-Performance Bureaucracy®"? Not right away. If you are in the “red zone” of poor performance, you are in danger of consistent further declines in performance. If you are average, there remains a lot of work to do. And if you are leading an efficient organization, there are still obstacles to overcome and opportunities to seize before you can elevate your performance. Looking at the performance archetypes, we see three distinct models for change.

Poorly performing organizations that succeed in moving out of the "red zone" start by focusing on the basics. They typically hone in on three areas: Leadership, Internal Effectiveness (especially Human Capital and Organizational Architecture) and improving Service Delivery. Leadership is an especially important prerequisite. Dysfunctional organizations are often that way due to historically disempowered or inadequate leadership; elevating performance requires aggressive action, and may call for replacing those at the top of failing units or functions.

Prioritization is critical: for Resource Deployment and Economics, which assets require additional investment, and which can be shed? For Human Capital, which skills must we acquire now to improve, and which can be deferred? The development of a clearly articulated program of change linked to a crystal-clear Mission and Strategy can guide leaders’ decision-making processes and bridge decisions and actions throughout the organization.

Organizations in the great middle plateau can improve by focusing on both Alignment (Leadership, Mission and Strategy) and Internal Effectiveness (in particular Resource Deployment and Economics) levers. In addition, performance measures play an especially critical role in successful improvement efforts for mid-level performers. These organizations often have established processes, entrenched beliefs and a high degree of complacency about their operations, which come from having achieved some measure of success in the past. Making the transition from Middling to Efficient Performance requires infusing new energy and new ideas into the organization while at the same time controlling “cost bloat” and other maladies of established organizations.

As with poorly performing “red zone” organizations striving to break bad behaviors, leaders looking to build better bureaucracies must clearly define and communicate a Mission and Strategy for future progress, with methods for measuring performance gains.

Efficient Performance organizations that succeed in “Breaking Through to High Performance” do so by focusing on their Political and Regulatory Context, Collaborative Networks, Mission and Strategy and Leadership. It is at this level of performance that an organization’s efforts to improve are directed as much outside the organization into its ecosystem of partners and customers as they are directed inward. Leaders must spend political capital and resources working with external partners (including regulators) to take advantage of their strengths and build on them.

This is an important distinction from other transitions between archetypes. There are levels of performance that go beyond what the organization can do within its own walls, and only in cooperation with others can it continue to achieve more for its stakeholders. The first transition requires organizations to get their own houses in order, the second to mobilize organizations on a path of steady improvement and the third to begin building the connections that generate truly visionary impact.