Bureaucracy Truisms

Janet's list of bureaucracy truisms.

1. Never blame conspiracy when incompetence will do.
2. A leader who has achieved perfect obedience will never see the group exceed her intelligence.
3. Those in charge are no smarter than you or I.
4. Competency is rendered powerless in an incompetent structure.
5. The primary goal of government is to avoid embarrassment. The primary goal of bureaucracy is to sustain itself.
6. In a culture of scarcity, hoarding will occur.
7. The gears of bureaucracy grind slowly.
8. Fear of embarrassment hinders change.
9. In an incompetent structure, embarrassment is inevitable.
10. Incompetent structures transcend governments

The public service here in Alberta is so lean, so hard working, so invisible to the average citizen. It has sustained significant cuts to it's work force and maintained services in the face of growing demand. Yet public perception is decades behind the reality. Government is seen as too big, too bulky, too slow, unresponsive. Why is this?

Obama suggests a few reasons in his book, "The Audacity of Hope". "I am convinced -- although I have no statisical evidence to back it up -- that antitax, antigovernment, antiunion sentiments grow anytime people find themselves standing in line at a government office with only one window open and three or four workers chatting among themselves in full view." (p. 73) and "Just as too many corporate managers, shielded from competition, had stopped delivering value, too many government bureaucracies had stopped asking whether their shareholders (the American taxpayer) and their consumers (the users of government services) were getting their money's worth." (p. 185)

I like also Jim Diers' perspective in his book, Neighbor Power. "Voters are reluctant to approve additional resources because they feel a sense of alienation from their government at all levels...This deep sense of alienation is often misdiagnosed as apathy...This analysis, I believe, blames the victim. Citizens don't vote because they have seen little evidence that their votes matter...I quickly realized that public officials felt as powerless to address these issues as did the citizens." (p. 18-27)

So here we have an endless catch-22 (or catch-44). Citizens won't spend more if they don't see value. Politicians won't approve more without public backing. The public service can't offer more as they are constrained in the bureacracy they are in. The bureacuracy can't change in a culture of scarcity.

I refuse to end here because I believe that improvement comes from positive action. The way out is for each stakeholder; citizen, politician, public worker and bureaucracy, to take inventory of what is in their power to do towards positive change. Then each must build trust towards the other toward our common goals.

Obama's administration has matured in it's first year, and has collected it's share of detractors. The complaint that bothers me most is those who criticize Obama for not doing enough to bring the nation out of  financial crisis. Those who followed Obama's campaign and the hope he gave the nation should remember that he never claimed any superhuman power. A nation must save itself. The hope comes from everyone pulling together. "This nation's founders, who somehow rose above petty ambitions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation unfurling across a continent. And those ... who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the faceless men and women, slaves and soldiers and sailors and butchers, constructing lives for themselves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams.

It is this process I wish to be a part of." (p. 427)

Getting the record in - and managed - through Getting Things Done (GTD)

Getting Things Done (GTD), developed by David Allen, is a personal management system designed to clear your mind, focus on what is most important, and get things done. My big aha moment was Allen's approach to the masses of information we receive in a day. Much of it is FYI or for reading/reference later. It is important to separate this stuff from actionable items. And Allen has a great method of organizing and managing those actionable items.




What if you were to adopt GTD; what would be the impact on your records system? First of all, the great majority of incoming information won't hit the records system at all. All that great reading/reference will be organized in a personal management system and disposed of if not referenced regularly. This leaves the smaller volume of actionable items to be managed and controlled. All of a sudden, records become manageable again, in this ballooning information age.

Allen provides only sketchy suggestions on how to organize records. He does suggest a Dumpster Day to purge unneeded stuff (p. 102). As long as he is referring to the reference collections, my Records and Information (RIM) hackles aren't raised. What warms my cockles is his description of an organized office, which those of us in the industry will quickly recognize, "I especially noice this when I walk around organizations where in-baskets are either nonexistent, or overflowing and obviously long unprocessed. These cultures usually suffer from serious 'interruptitis' because they can't trust putting communications in to the system. Wher cultures do have solid systems, down through the level of paper, the clarity is palpable. It's hardly even a counscious concern, and everyone's attention is more focused" (p. 234).

The principles outlined in GTD highlight the criticality of personal management in the successful implementation of any records system. If a corporation structures iteslf well and promotes a culture of personal organization, their information systems will serve them well and serve them long.

Decline of Paper and the Records Manager

I've been thinking how technological advances such as photography, the internal combustion engine, television, and portable electronic devices such as the iPad and MP3 forced radical change to affected  sectors (artists, draft horses, radio and paper publishing).

The sectors mentioned above have faced massive change. They had to adjust their purpose in order to survive. Radio lives alongside it's more technologically advanced cousins, carving out a niche for itself. We still see draft horses...much reduced in population...in parades. An "artist" today is another beast entirely; giving over reality to the camera and redefining itself. We will see a radical change to the print industry in my lifetime, thanks to the new portable devices. But books will remain as an ornament, a novelty. Newspapers will shrink; expanded content will have to be referenced online.

So what does this mean for the profession of Records Management? Are the skills honed for paper transferrable to the information world? Are we true Information Managers, ready to tackle a virtual world of information? I worry that there is so much focus in my industry on security and protection; cautionary tales about the new technologies. We must not forget that our primary task is to help our business find what they need, when they need it. Can we blame business if they question our value when there is no apparent intervention of the Records Manager to access their information? Could we marginalize our own profession by presenting ourselves as a barrier rather than a support to daily business?

