Tag Archives: Weatherby

13 – Salvation, obfuscation or simply tokenistic? What roles do policies and strategies play in your organisation?

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I was talking to a colleague whose Manager has recently joined Victorian local government for the first time, to understand her initial impressions. He said that she had commented on the large number of policies and strategies, and whether they could possibly be effective given the difficulties coordinating them and avoiding conflicts. It started me thinking.

When I first started working in local government we had policies and strategies. They were important documents that guided action. We didn’t have many and they weren’t changed without very good reason. Making a new one or changing an existing one, wasn’t a regular way forward on issues. That has certainly changed. Today, policy fills a number of roles, one of which is still to guide action. The other roles are worth some brief reflection.

Policy and strategies have increasingly become a source of salvation for CEO’s and senior managers faced with elected representatives wanting to pursue political goals that are unpopular, unaffordable, unachievable or unnecessary. It can be a way of saving politicians from themselves. Rather than committing to action on the initiative, a process to develop a policy or plan is commenced to ‘map the way ahead’. The fact that it often doesn’t lead to movement anywhere seems to go unnoticed. The last time I completed a stock take of strategies it revealed that the majority of actions hadn’t been acted on (in some cases after 20 years, although the strategy was still live) and the actions were not implemented for very good reasons. They just weren’t a good idea.

In fact doing the stock take revealed that the review schedule for policies and strategies was logistically unachievable without significant extra resources. If you look at the number of policies you have, the scheduled review interval (typically 3 to 5 years for policies and 5 to 10 years for strategies), and do the maths, you will realise that the organisation can’t actually do it without stopping delivering services to re-allocate the required resources to policy and strategy review.

Policy and strategies have also become a way to obfuscate. Instead of acting on an issue that has an obvious but difficult or expensive solution, a policy or strategy is created that hides the real significance of the issue and provides and easy, cheap and ineffective ‘way forward’. I have heard officers talking about policies or strategies that have been implemented and had no effect. The outcomes are still the same. Surprise, surprise. Sometimes the creation of policy or strategy that has this effect is not intentional– it has become almost innate and part of the modus operandi of some senior people.

One of my ‘favourite’ examples of strategies is one that deliberately failed to specifically address a critical and contentious issue. When I questioned the officer responsible for developing the strategy, he said that it was a deliberate decision on his part. Because he believed consensus was not possible and this would have delayed agreement to the strategy, he left it ambiguous so that it could be ‘sorted out later’. The ‘later’ happened to be when I became involved and there was a budget for works and no clarity about what to do. Thanks. He was a senior policy officer and it was his standard approach.

Policies and strategies have become increasingly tokenistic. In a recent post on the Pannell Discussions, the topic of ‘tokenistic policies’ was discussed. The focus was on government actions that are tokenistic, and as a consequence, unlikely to make a real difference. David Pannell asked, ‘why do governments do this, and how do they get away with it without provoking public anger?’ These are good questions and they apply to local government as much as any other level of government in Australia. I have seen policies that everyone knows are infeasible but it solves an immediate political issue in a way that minimises any future organisational commitment.

Pannell suggests two reasons for tokenistic policy. The first is to be seen to be doing something, even though they know that is unlikely to be successful. This is better to be seen to be doing nothing. His second reason is ignorance. People think it is a good idea and they don’t have the technical knowledge to know that is poor policy and will achieve little. His most interesting commentary is in relation to how governments get away with it. He cites four reasons:

  • Complexity – even experts would have trouble working out an effective policy response and most people can’t judge whether or not it is good policy and they end up trusting that the government is doing what it says it is.
  • Time lags – the effects of the policy won’t be known for some years, and by then it is hard to connect the results to the policy.
  • Intractability – some problems can only be solved at exorbitant expense or not at all. Implementing a low cost policy limits the waste of resources.
  • Communication challenges – it is just too hard to discuss the issues in terms that most people will comprehend.

I am not suggesting that all local governments are creating policies and strategies that are simply convenient but ineffective solutions to difficult problems; devices to avoid doing something that everyone knows should be done; or simply a way to be seen to be doing something with no intention of it being effective. However, there are occasions when they obviously do.

