7 ms·

Culture eats policy

183 points by Symmetry 3y ago

Symmetry 3y ago
A quote: >No one wants to be in the video clip as a stone-faced bureaucrat with no good answers, being yelled at by a righteous—or self-righteous—politician fighting the good fight on behalf of the aggrieved public. In front of the cameras, you can’t say things like “it doesn’t work because we were forced to use an ESB.” You would look like you were trying to throw someone else under the bus, and the legislators wouldn’t understand what you were talking about anyway. Your job is simply to endure the hearing, produce as few viral sound bites as possible, and not incriminate others. >As painful and sometimes humiliating as these hearings are, if you’re a career civil servant, it is the second system of accountability that matters more to you. The legislature can’t fire or officially reprimand you, no matter how bad a job they think you did (although they can put political pressure on the administration to do so). They can’t make you ineligible for promotions and raises. On the other hand, violations of policy, process, and procedure—real or perceived—can do all of that, even if there is no hearing.
OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
It should be no surprise that companies contracting with the Federal Government create layers to match whatever the government creates. It should also be no surprise that the large players in contracting propose changes to government structures that feed this cycle in perpetuity. "Digital Transformation" is all the current rage and the new job titles are springing up in response. The legendary Pete Worden touched on this in 1992's "On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones"[0]. Not all his examples have aged well. Hubble was resurrected and the massive early problems (and costs) forgotten. He also confuses operational systems (EOS, GOES, etc.) with tech demonstrators (Clementine, etc.). Despite that, his comments on organizational behavior are well made. [0] PDF at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234554226_On_Self-Licking_Ice_Cream_Cones https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234554226_On_Self-L...
pdonis 3y ago
Tl/dr: Top-down control of a country doesn't work. But we already knew this; the 20th Century was a huge experiment, run in multiple countries, in trying to make top-down control work. It failed. The lesson we should be drawing from all this is to stop asking our government and our elected representatives to fix all problems. The government's role should be limited to protecting everyone's basic rights and maintaining an orderly civil society. Any problem solving after that should be on us, as citizens and using private means, not government fiat.
- lizardking 3y ago
  FDR's administration was the most effective of the 20th century and was characterized by more top-down control than any other during the period in question. Maybe you don’t like the outcomes, but it can’t be argued that much was accomplished.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    Effective at concentration camps, or supreme-court packing? God save us from effective government.
    - throw0101a 3y ago
      > Effective at concentration camps, or supreme-court packing? Like Guantanamo or what the GOP is currently doing (e.g., not giving Garland hearings "because it is too close to the election")? Government, and political opportunists, can be effective in both good and bad policies/actions.
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        I'd blame those things on the Democrats too. You can't keep cheating and cheating, and then whine that the other side started cheating too just to keep up with you. Obama even had the opportunity to close Guantanamo. Didn't consider it important enough to waste the political capital on. Was more concerned about his team retaining power than doing the right thing. > Government, and political opportunists, can be effective in both good and bad policies/actions. Effectiveness is only ever used with bad policies. I don't know that I've even come close to figuring out the mechanism for it, but there is one that inevitably tips effectiveness towards ends malevolent. If you were to plot out historical leaders for how effective they were on some sort of spectrum, and then plot them out for how evil they were, it'd be the same spectrum.
  - b59831 3y ago
    Worked great for USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, ... FDR also had to deal with things like state's rights... But why worry about nuance?
kmerroll 3y ago
> you should ask yourself: With every decision you make, is this good for the company? (OfficeSpace, 1999) I'll counter that fake or self-serving cultures are more toxic and destructive in an organization than bureaucratic policies. Mandated perspectives through culture manipulation feels more like group think and design by committee than genuine empowerment.
bruce511 3y ago