The skills I see as being replaced or made obsolete by the new technologies include packaging by file, indexing and classification, and sorting. Perhaps I will expand on these later.

The skills the information world will continue to demand include disposition (regular disposals to extend the life of our assets, remove clutter, and reduce risk). An emerging support is to assist users in effective self indexing and searching. We will be needed during the transition to the "paperless" office, to help businesses define their information assets.

The lesson from radical change is that we must be flexible as a profession, take note of emerging needs, and be prepared to redefine ourselves to the new world.

If you don't understand, blame the professor!

I've always read more than my peers - both in volume and in content. I won't pass up a good book, whether it's the latest best seller or something a little deeper. As I became older and more confident, I took on some scholarly articles, and suddenly felt stupid. Some of that stuff took four or five readings to divine the meaning. Then I read some well-written articles and books on esoteric topics, and I had my aha! moment. It wasn't my competence in question; it was the talent of the author!
Here are some well-written books that cover the deep stuff without putting you to sleep:
Education of a Wandering Man
by Louis L'Amour - he manages to slide in a lifetime reading list.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleby Stephen Covey - it took me over a year to finish - not because it is a heavy book as some have claimed - but because the book demands life change. It's one of those books I wish I had read in my twenties. That and Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. I know this book is important because I keep referring back to it when I have my Big Ideas.

One of Betty Friedan's autobiographies, Life So Far: A Memoir I keep going back to her book, too. She keenly observes the broad reach of societal change and targets the tickly spots. A true prophetess of our generation. This is only one of Betty's autobiographies, because like the energizer bunny, she keeps on going! I intend to re-read her section on health and excercise as I graduate through to my senior years. Also in this category are the first two books by Malcolm Gladwell.

Modern prophets are people who make a prediction - sometimes at odds with popular opinion - that also happen to come true. I sit up and take notice of these people. What is it that they see that we miss? The authors of the generational books, Strauss and Howe, are also frequently, broadly, right.

Children and Fairy Tale Monsters

I was sorting through my favorite quotes tonight, and this one floated to the top:

"Fairy tales don't teach children that monsters exist. Children already know that monsters exist. Fairy tales teach children that monsters can be killed" - G K. Chesterton

I am reminded of the hours spent reading stories of the brothers Grimm , Hans Christian Anderson and Aesop . I remember well my budding political awakening as I realized that Aesop's moral tales could reverse themselves depending on circumstance. At twelve, I realized I was reading a court advisor! I'd think we had done our children a disfavor by sanitizing these old tales; with poisoned apples, imprisonments and beheaded trolls, but then I realized we now have video action games that do the same thing.

I think also of what I've seen in my years as a Sunday School teacher, as toddlers mature to school age. The little children are not quite sure about the shadows behind the puppet. Is it real or not? But by about four or five, the children are well in on the joke and readily approach mascots, puppets, santas, clowns, and other imaginary monsters we foist on our children for entertainment.

Don't be fooled, our children are sophisticated social beings. They know a tall tale when they hear one. The longevity of our tall tales through the ages suggests that our children need to hear them, if only to suggest, by proxy, that the scary adult world can be navigated with wit and spunk.

Canada Understanding Itself

I read with dismay our government's plan to cancel the long census this coming year. I was one of the lucky participants of the long census four years ago. Now, Maxime Bernier, Conservative MP, calls it "invasive". Maybe so. But it is invasive and anonymous.

My deep concern is if the government is not interested in the shape and trends of it's own people, how can it govern intelligently? Good, solid, hard-core facts are needed to make solid decisions.

To get a handle on the trends on our society, there needs to be some consistency in the questions asked from year to year. I read with interest StatCanada's report on marriage. Divorce rates are down, a reversal of a long trend and largely held belief that divorces continue to rise. The report suggests that as couples wait later to marry, they have a better chance of success. That's an important bit of information, and policymakers should sit up and take notice. I don't want an inept government chasing fading issues. I want my government to be current, timely, and on the ball.

Another example of our silent nation is a dearth of information on our food supply. Erik Millstone's The Atlas of Food: Who Eats What, Where, and Why has a wealth of information from around the world including the UK and the United States. Canada, by comparison, is bare. Why? I checked the references and bibliography in Erik's book , and Canada either doesn't collect or won't release aggregate information on our food. Again, as a nation, are we deliberately blind?

There are reports that Canada is weathering this world-wide economic storm relatively intact. That's a cosy thought, and it will help me stay warm as I wrap myself in my flag this winter. But if I were a policymaker, I'd like to know why. Is there more than spunk and grit involved in our relative success? Knowing why we are doing so well can help our government know when they can step in to help, and when they should get out of the way.

Getting in to the zone on Whyte

I'm back from two days of painting on Whyte Avenue, as a participant of the Art Walk. I painted, painted, and painted some more. Interested passers-by asked me about my technique. I handed out all my business cards. The last time I was there was thirteen years ago...would you believe it?




For two days I flowed in the zone, so eloquently described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (P.S.) . I immersed myself in the moment, the images, the brush, the behavior of the paint. The result is I have one commission completed, and another more than three quarters done. Oddly I was barely hungry while in the zone, though I did take breaks to eat and drink.

Two days later, I am still mellowed out from the experience. Boy, if I could design my workaday to live in the zone, that would be something. A life of hard, enjoyable work, reminds me of the hard working centenarians of Sardinia.