I suppose, we all need to ask ourselves the question.

Colin Weatherby

Pannell Discussions, http://www.pannelldiscussions.net/2014/10/274-tokenistic-policies

9 – Obligatory empiricism, oblivious narcissism and consensual lying. Have they become three hallmarks of local government?

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Now, you might think I am drawing a long bow here, especially if you don’t work in the sector or if you haven’t worked there long enough to identify underlying patterns. I will elaborate.

Empiricism is the theory that knowledge comes only from primary experience. It emphasises the use of evidence from direct experience in the formation of ideas, rather than using other knowledge not gained from experience or ideas passed down over time. By obligatory empiricism I am referring to situations where people must experience something themselves before they can use that knowledge to develop their ideas.

A recent article by Kat McGowan suggests that human progress has occurred using cumulative knowledge gained by copying each other, rather than episodic, transformational acts of creative genius by individuals. Imitation, not genius, has driven innovation. The challenge is maintaining what we already know, not creating something new. By the way, this ability to copy each other is not shared with animals. According to McGowan, they are obligatory empiricists and must learn everything through trial and error. When they die, the knowledge dies with them and successive generations are doomed to reinvent the wheel.

How many of us have experienced new ideas being introduced without a serious effort to look at how well they have worked for others and whether there is anything to learn from their experience?   How many times have you suggested an idea from a previous organisation, only to be told ‘that won’t work here, we are different’, without any real explanation of what is different? Why is it that every council has different ways of doing the same thing? These are potential indicators of obligatory empiricism. As a sector, we seem to focus on being ‘special and different’, rather than accepting that we have more in common and sharing systems and ideas.

Narcissism is a concept that most people are familiar with and there is increasing evidence of it in individuals and society today. Anne Manne has recently written about narcissism and the many forms it takes in our society. One form that attracted my attention is ‘oblivious narcissism’, in which the people are completely unaware of their narcissistic behaviours. It attracted my interest because narcissism is often associated with leaders. In healthy measure it is an important ingredient. In unhealthy measure, it can manifest itself in undesirable behaviours. Oblivious narcissism is evident in ways often associated with positive behaviours in local government.

Have you experienced leaders in your organisation who are extremely nice and accommodating, apparently sincere in their interest in the needs of others, and politely uncompromising in their pursuit of their personal goals? More and more, people who are exceedingly nice seem to be finding their way into local government leadership roles. As a result, you could be dealing with an oblivious narcissist in your organisation. Their lack of self-awareness makes them particularly difficult to deal with in local government setting, where niceness is often put ahead of performance. If you are a leader you are unlikely to be sacked for incompetence or lack of performance but you will be dealt with immediately if you are rude and upset people.   While narcissism is a general concern in society, it has significant consequences when it is present in organisational leaders and they are not aware of it. At least you know what you are dealing with a leader who is obviously narcissistic.

Consensual lying is a concept that I recently discovered at the thinkpurpose.com blog site. The writer describes consensual lying as flourishing in systems where management makes ineffective decisions but they will be told otherwise. Surprisingly, a search for consensual lying in organisations on Google found nothing on the topic. The blog author describes the best type of lying as ‘the type that doesn’t know it is a lie after a short while’. The lies are based on assumptions of what management would like to hear, and they are accepted because it is convenient for everyone involved. Then the lying goes further up the organisation.

Have you ever heard people give reasons for lack of performance or achievement that sound lame and flaky to you but are accepted by senior management? ‘I couldn’t complete the work because I didn’t have the resources’. This is a good one because allows everyone involved to shift the problem upstairs (somewhere) to the people who control resources. What about, ‘I couldn’t complete the project on time because the stakeholders wouldn’t cooperate. Another good one. There are always lots of stakeholders in public projects and it can be hard to pinpoint any one that has been a problem. Consensual lying is convenient and allows everyone to feel good about their role in a dysfunctional system.

I don’t want to sound too critical or bleak about local government. There are lots of fine organisations where good people are working hard and delivering great services. But there are many more that share some or all of these hallmarks. If you are in an organisation that is locked into learning everything from new, or led by people focussed more on their own needs than those of the organisation, or where consensual lying is widespread, you will face significant challenges in achieving high performance.

