Jean Matthews

July 31. 2007 18:51

Tut,tut...you mean public services surely.

I agree in part with you that power, status and playground politics exist, but at least these are a fact of human nature. I can deal with that, I'm sure I have been guilty of it myself...What isn't and is far more damaging to public sevices is twofold; well one creates the need for the other. Firstly processes of lean management which de-skill jobs to those who do not have the experience or knowledge, for example we now have auxilliary nurses in the NHS trained to take blood pressure measurements, but have no idea how to interpret the results (how safe is that for a patient) Secondly is the constant distraction of PM with arbitrary targets, seemingly plucked from the air, on occasion. Ticking those boxes, in any way possible has become the prime task of many believe me, whether it seems to add value or not- no wonder we have to play politics.

Dr Kelly Page

August 3. 2007 22:32

Can the public service change ... as long as human's can change, develop, evolve and see a different perspective in how we live and behave in this world ... of course it can change ... the term 'public' or 'private' are just terms used to catgorise, label and create unnatural psychological constructions of who we are and where we work ... in essence we are all part of natural social system .. coleagues, friends, family ... and all systems have boundaries and constraints ... and they all evolve ...

.. managers or some managers(where ever they are) can place unnatural constraints (lean & targets) on the evolution of a natural system (people)...

1. in the hope they are keeping control (of something they know deep down they can't!);
2. in the belief they are doing what they 'should' as a manager (cause this is what they learn't from the manager before them and above them and are told in training!);
3. so that they can justify their existence (to themselves and their manager!!)
4. so they can keep their position, their salary (afterall they too have mortgages!)
5. and not lose face or appear to fail (themselves, their loved ones, their boss)

mmmmm ... sounds like fear to me ... fear of not knowing, fear of letting go, fear of not being in control, fear of not doing the right thing, and fear of failure ... the public services can change, as humans can change, we change everyday, every minute... we just have to want to change ... perhaps we sometimes just need to be shown a different perspective, a more natural perspective .... on how we live and work to help face our fears ...

so I'd ask ... as opposed to can managers in the public services change (as I think they can), do they really want to????????????????????

Mr Peter Duschinsky

October 8. 2007 17:40

Hi - this is my first input into DNAWales - I only just heard about this great forum.
Like Paul, I have been bashing my head against the the apparent inability of public services organisations to take on the best practice principles of LEAN etc.
Indicators include:
• Unclear objectives - try asking 3 people what a project is supposed to deliver and you get 3 answers. Usually they are too busy to do more than tick the box during consultation phase
• Complexity of the project - a total lack of understanding about the exponential nature of complexity and the need to keep it simple - or suffer the consequences!
• Lack of management commitment - most CEOs don't seem to see the need for mandatory compliance to new systems and procedures and most managers work in a culture of non-compliance
• Project overload and initiative fatigue - nuff said!
• Lack of ownership of change - mainly due to insufficient communication to gain buy-in
• Insufficient visibility of process detail - if staff have to carry on with manual processes for all the stuff the new system doesn't deal with, no wonder they prefer to ignore the new system if they are allowed to...

Our analysis over the past year has confirmed that there is an underlying root cause to these behaviours which lies in the inability of these organisations to address both process and culture transformation in detail and in parallel throughout the lifecycle of the project – take attention off one of these in favour of the other and the project will not deliver.

We are working on an approach to integrate the process and culture transformational elements - I'd be interested in what others have done to resolve this.