Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest To Turn Around The Most Unpopular Organization In America (Leadership for the Common Good) [Hardcover]

Charles O. Rossotti (Author)

Book Description

Series: Leadership for the Common Good | Publication Date: March 8, 2005

When Charles O. Rossotti became Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in 1997, the agency had the largest customer base - and the lowest approval rating - of any institution in America. Mired in scandal, caught in a political maelstrom, and beset by profound management and technology problems, the IRS was widely dismissed as a hopelessly flawed enterprise. In "Many Unhappy Returns", Rossotti - the first businessperson to head the IRS - recounts the remarkable story of his leadership and transformation of this much-maligned agency. In the glare of intense public scrutiny, he effected dramatic changes in the way the IRS did business - while it continued to collect $2 trillion in revenue.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A successful businessman but political neophyte, Rossotti was appointed commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in 1997; this book is a matter-of-fact recounting of his five-year tenure, which included many of President Bush's changes to the code. An entertaining insider's account, it reads like the bureaucratic equivalent of a police procedural. With refreshing clarity, Rossotti describes such impediments as political pressure from the White House and the "senseless issues that the [IRS] lawyers insisted on pursuing." None of the villains are identified by name, but the author's determination to name and praise everyone who helped sometimes make the book read like an overlong Academy Awards acceptance speech. It succeeds as a management case study, clearly laying out Rossotti's initial analysis of apparently intractable problems, followed by the development of strategies for change, the recruitment of stakeholders and the use of skills and tricks required to shepherd the process to a successful conclusion. And the book demonstrates that dedication by honest and talented managers can produce results (even if one disagrees with them). It's also an inspiring bit of political truth telling. (Mar. 8)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In 1998, with public opinion of the IRS at an all-time low, Rossotti was hired as IRS commissioner. He faced the daunting task of reorganizing the behemoth organization, which had not been done since 1952. With the public and Congress clamoring for heads to roll, Rossotti was under the microscope. He was facing woefully outdated technology, including a telephone system that was busy 99 percent of the time, creaky computers with code that had been written in the 1970s that were about to collapse with the impending doom of Y2K, and a terrible system of quotas that ensured that American taxpayers were being, in many cases, persecuted and buried under red tape. Rossotti describes how he took on this challenge, which required delicacy, diplomacy, and bold initiative. Under his leadership the IRS has become more customer-friendly and moved into the information age: the IRS Web site is accessed more than nearly any other, and 40 percent of federal tax returns were filed online last year. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; First edition. edition (March 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591394414
• ISBN-13: 978-1591394419
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #520,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some Happy Returns Too, March 27, 2005

By 

Porter (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest To Turn Around The Most Unpopular Organization In America (Leadership for the Common Good) (Hardcover)

This is a modest and engaging memoir from a successful businessman who, to the surprise of his own family, accepted an offer to become Commissioner of the IRS. He took the job in 1997, when the IRS was in a political firestorm, being berated as both abusive and bungling in dramatic Congressional hearings. Charles Rossotti took over this very troubled agency, and after five years of hard work, left it, well, still a troubled agency, but with somewhat more manageable problems than it had before.

The list of problems he faced was truly daunting. The IRS was an outdated organization based on geography instead of function; its computer system for taxpayer accounts was from 1962; its customer service lines were chronically busy; and its workforce was demoralized. On his first day in office, Rossotti told his staff he wanted to send an e-mail to all employees and was promptly told it was impossible. Where to begin?

He began with the organization, removing layers of management and consolidating functions so that offices could focus on particular types of taxpayers. Rossotti was allowed to bring in his own management team, but to his relief, found that the career IRS executives he inherited were eager and able to make big changes in the agency. He accompanied IRS employees during their meetings with taxpayers so that he could watch them work. He replaced the big paper manuals that telephone assistors used with computer databases, and devised a plan to keep the old computer system updated for Y2K and tax law changes until a new system could be designed and deployed. All these changes were made after consulting with everyone from the employees' union to small business groups; Rossotti's motto is, "Engage, and then decide."

As the dour title of the book would suggest, not everything went well. Most of Rossotti's plan for "Modernizing America's Tax Agency" had only long-term benefits, but the politicians who make the rules and set the budget wanted a sense of immediate accomplishment. Congress demanded that he respond to the hearings by firing some employees. The White House hoped that a few public relations gestures could just make the problem go away. In one of book's few insider revelations, Rossotti claims that Clinton aides actually asked him to find a "happy taxpayer" for the audience of a State of the Union speech. Rossotti's budget requests were routinely cut, so he reduced enforcement to pay for the improvements he wanted in customer service. Not surprisingly, tax evaders, often assisted by prestigious accounting firms, took full advantage of the decline in audits.

So what is Charles Rossotti's legacy? The organizational and technological changes he was able to make will have lasting benefits. The IRS has caught up with such basics as fax and e-mail, and the irs.gov website is excellent. Rossotti's positive assessment of the employees he met is encouraging. His major emphasis on customer service may be threatened though. Rossotti's successor, alarmed at the level of cheating but no more successful with the overall budget, is now cutting customer service to shore up enforcement. Congress ignored Rossotti's requests to simplify the tax code, and in fact made things worse. Rossotti certainly wasn't the first businessman to go into government and find frustration, but with his modesty and his emphasis on consultation, he seemed much more poised for success than an autocratic type.

Many Unhappy Returns is neither bitter nor self-congratulatory. Rossotti doesn't criticize many people by name, and he is quick to share credit for what went right. His analysis of organizational structures certainly won't outsell books on terrorism or celebrity trials, but he does seem to be a very honest and capable man who took on a difficult job with no prospect of fame or glory. Reading his book is a small way of saying thanks. He didn't completely succeed, but thank God people like him are willing to try.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's not just the IRS, June 14, 2005

By 

David Sirota - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest To Turn Around The Most Unpopular Organization In America (Leadership for the Common Good) (Hardcover)

This is a truly remarkable book. Clearly written, with many practical examples and devoid of management jargon, it describes what Charles Rossotti did to signbificantly improve IRS operations. But it's not just about the IRS, or about big, cumbersome government buraeucracies, or about how to change organizations. It's about good management! The principles that guided Rossotti and that he lays out out in this book are universal, such as focus on the customer (that's right, taxpayers treated as customers)and involvement of employees in the improvement process. Those apply to any organization at any time and make this book an extraordinary valuable read for anyone genuinely interested in good management. I highly recommend it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Government at its best, May 6, 2005

By 

William W. Lewis (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest To Turn Around The Most Unpopular Organization In America (Leadership for the Common Good) (Hardcover)

All those interested in how the best modern management practices of the private sector can be applied to huge government bureaucracies with dramatic benefits to the taxpayer (literally) should read Charles Rossotti's book. This book should remove all doubt about whether it's possible to improve the operational performance of government. The fundamentals are all that's needed: getting one's arms around the whole problem, structural reorganization, customer focus, gathering input from all directions, using modern information technology, leveraging the frustrated talent already in the organization, constant and honest communication, and the right chief executive. Rossotti was the right executive for the IRS, and fortunately he has written a clear and lively narrative of his experiences there.