By Steven K. Haught, MBA
Government simply doesn’t have the capacity to do all the good we want it to do in this world. Who will save us from this current crisis and what can you and I…”Us” do about it? Last time I checked it’s still…
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Government is under incredible pressure right now. The economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, a growing recession and the ugly racism that has once again stained our social conscience. This might be thought of as the triple whammy… three converging plagues that have hit every sector of our economic engine.
In other words, more people out of work need government services to survive. Government simply doesn’t have the capacity to do all that needs to be done. Right now, the “world” that matters to most Americans is America. Who will save us from this crisis and what can you do about it?
The work of government happens at 4 levels: politics, policy, performance and people. All 4 levels get jumbled together and are thought of as government. The reality is that each of the 4 levels have a distinct and important role to play – but one level is the most critical and also the most ignored.
Let’s look at a really simple analogy. Suppose there is a big societal problem that needs government attention. For this example, not the current problem of racism and police brutality – but something that is common to all citizens… water. People are thirsty, and everyone is turning to government for the solution.
Here is where the four levels of government kick in.
- Politics. Democrat vs. Republican, liberal vs. conservative. Incumbent vs. challenger. How do the politicians deal with the water/thirst crisis? It disintegrates into an ideological debate about whether people should find their own water or whether everyone should have equal access to affordable, high quality water. The ideological debate is funded on both sides by special interest groups who have an enormous stake in how the problem gets resolved.
- Policy. Eventually the politicians lay down their arms and agree that the people need water and that government will play a role in making that happen. This is where policy kicks in. Policymaking deals with the questions of who gets the water? How much can they have? If they have water can they also have bread? Who will pay for the water? Policymaking is performed by the politicians, influenced by special interest groups and senior management of affected agencies.
- Performance. The performance of government deals with how we actually deliver the water to those who need it. The politicians have decided people need water, the policy makers decided who gets it and how much, now the managers of government create systems (processes, procedures, tools) to deliver good water to people as efficiently as possible. The performance of government is the pipeline used to deliver the water to “customers”. The role of government managers is to continue to find ways to maintain and improve the pipelines so we have enough capacity to meet the demand. (By this point in a real-time water crisis, most people have already died from thirst, as government grinds slowly through their self-interests and egos.)
- People. Inside all the “pipelines” of government are the people of government. The workers in government agencies, the paid employees in various bureaucracies that are expected to make things happen. Their tasks combined with other people’s tasks are what moves the water through the systems of government to be delivered in drinkable form to thirsty people. They will first create specifications for the water, advertise for bids to be submitted for contracting for the water, then they will hire and train inspectors to inspect water producers, they will issue permits for “approved” water, then they will generate and issue water vouchers to citizens authorized to receive the water. Of course as previously stated, everyone by this time is already dead of thirst, so its all a moot point, isn’t it?
When people think of government they jumble all four together. Outrageous acts by politicians make government workers look bad and slow their potential to act quickly to a slow laborious most redundant and inefficient process. . Bad policies and ridiculous processes make the performance of government look bad.
Poor performance makes politicians look bad. It’s all a giant mess and everyone blames each other. It’s easy to just throw up your hands and say, “it doesn’t work”. But it can work if we focus our efforts to fix government in the right place.
We can’t change politics. No matter how many tea parties we throw or how loud we chant, “yes we can”, the political system isn’t going to change. Let’s be honest, the current political system is not designed to solve problems.
We also can’t change the people of government. No matter how many process improvement plans, and restructuring plans are developed—the way the people, the employees in the bureaucracies work will not easily be changed.
Government agencies are full of hard working people. In fact, the number one thing private sector people who come to work in government soon discover is just how hard public sector people work (both in duration and complexity). It may be “lather, rinse, repeat” work performance, none-the-less the employees in government agencies are not loafers, putting in time for the dime.
These hard working people are trapped in amazingly dysfunctional systems, i.e. the aforementioned pipelines. And that is where the focus of the American people has to be – fixing the pipelines, streamlining the efficiencies of agency workers which will impact the overall performance of government.
You are probably thinking, there’s no way “we the people” can change the pipelines work. The workers can only be as productive as the pipelines will allow.
Who controls the pipelines? “We the people” control the systems of government. Who has fix for the inefficient pipelines? “We the people” have the power to affect positive changes in government bureaucracies… we are the only ones who can. Here’s who can’t—politicians, policy makers and the agency employees.
The politicians. For whatever reason, and I can’t figure out why so few elected officials care about the overall performance of government. They want to serve, they get elected and then they contribute to the same ineffective government that has existed for the past 150 years. We are in the presidential election season, and you will be watching campaigns that focus on improving government followed by fresh-start administrations that will do little or nothing to actually impact performance. At best, they try to fix subpar government performance through policy and laws, which only serves to further complicates and clog up the pipelines.
