Re: Good Heavens! Did I say that?

[Ray E. Harrell]

My Dad used to say that when the public was complaining he always defended his teachers and then set about to try and fix it if the problem was real.  He said and I agree, that the public needs to feel 1. that their hired experts are really that, and can be trusted and 2. that the public is being heard. This protect your excuse (remember the line "everyone has one") instead of doing your job in all of its facets is a real problem.   Recently the IRS has been proving that pressure and courses in civility can go a long way towards making something that is inherently threatening, but necessary, palatable.    You can either be blunt or you can listen and in a civilized fashion set limits on what is possible given the fact that no one truly fits the rules.   A good course in civil conduct in school with practice sessions does work.  It did for us on the reservation when we knew that the cavalry was always a possibility as shown in the local movie every Saturday. So for me it gets back down to an issue of synergy.  The job isn't to be found just in the rules of process.   When teaching the job one should be sure to include all of the elements that dealing with the public entails, including the retail process element (the public is not always right but you need to remember that they will buy your product tomorrow if you are smart about it) that makes so many businessmen mad when trying to get an answer. After that it would help if Congress and the various parliaments would grow up as well.  I've never seen such silly gamesmanship as the English and Canadian soap operas that they call governmental debate.   Maybe it would help if everyone was required to watch the movie the Ideal Husband for about 20 times straight just to burn the idiocy out of their minds.  At least in the movie there is no doubt that it is all elite play.    It is what American conservatives long for instead of opera and what they believe the English substituted for operatic performance.  (only now Covent Garden is throughly disappointing them by being exceptional at what it does.  It is very interesting that the American GM ran home just when he started talking about "private" sponsors for the British opera house.)     Remember Newt Gingrich's college course in "World Civilizations"?     They only problem is most of you weren't included in his list and neither was I. So Ed, I certainly would never mistake you for an unreasonable fellow, like myself, who couldn't work within the government, again like myself, although I mistrust your mistrust of creative action.   Like Poe's Tar and Feathere I think there is a need for regularly turning everything upside down just to gain a little objectivity.   We call it contrary action.    To clean house while maintaining balance and stability for the young and the very old.   Everyone else is another matter entirely. Ray Evans Harrell Edward R Weick wrote: In a posting a few days ago I commented on accountability in the public service.  I must have been in a very grumpy mood because I made public servants - all public servants - look like ciphers who are expected to do nothing but follow rules that have been laid down for them.  The better they follow these rules, the better their accountability etc.  I even used Adolph Eichmann as an example, perhaps extreme, of this kind of thing. On reflection, what I did was what I've sometimes accused others of doing.  I over-generalized, and did not allow that there are many different kinds of public servants doing many different kinds of jobs.  Many of these jobs do require strict adherence to the rules of accountability.  Others concern modifying the rules themselves in an effort to make the system function better.  Still others concern the premises and policies on which the rules are based.  Together, all of these various lines of work bear on the accountability of the public services to the public and the public's political representatives. What the public service does, and how it is organized, depends on the policies and laws which have been implemented in response to problems which politicians perceive to exist in society.  That the public service does not, at times, appear to be doing something useful is not so much a sign of incompetence on the part of public servants as a signal that the policies and laws are outmoded or flawed or perhaps just plain wrong.  In a democracy, policies are responses to public perceptions and pressures.  People's perceptions are quite often misconceived, but if they are widely held, politicians will respond and even use them to get themselves elected.  (I hear a collective "You don't say!" at this point.) The foregoing is not an apology to public servants, though it is an admission that I was a little harsh on them.  Because they work for large organizations which can only speak from the top, they are easy to kick around.  And yes, they do try to keep their asses covered, preserve turf and shift blame, but that is part of surviving in any large organization. Ed Weick (613) 728-4630 Visit my website: http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636