1000 words (11 minutes reading time) by Gordon Brittas
I seldom put pen to paper, however, reading the viewpoints of former colleagues has stimulated my thinking. Tim Whistler and Carole Parkinson’s posts on model collapse have started me thinking they are onto something. Is model collapse just mediocrity at work? Perhaps mediocrity is a product of model collapse? Or could it be a cause? So many questions.
As an expert in mediocrity, I must say that I know it when I see it.
Mediocrity
A recent paper by Tobias Jones entitled ‘Italy’s strangely seductive culture of mediocrity’, struck a chord with me. Jones cites a paper by the Oxford criminologist Diego Gambetta and Paris-based philosopher Gloria Origgi, ‘The LL game: The curious preference for low quality and its norms’, which discusses why so many academic conferences in Italy go seriously awry in a ‘cocktail of confusion, sloppiness, and broken promises’. It suggests that most Italians in academia prefer sloppiness to perfectionism.
Jones goes further to talk about mediocrity more generally in Italian society. As I read his article, I was struck by the similarities with what I have experienced in local government in Victoria. More importantly, it was the reasons he put forward for mediocrity that provided the insight into what I have observed.
Jones describes a ‘mutual pact of agreeable sloppiness’, where people want sloppiness for themselves and for others. This creates an environment where people ‘not only live with each other’s laxness, but expect it: I trust you not to keep your promises in full because I want to be free not to keep mine and not to feel bad about it’. It is an unwritten code that everyone understands. A sort of club.
Jones goes on to say that ‘an outsider not used to this charade can upset the make believe, which is why those aspiring to high standards are, rather than championed, deliberately excluded’. Several years ago, the Manager of People and Performance said to me that the culture of the council we were working in rewarded people who fitted in and were easy to get along with, even if they were incompetent, but it would rid itself of people who were competent if they were not easy to get along with. How is that for institutionalised mediocrity!
A further potential insight into local government is provided by Jones when he says that he suspects ‘that a central reason for the drastic exodus of young Italians in the last two decades is down to a refusal to accept this ‘cartel of mediocrity’. When a society is wholly lacking in meritocracy, it seems inevitable that the most able will ‘move somewhere their skill-sets are recognised’. Jones reports that over 6 million Italian citizens are living out of the country and most are young and skilled. I have met many of them living in Australia. It is a national tragedy for Italy.
Each of us will know someone who has left local government because they didn’t fit into a culture of laxness and underachievement where people are rewarded for being friendly and fitting in. Not rocking the boat. A place where leaders are more likely to promote people for ‘fit’ than competence. Fealty, not ability. It is the tragedy for local government.
Complexity
It is interesting that in their last post Lancing Farrell mentioned Sidney Dekker’s insightful book ‘Drift into Failure’. Whether mediocrity is the cause or the product of model collapse, it certainly doesn’t help councils to cope with complexity and can be a precursor to failure. Mediocrity might have been acceptable in councils in the past but today it is no match for the complicated challenges they face with population growth, societal changes, and the limits on taxation imposed by State governments (i.e. rate caps).
Dekker says a complex system is one where we don’t understand how it works or fails. He says complexity is a defining characteristic of society today, yet our theories used to understand and explain it are based on simplicity and linearity. Our thinking is reductionist, componential and linear, while the system is complex, emergent and non-linear. Dare I mention OECD? Dekker asks:
“What is complexity? Why is it so different and so immune against the approaches of simplifying, reducing, of drawing straight lines between cause and effect, chopping up, going down and in? Why does it want us to reject logics of action and intervention that once upon a time worked so well for us?”
Sidney Dekker, Drift into Failure
He says systems with only a few components and few interdependencies are not going to generate complexity. In contrast, a complex system has many connected, interacting and diverse parts generating adaptive behaviour in interaction with their environment. It creates ‘adaptive challenges’, to quote Ronald Heifwtz and Marty Linsky, for leaders, which require a more courageous and intelligent response.
Complexity is also a concern for William Eggers and Donald Kettl, and in ‘Bridgebuilders – How Government can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems’, they describe the inadequacies of government organisations designed to address simple problems using ‘vertical’, siloed approaches, and the need today for ‘horizontal management’ that integrates thinking and work across unit, department and organisational boundaries. They recognise that societal change has created what Dekker describes as a complex system, and this is fundamentally challenging the way governments must do their work.
Do we need a new paradigm or do we just stop rewarding mediocrity?
I could go on discussing councils and their simplified and mediocre responses to complex challenges. There seem to be many well argued and evidenced reasons for change in the way councils think and how they do their work. None seem to be cutting through. The paradigm change sought by so many seems hopeless. And failure is looming as councils try to respond to their new circumstances using their old ways.
Mediocrity reinforces old and conventional ways of thinking by councils and the tacit agreement not to rock each others’ boat. The ratepayer’s advocacy group, Council Watch are boat rockers. Their latest survey asks respondents what they would like to see future councillors do. Should they take money from vested interests to pay for their election campaign, should they listen to the community more than officers when elected, and should their decision making be public and transparent. It is hard to argue with any of these points. In the past Council Watch has advocated for more accountability from CEO’s to the community for council performance, and more power for elected representatives to influence how the organisation operates and not just what it does. All potential disruptors of the mediocrity at work.
Unfortunately, I see councils in a deep and cosy comfort zone cloaked in mediocrity that needs a good shake up. Not by the State government through one of their clumsy and misguided interventions, but from within the sector and led by people with courage, intelligence and deep understanding of what works, what doesn’t work, and why not.
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