I'm reminded of the adage that to really get things done, you need a small qualified team, and everyone else to get out of their way. (See the original Appke Mac team as an example.) Big projects are hard. They're expensive. With large budgets comes lots of oversight, endless second guessing, and a zillion rules, perfected over years, to ensure money is not wasted or stolen. I once pitched an off-the-shelf program to a corporate, which would have cost 10k to roll out company wide. But the procurement process demanded a proper evaluation first, which eould cost about 5 times that. Better that than letting someone later claim that 10k was wasted. Large business wastes just as much money as govt, but when a business makes a mistake they just stop talking about it. In govt it ends up on CSPAN. When it's not your money, it's easy to spend. Reputation (and blame doging) is far more valuable than cash. Which brings us back to well resourced, small teams, of competent people.
- notquitetrue 3y ago
  >Large business wastes just as much money as govt, but when a business makes a mistake they just stop talking about it. In govt it ends up on CSPAN. The other difference is that the business has to compete with other businesses and turn a profit (or convince investors it will eventually turn a profit) to survive. In any given year they might get away with waste. If you’re a mega corp in an oligopolistic business, maybe even a decade or two. But eventually, you live or die by the bottom line. By contrast, a government keeps existing no matter how poorly it manages its finances. Look at Zimbabwe, Argentina, Venezuela, South Africa, Greece, etc.
  - GabeIsko 3y ago
    No, businesses absolutely collude to get out of each others way, and it happens a lot more than you think. Even businesses that are "competitors" often have different aims and goals in the long run. And generally their are banks an wall street that are willing to pick up the tab for businesses that are big enough, even if they are failing. Look at a company like yahoo, or oracle, or IBM. How do they keep existing, when they are essentially zombies running on funding through the public market?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Aloha 3y ago
The book this was adapted from is absolutely fantastic. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B8644ZGY/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B8644ZGY/
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  +1, highly recommend
- rpmuller 3y ago
  Also check out the interview Ezra Klein did with Jennifer Pahlki on his podcast [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-jennifer-pahlka.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/podcasts/transcript-ezra-...
gjvc 3y ago
"culture eats strategy for breakfast" -- Peter Drucker, (made popular by Mark Fields, 2006)
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
"Politics is downstream of culture" - Timothy S. Goeglein
jonhohle 3y ago
> They’re frustrated because they’re supposed to be steering the ship of our country through changing times… The first paragraph and already a misinformed position of the role of representatives (hint, it’s in their name). Congress (or the other branches) was never about controlling a country, rather ensuring freedom. Government policy meant to control will always backfire because, again, that’s not their job.
- dcre 3y ago
  This is a simplistic and reductive reading of "steering the ship." What if she said "govern"? It would mean exactly the same thing, yet it would also be a tautology and you'd have nothing to complain about. The piece is very directly about the problem of thinking about this in a more sophisticated yet concrete way. Please read it!
- talideon 3y ago
  I don't think you quite understand what the word "government" means. Here's a hint though, albeit at the risk of committing the etymological fallacy: the word "government" comes from the Greek "kubernétés" (κυβερνήτης), meaning "steersman". This is where the "steering the ship" metaphor comes from. It's literally the job of government to "[steer] the ship of our country".
  - jeegsy 3y ago
    > the word "government" comes from the Greek "kubernétés" (κυβερνήτης), meaning "steersman" Well, Hey now!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
harpiaharpyja 3y ago
Utterly horrifying. God help any country that resembles the one described in this article.
oofnik 3y ago
> We create systems designed to drain the jobs of bureaucrats, especially low-level bureaucrats, of any opportunity to exercise judgment. When things go wrong, we find new ways to constrain, and we make the hierarchy more and more rigid. This is the crux of the article, and it is an excellent point. I believe that there is a fundamental difference between a being a rule-follower and being a judgment-exerciser. Situational awareness can provide clues as to what mode of operation is appropriate. However, choosing a mode of operation is itself an exercise in judgment. If you design a rule-based system, and hire people based exclusively on their ability to follow and enforce rules, you should not be surprised when that system selects for the kind of people who copy job postings verbatim into their resumes and proclaims them to be "most qualified".

