|
Challenging a risk averse public
sector - interview with Tom Schneider
In Government, January
- February 2000
pp.15 & 17
According to Tom
Schneider, Corrs Schneider, Melbourne, in the most successful,
high performing organisations there is a shared understanding
of the business, the customers, the competitors and
the economics of the business. He says, "everybody
is trained on that front".
Tom Schneider observes
"there's a strongly held perception … that
when people in government do things with risk that don't
prove to be successful, they are punished for it very
directly and in a very public way".
By contrast, he says
private sector managers have a sense of the market expecting
them to introduce change or be punished, particularly
with the move to more online business.
In the United States,
smaller departments and agencies are seriously rethinking
what business they are in, who their customers are and
what they ought to be accomplishing.
"It's clear in
my mind that the similarities between the situation
facing leaders and managers in Australia and US are
larger than the differences," said management consultant
Tom Schneider. Schneider works with managers in both
countries (in Australia through Corrs Schneider, Melbourne).
"Partly it has
to do with the inbred resistance within organisations
to resist change, and partly with insulation from market
place pressures that most government departments and
agencies have, and also partly it has to do with the
public treatment of the political process," Schneider
said.
"There's a strongly
held perception, reinforced by experience, that when
people in government do things with risk that don't
prove to be successful, they are punished for it very
directly and in a very public way - in front of a Senate
committee or the front pages of the newspapers.
"In the private
sector, mistakes that happen usually are dealt with
internally and if there are huge mistakes then they
are dealt with in the market. There are chief executives
and general managers that get fired but it tends to
be a different process than is perceived to occur in
the public sector - they're on the front page of the
newspaper versus the front page of the business section.
"The stock market
tends to understand that there's risk involved and they
look at the bigger picture whereas in the government
the humiliation factor tends to act as a major deterrent.
What tends to happen is that the people who control
the process, the legislators, come in and overlay a
whole set of different rules.
"There is a strong
perception in the public sector (in and outside Australia),
that they can't take the risks that come from a flattening
of the organisation and eliminating rules. They depend
on having the bureaucracy, with all the checks and balances,
which the private sector is continually eliminating.
"Private sector
managers have a sense of the market place expecting
them to introduce change or be punished, particularly
with the move towards more online services.
Change - private
versus public sector
"One area of
change is the management style - loose/tight. In time,
in most successful, high performing organisations there
is a shared understanding of the business, the customers,
the competitors, the economics of the business - everybody
is trained on that front."
This approach relies
on a clearly defined sense of what the organisation
is all about - its values, its principles, what it stands
for and what it believes in. It involves very clearly
defined business objectives, supported by a strong set
of measures which are freely available to everybody
at all times. People can see where they are trying to
go, they understand what they can do to make a difference
and they understand what they have to accomplish, Schneider
explained.
The defining process
goes on even in service organisations, such as health
care systems - private, public or not for profit.
"Governments
have to analyse what they do, identify their customers
and the services they are expecting. For the most part
government does not spend a lot of time doing just that.
They don't clearly define their starting point so that
people understand what they have to do and how they
can effect the outcomes of the business.
"In such an organisation,
you can delegate an enormous amount of authority, responsibility
and discretion to people and you let the objectives,
the values and principles act as the control mechanisms.
You can cut people loose to use their initiative and
figure out how best to do the job.
Is this happening
in the public sector?
The new Federal Public
Service Act was intended to produce a loose/tight management
structure for the public sector - to clarify objectives
and values and let people figure out how best to get
there.
There is a serious
tension within the body politic. They want a government
which is highly responsive, which is highly efficient,
which uses its resources well and helps people solve
problems but nobody is very comfortable giving people
in the government the discretion and freedom that they
give to managers in the private sector.
Information
is a tool, not an end
In the US anything
except huge buys are to be conducted over the net. Most
normal purchasing will be online.
"Information
has always been a source of power and technology democratises
it by making it available to a much broader range of
people. It allows you decentralise authority and to
decentralise decision making,' said Schneider.
"You can push
it down to the person who is closest to the consumer
or the person who is using the government service. It
really starts to change how management communicates
with people.
"The ACTU, by
making personal computers available to all of its members
over the next couple of years, will allow the union
to communicate with all its members at the touch of
a button.
"Increasingly,
governments realise that providing information allows
people to solve problems outside the organisation, and
it allows their customers to interact with them. It
enables say someone on welfare support to immediately
access the service and find out what is going on elsewhere
in the government. The net becomes an important part
of being able to provide this service to people.
"If people are
unfamiliar with online services, the government needs
to make it more accessible for them. It also involves
training and developing public servants so that they
can use the service.
"Decentralisation
allows government to provide a very different sort of
service to people, but it would be difficult to manage
such an organisation in a typical command and control
bureaucratic model, it just doesn't work. Information
is merely a tool. It is not an end in itself.
Change - the
US experience
In US public sector
there is a large amount of change taking place that
has barely broken the surface as compared with the private
sector, especially with direct online purchasing.
Some smaller departments
and agencies are seriously rethinking what business
they are in, who their customers are and what they ought
to he accomplishing. The US Federal Conciliation and
Arbitration Service is a group of less than 400 people
who are responsible for helping labour and management
work through conflicts. After some 40 years of operation,
the group reassessed their direction, their goals and
their organisation.
"Already they
have changed how they are organised. They are training
people with a broader set of skills, they laid out clear
expectations for people within the agency and they flattened
out the organisation. They ended by giving people at
the front line a lot more discretion and authority as
to how they would manage and work.
"The process
has taken several years and they are now much more mature
and much more revitalised and private sector clients
who use the service are now speaking more highly of
it than in previous times.
Regardless of the
changes taking place at election times, conservatives
and reformers agree that the public sector always has
the core responsibility of delivering services in the
most efficient and effective way.
Profile
Tom Schneider
Tom Schneider is President and CEO of the United States'
leading organisational and employment consultancy, Restructuring
Associates Inc. He has more than 20 years experience
advising companies with highly unionised workforces
in the US and Canada, including several Fortune 200
companies, on corporate strategic planning, organisational
and labour issues, employee participation and ownership
programs and the design of high performance, innovative
organisations.
Tom is experienced
assisting government and public sector employers. He
advised the Secretary of a major US Government Department
on the management of substantial labour force reductions
and the restructuring of operations to reduce costs
and improve performance and change mission.
Tom received his
A.B. magna cum laude with the highest honours from Harvard
University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He
also has a D.Phil in industrial and organisational sociology
from Oxford University. He speaks and is published widely
on the issues of union-management relationships and
the development of high performance workplaces.
 Top
|