Politicians and elected officials rarely care about performance. But they should. Politicians want to tackle big new stuff. Ironically, the ability of any new administration to tackle big new issues is influenced by how they have been performing handling the old issues. Remember the never-ending health care debate? It was framed by cogent arguments like “you want the people who run the post office and DMV to run your hospital?” Expressions like that coming from elected representatives are inflammatory and serve no purpose other than to perpetuate the political divisiveness that plagues government.
Our government neighbors to the north in Canada have a great motto: Performance equals Trust. People’s trust in government to solve problems (currently at an all-time low) is shaped by their experience with the performance of government. If we can’t get them a birth certificate before they get their death certificate, they will rightly question our ability to improve health care.
Elected officials also need to care about performance for one simple reason—capacity. Elected officials take office with bold agendas and big plans. They want to do more things, great things. But they quickly realize they can’t do any of it, because the systems they must depend on for implementation have no more capacity.
They want programs to improve family self-sufficiency but the social workers are maxed out. They want to increase literacy but the teachers' are maxed out. To some small degree we should probably sympathize with all the elected officials who will basically spend their entire terms in office figuring out how to shrink the pipelines, not how to quench thirst. If they are ever going to get to their agendas, someone has to figure out how to move a ton of water through some narrow, clogged up bureaucratic processes.
The policy makers. There is no doubt policy has huge impact on government agencies. Vague rules, overly burdensome requirements or funding restrictions can kink up the pipes and seriously slow the water down.
We can’t change policy in the abstract, rather we change policy as we examine and improve the agencies. Too often the pipelines are subordinate to the policies. Policy makers need to spend time in the pipelines to see exactly what impact their decisions have on the flow of water. The managers of the pipes need to continue to challenge policy constraints and make compelling business cases as to why change has to happen. No well run business would ever allow itself to be bogged down by its essential pipelines for deliverables to its customers by ineffective internal policies. People would be fired for such stupidity.
The employees. The employees work in the agencies of government – they don’t create them. They don’t make the rules or order the equipment. They show up each day to do their best work within the confines of the system created for them. Further, they are usually in one small piece of the bureaucracy and actually don’t see the whole picture because they are organized by unit, section, bureau, division and department. They have no idea what it might be like if they worked in a “flat” structured organization, where strategic decisions can be implemented in minutes or hours, often by those making the decisions.
Their success is greatly dependent on the work done upstream from them and will be greatly influenced by the work done downstream as well.
Individuals can do much to improve their own productivity, but rarely have any influence over the productivity of the entire system. This is why employee suggestion programs rarely yield organizational transformation. Employees can see and improve their piece of the system, maybe, but ultimately this may have no bearing on the overall performance of the system.
This is where “we the people” come in.
Maybe you like me, have lost touch with the fact that “we” are the operational managers of America’s systems of government. “We the people” are responsible for the pipelines, the systems and the far-flung agencies that make up the structure of our government.
To change government we don’t need to fight the political machine, can’t win anyway. And frankly, the sooner we render much of the political apparatus irrelevant, the quicker we can improve our government.
Yes, I know, you are only one person and you probably can’t rescue our democracy all on your own. No one person can. Which is why each of us should be actively engaged with our governmental agencies and elected officials at every level, right down to the local tax collector and if you have one, a dog catcher, if its an elected position.
Share this piece or the points it raises with your friends and family, and pledge to change a small piece of your local government together.
We really are a nation founded on the best “words” ever written down to govern the needs of a people… the Constitution. We really are “the people” one-by-one, who can change what we don’t think is working for all peoples.
Our government takes its cues from us, and it won’t change, unless we do. We must be involved. We must care enough to raise our voices beyond the ballot box. Voting is only the beginning of our responsibility as citizens and caretakers of this great nation. We must be involved.
Right now we don’t think much is right with America. Some say its time for a new revolution. The climate of racial bigotry, anger and violence should make everyone think that a radical change in the way America and even the world works is long overdue.
Radical change can happen, if done in the right way. Insurrection and violence is not the answer… collaboration and active engagement is. Its YOU… its WE. We cannot bring change if we allow America to be defined by divisions, racism, bitterness and anger.
We have to be united together, blessed by diversity of ideas and perspectives yes, but united and focused on a common cause… making America what she once was and can be again.
Maybe its time to think about who you are, where you live and give your personal self-indulgences a rest in favor of being a soldier in the quest for genuine change in America.
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Steven K. Haught, is the founder and managing director at ENCORE! 2.5™ Strategic Solutions LLC, a strategy consulting practice headquartered in S.E. Pennsylvania. Internationally recognized author, writer, speaker and publisher; currently publishes—Global Insights & Trends and Renovations4Living; formerly a newspaper senior executive/publisher/editor; directed an international sales team for an top-tier software company; founder/director of two non-profits including a humanitarian/educational services organization based in S.E. Asia; He holds an MBA in strategic management and a doctorate in theological studies.
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