The Opportunity of Bureaucracy

"Bureaucracy" and "opportunity"... normally those aren't symbiotic terms unless you're a glutton for punishment, but in today's job market and post-election idealism, perhaps it's a new day.

President-elect Barack Obama has promised to make it cool to work for the federal government again. Is that possible?

It would be great to get some smart people into government again.  People that understand who the real customer is, understand that budgets and spending is not a zero-sum game and that by improving internal processes you can do more with less.  But good luck with that.

That excitement is about to run into the hard wall of reality, though.  Ms. Kamarck recently co-wrote a study for the progressive think tank Third Way that found that 17% of Americans trust the federal government, the lowest number since pollsters first asked the question in 1958. Twice as many people said they trusted the government during the Reagan administration than now, even though the former president famously declared government "the problem" rather than "the solution to our problem" in his 1981 inaugural address.

A lot of the problem has to do with the characteristics massive bureaucracies themselves.

But a greater turnoff is the sluggishness of an employer with 2.7 million civilian workers world-wide, says Prof. Light. "It's not the mission, it's the job," he says.

Working for the government is "an exercise in patience," says Deborah Kerson Bilek, 27 years old, who joined the government in 2005 after winning a fellowship sponsored by the government's Office of Personnel Management, its human-resources arm. "I work inside a machine that doesn't move as fast as I would like to move."

This leads to massive retention problems.

But too many others are young eager beavers "who throw up their hands in despair" after two or three years, says New York University's Paul Light, an expert on the federal bureaucracy.  According to the government's latest statistics, it hired 264,000 workers and "separated" 251,000 in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2007.

Think about the waste of training investment and knowledge.  Incredible.  And personally painful when you realize who's really paying for all of that waste.  But it gets worse.

Many agencies won't hire outsiders for top jobs. It takes years to remove ineffective coworkers, and political appointees may get the best postings. Hiring one employee can involve 110 steps, and pay and promotion are set by time on the job, not performance. And almost everyone needs to take a test to get in.

And that's sympomatic of the root of the problem.  110 steps to hire an employee?  Seniority over performance?  An inability to remove the wrong people?  And that's the organization we want to be efficient at using our hard-earned taxpayer money to deliver services?

Sounds like the first thing Mr. Obama should do is read up on TPS, value stream mapping, and kaizen.  We've already talked about some cities and states that are deploying lean manufacturing methods.  Any underemployed lean consultants want to take a stab at this most massive and convoluted of "opportunities"?

Comments

[david foster]

There is certainly much that could be done to make government more effective and less bureaucratic, but a substantial element of bureaucracy will always remain. As Peter Drucker wrote 30 years ago, "Any government that is *not* a government of paper forms rapidly degenerates into a mutual looting society." (approximate quote)

Still true today, even if the forms are sometimes electronic rather than paper-based.

[Matt]

Kevin:

Welcome to governmental work of the 1800's to present day. These problems stem so far back it really is ridiculous no one has stepped in and made it more efficient. Part of the problem, as you slightly touched on, is that the people on top "have seniority" instead of having efficient performance. This is huge as you can easily get to the top and not do anything because there are no repercussions to your actions.

Brilliant quote from Ben Franklin:

"There are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice—the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects."

If we push money and power, government, into the same boat for individuals everything goes awry. Franklin knew it, and I think this type of issue will be hard pressed to get resolved.

NOT saying its impossible, but its gonna be hard to break the government of its bureaucratic ways.

[Bryan]

Hi Kevin,

I believe it was Reagan who ordered a GAO commission to report on waste in the government. After what I'm sure was a longer wait then necessary, the commission produced a report some 1,000,000 pages long. (No joke)

The problem in government is that there exists no incentive to perform or add value. I shudder to imagine the government running my childrens' healthcare policy.

Bryan

[Paul from Florida]

Wiki James Buchanan. Nobel, economics. Public Choice Theory.

'nuff said.

[Joe from Portland]

I wonder if the 17% dissatisfaction with the government figure is really due to interactions with the bureaucracy or maybe a result of well-documented outright lies and corruption at the top? The governor of Illinois is an example of an executive that happened to get caught on tape.
It would be nice to have a govenment that exists to serve the people, not perpetuate itself and enrich the top level and their allies.