Ted Gaebler, co-author of “Reinventing Government,” brought his ideas to area government officials and employees Wednesday, saying every public body should have an Office of New Ideas.

The Southwest Louisiana Economic Development Alliance brought Gaebler here to talk about ways government can better serve citizens. Gaebler and co-author and journalist David Osborne in their best-selling 1992 book challenge a common complaint that government agencies are bureaucratic and resistant to change.

Robert J. O’Neill Jr., the executive director of the International City/County Management Association, told Governing magazine last year, “I would say it has been the most influential book of the past 25 years.”

The magazine said the book had its greatest impact on state and local governments across the country that “ingested its ideas.”

Gaebler, who has city manager experience, said public institutions need the flexibility to respond to complex and rapidly changing conditions. He talked about government steering instead of rowing. Steering requires people who see the real issues and possibilities vs. rowing that is aimed at defending current operations.

Governments need to use competition to solve some of their problems, he said. Private companies can handle many services performed by government, and Gaebler said it helps unlock bureaucratic gridlock.

An Office of New Ideas allows public employees to help accomplish the government’s mission. It allows them to come up with more effective ways to get jobs done, Gaebler said. The book talks about three types of people in the world — those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who don’t know what hit them.

Gaebler said innovation is rewarded when government has some kind of system for recognizing high performing individuals.

Citizens need to be recognized as valued customers, he said, and that helps erase the belief that government is too arrogant. Here is how he begins that chapter in the book:

“When was the last time you felt like a valued customer at your children’s school? How about your motor vehicle office? Your city hall?”

Gaebler talked about the 10 principles around which changing governments are built. They steer rather that row; empower communities rather than simply deliver services; encourage competition rather than monopoly; are driven by their mission, not by their rules; fund outcomes rather than inputs.

Also, they meet the needs of the customer, not the bureaucracy; concentrate on earning, not just spending; invest in prevention rather than cure; decentralize authority; and solve problems by leveraging the marketplace, rather than simply creating public programs.

Osborne also co-wrote “Banishing Bureaucracy,” a 1997 book that builds upon the book he and Gaebler wrote.