This writer is making his way through Ray Dalio’s Principles: Life and Work,[1] a book
that has two lists of principles that writer believes are crucial in living a
productive life and in running a successful business. The book will be the subject of future
postings – while some of its language is questionable, a lot of its content is
congruent with various basic points this blog promotes. But for this posting, the gist of some of that
book’s principles is relevant.
While government is not a business
and many of its services do not lend themselves to “metrics,” as are emphasized
by Dalio, it is still an organized entity designed to accomplish various goals
and ends as are businesses. It also does
not seek profits while, many argue, seeking profits is the ultimate goal of
businesses or, at least, a very important one.
Of interest to civics classes would
be how much can government structures and processes resemble business
structures and processes. Surely,
ostensibly governments and businesses of any size share certain concerns. But there is one area in which a wide gulf
exists and that, in terms of the federal government and state governments, is
the ability to rely on organizational history or memory especially among those
officials who hold the top positions.
Why?
Because every four or eight years the top management changes. This by its very nature will and is very
disruptive – it doesn’t totally eliminate historical factors, but it does limit
them.
Of course, top management does not represent
a total change in personnel. Just on the
civilian side of the federal government – excluding the Postal Service – there
are two million employees. On top of
that, there is the military – nearly half a million. That’s lot of people and they, for the most
part, hold on to their jobs from one administration to another.
They do have history and historical
memory. That memory affects, for good or
bad, the performance of all those departments and agencies as they accommodate
a new set of bosses, but not to the degree they function in the private sector. In successful businesses, leadership can be
in place for decades.
In the case of the business Dalio
ran, he was in the position of top executive through a long train of events. Those events had effects both in terms of
that business’s internal developments and external issues as well. As an investment firm, national issues had
profound effects on how that business was run.
So, when a new administration takes
over, a large challenge for the newbies is to take hold of that work force,
that bureaucracy, and get stuff done.
That has been the subject of such concern that recent Congresses have passed
legislation to help new administrations during the transition period. But before getting into those accommodations,
more historical context needs to be pointed out.
It used to be that the term for the
presidency began on March 4th, not the current date, January 20th. In 1933 the nation was in the thick of a
global depression – the Great Depression.
In the weeks between Franklin Roosevelt’s election in early November
1932 and inauguration day, economic conditions drastically worsened and the
government, in between presidents and political parties, could not effectively
react.
The old bosses were leaving, and the
newer ones were yet to take power. After
FDR took over, the move was on to push up the inauguration date to what it is
today. But this added to the challenge
of sufficiently preparing the management team to put in place the policies the new
president sought to enact or carry out.
The federal government, as the above
workforce numbers indicate, is into a lot of things, a lot of services. For the most part, these services reflect
complex needs and complex policies. In
short, it is hard to run a government. Michael
Lewis provides a telling account of this recurring organizational
challenge.
He writes:
Most of the big problems inside the
U.S. government were of the practical management sort and had nothing to do
with political ideology. A mundane but
important example was how hard it was for any government agency to hire new
people. Some agencies couldn’t hire
anyone without sixty different people signing off on him [or her]. The George W. Bush administration had begun to
attack that particular problem. The
Obama administration, instead of running with work done during the Bush years,
had simply started all over again.[2]
Now multiply this relatively simple concern across all the
management responsibilities an organization – the federal government – must
address.
Lewis, relying
on the work of Max Stier, goes on to describe Congress’s attempt to help in
these matters. It, through law, provides
the major parties’ candidates for the presidency, along with relevant resources,
free office space to house staffs that can begin addressing transition problems
their candidate will face if he/she wins the election.
Stier points out that there is among
these candidates a reluctance to be too visible in any efforts their staffs
exert in these matters from fear that they will be viewed as assuming success
in the election – an unattractive image.
Congressional action here provides cover for those people’s concerns. By both sides being given those resources, they
are not viewed as initiating this preparatory work.
Action by
Congress in 2011-12 also allows a new President-elect to put in place people
selected for new presidential appointments by reducing the total number of
named individuals that need to secure Senate confirmation. That number has been lowered from 1,400 to
1,200. Some argue, Stier being one, this
is still too many positions needing confirmation.
Finally, Congress in 2015 legislated
various steps outgoing presidents needed to perform to assist new
administration personnel. These
Congressional moves demonstrate the extent lawmakers saw these problems being
of importance.[3] Given how hard it is to get the sufficient
numbers of congresspeople to pass legislation, here are three successful
efforts aimed at this one concern.
Lewis’ book is
meant to provide a sort of a report card on how well the last transition –
between Obama and Trump – was in terms of personnel choices, training new
government workers, and new personnel understandings of the overall charges a department,
agency, or office has. Future postings
will reflect on that report and how it provides insights into this general
problem area.
