Peter Drucker's "Deadly Sins in public administration"

Management books sell like hot cakes – their stacked titles at airport and High street bookshops appealing to your inner cowboy spirit beating off the enemy to achieve success and admiration.

“Management of change” used to be particularly popular – with the various steps for undermining resistance and achieving catalysing coalitions identified with exclamation marks. I should know because this Annotated Bibliography for change agents has been part of my In Transit – notes on good governance since 1999

But managing change in the public sector is another matter….it just doesn’t seem to be sexy…But why is this? There are actually more management positions in the public sector than in the private – whether as Directors or policy makers on both the political and official sides of what is a dual system. So that translates into more potential readers if not buyers than in a tightly hierarchical private company where the focus is so often the boss. Are publishers that myopic or stupid?

Or do we snap up the management book in an imaginative flight of fantasy – to create a magic world in which we are the respected leader and people jump to our wisdom??

The real reason for the paucity of books on reform of public services in the bookshops, I suspect, is caught by what the man who invented modern management said in 1980 about “the deadly sins in public administration”. That was Peter Drucker and the sins were –

• giving lofty (unspecified) objectives without clear targets which could be measured, appraised and judged

• doing several things at once without establishing, and sticking to, priorities

• believing that "fat is beautiful" ie that abundance not competence gets things done

• being dogmatic, not experimental

• failing to learn from experience

• assuming immortality and being unwilling to abandon pointless programmes

Some people read management books to help them become better managers but I suspect that those are a small minority and that the main reason these books fly off the shelves is for the good feeling of vicarious success they give their readers. It’s like a detective story – everyone likes to see the mystery explained…

Whereas books on public management reform simply bore on about the problems…..and publishers are not stupid – they know that the public prefers more uplifting stuff. And that’s surely why Reinventing Government was, in 1992, the first (and still only) best-seller of that genre. Like “In Search of Excellence” of a decade earlier, it gave us a winning formula

And I suspect that’s why Penguin publishers were willing to take a risk in 2015 and publish no fewer than two books on public management reform - Michael Barber’s How to Run a Government so that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers don’t go Crazy (2015); and  The Fourth Revolution – the global race to reinvent the state; by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge (2015). Both books tell a largely positive story of the promise of reform…Barber was Tony Blair’s “Head of Delivery” in the British Cabinet but has now reinvented himself as a "Deliverology" Guru.

“The Fourth Revolution – the global race to reinvent the state”

Micklethwait and Woolridge are managing editors of “The Economist” weekly and, given my hostility to the “smart” simplistic commentary of that journal, I have resisted buying the book for the past 4 years… But, on the basis that it's better to know your enemy, I relented last week and have now read their “Fourth Revolution” which they helpfully summarised on the ultra-neoliberal Cato Institute website

I could have saved myself the trouble because the Peter Drucker quote above conveys the negative part of their message so much better.

But let me remain true to the fair soul that lies within me – for this is a rare popular book and should be treated with respect - and rehearse their argument…

The book’s Introduction starts promisingly with a tour of the China Executive Leadership Academy in Shanghai and mentions the Central Party School in Beijing which I remember visiting….But before we reach the present, we are treated in the next hundred pages to an explanation of the three (or 3 ½) previous revolutions - embodied in the names of Hobbes (of Leviathan fame); Locke and JS Mill; and the Webbs. Hobbes legitimized the State as force; the second stage

began with the American and French revolutions and eventually spread across Europe, as liberal reformers replaced regal patronage systems — “Old Corruption,” as it was known in England — with more meritocratic and accountable government.

English liberals took a decrepit old system and reformed it from within by stressing efficiency and freedom. They “stole” China’s idea of a professional civil service selected by exam, attacked cronyism, opened up markets, and restricted the state’s rights to subvert liberty. The “night-watchman state,” advanced by the likes of John Stuart Mill, was both smaller and more competent.

Even though the size of the British population rose by nearly 50 percent from 1816 to 1846 and the Victorians improved plenty of services (including setting up the first modern police force), the state’s tax revenues fell from £80 million to £60 million. And later reformers like William Gladstone kept on looking for ways to “save candle-ends and cheese-parings in the cause of the country.”

The Fabian Webbs gave us the Third revolution - providing the theoretical grounding for the British welfare state...even if Bismarck's Germany beat them to it. 

Then follows a short chapter entitled “Milton Friedman’s Paradise Lost” whose message is –

during the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, inspired by classical liberal thinkers like Milton Friedman, temporarily halted the expansion of the state and privatized the commanding heights of the economy. We dub this a half revolution because, although it harked back to some of the founding ideas of the second “liberal” revolution, it failed in the end to do anything to reverse the size of the state.

The next 60 pages look at the lessons we should take from California, Singapore and China.

