Organizational development, as an alternative to Reagan administration methods of revamping federal agencies, has been successfully applied in many public sector organizations. High Performance and Human Costs focuses on the effective new management approach of one such organization, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), and provides perspective on how administrators can move away from outdated bureaucratic models.

The work focuses on public agency dynamics using MARTA as an example. The authors begin by studying emerging practices for high performance and include a detailed look at staff experience and interaction. They evaluate an executive with a look at self-forcing and self-enforcing systems. Other chapters focus on the personal reactions of MARTA executives, provide guides for doing better the next-time-around, and give a small case study of another project. The authors conclude with a comparison of two approaches to high performance: Organizational Development, and the cultural approach popularized by the Peters and Waterman book In Search of Excellence.