Centerfield

That would be nice, but you still have to remember that communication can only be as good as the communicators.... if they aren't telling you good info, you are still screwed.....

Posted by: deb at September 20, 2005 01:11 PM

Much of the problem for state and local agencies in LA was a total lack of working communications. Guess they spent the comm money on beer and gumbo.

Posted by: Tully at September 20, 2005 01:20 PM

The point is, you can't expect government agencies to function the way they should if you create an environment where people that work for government are devalued and the idea of government itself is derided by much of the populace. Just like any other organization, people have to feel like their work has meaning and this comes in part from the public. For 25 years, led by the Republican Party, we have been told that government is inefficient, dysfunction, and unnecessary. It's no wonder now that government often functions like that when it's needed--it's sort of the revolution of low expectations. It's all the kind of environment that you foster.

Posted by: Marc at September 20, 2005 01:45 PM

Marc,

The GOP was just accurately describing HOW government functions. They weren't the cause of it functioning that way. A great deal of this has to do with the flexibility in hiring, firing and promtions that occur in the private sector. If YOUR bottom line personaly depends on how well you contribute to the company.... then you have an incentive to not only do your job well as an individual BUT to insure that the company is as healthy and stable as possible as a WHOLE.... because that will insure not only that the company (and your job) continues to be around but that the company can afford to pay you a decent wage.

Government employees are an ENTIRELY different ball game. I know, my wife used to work for a Federal Program. You, literaly, had to be convicted of a felony before there was sufficient grounds of dismals. Employees, could (and did) refuse to do any work whatsoever, as long as you were there for the required number of hours your pay grade wouldn't be affected at all..... and for the people willing to take on greater responsibilities..... no corresponding increase in pay. Bottom line, there is absolutely no incentive either for people to perform individualy
or to contribute to the health of the organization as a whole. And for the few individuals that do actualy WANT to make a difference..... they have to fight tooth and nail through a mass of bodies that just want to put in thier 20 years doing as little as possible and get out with thier pensions. THAT is why government IS inefficient and dysfunctional..... because none of the people who work for it have any stake it it being anything else.

Posted by: cengel at September 20, 2005 02:10 PM

I didn't expect this to be a litmus test on how one views government versus private function. I know both government employees who perservere to do their job well and private sector employees who goof off at large companies.

I don't buy the rationale that a generation of GOP devaluing can be given the blame for the failure of government agents. If your agency has a mission, and you collect a pay check, do your job as well as you can.

And I think people who lean very pro-business/private sector aggressively leap to smear all government agents with the same brush. I'm sure many are inefficient, and I know for a fact that civil service/union regs can serve to protect lousy workers (in both the public AND the private sector, BTW). But it isn't always this way, and more importantly, it doesn't HAVE to always be this way.

Reverting to one's favorite schemas that blame government inefficiency or GOP callousness doesn't solve problems. Seems to me that FEMA, for example, has been set up to serve a legitimate government purpose and respond in way that for-profit ventures are not well suited for. The question is, how do we get better? And i think that "by looking at recent mistakes and addressing them" is a much better answer than "by blaming the GOP" or "by whining about endemic government inefficiency."

Posted by: bk at September 20, 2005 02:51 PM

BK,

I'm not "by whining about endemic government inefficiency", I don't believe that government NECESSARLY has to be inefficient. You can improve efficiency TREMENDOUSLY simply by changing the way government employs people. De-emphasizing civil service jobs and employing alot more "at will" workers will do TREMENDOUS amounts to increase efficiency. Change the way government employees are hired, fired, promoted and compensated. Make compensation tied to performance.....not seniority.

Furthermore let Agencies that underperform or fail to meet thier mandate be liquidated. Do it by some sort of public referendum if there are worries about machine politics. If said agency performs essential functions..... then either place those functions under the auspices of agencies that are well performing or form brand new ones to carry out such missions.

