"10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce." from Demming - yet isn't the whole list sort of an exhortation with implicit targets ... moving inevitably towards middle management CYA slogans?
Generally these14 points would be likely to lead to better performance in most office work - until a performance review comes up. Who gets raises, and promotions? That's the key issue for managers, including their own self interest in same.
For any static group, such continuation is likely comfortable, and agreeable - seems kind of feminine and more meeting oriented than metric measured.
"11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management."
Explicit rules against measuring revenue & costs seems wrong tho.
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
The huge reason gov't is much different than a business is, as you mention, the managers are mostly managing up.
CYA, risk aversion, and boot-licking (brown-nosing? ass-kissing? blue & gold kneepads?)
No real measure for when top decision makers make a lousy decision, except for one which gets known publicly and embarrasses the (fearless?) leader. Thus CYA all the time. But also claiming, always, that they are trying, like leaders, "to do the right thing".
Term Limits for Bureaucrats is a better change: 10 years of "public service", and you're out. Even "the best". Huge increase in simplicity, Inevitable influx of non-gov't people who have been exposed to other systems (Diversity!) so as to question whether or not it could be done better.
Conservatives & Libertarians blew it, linguistically, with "Public Sector" instead of "Government sector". It would be a lot easier to reduce gov't if all gov't services were labeled as such, and thee "Government Choice Theory". Government Schools, Government roads, Government parks, Government libraries, Government defenders for the public (?). Too many normal people confuse "Public" with Government.
"State-capacity libertarianism rests on the theory that as you raise the effectiveness of government agencies at performing their missions, you reduce the likelihood that they will flail at problems by seizing additional powers."
Thank you for clearly stating the bedrock the theory rests on. I think the bedrock is, unfortunately, itself false. I don't think that the leaders of agencies attempt to get extra power as a means to fulfill their duties, but rather seek to acquire power via their agencies' missions.
No government agency ever said "Actually, we totally have this problem nailed, we don't need all our budget." Instead they ever expand their programs, e.g. the FCC's "Obama Phone" program to subsidize poor people's phones, or indeed any of the over 85 federal transfer programs across 13+ agencies. The very notion that the primary goal of agency heads is fulfilling their mission with the acquisition of power being merely an unlooked for side effect is, well, very 5th grade civics text book.
Business leaders are exactly the same of course, but they do have the market to discipline them if they veer too far from running an efficient company. You can get power only insofar as you also fulfill your missions sufficiently. No such competition disciplines governments, at least not until they start conquering each other. What competition drives the COO/CA to improve agencies? What competition demonstrates just how much better the agencies could and should be? You have yet to address those concerns, and now I would like to add "Poor model of the goals and incentives of agency heads" to the list.
I wonder about the differences in management out between private organizations and government bureaucracies. I also wonder why you prefer to entertain yourself with Tyler-type of vague ideas (yes, Tyler's thinking never amounts to developing a theory) rather than focusing directly on your senile President's Covid policies' collapse. You are assuming that elected politicians are interested in leading "good" bureaucracies but at least since 1961 --thanks to JFK and McNamara-- we know your country's bureaucracies have been managed poorly both out/in and up/down. Do you think there has some disconnection (in values, interests, or beliefs) between elected politicians and their appointed managers of those bureaucracies? For example, I think there was a huge disconnection in interests between Trump and Fauci&Co in the days between February 25, and March 16, 2020 (read
Dilbert's pointy-haired boss is a middle manager. Aren't middle managers also managing up? (Perhaps good middle managers are managing down so they don't have to manage up.)
"Compare the proposal to the status quo, not to some hypothetical nirvana."
A perfectly reasonable request. One the other hand, it's kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. The status quo tells you to shoot fish, but takes you to the shore of the whole ocean, and hands you rock salt shells. If you're lucky, maybe you even get to face the ocean, but don't bet on it. If you propose putting a bunch of the fish in a barrel, and using real ammunition, then of course your proposal is going to mean a lot more fish dinners by comparison to the status quo.
One thing I'd point out is that a COO with the authority to act without Presidential approval, but who can also be fired by the President at will, is basically in the position of a cabinet secretary. Cabinet secretaries and other top positions are often granted authorities directly by statute which don't mention any role for the President at all, which implicates a lot of debated legal mumbo jumbo regarding how independent they can be that we don't need to get into here.