The American lessons are negative – ironically summarised as “seven deadly sins” – and relate to union power. Given all the hype from Al Gore’s programme from 1993 of Reinventing Government, you would have expected some mention – let alone exploration - of this experience, not least for the veiled reference in the sub-title. But not a single one! And no mention either of Osborne and Graeber’s 1992 best-seller of the same name. On the other hand, when it comes to Singapore and China you can sense the relish and admiration – and also in the chapter about the transformation of the state in Nordic countries;

Finally 30 pages on “Fixing Leviathan” – basically through “outsourcing”, decentralisatiom and experimentation; and 30 pages on the role of the state – taking us back to Peter Drucker.

But what I find most curious is the absence of a single reference (even in the notes!) to any of the voluminous academic (or consultants) literature on public management reform....I can well understand their journalistic judgement that the academic "reform industry" has nothing sensible to say to anyone....

Final Thought

But the state spends about 40% of our GNP – that’s our taxation! Surely we deserve to know what’s going on there – we certainly have a fair number of “special correspondents” for subjects such as education, economics, social policy, health, environment. Of course there are some subjects which have journalists salivating and publishers eagerly approving titles - Government “waste”? Ah, now you’re talking!!…..Government “blunders”?….even better!!!…..”Who runs this country?” That sounds suitably paranoiac!!!!….

My recommended reading below is restricted to books aimed at the general public (rather than academics and students) and is therefore light on examples of efforts in government reform……

Useful Reading
Some of the books in this list are included simply to illustrate a genre. The titles in italics are those I have found readable and useful in thinking about managing change in the public sector over the past 30 years. I have tried in each case to explain why…..

- Radical Help – how we can remake the relationships between us and Revolutionise the Welfare State; Hilary Cottam (2018) an inspiring example of experimental work discussed here

- Dismembered – the ideological attack on the state; Polly Toynbee and David Walker (2017) An angry call to action written by 2 journalists. This is the book which inspired me to write a series of blogs which blossomed into How did Admin Reform get to be so sexy?

- Called to Account – how corporate bad behaviour and government waste combine to cost us millions; Margaret Hodge (2016). Written by the woman who was, until recently, the indomitable Chair of the powerful parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. I have still to read it so include simply to demonstrate that such books exist (and in paperback!)

- How to Run a Government so that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers don’t go Crazy; Michael Barber (2015). Interesting – if a bit self-serving – series of advice notes from the guy who became Tony Bliar’s management guru in the UK Cabinet

- Creating Public Value in Practice – advancing the common good in a ….noone in charge world; ed J Bryson et al (2015),  The great update of their fantastic 1995 book (see below)

- Who Governs Britain?; Anthony King (2015) A typical academic take on the issue which I include simply as an example of the genre

- Stand and Deliver – a design for successful government; Ed Straw (2014) A rather partial management consultant’s perspective which again I include as a rare example of the genre

- The Establishment – and how they get away with it; Owen Jones (2014) a withering critique of the British power elite

- The Blunders of our Governments; Anthony King and Ivor Crewe (2013) A bit disappointing and put into context by this excellent review by Matt Flinders

- People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011). May be a bit technocratic but, at the time, it was like a breath of fresh air….You get the entire book here….

- Public Sector Reform – but not as we know it; Hilary Wainwright (Unison and TNI 2009) A rare readable case study of a bottom-up  approach to reform based on a case study of one city

- Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions – citizens, stakeholders and Voice (World Bank 2008). Very clearly written – with excellent analyses and diagrams. Again the entire book

- Managing Change in OECD Governments - an introductory Framework; O Melchor (OECD 2008)

A useful statement from the other global body
- An International Comparison of UK Public Administration (National Audit Office 2008) a typical consultants' analysis

- Systems Thinking in the Public Sector – the failure of the Reform regime and a manifesto for a better way; John Seddon (2008) Seddon was a rare voice of common sense – although I include this more as another rare example of consultants actually trying to justify themselves

- Squandered – how Gordon Brown is wasting one trillion pounds of our money; David Craig (2008). Not one I would recommend – there are quite a few of these books around.

- British Government in Crisis; Chris Foster (2005). A very good analysis by an experienced consultant

- The Essential Public Manager; by Chris Pollitt (2003) is, by far and away, the best book to help the intelligent citizen make sense of this field

- Leading Change – a guide to whole systems working; M Attwood, M Pedlar, S Prichard and D Wilkinson (2003). This one I have yet to read – although I have always found Mike Pedlar a good analyst. The link gives the entire book

- Governance in the 21st Century (OECD 2001). A useful analysis of the challenges facing state systems in the new millennium. The chapters by Perri 6, Sabel and Albrow are particularly stimulating. A click on the title gives you the entire book  

- Change Here – managing change to improve local services (Audit Commission 2001) The full 100 pages are here – and it’s a great read

- The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain; George Monbiot (2000) The best critique of its time

- Banishing Bureaucracy – the five strategies for reinventing government; D Osborne and P Plastrik (1997) 5 years on from “Reinventing Government”, Osborne had another go. This is part I of his book and looks at how Thatcher and Major tried to understand and manipulate the DNA of the State

- “The State Under Stress – can the hollow state be good?” Chris Foster and F Plowden (1996) Easily the best analysis of its time of the different ways in which the state was being broken up

- Leadership for the Common Good – tackling public problems in a shared power world; S Crosby and J Bryson (1995) One of the best – and the entire book accessible by clicking the title

- Really Reinventing Government; Peter Drucker (The Atlantic 1995). The guru’s reflections on the Reinvention game…. 