If an organization realizes that it MUST be efficient in order to survive then it WILL be efficient.... or something that is efficient will usurp it's place. Nature has produced a pretty good system for creating efficient organisms.... lets not be so affraid to emulate it a little bit in our public institutions.

Posted by: cengel at September 20, 2005 03:50 PM

Cengel, some of that stuff sounds good in theory, but I'm not optimistic about how it would actually get applied in practice.

Accountability is always a reasonable goal as long as performance can be reliably measured. I don't want to defend the practice of lifetime employment without it. But many of the civil service rules were put in place to prevent patronage, and I'm reluctant to reform those overmuch. And I have my doubts about the extensiveness with which accountability can be measured. One example is in teaching, which is always a pet area where conservatives like to stress accountability. Here's a domain where we expect people to get a degree AND a post-graduate degree in education plus certification, and then ask such people to start out with a salary in the 20K's. Then we bitch about the resulting quality when the system draws C students that like kids. And then we want to hold the teachers as primarily accountable for students that fail, regardless of the extent to which these failures may be the teachers faults, and based primarily on standardized tests which measure only a small portion of what an education constitutes. How'd you like to go to college for an extra 3 years and then get offered a job paying 26,000 to start in a low-income school system beset by crime, broken families, poor English skills, and a dangerous lack of stability. And then be told, if these kids fail, YOU'RE accountable. Sound like a good deal to you? Me neither.

Posted by: bk at September 20, 2005 04:37 PM

I'm not arguing that government is ever going to be as efficient as the private sector. I work for the federal government and God knows how hard it is to get rid of incompetent employees and how little flexibility agencies often have.

What I'm arguing against is this expectation that government must be incompetent because, well, it's government. We have been hearing since the late 70s how only the private sector can solve our problems; in my view, this has created a sort of CYA mentality for government agencies that always have to be looking over their shoulder that they not be preempting the private sector.

Frankly, a lot of this goes back to who is running the agency. IMO, when Republicans run agencies, you have a general expectation that government should stay out of everyone's way (except for the military)and that the real work will be done by the private sector. I'm not saying this attitude justifies failure on the part of government, but it can't help but have an effect on how the agencies are run. I suspect FEMA is a good example of that--obviously, one reason Bush appointed someone like Michael Brown is that he didn't consider it a very important position.

Posted by: Marc at September 20, 2005 04:42 PM

Does the private sector poop gold bricks?
To some I guess it does. But reality sez those bricks are sometimes lead with a little gold gilt.

Name a sector of busines, ANY sector, and you see the roadside littered with failures, incompetents and wreckage just as unforgiving as a hurricane. Can it be more efficient than the US Government? Sometimes but not all the time. The private sector is not necessarily more competent or more able than government to perform a given task. Educate 144,000 bomber pilots in WW2, no problem. Administer Social security with less than 1% of total funds devoted to admin costs. Create an extensive infrastructure of roads and highways? not bad at all. Armor up vehicles and soldiers in Iraq...total fuck up. Deal with the Northridge Earthquake no problem. Set a competent energy policy at any time over the past 30 years? - pass the barf bag.
The list goes back and forth.

As was mentioned above the penchant for the GOP to demonize both good and bad government has not been good for this country at all. It's led to the Norquist mindset of starving the beast until you can drown it in a bathtub. Given the recent circumstances he was not far off the drowning part - but it was people who ended up doing the drowning while incometent political appointees fiddled around. Are there things wrong with government? Yes. Are there things wrong with United Airlines. Yes.
The point is that even if the ideal management does not always exist in government it does not preclude ability and competence. The ability to do the job is paramount just as having the RESOURCES to do said job.
Name a large cabinet level agency and you will have tremendous successes, and likewise you'll have the occasional failures, as does the private sector.

bk - your premise is flat out wrong. The GOP does not accurately describe government - they just tell a fantasy to get votes, build resentment among the electorate and create an environment that courts and brings about failure.

