The bureaucracy and how to fix it

[tridus.livejournal.com]

I think many of us have dealt with government bureaucracy at one point or another. The incidents that tend to stick out are the ones where bureaucrats come up with something so out of touch with reality, that people can't understand HOW it could possibly happen. TSA comes to mind. Security isn't special in this regard, this is just a bureaucracy run amok. But it's not the only example, we can also look at what happens when a person in my home province of New Brunswick, Canada, tries to build a house.



The problem with the bureaucracy is that it's mostly focused on process. Too often the outcome doesn't matter, so long as the "process" and "procedure" was followed correctly. If you wind up with a completely insane outcome at the end? Well hey, we followed the process!

That attitude comes about because bureaucracies are by their nature risk-adverse. That is made worse by politicians piling on endless regulations, usually talking about things like "fairness" and "transparency". But that's not what you get at the end. The real result is simply to ensure nobody does things independently.

Purchasing rules are a great example. One time (several years ago) someone came to us in IT and asked if they could get their computer upgraded to run dual monitors, so they could run a projector and their screen at once. No problem, I tell them. I'll walk down the street, get the $60 part, and have it done in an hour.

That is until my supervisor stops me, and tells me that we can't do that. The store down the street isn't an approved vendor, and buying there could be a conflict of interest, or corruption, because I know the guy at the counter. Of course I know him, this city only has a couple of decent computer hardware shops! But alright. We'll try to find an approved vendor with the part.

Oh wait, my supervisor stops me again. The part isn't in the buyers guide. So what part is? Somehow we wound up buying a $300 VGA splitter cable (the approved part) from an approved vendor in an approved fashion, instead of a $60 video card upgrade that would have done the job just as effectively. But hey, at least we avoided the foul stench of corruption that would certainly have come from saving the taxpayers $240! (The same thing happens on big projects, incidentally. If you've ever wondered why so many big projects go over-budget, it's because the estimates are deliberately lowballed. Everybody knows that, but the tender rules don't let the bureaucracy say "this bid is total nonsense." So it keeps happening.)

Over time, this gets internalized and dealt with by people becoming hyper-focused only on their job and on the policies around it, not on the overall goal. Security experts come up with security rules that might theoretically boost security, but will destroy the ability for anybody to get work done using the system in question. (To avoid embarrassing my present employer, I will not give an example publically... though I have some great ones.) Somebody else now has to go argue with the management level above the security people to convince them that this can't actually happen. Which creates five rounds of meetings as it works through the various layers of management, back to the security people, then back around again.

What this hyper-focus gets you is poor decisions. Government building inspectors spending years picking on an elderly couple for not following rules about stamped lumber, without thinking about minor details like "is the house actually dangerous?" They've completely lost sight of the big picture, and are just stuck wading through details. When TSA comes up with the idea of spending billions on scanners and then molesting people to try and force them into the scanners, do you think anybody in the room stood up and said "you know, this kind of stuff is going to cost billions and damage the entire airline industry, with negligible security benefits. Let's think of something else"? Maybe, but they apparently couldn't win enough people over.

So what's the solution? There's two things that need to happen:
1. Politicians need to step in. Even if they do nothing but bicker amongst each other most of the time, elected officials have a useful function in that they hold the leash on the bureaucracy. They could stop this nonsense VERY quickly. Sometimes they do, and when they do it snaps the bureaucracy back a few steps.

2. We (you) as a public need to be more willing to entertain the risk of bad decisions. Most of the rules that prevent people in the bureaucracy from using their brains stemmed from good intentions, for fear of things like corruption. But when you legislate out any possibility of corruption, you've removed any human judgment from the process. But judgment is exactly what we need more of. Had someone inspecting the house been empowered to say "yes it broke these rules, but it's perfectly safe so we're going to cite you with a warning and let you go on about your business," untold tens of thousands of dollars in employee time and court costs would have been saved. Not to mention the public good of not harassing an elderly couple for no good reason.

The vast majority of the time, people make the right decision. We need to empower them to do it again.

Thoughts? Flames?


(This might sound kind of ranty, and I guess it is. Most of the time I really like my job in the government. It's good people, good work, and sometimes we get to do some public good. But we could do a lot more then we do, and it infuriates me when an obvious public benefit can't be realized because some manager with no knowledge of the subject blocked it due to some policy written in 1916.)

