Sandra Hale, Minnesota's ebullient Commissioner of Administration, understands that good government initiatives, even nationally recognized, highly innovative ones, do not generate headlines or television footage. So she remains unfazed when reporters ask her about STOMP, their mangling of the acronym STEP (for Strive for Excellence in Performance). She even retains her composure when told that she has been characterized as someone bent on "telling employees to feel good about themselves." But then she has good reason to feel satisfied with the 55 or so projects completed or under way through STEP.

The program has done what it was designed to do—generate positive change in the state bureaucracy and enhance the quality of public service by tapping employee creativity. Moreover, STEP has attracted attention outside the state (Hawaii has already adopted a similar approach), and it is the subject of a guidebook published by the Urban Institute, entitled Managing Change: A Guide to Producing Innovation from Within. Hale has described STEP to people at home and abroad, as far away as Wollongong, Australia, when she participated in the Australia–U.S. Binational Conference on Innovation in Local Government. Closer to home, a Minnesota business executive paid STEP the ultimate compliment—he suggested that private-sector managers emulate STEP's example.

STEPPARENTS

STEP was born of the deliberations of a group Sandra Hale calls STEPparents. In 1984, at the behest of newly elected Governor Rudy Perpich, she convened a panel of state managers, corporate executives, and scholars to draft a blueprint for improving the operation of state government during Perpich's second term. The panel met at a time when there had been much discussion—at the national as well as the state level—of ways to boost productivity and efficiency in both government