Posted by: Marcus at September 20, 2005 05:38 PM

I get it. The government sector poops gold bricks!

Posted by: Tully at September 20, 2005 06:03 PM

Much of the problem for state and local agencies in LA was a total lack of working communications.

Funny, no one mentioned the added factor of different political parties in control at different levels of government. That facilitates bad communication and collaboration. Case in point, did the mayor of New Orleans really needs to hear via the news that maybe allowing folks back into NO at this time wasn't such a good idea. What prevented him from "sending it up the line" a quasi-request (or a "Do you have any problem with...") before he had to have egg on his face by saying "OK, now leave again".

This whole thing has left me with the sense that its better to score political points than to actually do the hard, collaborative work to GET THINGS DONE!!!!

Posted by: c3 at September 20, 2005 07:53 PM

I agree 100% that the solution is to empower the worker. The problem is that the instant an administration tries to do that, local regulation are adopted that remove that power.

I have worked under 4 different president. Absolutely none of them has had ANY impact on how the bureaucrats in my command operate. The main reason is that the bureaucrats have the power and are not going to give it up for anyone. I've done “Reinventing government”, “Empowerment”, “Consideration of others”, and half a dozen attempts to fix the problems. I'm currently involved in a fight with several bureaucrats trying to convince them that they can't violate the laws of nature. I've had others tell me with a straight face that we didn't have to obey the regulation for handing nuclear material.

The organization was given a credit card to use for “petty cash”. Almost immediately regulations were added that prevented it from being used. Now when I need a bolt or wire I just spend my own money. Otherwise, I need a hard copy quote from a locally owned minority small business that is registered with the federal government (can't use Home Depot or Walmart), I have to wait two week an have 4 people sign off on the request, then I have to take the owner of the credit card with me to make the purchase. And you don't want to know about the paper work the credit card holder has to fill out to justify my 5 dollar purchase.

And don't mention the work “contractor” to me. What a bunch of crooks! They under bid the contract then take the money and deliver dead equipment. When we complain the legal office tells us it would be more expensive to sue, than to just pay them off and open another contract for bid.

Posted by: Bob J Young at September 20, 2005 08:11 PM

My solutions:
Mandatory annual surveys of each commands customer base. Two consecutive bad ratings means new management.

Mandatory 6 month cycle anonymous survey of the employees, about their first, second and third line management. Three consecutive bad rating means new management.

Yea, I know about the possible problems with these solutions. I just haven't heard any better suggestions.

Posted by: Bob J Young at September 20, 2005 08:37 PM

I'm currently involved in a fight with several bureaucrats trying to convince them that they can't violate the laws of nature.

ROFLMAO! Thanks, Bob. Been there. Feel for you.

Posted by: Tully at September 20, 2005 08:43 PM

Sure there are some royal bafoons in the private sector. However, the difference between the private sector and the public sector... is COMPETETION. Unless some private sector company has an atrificial monopoly if it's royal bafoonry is endemic and pervasive it's going to go under eventualy. All those private sector failed companies you see going belly-up signify the strength of the private sector.

All Private sector organizations have to eventualy turn a profit or eventualy thier going to get the plug pulled.

All Private sector organizations have competition so not only do they have to turn a profit but they have to do what they do better then thier competition or they get eaten.

Those are the driving factors why private sector organizations tend to be far more efficient then government organizations. Private organizations that aren't efficient are allowed to die.... not so government organizations. Government organizations are shielded far more from those forces then private ones. Natural selection is as good for building efficient organizations as it is for building efficient organisms.

Note that, I'm not trying to argue that we should turn over government functions to the private sector. There are alot of very important governmental functions that can't and SHOULDN'T be done profitably. However subjecting government organizations and programs to some of the factors that make private organizations efficient - Competition and the need to meet a certain minimum level of performance or die can work for government. Of course, like so many things, the Devil is in the details.