Comments

First a joke then a real post...

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Step 1
Take a cage filled with five monkeys. In the center of the cage place a banana on a string. When one of the monkey's trys to get the banana hose down all of the other monkeys. Repeat this step a few times until the monkeys all realize that when one goes for the banana all the others will get soaked. They will eventually try and stop the one monkey from reaching for the banana.

Step 2
Now put away the water hose and replace one of the original monkeys that got soaked with a new monkey. This new monkey will try to go for the banana in the center of the cage, but will be thwarted by his peers. He will soon learn that if he goes for the banana, he will receive a beating from the other monkeys in the cage.

Step 3
Replace another of the original monkeys that got the hose with a new one. Like before this new monkey will see the banana in the center of the cage and try to go for it?only to be pummeled by the other original monkeys and the monkey from STEP 2. (The monkey from step 2 has not been soaked with water, but takes part in the beating with enthusiasm)

Step 4
Keep on replacing the original monkeys out with new monkeys as done in step 2 and 3 until there are no more of the original monkeys left in the cage. Each time you replace a monkey, the monkey from the previous step will partake in the beating of the new monkey.

What you are left with is a cage full of five monkeys who have not been soaked with water and the banana still hanging. No one monkey attempts to reach for the banana because they all know at this point that if they do, they will receive a beating from all the other monkeys.

Why Do They continue to partake in stopping any monkey that goes for the banana even though none of these monkeys have been hosed down for going for the banana?

Because as far as they know that?s the way things have always been done around here so why should they do things any different,,,

And that is where COMPANY POLICY begins

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

The problem is that with your video example, sure in this case you might have been able to do it a more simple way, but you also have shady mctechguy at the other department who, given to his own devices would be buying the $500 part that has no approval process from his brother that is an absolutely worse part, but they're splitting $400 of the profit.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Another aspect of bureacracy -- after a time, the procedures are not only followed for the sake of following them, but many of them become written up in ways that require specialized degrees and training to understand. Effectively, lots of ordinary citizens are locked out of understanding the regulations that effect their lives and have to hire experts or risk running afoul of them.

Recomending this post for 'recomended'

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

First off this is a great post. You speak from experience and break down the situation beautiful.

I don't believe we can empower bureaucrats to think for themselves and to for 'The People' to accept the higher level of risk that would involve. The reason; government is not by its nature an empowering beast but one that is designed to disempowered the individual. Remember we surrender our power as people who consent to be governed. Therefore we can't then tell those bureaucrats "you need to think more independently!" when they also have given up their power and freedom to be governed. They are automatons because they must be.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

p.s. Have you read "Street Level Bureaucracy" by Michael Lipsky? Good read and looks at the system from your level.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

The best furnace is an inefficient standard furnace. Any gas savings saved from an efficient furnace can (and probably will) be quickly eaten up by the failure of any one of the new fangled high tech efficiency and safety devices. How can you save $300/year in gas if it costs $500/year in repairs?

And safety is always extremely inefficient, even redundant and plain no fun. Parents who have child proof locks on cupboards with childproof bottles are incredibly caring people. But it's a wonder how any of us ever survived with lead painted cribs and see-saws in the playground and softball games with no helmets!

And motorcycle helmet laws. How strange that with little to no training a 16yr old kid can get a license and zip off on a crotch rocket as long as he has a helmet. Heck those same kids can drive a sports car as long as they have a seatbelt. They say these laws save lives. Unfortunately drivers are still getting killed. A sane bureaucracy would insist on better training. Or outlaw speed demon transportation altogether, but naw, they would rather ban SUV's.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered whether the purpose of bureaucracy was to shelter people from blame. Your comment earlier about "if no one can make a wrong decision, no one can make a right one either" just reinforces this to me. I think the procedures are what they are because people can hide behind them, say "Well it's not my fault that happened, I followed policy." It's obviously harder on government workers, who have a less responsive policy-review process, but it exists in big business as well. The point is to absolve you of guilt and responsibility, for good outcomes or bad. It's not to make the best overall outcome.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The problem with the bureaucracy is that it's mostly focused on process. Too often the outcome doesn't matter, so long as the "process" and "procedure" was followed correctly. If you wind up with a completely insane outcome at the end? Well hey, we followed the process!