Despite this theoretical independence, however, in actual practice everything has become incredibly centralized, Cabinet secretaries get their marching orders from the White House and then just execute. If any decision comes across their desk and they don't already know what the White House wants done, they put it on hold and ask. Why would the COO do any differently? And if they wouldn't, why have a new position at all, just have the current folks do it.
So, not really a criticism, but my assessment of your proposal is that the "new positions" piece is irrelevant and redundant (this includes the audit guy, because that's already happening too.) Yes, having someone with great management acumen and experience from the private sector might make some difference, though those kind of people would be really hard to recruit and incentivize.
Also, my claim is that, contra Cummings, most things involving USG's leadership deficiencies can be cured using people of ordinary executive skill and with a few exceptions there is very low marginal bang for the buck in going for top talent geniuses. It's rare when I look at some high-profile bad decision and identify the root cause as lack of smarts or knowhow on the part of the decision-maker.
One way we know this is because occasionally the government hires top consulting firms with access to all that talent and knowhow, and, in the cases when the exercise is not just some sham or kickback scheme, the whip-smart consultants who are eager to remind you they have a combined 999,999 years executive experience in related areas look at what's possible and their advice (not FOIA-able!) is "Uh ... hmm ... uh ... huh. Wow, that sucks. I guess you're kinda screwed actually. Checkmate, amirite? But, maybe a little more automation on the margin might save some cash in the long-run, for the low, low software as a service subscription teaser rate of only fifty million per year, we would be happy to hook you guys up with our latest ..."
See, the big problems are lack of accountability, bad incentives, inappropriate authority, and broken rule of law, not talent. If you can assume the can opener of new authority, you don't need new positions or top talent.
The issue is that the while the President is supposed to do all these things, obviously he doesn't, and that's taken care of by staff, and the broad version of White House staff and OMB already have the capacity to do all the things you want a COO to do, they just don't have the authorities. They already arrange all the interagency and top-leader committee meetings to coordinate and work on issues of overlapping jurisdiction and deconflicting frictions and so forth.
If you are going to invent a new position with that kind of authority, and, I presume, some kind of immunity from our rogue judiciary, then my point is that 99.9% of the work is being done by the new authority, and only 0.1% by the position and the kind of person filling it. So you might as well say "The President .... " (meaning all the President's men) " ... should have the authority to fire anybody at will and reorganize the executive branch any way he wants at any time."
The prospect of entire Departments popping in and out of existence every time the there's a change in the party in control of the Presidency, and potentially immune from judicial oversight, raises the already too-high stakes of elections to the stratosphere.
"you reduce the likelihood that they will flail at problems by seizing additional powers."
Maybe, but not very compatible with the model that there is pent up demand to seize additional powers, and "never let a crisis go to waste" as the general strategy to seize them when the the opportunity presents itself. You are relying on the same people who are waiting for the next crisis to check off their wish lists to also make sure the next crisis doesn't happen.
That would require accountability for leaders when crises in their purview occur on their watch. It happens, but rarely, and even then, often just scapegoats. And actually, most of the time, that is when we turn to them most for crisis management. Fauci!
I'm not saying that anyone is intentionally trying to create a crisis as a kind of casus belli for more authority, but also, the motivation to maintain the kind of high capacity necessary to avoid crises is not exactly in evidence in most places in USG.
I think the chief auditor might be more important than the COO. If our auditors had been doing a better job up to 2008, perhaps they would have showed up to the post-crash congressional hearings with a list of things that various agencies should have done that were well within their power — perhaps avoiding some of the vast expansion of federal authority of the Dodd-Frank Act.
"State-capacity libertarianism rests on the theory that as you raise the effectiveness of government agencies at performing their missions, you reduce the likelihood that they will flail at problems by seizing additional powers. Incompetence, left unchecked, leads to ever-increasing infringements on individual rights."
This is being borne out now with the IRS in particular, which should in other respects be the most straightforward sub-department to 'run like a business' since it is the one of the few that must turn a profit.
"10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce." from Demming - yet isn't the whole list sort of an exhortation with implicit targets ... moving inevitably towards middle management CYA slogans?
