Governement Operations as Professional Service Organizations

post # 407 — July 20, 2007 — a Managing, Strategy post

Here’s a reader question:

I work for a government department that has just re-organised into 30 unwieldy 30 directorates (on the recommendation of a famous consulting firm.)

I have been asked to develop an operating model that might help senior management plan for the deployment of the professional human resource at their disposal.

Our working assumption is that we have something to learn from the PSF model (as set out broadly in your book “Managing the Professional Service Firm”) but our project is veering towards a model based on time recording (a sort of “billable time” analogue) relating individuals’ efforts to one or other of the broad strategic objectives that our management board has designated as a priority.

I’d be interested to know whether you believe the material in your book is, in principle, adaptable for a government department where the drivers are in many ways very different. Actual profitability is not one, for example, but cost effectiveness and customer experience certainly are.

Other differences are that we have a much more static career structure where promotion and performance pay are often less important than pride, respect and “public service” as individual motivators.

Nor do we really have the types of leaders that seem to be the prerequisite for the working of your model. By and large they are not inspirational or dynamic strategic leaders, but are, more often than not, managers because they happen to have been in the department a while or have reached a certain level of seniority.

Hence, I’m sceptical about the notion that we can solve our problem of improving our effectiveness by developing another administrative layer of resource management. (I’ve tried unsuccessfully quoting chunks to them of your chapter on how managers really add value.)

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David replies: I have always had difficulty with the notion that there is such a thing as one unique “PSF model,” if that is taken to mean one clear set of policies, practices, processes, structures and attitudes.

Yes, I did try to offer some generalizations and insights that I hoped (and have proven to be) broadly applicable, but there is no one recipe that fits all situations.

I think the closest parallel I’ve seen to the government situation is the running of in-house service departments inside large for-profit corporations. They face similar issues that there is a more limited career path, they are often not profit-driven, and their mission is often less clear. If I were you, looking for comparable situations, I’d look at companies that have in-house legal departments, real estate or property departments, shared-service accounting departments, etc.

Using the for-profit model will, I think, be completely misleading. Even in the for-profit sector, some of the underlying assumptions that the traditional model was built on (and are described in my book) are proving to be untrue in the modern world.

Take, for example, a topic of promotion opportunities. In the traditional model I described, it was assumed that the vast majority of people hired at junior levels would want to become “partners”, and would be willing to work very hard toward that as a primary goal. As a counterpart, it was assumed that the organization wanted a high percentage to become partners, because what the organization provided to its market was the fully rounded, fully developed professional.

You point out that this is not necessarily the case in government: not everyone has the dynamism to want to move up, and top management doesn’t necessarily want them to.

Here’s my point: that’s actually the direction that many private practice firms are going in: Firms are promoting a smaller and smaller percentage of people to partners, because they can show more “profits per partner” by keeping partner numbers small. For these and many other cultural reasons, fewer and fewer younger people feel that it is worthwhile or sensible to compete in the “tournament” to become partner.

I would agree with two other points you make. The solution is absolutely not about structures (reorganizing) or systems (time-keeping.) You get better efficiency, quality, morale and everything else by having managers in place who now how to manage. Without them, the rest is truly irrelevant.

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Living by the Principles

post # 402 — July 10, 2007 — a Managing, Strategy post

Here’s another question I received by email:

“I work for a consulting company (50 people) and have been in the business 10 years. Recently our partners rolled out a list of “guiding principles” for the company. You talk a lot about setting minimum standards of behavior and strict adherence to group values. So I tried to create a way whereby we could measure if we were living by these principles.

I suggested to the partners that we create a checklist whereby the employees can rate the partners on how well we think they are living up to the standards. This received a lukewarm response – “We’ll think about it”.

For reference, here are our “guiding principles” (by the way, it seems almost impossible for any one human to meet them all):

Trust

We believe that trust is fundamental to success in our business, which means we must be transparent, reliable, accepting and congruent. We must do what we’ve said we’ll do, we must be clear in our expectations and opinions, be accepting of mistakes and limitations of others, and “walk our talk”. We must also be sincere, hear and acknowledge others, be candid and straight, and demonstrate integrity and clarity with boundaries.

Accountability

We believe that individuals are the source of who they are, how they feel, behave and perform. We can choose to be a player and not a victim, and can lead with head and heart. We recognize that we can choose to be inspiring, self-motivated and determined. We take on accountabilities out of creative cause, not for praise or credit, or out of burden, blame or guilt.

Perspective

We seek out perspective because we don’t believe in “right” answers, just better interventions. This requires us to be thoughtful, self aware, humble and low ego. But we are not afraid to have a point of view on what we believe can work better.

Performance

We judge performance by what is achieved, but in the meantime we assume positive intent. We believe in courage and energy, look for the positive and are future focused. We recognise that performance is situational and some achievements need to be judged over longer time periods. We set high standards, welcome challenge and are honest and transparent about our own performance.

Learning

We are aware of our interactions with the world and the opportunity to learn from our successes and failures. We are comfortable with ambiguity and use an enabling leadership style that allows people to experiment and learn. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We believe upsets are setups for learning.

Externally Open

We are externally curious and understand the value of seeing and acting beyond ourselves. We value the thoughts and suggestions of others and invite them into all our conversations. We actively encourage collaboration and interdependency.

Human

We believe in people. We are supportive, and show empathy and compassion to see the potential in everyone. We understand the importance of meaning at a personal level, and how active appreciation can counteract fear. We believe we engage with the whole of a person, not just their work persona and are sensitive to cultural diversity. We encourage health and life balance. We believe businesses should do good when they’re doing great.

David, what do you think about such things? If we create these great aspirations but don’t hold people accountable what good are they? (Ironically, you’ll note that one of the guiding principles is “accountability.”)

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The questioner has answered his or her own questions, right? If it’s humanly impossible to live up to the standards, what do the partners mean to convey when they pronounce them? What is achieved by stating your commitments to the unachievable? And if you’re not willing to be evaluated on what you say you stand for, what do people think you mean?

Note that I don’t think it “immoral” to enunciate principles you’re not prepared to be accountable for — I just think you’re fooling yourself as to the beneficial impact of preaching them. My experience says it’s even worse than neutral: you train people to see that you cannot be depended upon to act according to what you advocate, and they end up either trusting you less or just ignoring what you preach.

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What do the rest of you think? Does all this mean that firms shouldn’t even try to enunciate their principles? Should they survey everyone each year and publish the results? Internally? Externally? How many firms — good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, actually do that?

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