Colin Weatherby

Manne, Ann 2014. The life of I.

McGowan, Kat 2014. Brilliant impersonators, in Aeon magazine.

thinkpurpose.com. http://thinkpurpose.com/2014/08/22/do-you-have-a-joke-job

7 – ‘Why this obsession with cutting public service jobs?’ The Age, 2 January 2015

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I have often wondered this myself. It seems to be part of our culture to get stuck into public servants every now and then. The author says that cutting public service budgets it is politically attractive because ‘everyone hates public service workers and cutting their budgets seems to help balance the budget by removing public sector waste’.

However, in doing so, they are achieving a false economy according to the report cited from the Centre for Policy Development (CPD), False Economies: Unpacking public sector efficiency.

‘Every Australian needs to understand what politicians are talking about when they speak of the ‘efficiency’ of government. Why should we care? Because this is our money, being spent on us and the things that matter to us.’

This report completes a body of work on productivity and efficiency completed by the CPD Public Service Research Director, Chris Stone. Some of his key messages are;

  • A sound understanding of efficiency is needed in public debates on what services to fund, and whether their delivery should be outsourced or not, in order to ensure we are getting public value for public money.
  • There are significant difficulties involved in comparing the Australian public sector performance with the private sector, but the evidence available indicates that the two sectors have a similar level of efficiency.
  • Although Australia’s public sector is comparatively efficient, there is scope for improvement.
  • The government is identifying the public services that will be affected by cuts, but does not appear to be guided by any underlying rationale of what services government should be providing.
  • The heavy focus on cuts without sufficient consideration of the value of services means that other strategies for increasing efficiency are neglected, in particular innovation and professional accountability.
  • Two significant barriers to public sector innovation are an overly risk averse orientation within organisations, and a lack of resources invested in developing and implementing innovative ideas.
  • The current method for managing performance does not provide clear guidance to public servants on how they can work toward their organisation’s goals.

It is a report of more than 70 pages and should be read by every public service manager. The discussion in Chapter 1 about different types of efficiency is enlightening.

The connection between value, public value in particular, and reducing resources to achieve greater ‘efficiency’ is important. When there is a lack of clarity about what is meant to be achieved it is difficult to measure performance and easy to cut resources with a clear conscience. The consequences are only immediately evident to an informed few and may become evident to everyone in the long term. Defining the public value to be created is an essential activity. Then the arguments about efficiency can be held in the knowledge of what impact on value will result from changes to resources.

Colin Weatherby

Stone, Christopher 2014. False Economies: Unpacking public sector efficiency (http://cpd.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/CPD-OP37_False-economies_-compiled_EMBARGO26June.pdf)

4 – ‘Public service spendathon is destined to increase emotional intelligence’ The Age, 4 January 2015

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This article caught my attention. Apparently spending by Australian government departments on emotional intelligence, lean thinking, clear conversations, transformational leadership, yoga, and building resilient teams is seen by some as ‘dubious’ training exercises and potentially a form of waste.

I am not sure that these training courses will provide a return to the Australian government but they are typical of the training being provided in local government today. The investment in people seems to be driven by the belief that this is where the public service performance problem, and its solution, lies. There seems to be a common search for new ways to help move employees towards different ways of thinking and behaving at work.

Much of the training I have witnessed in recent years has focussed on awareness of self, leadership, communication, and team work. The primary focus is on the individual and their skills. In some ways, it is almost an employee benefit of working in the local government. Indeed, some councils compete for staff on the basis of training and development opportunities available. The questions I want to ask are what is the specific benefit to the organisation from the training, and is the return on the investment in training being measured?

In a nutshell, what impact is the training having on performance?

This is a good question when much of the training is high level and relatively conceptual. It is provided almost as an act of faith – train them and they will improve. When the training becomes more practical, it is often not in the systems or processes used by the organisation to produce outputs. I would argue that the effort to understand, document and improve processes will yield more benefit than training for most councils. Once this has been done, training will make sense and be less likely to be seen as dubious or a waste of money.

Colin Weatherby

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/public-service-spendathon-is-destined-to-increase-emotional-intelligence-20150103-12h3ph.html