Generally these14 points would be likely to lead to better performance in most office work - until a performance review comes up. Who gets raises, and promotions? That's the key issue for managers, including their own self interest in same.
For any static group, such continuation is likely comfortable, and agreeable - seems kind of feminine and more meeting oriented than metric measured.
"11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management."
Explicit rules against measuring revenue & costs seems wrong tho.
Peter Drucker is much better:
https://www.growthink.com/content/two-most-important-quotes-business
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it"
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
The huge reason gov't is much different than a business is, as you mention, the managers are mostly managing up.
CYA, risk aversion, and boot-licking (brown-nosing? ass-kissing? blue & gold kneepads?)
No real measure for when top decision makers make a lousy decision, except for one which gets known publicly and embarrasses the (fearless?) leader. Thus CYA all the time. But also claiming, always, that they are trying, like leaders, "to do the right thing".
Term Limits for Bureaucrats is a better change: 10 years of "public service", and you're out. Even "the best". Huge increase in simplicity, Inevitable influx of non-gov't people who have been exposed to other systems (Diversity!) so as to question whether or not it could be done better.
Conservatives & Libertarians blew it, linguistically, with "Public Sector" instead of "Government sector". It would be a lot easier to reduce gov't if all gov't services were labeled as such, and thee "Government Choice Theory". Government Schools, Government roads, Government parks, Government libraries, Government defenders for the public (?). Too many normal people confuse "Public" with Government.
"State-capacity libertarianism rests on the theory that as you raise the effectiveness of government agencies at performing their missions, you reduce the likelihood that they will flail at problems by seizing additional powers."
Thank you for clearly stating the bedrock the theory rests on. I think the bedrock is, unfortunately, itself false. I don't think that the leaders of agencies attempt to get extra power as a means to fulfill their duties, but rather seek to acquire power via their agencies' missions.
No government agency ever said "Actually, we totally have this problem nailed, we don't need all our budget." Instead they ever expand their programs, e.g. the FCC's "Obama Phone" program to subsidize poor people's phones, or indeed any of the over 85 federal transfer programs across 13+ agencies. The very notion that the primary goal of agency heads is fulfilling their mission with the acquisition of power being merely an unlooked for side effect is, well, very 5th grade civics text book.
Business leaders are exactly the same of course, but they do have the market to discipline them if they veer too far from running an efficient company. You can get power only insofar as you also fulfill your missions sufficiently. No such competition disciplines governments, at least not until they start conquering each other. What competition drives the COO/CA to improve agencies? What competition demonstrates just how much better the agencies could and should be? You have yet to address those concerns, and now I would like to add "Poor model of the goals and incentives of agency heads" to the list.
Sorry, Arnold. Reading this column
https://brownstone.org/articles/no-one-could-have-known/
I wonder about the differences in management out between private organizations and government bureaucracies. I also wonder why you prefer to entertain yourself with Tyler-type of vague ideas (yes, Tyler's thinking never amounts to developing a theory) rather than focusing directly on your senile President's Covid policies' collapse. You are assuming that elected politicians are interested in leading "good" bureaucracies but at least since 1961 --thanks to JFK and McNamara-- we know your country's bureaucracies have been managed poorly both out/in and up/down. Do you think there has some disconnection (in values, interests, or beliefs) between elected politicians and their appointed managers of those bureaucracies? For example, I think there was a huge disconnection in interests between Trump and Fauci&Co in the days between February 25, and March 16, 2020 (read
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-might-have-been-calm-protection-and-care/ ).
Dilbert's pointy-haired boss is a middle manager. Aren't middle managers also managing up? (Perhaps good middle managers are managing down so they don't have to manage up.)
"Compare the proposal to the status quo, not to some hypothetical nirvana."
A perfectly reasonable request. One the other hand, it's kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. The status quo tells you to shoot fish, but takes you to the shore of the whole ocean, and hands you rock salt shells. If you're lucky, maybe you even get to face the ocean, but don't bet on it. If you propose putting a bunch of the fish in a barrel, and using real ammunition, then of course your proposal is going to mean a lot more fish dinners by comparison to the status quo.
