Why Government Is Never The Answer

I had an interesting conversation with my boss. I want to stress that I respect and honor a boss who has been very good to me. In the conversation I understand the limitations of government and why it is incapable of ever being reformed or accomplishing much.

The actual job of any government is to serve the people. All other tasks are secondary. The government serves the people most efficiently by using its human capital wisely.  Take employees and place them in tasks most suited to their strengths.

In my tenure some of the personnel moves are head scratchers. A key job of supervision is leadership and in my area leadership is lacking severely. The managerial selections are made through a series of cronyism and political intrigue. The notion of picking effective leaders and people with vision is an afterthought.

Management is forever in a series of never ending meetings. The meetings don't accomplish much and the managerial time is reduced by mounds of paperwork. Bad ideas are championed and an Amen chorus tries to rationalize failed ideas.

Unfortunately, the Amen chorus picks winners and losers and most frequently these are arbitrary whims. Conformity and accepting bad ideas is the model rather than transparency and innovation. A colleague was criticized for his independence. In his case the people calling the shots were morons and his objections were prudent.

The first line supervisor should be tasked with building a successful team. The supervisor should have strong leadership skills and be a problem solver. Ironically the best at getting productivity from employees who were written off was one supervisor who was demoted and a temp.

In the private sector there is accountability for failure and bad ideas. The government has no accountability
and has zero ability to remedy failures. Lois Lerner types who abuse their authority are seldom ever punished. If the government actually gets anything done it is likely due to the dedication of the street level worker who is dedicated to public service.