So it’s reform time again in state government. I sincerely wish Gov. Mitt Romney lots of luck. I was there in 1992, when we were trying to reinvent government under Bill Weld. I served in senior management posts at the Department of Housing and Community Development from 1992 to 1999, and then at the Department of Food and Agriculture, until I retired last year. There’s one thing you need to know, Governor: The bureaucracy is a living, breathing thing, made up of human beings. You’ll have more success if you find ways to work with them rather than against them. Here are my suggestions for getting the biggest return on human capital in state government.
Make every change serve a purpose. What are the outcomes you want? What services or processes do you seek to improve? Keep your eye on the goals, and be flexible about methods. When the methods become the goal, you’re in trouble.
I found that out the hard way. As head of the Division of Community Services, I discovered that staff did not regularly share information among themselves, even when their programs were involved in the same communities. I thought the division should provide services more holistically; that would make things more efficient for us and make getting information and assistance easier for communities. We’d be able to help cities and towns with community development more broadly, not just within the specific grant programs we offered.
I undertook several organizational restructurings over a few years, each one inching us toward this goal. Then I made the Big Change. I decided to set up self-directed work teams, based on a successful private sector model.
I thought the team approach would be a win-win for the communities and the employees. The department would become more than a meal ticket for a few communities. The funds were important–believe me, I knew that –but there’s never enough money to meet every community’s needs. What about those that get no funding–couldn’t we help them, too? We could teach communities to fish rather than just serving them one fish banquet. Meanwhile, the staff would learn about broader topics and earn a reputation in the outside world for being valuable guides to the maze of state government. I thought most would embrace the idea of coming out of the rigid confines of their programs–their boxes, if you will–to spread their wings beyond artificial bureaucratic boundaries.
Instead, what I learned is that people who are attracted to rank-and-file positions in state agencies, as dedicated and public-spirited as they may be, are often very structured folks who not only like the clear definitions of the bureaucracy, they need them. Unclear boundaries, change, unpredictability–these are things that make them uncomfortable. Besides, they had long experience working in a system that rewards staying in your box and doing your job as defined on a piece of paper filed in Personnel. I thought I was liberating them; they thought I was hanging them out to dry.
Before long, the team model itself, rather than the mission, became the focus–and the battlefield. It was no longer just a tool to improve services. I lost sight of the desired results, and those who did not welcome the change found it easy to erode the support I had.
Don’t kick public workers when they’re down. One danger for the business-minded reformer is that he may not understand that people who pursue jobs in government often do so because the kind of work that interests them is available only in the public sector. They don’t care about making widgets or piling up profits. They care about public issues, about the poor, about public safety and public education. I know, because I am one of them. I have a very diverse professional background, in and out of government, but government is what floats my boat.
That’s why I still cringe when I recall Bill Weld labeling state workers “walruses.” That kind of comment makes every government reinventor’s job harder. It’s tough to galvanize enthusiasm and commitment from people who hear themselves castigated and insulted on the 11 o’clock news. How would you respond to public name-calling and verbal lashings from your boss?
What’s more, they’re unwarranted. I’d say that 95 percent of the employees want to do a good job and try to do so. Poor performance, which exists at all levels, must be addressed as a management issue, not as a character flaw of state workers. Rally the troops, Governor, and avoid turning the guns on them.
How? The way they do it in business. “The private sector revolves around continuous improvement and reform, which often means frequent reorganization and new ways of doing things.” This Total Quality Management message is in your budget recommendation, and it echoes the language of management experts. So far, so good. But where is the expression of faith in the desire of state employees to improve their product, which is public service? Where is the appeal to the best instincts of public workers? Where is the commitment to provide training to staff at all levels, to empower them? Where is the promise to value them, to reward good results, and to enable them to make a difference, even if funds are tight? Do you embrace that TQM advice as well?
Focus on a few opportunities for outstanding results. Nothing succeeds like success. Even within agencies under your administrative control and with no legislative action needed, you can’t hope to fix everything overnight. But if you articulate the results and engage the staffs in conversation, you can find places where you can achieve success quickly. The Registry of Motor Vehicles made significant improvements in a relatively short time by focusing on the most egregious areas of shortcoming: courtesy, cleanliness, long waiting lines, and clerical errors. In just 14 months, customers increased their rating of the RMV from 6.9 to 9.0 on a scale of 10. There’s other low-hanging fruit in state government. Picking it makes you friends among the voting public, and in the bureaucracy as well.
Set a good example. There’s one other reform I have not heard mentioned by any leaders of state government: improving their own behavior. The sparring and posturing of public officials do more to harm the reputation of government–and to undermine efficiency efforts on the ground–than anything else. It’s easy, and therefore tempting, to score points in the press by running down legislative leaders and the like. But Governor, I urge you to resist the temptation. Jockeying for position at the top undermines your authority, and reduces your leverage, with the civil servants down below. You’re asking them to do something hard, something that goes against their experience, maybe even their very nature: to change. Why should they take you, and what you’re asking them to do, seriously if you’re engaged in food fights? They want you to talk about what the core services of government should be and what results we should reasonably expect. They want you and other state leaders to build constituencies and partnerships, not fiefdoms and campaign war chests. They want all of you to do the right thing for the people of Massachusetts. For that matter, so do I.
Mary Greendale is a freelance writer and public affairs consultant living in Holliston.