Open System Management

Open System Management Volume 1: Assessing the Human Services Culture describes the work that organizations can do to redesign internal interactions among sections, always with an eye to improving services and working relationships with clients. It reviews how a self-assessment was used as the basis of organizational change efforts in four North Carolina departments of social services, and it provides sample self-assessment tools and guidelines for using them.

Open System Management Volume 2: Samuel's Story: Creating a Community Safety Net for Families is a narrative based on real community dialogues that have used Nelson's model to create productive coalitions of citizens and organizations. Together, the participants in the dialogues identify high-priority problems, agree on desired outcomes, plan how to obtain them, assign tasks, and begin work.

Open System Management Volume 3: The Agency's Story: Fostering Collaboration Within uses a narrative to describe how a public human services agency can employ Nelson's model to change its own culture to become more responsive to its clients and to other organizations in its environment. Using the assessment of organizational culture described in Volume 1 to determine how to change, the agency takes steps to improve its performace and model collaboration for the community it serves.

Open System Management Volume 4: Shifting the Organization's Culture: A Self-Assessment Guide is a workbook that organizations can use to prepare for the in-house dialogue described in Volume 3.

These four volumes examine how Nelson's method can be applied in various settings. While together they describe how to redesign the provision of public human services, they can be used productively in other settings. Individually, they can help managers focus on areas of particular concern -- organizational culture, community change, and organizational change -- and design strategies for enhancing responsiveness and performance.

Gary M. Nelson, DSW, is Associate Director for Program Development and Training Initiatives at the Jordan Institute for Families, School of Social Work, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A full professor in the school, he regularly teaches courses on public policy for child welfare and for aging. His wide-ranging interests include community and organizational change, organizational theory, organizational culture, learning organizations, complexity and chaos theory, child welfare, social policy or aging, rural aging, and home and community care systems. Most recently he has published Self-Governance in Communities and Families (Berrett-Koehler, 2000), which describes a theory and process for community planning and change developed for the Families for Kids initiative, funded by the W.K. Kellogg foundation. The Open System Management series was developed as part of a grant awarded by the U.S. Administration for Children and Families (No. 90CT0012).

Mary Anne P. Salmon, PhD, is the Aging Research Specialist with the Center for Aging Research and Educational Services at the Jordan Institute for Families. A member of a small interdisciplinary team, she collaborates to do research, training, and technical consultation primarily on issues involving the needs of older adults in North Carolina. She conducts survey research from instrument design to analysis and report writing.

Lane G. Cooke, MSW, is the project coordinator of the Family and Children's Resource Program (DCRP) at the Jordan Institute for Families. Formerly a social worker, supervisor, and programs representative in both children's and adult services in North Carolina's social services system, she directs FCRP's development of training and work on grants to better the status of children in the state. She also has facilitated many community dialogues held as part of the Families for Kids initiative.

Christine Howell, MPA, is a private consultant who works regularly with the Family and Children's Resource Program at the Jordan Institute for Families. She has facilitated many community dialogues focused on child welfare issues, and she has worked with the Leadership Roundtable of Directors of North Carolina County Departments of Social Services.