- The Deadly Sins of Public Administration; Peter Drucker (1980) The grand old man of management socks it to the American Society of Public Administration just as Thatcher and Reagan get underway

The virus affecting our systems

One of the many dystopian themes which figure in contemporary novels and films is that of the pandemic - of a new virus being let loose in the world and causing havoc. In fact, it’s already happened – it’s called neoliberalism and its gestation can be traced back to a conference in 1947 in the Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin attended by such luminaries as Hayek and .Popper

The full story of how the corporate world has patiently, over the past half-century and more, funded the setting up of hundreds of right-wing think tanks who have unceasingly pumped out their anti-government message is told in The road from Mont Pelerin – the making of the neoliberal thought collective; P Mirowski (2009)

And it wasn’t just economic doctrine that was affected – it was also how we thought government services should be organised. Academia in particular has had a strange fixation over the past 30 years with the idea of organizational improvements of public services called..."New Public Management" (NPM)

In the late 60s I was an early “reformer” – pushing at the open door offered by the 2 Royal Commissions on Local Government which operated in the UK between 1966-68 and which led to the wholesale reorganization of that system in both Scotland and England and Wales in the mid-1970s.

The only academic discipline covering such developments at the time was that of public administration whose intellectual fare was every bit as boring as its name suggests – although my politics tutor, John P Macintosh, wrote a powerful and prescient book in 1968 on “The Devolution of Power – local government, regionalism and nationalism”. 
And another academic, John Stewart, was shortly to start electrifying a new generation of officials  at Birmingham’s Institute for Local Government (INLOGOV) with a new vision of local power - centred on a more open and flexible system of local government – which, sadly, failed to materialize.

Since the mid 1970s, the search for the silver bullet of organizational improvement (or reform) in its public services has been endless. 50 years ago we thought that the right rules (and strategies) – fairly managed by well-intentioned officials and politicians in a system of accountable power – was the way forward…

We threw that model away in the 1980s and bought into the “theory of the market” – believing that citizens would be better off being able to choose between competitive suppliers.

David Osborne’s "Reinventing Government" (1992) was the book which really opened the floodgates – with its notion of “Steering…not rowing..”

The only problem was that most of the relevant services have this basic reality of being chunky monopolies ….Overnight therefore a system of regulators had to be created – bringing forth an Audit Explosion.

By 2000 it was obvious that wasn’t working – but it took 2008 to blow the thing apart.

But although another way of organizing things, whether in the economy or government, has been actively explored for many decades we still do not have a consensus about a better way….In 2015 the UNDP published a good summary of what it called the three types of public management we have seen in the past half century. There are different ways of describing the final column but this one gives a sense of the values which have been trying to find expression..

The three types of public management

	Old Public Admin	New Public Management	New Public Service
Theoretical foundation	Political theory	Economic theory	Democratic theory
Model of behaviour	Public interest	self-interest	Citizen interest
Concept of public interest	Political, enshrined in law	Aggregation of individual interests	Dialogue about shared values
To whom civil servants responsive	Client	Customer	citizen
Role of government	Rowing	Steering	Serving, negotiating
Mechanism for achieving policy	Programme	Incentives	Building coalitions
Approach to accountability	Hierarchic	Market	Public servants within law, professional ethics, values
Admin discretion	Limited	Wide	Constrained
Assumed organisational structure	Top down	Decentralised	collaborative
Assumed motivation of officials	Conditions of service	Entrepreneurial, drive to reduce scope of government	Public service, desire to contribute

But NPM - like neoliberalism - just seems to have too strong a grip. And we still await a replacement
This is the story I try to tell in my little book “Hos did Administrative Reform get to be so Sexy?” whose current version you can access here.

Update;
I have just come across a great book which identified and explored this issue of our being taken over by a new ideology – what the French used to call “La Pensee Unique”, It is Monoculture – how one story is changing everything by FS Michaels (2011).

The power of Ideas

The longest of the 6 quotations which run down the blog’s right-hand column is from Keynes – suggesting that ideas have more influence on societies than we imagine compared, that is, with crude calculations of interest.

