Robert Behn

Robert D. Behn, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, focuses his research, teaching, and thinking on the leadership challenge of improving the performance of public agencies. He is the faculty chair of the School's executive program, Driving Government Performance: Leadership Strategies that Produce Results and conducts custom-designed executive education programs for government jurisdictions and public agencies. To learn why Bob's course is the most important course at the Kennedy School, click here.

Bob writes the on-line monthly Bob Behn's Performance Leadership Report. Its free, so subscribe now! Currently, he is working on a book titled: The PerformanceStat Potential: A Leadership Strategy for Producing Results.

Bob has led executive seminars on six continents: in Bangkok, Berlin, Bogat, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Guatemala City, Kuala Lumpur, Lisbon, Madrid, Monterrey, Oslo, Ottawa, Reykjavik, Sydney, and Wellington. (Don't the folks in Antarctica need help improving performance?)

If you want to figure out what makes Bob tick, you can watch him clarify the purpose of the Kennedy School's Driving Government Performance, outline the challenge of Leading and Performing, or describe the content of MLD-604, his degree course on Performance Leadership.

Bob holds a BS in physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in decision and control from Harvard. He has served on the staff of Governor Francis W. Sargent of Massachusetts, as a scholar in residence with the Council for Excellence in Government, and on the faculty of the Harvard Business School and Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy where he was director of its Governors Center. Bob is also a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Bob grew up a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. At the end of the 1967 season, however, he went to Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox last game. (If you fail to appreciate the significance of this, he will explain it in more detail than you want to know. He can also decipher both the theory and the technicalities of the infield fly rule.) Bobs newspaper pieces include: "A Professor's Ode to the Red Sox," The Wall Street Journal; "Red Sox Lessons for Our Elite," The Washington Post; "The Next Ted Williams? I'm Your Man," The New York Times; and "Before the Curse," The Boston Globe.

Bob believes that his mental health is inversely related to how long it has been since he slept in a tent.

Selected Publications

Academic Journal/Scholarly Articles

Behn, Robert. "How Scientific Is 'the Science of Delivery'?" Canadian Public Administration 60.1 (March 2017).

Books

Behn, Robert. The PerformanceStat Potential: A Leadership Strategy for Producing Results. Brookings Institution Press, 2014.

Book Chapters

Behn, Robert. "PortStat: Or How the United States Coast Guard Could Use the PerformanceStat Leadership Strategy to Improve Port Security." Ports in a Storm: Public Management in a Turbulent World. Ed. Donahue, John D., and Mark H. Moore. Brookings Institution Press, 2012, 55-83.

Bobs books include:

Rethinking Democratic Accountability (Brookings Institution Press)

Leadership Counts: Lessons for Public Managers (Harvard University Press)

Governors on Governing (editor, University Press of America)

Innovation in American Government (co-editor with Alan Altshuler, Brookings).

Outside Professional Activities

Transparent Engagement

Harvard Kennedy School is proud of its energetic involvement in the world. To better understand how to solve public problems by improving policy and leadership, we engage directly with policymakers, public leaders, governments, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit businesses whose activities affect those problems. However, we recognize that such engagement can raise questions about perceived and potential conflicts of interest, so we disclose publicly the key professional activities of our faculty outside the Kennedy School.

Outside Professional Activities For Robert Behn

In addition to my teaching and research responsibilities as a member of the Harvard faculty, I am occasionally compensated for my participation in outside activities, such a speaking, writing, consulting, or conducting workshops for public executives on performance leadership.

I have received compensation of $500 or more from the following organizations:

2016

City of Orange, California

2015

City of Los Angeles

The Australia and New Zealand School of Government

Efron International Academic Program

Wyoming Heritage Foundation and Wyoming Business Council

City of Los Angeles

2014

The Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison

PWC Denmark

Crime and Justice Institute

The Australia and New Zealand School of Government

2013

Real Colegio Complutense

Robbins-Gioia LLC

2012

Concordia University

Charles River Center (Malaysia)

2011

Society of Local Government Managers (New Zealand)

Charles River Center (Malaysia)

2010

Jefferson County Colorado