... " I hope you find this publication in equal parts entertaining, informative, and mildly concerning. "...
I personally do and thank you for explaining like it is, removing the labyrinthine smoke and mirrors political constructs that appeal to the evolutionary ADHD minds we cultivate.
It would be excellent , along with the salient points presented, and strangely obfuscated by design or by our common wilful ignorance?!, if you can sketch some actionable modalities we can take , at individual levels.
Bureaucratic systems are good at keeping it kafkaesque.
My view of disfunctional human systems, public and private, is that they're mostly the result of a sort of entropy. As organisations become larger, it becomes more difficult for individuals to keep track of everything, so process naturally accumulates. Similarly, as undesirable events occur, the natural tendency is to design a new process to prevent that specific event from reoccurring (e.g. procurement rules, health and safety, etc.). Mostly, this is sensible, particularly in public institutions where high-trust is important.
The issues creep in at the margins though - poorly designed policy, opportunity costs not considered, blanket regulations that don't account for local circumstances. Now the justifiably relatively risk-adverse nature of the public sector comes back to haunt us, as removal or circumvention is much more difficult due to perceived risks than establishment.
To your question: sketching these things out is one of the primary objectives of this blog, but it's a big subject, and most things of interest are highly contextual, therefore needing to be covered off as discrete topics. Is there something in particular you'd like me to discuss?
... "Operating in the world of business, there are many people one can learn from and emulate"
I think one of the major struggles we face as public servants is lazy rhetoric of public services = inefficient and private sector = efficient that permeates our political discourse. And, that the best (and only) solution to public sector "inefficiencies" is to make our public organisations act like businesses.
This, in turn has led to the public sector being burdened by a cult of managerialism that constantly tries to slavishly emulate "successful" businesses simply because it's politically convenient irrespective of how well it fits the context and problem at hand. And has led to the promotion of an entire class of parasitic middle managers and policy analysts that flit between sectors and organisations without ever quite touching the real world.
This ignores the fact our public servants are often tackling wicked problems that no business would ever touch and for which, by definition, no generic, easily discoverable solution exists.
Lessons about managing people are generally transferable from the private to the public sector, lessons about managing 'business units', cost and profit centres, etc. are not.
Could have added the following to the essay, if I was feeling more cynical at the time:
"Consequently, delivering anything new within the public sector is reliant on trust networks, and a slow process of onboarding where bright-eyed newcomers slam head-first into brick walls...
[or, if recruited directly into senior positions without relevant experience, will tend to cause the organisation to slam head-first into a brick wall, but typically not before they've polished their CV and left others to pick up the mess]"
... " I hope you find this publication in equal parts entertaining, informative, and mildly concerning. "...
I personally do and thank you for explaining like it is, removing the labyrinthine smoke and mirrors political constructs that appeal to the evolutionary ADHD minds we cultivate.
It would be excellent , along with the salient points presented, and strangely obfuscated by design or by our common wilful ignorance?!, if you can sketch some actionable modalities we can take , at individual levels.
Bureaucratic systems are good at keeping it kafkaesque.
Kudos...
My view of disfunctional human systems, public and private, is that they're mostly the result of a sort of entropy. As organisations become larger, it becomes more difficult for individuals to keep track of everything, so process naturally accumulates. Similarly, as undesirable events occur, the natural tendency is to design a new process to prevent that specific event from reoccurring (e.g. procurement rules, health and safety, etc.). Mostly, this is sensible, particularly in public institutions where high-trust is important.
The issues creep in at the margins though - poorly designed policy, opportunity costs not considered, blanket regulations that don't account for local circumstances. Now the justifiably relatively risk-adverse nature of the public sector comes back to haunt us, as removal or circumvention is much more difficult due to perceived risks than establishment.
To your question: sketching these things out is one of the primary objectives of this blog, but it's a big subject, and most things of interest are highly contextual, therefore needing to be covered off as discrete topics. Is there something in particular you'd like me to discuss?
... "Operating in the world of business, there are many people one can learn from and emulate"
I think one of the major struggles we face as public servants is lazy rhetoric of public services = inefficient and private sector = efficient that permeates our political discourse. And, that the best (and only) solution to public sector "inefficiencies" is to make our public organisations act like businesses.
This, in turn has led to the public sector being burdened by a cult of managerialism that constantly tries to slavishly emulate "successful" businesses simply because it's politically convenient irrespective of how well it fits the context and problem at hand. And has led to the promotion of an entire class of parasitic middle managers and policy analysts that flit between sectors and organisations without ever quite touching the real world.
This ignores the fact our public servants are often tackling wicked problems that no business would ever touch and for which, by definition, no generic, easily discoverable solution exists.
Lessons about managing people are generally transferable from the private to the public sector, lessons about managing 'business units', cost and profit centres, etc. are not.
Could have added the following to the essay, if I was feeling more cynical at the time:
"Consequently, delivering anything new within the public sector is reliant on trust networks, and a slow process of onboarding where bright-eyed newcomers slam head-first into brick walls...
[or, if recruited directly into senior positions without relevant experience, will tend to cause the organisation to slam head-first into a brick wall, but typically not before they've polished their CV and left others to pick up the mess]"