183 points by Symmetry 3y ago

A quote: >No one wants to be in the video clip as a stone-faced bureaucrat with no good answers, being yelled at by a righteous—or self-righteous—politician fighting the good fight on behalf of the aggrieved public. In front of the cameras, you can’t say things like “it doesn’t work because we were forced to use an ESB.” You would look like you were trying to throw someone else under the bus, and the legislators wouldn’t understand what you were talking about anyway. Your job is simply to endure the hearing, produce as few viral sound bites as possible, and not incriminate others. >As painful and sometimes humiliating as these hearings are, if you’re a career civil servant, it is the second system of accountability that matters more to you. The legislature can’t fire or officially reprimand you, no matter how bad a job they think you did (although they can put political pressure on the administration to do so). They can’t make you ineligible for promotions and raises. On the other hand, violations of policy, process, and procedure—real or perceived—can do all of that, even if there is no hearing.

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago

It should be no surprise that companies contracting with the Federal Government create layers to match whatever the government creates. It should also be no surprise that the large players in contracting propose changes to government structures that feed this cycle in perpetuity. "Digital Transformation" is all the current rage and the new job titles are springing up in response. The legendary Pete Worden touched on this in 1992's "On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones"[0]. Not all his examples have aged well. Hubble was resurrected and the massive early problems (and costs) forgotten. He also confuses operational systems (EOS, GOES, etc.) with tech demonstrators (Clementine, etc.). Despite that, his comments on organizational behavior are well made. [0] PDF at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234554226_On_Self-Licking_Ice_Cream_Cones https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234554226_On_Self-L...

pdonis 3y ago

Tl/dr: Top-down control of a country doesn't work. But we already knew this; the 20th Century was a huge experiment, run in multiple countries, in trying to make top-down control work. It failed. The lesson we should be drawing from all this is to stop asking our government and our elected representatives to fix all problems. The government's role should be limited to protecting everyone's basic rights and maintaining an orderly civil society. Any problem solving after that should be on us, as citizens and using private means, not government fiat.

lizardking 3y ago
FDR's administration was the most effective of the 20th century and was characterized by more top-down control than any other during the period in question. Maybe you don’t like the outcomes, but it can’t be argued that much was accomplished.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Effective at concentration camps, or supreme-court packing? God save us from effective government.
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    > Effective at concentration camps, or supreme-court packing? Like Guantanamo or what the GOP is currently doing (e.g., not giving Garland hearings "because it is too close to the election")? Government, and political opportunists, can be effective in both good and bad policies/actions.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      I'd blame those things on the Democrats too. You can't keep cheating and cheating, and then whine that the other side started cheating too just to keep up with you. Obama even had the opportunity to close Guantanamo. Didn't consider it important enough to waste the political capital on. Was more concerned about his team retaining power than doing the right thing. > Government, and political opportunists, can be effective in both good and bad policies/actions. Effectiveness is only ever used with bad policies. I don't know that I've even come close to figuring out the mechanism for it, but there is one that inevitably tips effectiveness towards ends malevolent. If you were to plot out historical leaders for how effective they were on some sort of spectrum, and then plot them out for how evil they were, it'd be the same spectrum.
- b59831 3y ago
  Worked great for USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, ... FDR also had to deal with things like state's rights... But why worry about nuance?

kmerroll 3y ago

> you should ask yourself: With every decision you make, is this good for the company? (OfficeSpace, 1999) I'll counter that fake or self-serving cultures are more toxic and destructive in an organization than bureaucratic policies. Mandated perspectives through culture manipulation feels more like group think and design by committee than genuine empowerment.