I have long been fascinated by the ebb and flow of ideas – and how rarely people seem willing to explore how they have changed their thinking…..I suppose our thoughts are so much part of our identity that we get first embarrassed and then angry if others try to push us on our belief changes….”Apostasy” is the big word for such acts of renunciation and there were loads of them in the 1930s as the first flush of enthusiasm for the soviet system dispelled and then again in the 1950s after Hungary. But I deviate……..retournons aux moutons!!

As far back as 1995 I doodled a couple of pages of notes about what seemed to me to have been the key focus of at least anglo-saxon debate in each of the decades from the 1930s. An updated version now makes a fascinating table explained in this post. Fear of the masses had been a strong theme in the 1930s but, by the 1960s, many of us in Europe and America were celebrating rather than fearing them – whether through the fashion for “participation” let alone community action, direct action or social development. 1968, after all, had been an expression of people power. And the writings of Paolo Freire and Ivan Illich – let alone British activists Colin Ward and Tony Gibson; and sociologists such as Jon Davies and Norman Dennis – were, in the 70s, celebrating citizen voices against bureaucratic power. In America, the therapist Carl Rogers was at the height of his global influence.

But political and economic events in the 1970s punctured that mood of egalitarianism - and ushered in not mutuality but rather egocentricity, greed and commodification. Adam Curtis’ documentary The Century of the Self captures the process superbly…….

But if there is one book which embodied the spirit of individuality and impatience and shaped a generation globally, it is In Search of Excellence – lessons from America’s best-run companies which came out in 1982. It ridiculed the hierarchic structure of organisations and encouraged the inner cowboy in managers to ride free.....

I have been turning the clock back 30 odd years to try to understand how exactly we were all persuaded to give managers and markets so much power in the delivery of our public services….

Clearly the fall of the Berlin Wall both triggered and symbolised a massive shift in people’s perception of state legitimacy – but the critique of the role of the state had been building up since the early 1970s and found expression in Margaret Thatcher’s completely unscripted programme of privatisation and “contracting out” of the 1980s….

I have a copy in my hands of a book published in 1990 called “Managerialism and the Public Services” which maps out in detail the development of UK thinking of that decade – by the same author who coined (the same year) the phrase “New Public Management”.

And it was but 2 years later that David Osborne and Ted Gaebler dramatically put the new thinking on the global agenda when they published Reinventing Government (1992) – with such neat injunctions as -

·         steer, not row

·         encourage competition

·         be driven by missions, rather than rules;

·         fund outcomes rather than inputs;

·         meet the needs of the customer, not the bureaucracy;

·         invest in preventing problems rather than curing crises

·         decentralize authority;

Effectively, it was the public sector version of the 1982 “In Search of Excellence” mentioned above. No less a figure than Vice-President Al Gore then took charge of what became a major political effort to reinvent government (see this paper for a good overview). Coincidentally I was in New York a few months after the book’s publication and was able to bring a copy back with me. The book was – with the possible exception of Machiavelli’s The Prince – one of the few best-sellers on the topic of government.

And Osborne and Gaebler weren’t academics – but a journalist/consultant; and city manager respectively!! And its message about contracting was soon being broadcast globally – thanks to the influence of the World Bank    

By then I was living in central Europe and working on projects designed to help establish more open and democratic public services accountable to citizens in that part of the world. 

In 1998/99 I found myself “resting” (as actors say) between projects in Bucharest and used the time to draft a little book about the challenges of building government structures in ex-communist countries. This is how I tried to set out what I thought I was doing….. 

The book is about the search for effectiveness and equity in government in a new era of immense change and growing expectations. It is aimed at –
-       those both inside and outside the machinery of government - both local and national - who, however reluctantly, have realised that they need to get involved in the minutiae of administrative change
-       people in both West and central Europe.

A lot has been written in the past decade about development endeavours at various levels - but there are several problems about such literature -
-       it is written generally by academics who have not themselves had the responsibility of making things happen: who have rarely, for example, been involved in the early, messy stages of taking initiatives they believed in, or in working with people who feel threatened and confused.
-       its very volume and language makes it impossible for busy policy-makers and advisers to read : a guide is needed.
-       such texts are (obviously) not sensitive to the Central European context

The analysis and argument of this book very much build on my practical experience as a "change-agent" in Scotland during 1970-1990, trying to "reinvent" the machinery of local government and to construct policies and structures to deal with local industrial collapse.
The text reflects a dialogue with a particular Central European audience between 1994 and 1998: the focus - and content - being shaped by the questions and issues which seemed to be at the forefront of the minds of the people I was working with in countries such as the Czech and Slovak Republics, Romania and Hungary…. 

The result was a little book In Transit – notes on good governance (1999) which I want to discuss in the next post because it is one of the few texts which tries to give a sense of what it was like to be active in such administrative reform efforts in the 1980 and 1990s..................

to be continued...