Saving America: Seven Steps to Making Government Great

Aesch (Driving Excellence), a public-sector business performance consultant, asserts that the United States is no longer a leader due to our government's "irresponsible, thoughtless, and unsustainable" spending. He lays out the seven-step plan that his company, TransPro, uses for transforming organizations, and suggests that these principles can fix government, saying boldly, "Let's go save America." His seven steps are, in fact, sound elements of basic business strategy with applicability to any type of organization. They include defining "success moments," creating a performance scorecard, and focusing on results rather than efforts. To illustrate these points, Aesch effectively draws on key historical moments, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Navy SEAL operation to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden, and WWII's Operation Overlord. Unfortunately, though he provides numerous examples of government incompetence or failure, including FEMA, Amtrak, and the Minnesota I-35 bridge collapse, he offers fewer examples of how government agencies or entities have actually applied his seven steps. References to his own company's work add credibility but leave the book feeling too much like a sales pitch. (June)