bruce511 3y ago

I'm reminded of the adage that to really get things done, you need a small qualified team, and everyone else to get out of their way. (See the original Appke Mac team as an example.) Big projects are hard. They're expensive. With large budgets comes lots of oversight, endless second guessing, and a zillion rules, perfected over years, to ensure money is not wasted or stolen. I once pitched an off-the-shelf program to a corporate, which would have cost 10k to roll out company wide. But the procurement process demanded a proper evaluation first, which eould cost about 5 times that. Better that than letting someone later claim that 10k was wasted. Large business wastes just as much money as govt, but when a business makes a mistake they just stop talking about it. In govt it ends up on CSPAN. When it's not your money, it's easy to spend. Reputation (and blame doging) is far more valuable than cash. Which brings us back to well resourced, small teams, of competent people.

notquitetrue 3y ago
>Large business wastes just as much money as govt, but when a business makes a mistake they just stop talking about it. In govt it ends up on CSPAN. The other difference is that the business has to compete with other businesses and turn a profit (or convince investors it will eventually turn a profit) to survive. In any given year they might get away with waste. If you’re a mega corp in an oligopolistic business, maybe even a decade or two. But eventually, you live or die by the bottom line. By contrast, a government keeps existing no matter how poorly it manages its finances. Look at Zimbabwe, Argentina, Venezuela, South Africa, Greece, etc.
- GabeIsko 3y ago
  No, businesses absolutely collude to get out of each others way, and it happens a lot more than you think. Even businesses that are "competitors" often have different aims and goals in the long run. And generally their are banks an wall street that are willing to pick up the tab for businesses that are big enough, even if they are failing. Look at a company like yahoo, or oracle, or IBM. How do they keep existing, when they are essentially zombies running on funding through the public market?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Aloha 3y ago

The book this was adapted from is absolutely fantastic. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B8644ZGY/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B8644ZGY/

toomuchtodo 3y ago
+1, highly recommend
rpmuller 3y ago
Also check out the interview Ezra Klein did with Jennifer Pahlki on his podcast [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-jennifer-pahlka.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/podcasts/transcript-ezra-...

gjvc 3y ago

"culture eats strategy for breakfast" -- Peter Drucker, (made popular by Mark Fields, 2006)

local_crmdgeon 3y ago

"Politics is downstream of culture" - Timothy S. Goeglein

jonhohle 3y ago

> They’re frustrated because they’re supposed to be steering the ship of our country through changing times… The first paragraph and already a misinformed position of the role of representatives (hint, it’s in their name). Congress (or the other branches) was never about controlling a country, rather ensuring freedom. Government policy meant to control will always backfire because, again, that’s not their job.

dcre 3y ago
This is a simplistic and reductive reading of "steering the ship." What if she said "govern"? It would mean exactly the same thing, yet it would also be a tautology and you'd have nothing to complain about. The piece is very directly about the problem of thinking about this in a more sophisticated yet concrete way. Please read it!
talideon 3y ago
I don't think you quite understand what the word "government" means. Here's a hint though, albeit at the risk of committing the etymological fallacy: the word "government" comes from the Greek "kubernétés" (κυβερνήτης), meaning "steersman". This is where the "steering the ship" metaphor comes from. It's literally the job of government to "[steer] the ship of our country".
- jeegsy 3y ago
  > the word "government" comes from the Greek "kubernétés" (κυβερνήτης), meaning "steersman" Well, Hey now!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

harpiaharpyja 3y ago

Utterly horrifying. God help any country that resembles the one described in this article.

oofnik 3y ago

> We create systems designed to drain the jobs of bureaucrats, especially low-level bureaucrats, of any opportunity to exercise judgment. When things go wrong, we find new ways to constrain, and we make the hierarchy more and more rigid. This is the crux of the article, and it is an excellent point. I believe that there is a fundamental difference between a being a rule-follower and being a judgment-exerciser. Situational awareness can provide clues as to what mode of operation is appropriate. However, choosing a mode of operation is itself an exercise in judgment. If you design a rule-based system, and hire people based exclusively on their ability to follow and enforce rules, you should not be surprised when that system selects for the kind of people who copy job postings verbatim into their resumes and proclaims them to be "most qualified".