One thing I'd point out is that a COO with the authority to act without Presidential approval, but who can also be fired by the President at will, is basically in the position of a cabinet secretary. Cabinet secretaries and other top positions are often granted authorities directly by statute which don't mention any role for the President at all, which implicates a lot of debated legal mumbo jumbo regarding how independent they can be that we don't need to get into here.
Despite this theoretical independence, however, in actual practice everything has become incredibly centralized, Cabinet secretaries get their marching orders from the White House and then just execute. If any decision comes across their desk and they don't already know what the White House wants done, they put it on hold and ask. Why would the COO do any differently? And if they wouldn't, why have a new position at all, just have the current folks do it.
So, not really a criticism, but my assessment of your proposal is that the "new positions" piece is irrelevant and redundant (this includes the audit guy, because that's already happening too.) Yes, having someone with great management acumen and experience from the private sector might make some difference, though those kind of people would be really hard to recruit and incentivize.
Also, my claim is that, contra Cummings, most things involving USG's leadership deficiencies can be cured using people of ordinary executive skill and with a few exceptions there is very low marginal bang for the buck in going for top talent geniuses. It's rare when I look at some high-profile bad decision and identify the root cause as lack of smarts or knowhow on the part of the decision-maker.
One way we know this is because occasionally the government hires top consulting firms with access to all that talent and knowhow, and, in the cases when the exercise is not just some sham or kickback scheme, the whip-smart consultants who are eager to remind you they have a combined 999,999 years executive experience in related areas look at what's possible and their advice (not FOIA-able!) is "Uh ... hmm ... uh ... huh. Wow, that sucks. I guess you're kinda screwed actually. Checkmate, amirite? But, maybe a little more automation on the margin might save some cash in the long-run, for the low, low software as a service subscription teaser rate of only fifty million per year, we would be happy to hook you guys up with our latest ..."
See, the big problems are lack of accountability, bad incentives, inappropriate authority, and broken rule of law, not talent. If you can assume the can opener of new authority, you don't need new positions or top talent.
The issue is that the while the President is supposed to do all these things, obviously he doesn't, and that's taken care of by staff, and the broad version of White House staff and OMB already have the capacity to do all the things you want a COO to do, they just don't have the authorities. They already arrange all the interagency and top-leader committee meetings to coordinate and work on issues of overlapping jurisdiction and deconflicting frictions and so forth.
If you are going to invent a new position with that kind of authority, and, I presume, some kind of immunity from our rogue judiciary, then my point is that 99.9% of the work is being done by the new authority, and only 0.1% by the position and the kind of person filling it. So you might as well say "The President .... " (meaning all the President's men) " ... should have the authority to fire anybody at will and reorganize the executive branch any way he wants at any time."
The prospect of entire Departments popping in and out of existence every time the there's a change in the party in control of the Presidency, and potentially immune from judicial oversight, raises the already too-high stakes of elections to the stratosphere.
"you reduce the likelihood that they will flail at problems by seizing additional powers."
Maybe, but not very compatible with the model that there is pent up demand to seize additional powers, and "never let a crisis go to waste" as the general strategy to seize them when the the opportunity presents itself. You are relying on the same people who are waiting for the next crisis to check off their wish lists to also make sure the next crisis doesn't happen.
That would require accountability for leaders when crises in their purview occur on their watch. It happens, but rarely, and even then, often just scapegoats. And actually, most of the time, that is when we turn to them most for crisis management. Fauci!
I'm not saying that anyone is intentionally trying to create a crisis as a kind of casus belli for more authority, but also, the motivation to maintain the kind of high capacity necessary to avoid crises is not exactly in evidence in most places in USG.
I think the chief auditor might be more important than the COO. If our auditors had been doing a better job up to 2008, perhaps they would have showed up to the post-crash congressional hearings with a list of things that various agencies should have done that were well within their power — perhaps avoiding some of the vast expansion of federal authority of the Dodd-Frank Act.
"State-capacity libertarianism rests on the theory that as you raise the effectiveness of government agencies at performing their missions, you reduce the likelihood that they will flail at problems by seizing additional powers. Incompetence, left unchecked, leads to ever-increasing infringements on individual rights."
This is being borne out now with the IRS in particular, which should in other respects be the most straightforward sub-department to 'run like a business' since it is the one of the few that must turn a profit.