This is completely true.

The vast majority of the time, people make the right decision. We need to empower them to do it again.

This is called libertarianism. Welcome to the revolution.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Your anecdotes remind me of a book titled Planning (http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/mcdp5.pdf) which was published by the United States Marines Corps in 1997 to describe its philosophy towards (what else?) planning. The book describes the USMC's approach to planning as adapting to a plan as circumstances require rather than rigidly adhering to a plan made early in the process:

"We will rarely, if ever, conduct an evolution exactly the way it was originally developed."

The inability to adapt to unforeseen consequences is one of bureaucracy's worst flaws. The problem is that they often cannot adapt or flex as it is their task to enforce regulations made by the legislature as closely to the letter as possible. The cause of their failure, therefore, appears to be a disconnect between the legislators and the bureaucrats tasked with enforcing the laws they pass. Do you believe involving the relevant agencies in the decision-making process would help matters or do you believe that it would only worsen them?

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

It is no wonder that we claim to be the victims of an over reaching government. An over reaching government has been what we have demanded for centuries. We are all guilty of it be trying to form a government that is customized to our taste and to hell with everybody else.

I worked as a government contractor for the military and was able to see why we have the $500 hammer. It is a collection of conflicting regulations demanded hysterically by the people that communicate with the government. Ya' know. The pissed off people.

We are victims of ourselves.

[ninboydean.livejournal.com]

Oh I thought you were talking about the bigger form of bureaucracy in the US:

How to bend the rules of corporate bureaucracy (http://www.usatoday.com/money/jobcenter/workplace/rules/2002-11-08-corporate-bureaucracy_x.htm)

Corporate bureaucracy thrives (http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2000/02/28/editorial2.html)

Big corporations differ little from government when it comes to bloated staffs and budgets. The one difference is that they can say goodbye to large numbers of employees. In government, that's a challenge almost impossible to achieve. Public employee unions have far more clout than the private-sector unions.

For good reason. Public-sector unions elect the decision-makers (legislators), but private-sector unions do not elect boards of directors or corporate officers. (They may be working on that, but as of now their power is limited to strikes.)

How do those corporate bureaucracies get started?

Once a business gets beyond 100 employees, top management begins to lose touch with what's going on in the trenches. At that point, the supervisors commence to build their own prestige by gradually increasing the number of people they supervise. They create a "need" for more help when, in fact, they need to quit acting like lords and masters and perform more of the nitty gritty themselves.


Read more: Corporate bureaucracy thrives | Pacific Business News


Wait a second. Does that mean that having bottom-up management might actually reduce the need for expanded bureaucracy? Nah lets just let the market decide. They know best.

[ccr1138.livejournal.com]

Two stories that interrelate:

My dad (a machinist) attempted when he was just starting out to bid on a government job to build some sort of metal container (let's say a trash can -- nothing to do with the military or technical function) for a battleship. He examined an existing item which he was told to copy, then put in a bid. Only then did he find out that the paint he'd planned to use (which would have been fine -- purposed for seagoing, etc) wasn't good enough. The specs were written in such a way that the ONLY paint on the market that met the criteria was $95/gallon (this was in the 1960s, so that would be, what, $1000 today?) The job nearly bankrupted him, and from then on he refused to do any jobs for the government.

I always wondered why that paint was specified like that. What was the point? Then a friend who works for NASA told me how he was building a component for the robot arm of the space station, and he needed a particular transistor. He knew from experience which one he wanted to use, but he wasn't allowed to specify it directly. Instead he had to describe in in the request for bids in such a way that it would be the only transistor to fit the requirements. This involved a very lengthy and convoluted passage including dimensions, color, and a bunch of other crap that had absolutely nothing to do with the function of the transistor itself. We both shook our heads at the thought that someday, years from now, another project will probably blindly incorporate all that verbiage as a requirement, and nobody will know why.

Of course, in the case of the battleship paint, I presume somebody was getting a hefty kickback.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I find my local government bureacracies to be efficient and correct 99 percent of the time.