Posted by: cengel at September 21, 2005 10:21 AM

The Devil is always in the details.

Posted by: Tully at September 21, 2005 10:39 AM

c3, I agree with you. The lack of communications in the Louisiana version of Katrina likely developed with the clash of political parties at varying levels of leadership.

Why can't politicians put their political party's interests aside after they are voted into office and just work for all their constituents, regardless of political affiliation or location?

Posted by: Jen at September 21, 2005 03:50 PM

I have no problem with applying sound business practices to government functions. Politicizing said functions, demonizing the government with more lies than facts, starving Norquist's "beasts" until we see body bags pile up - that I have a severe problem with.

As for details, there's this about Britain's Training Group Defence Agency which deals with RAF personnel puts it way ahead of the curve in terms of financial mangement as opposed to the rather lumbering morass in the Pentagon.

Cengel, your operative word of the day is "eventually".
That's what usually creates a lot of problems with the actions of the private sector. It's not like mistakes are corrected instantaneously in the marketplace. It's the time that the bumbling fools are given to screw things up and the costs that they incur. How many billions of dollars were the workers at United cheated out of?
What's the taxpayer pickup?

As for gold bricks, Tully, maybe there are a few goldbricks as well as goldbricks in government, but if you've dealt with the private sector like I have, there are plenty of goldbricks there too.

Posted by: Marcus at September 21, 2005 03:59 PM

There's plenty of 'em everywhere, Marcus. No shortage at all. The bigger the organization, the higher the percentage, regardless of public or private sector.

Posted by: Tully at September 21, 2005 04:20 PM

Culture also plays a part. My gf had an interview in Illinois for a government job. Basically they flew her out there because of her gender as it was plainly obvious to her that she was not really there to be vetted. She pulled her name from consideration though not so much because of the tokenism but because the atmosphere was pretty toxic and highly territorial.

Then there've been some recent articles regarding FEMA during Clinton and Bush eras, comparing the two. The former era FEMA was more focused on its mission and enjoyed a number of successes. It was also rated as one of the best government agencies to work for. The Bush era FEMA was apparently the opposite of that, with talented and able people leaving in droves as the political appointees moved in and its mission was subsumed by Homeland Security.

Right now I'm dealing with a client that, because it's been acquired, has led to a kind of schizoidal atmosphere. The acquirer is a by the books very straightlined company. Lots of rules (the client I work for just got 3 pages of them) It pretty much got to where it was more because of good management and it got on the bus early so to speak. The acquiree had a more internally competitive atmosphere, a la Oracle (another client of mine). It competed toe to toe with some of the biggest rivals anyone could have and did very well. Unfortunately most of its vps have been replaced by the acquirer. Quite frankly I think by subsuming the culture of the acquiree the acquirer has degraded their investment and that will stifle innovations in both product and marketing.

Posted by: Marcus at September 22, 2005 08:28 PM

Corporate culture problems can kill you quick. Especially with smaller companies being acquired by bigger companies. The smaller companies usually get worth acquiring by having a strongly cooperative and innovative corporate culture, but the acquiror's execs have to do the alpha male "marking" thing, suppress any dissent or opposition, and regimentalize the uniqueness out. They end up stamping out the very things that made the little corp worth buying in the first place.

When I was still doing consulting work roughly a third of all my contracts were companies where the rank and file and middle management, and sometimes much of the upper mgmt, knew very well exactly what was wrong and what needed to be done. They just couldn't safely say it because of the internal "executive" dog-eat-dog alpha-male politics of the top kicks and the board. So I got to go collect a nice fee to figure out (listen to the smart ones) and propose the obvious (what the smart ones said). If it came from outside, it was a legitimate opinion worth following. If it came from inside, it was someone's job gone in retaliation, and usually that of the smartest person there. I always hated those contracts, though they were very easy money.

Posted by: Tully at September 22, 2005 09:03 PM