On July 29, a front page Wall Street Journal article was titled: “In a Savings Shocker, the Government Discovers That Paper Has Two Sides.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124882436513388423.html The print article ran in that bottom, center location reserved for the stories that aim to demonstrate the sense of humor of the editors and writers at WSJ. The content was a lighthearted romp through the more absurd or obvious of the cost saving measures and ‘innovations’ identified in response to President Obama’s presidential order for $100M in cuts to be identified and implemented within his first few months in office.
Now, it is all fine and good that these cuts were heroically identified and implemented; every bit of common sense that our Government integrates into its culture is clearly for the better. But it begs the question: Why is common sense so uncommon?
I hypothesize that it is because the rank and file, front-line bureaucrats that do the work of government are rarely (if ever) asked for input and opinion on how to improve and streamline the processes and procedures that they perform. Should it have taken the Department of Justice until 2009 to realize that copy costs could be saved – perhaps halved – by printing two-sided? After all, DOJ workers are likely a fairly educated lot. Yet none of them could have seen the opportunity to save printing cost? More likely, many of them have seen the opportunity every day that they go to the printer to pick up their ream of printouts. Certainly, the janitorial staff can see the opportunity as they cart out those reams of printouts at the end of each DOJ workday.
Maybe one of those DOJ office workers or cleaning staff took the extra step to discover how to lodge the suggestion. Likely, they called the IT support desk, since printing is associated with computers. Perhaps the support desk staff, employees of a government contractor, told them that printing is managed by another support function. If so, that printing support function is likely administered by employees of a different contractor, a competitor of the IT support contractor. Given the runaround as only bureaucrats and Help Desk staff can, the DOJ employee probably gave up and stepped back in line to pick up the reams of printouts they would never review, and headed back to his or her cubicle.
Why did it require a presidential order and involvement of cabinet secretaries to ‘discover’ common sense?
Is it because the culture of Government resists open lines of communication; communication that could and should include the percolation of common sense up, down, and across government. Whether I am right or wrong about the cause, it is clear that the effect is a severe shortage of common sense in government.
Don’t believe that it is just government that diligently stomps out the dimmest ember of common sense. I do not believe that, not for a minute. Many companies, both large and small, fall victim to the same top-down management and bottom-up deafness that denies common sense a foothold.
Listen to your employees. Especially if you are an above-average leader (and have hired people smarter than yourself…), your employees have a treasure chest of common sense. Unlock the lid on that chest, and start to cash in the treasure inside.
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Tags: common sense, cost cut, DOJ, employee, suggestion box, uncommon sense
This entry was posted on August 4, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Uncommon Sense
On July 29, a front page Wall Street Journal article was titled: “In a Savings Shocker, the Government Discovers That Paper Has Two Sides.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124882436513388423.html The print article ran in that bottom, center location reserved for the stories that aim to demonstrate the sense of humor of the editors and writers at WSJ. The content was a lighthearted romp through the more absurd or obvious of the cost saving measures and ‘innovations’ identified in response to President Obama’s presidential order for $100M in cuts to be identified and implemented within his first few months in office.
Now, it is all fine and good that these cuts were heroically identified and implemented; every bit of common sense that our Government integrates into its culture is clearly for the better. But it begs the question: Why is common sense so uncommon?
I hypothesize that it is because the rank and file, front-line bureaucrats that do the work of government are rarely (if ever) asked for input and opinion on how to improve and streamline the processes and procedures that they perform. Should it have taken the Department of Justice until 2009 to realize that copy costs could be saved – perhaps halved – by printing two-sided? After all, DOJ workers are likely a fairly educated lot. Yet none of them could have seen the opportunity to save printing cost? More likely, many of them have seen the opportunity every day that they go to the printer to pick up their ream of printouts. Certainly, the janitorial staff can see the opportunity as they cart out those reams of printouts at the end of each DOJ workday.
Maybe one of those DOJ office workers or cleaning staff took the extra step to discover how to lodge the suggestion. Likely, they called the IT support desk, since printing is associated with computers. Perhaps the support desk staff, employees of a government contractor, told them that printing is managed by another support function. If so, that printing support function is likely administered by employees of a different contractor, a competitor of the IT support contractor. Given the runaround as only bureaucrats and Help Desk staff can, the DOJ employee probably gave up and stepped back in line to pick up the reams of printouts they would never review, and headed back to his or her cubicle.
Why did it require a presidential order and involvement of cabinet secretaries to ‘discover’ common sense?
Is it because the culture of Government resists open lines of communication; communication that could and should include the percolation of common sense up, down, and across government. Whether I am right or wrong about the cause, it is clear that the effect is a severe shortage of common sense in government.
Don’t believe that it is just government that diligently stomps out the dimmest ember of common sense. I do not believe that, not for a minute. Many companies, both large and small, fall victim to the same top-down management and bottom-up deafness that denies common sense a foothold.
Listen to your employees. Especially if you are an above-average leader (and have hired people smarter than yourself…), your employees have a treasure chest of common sense. Unlock the lid on that chest, and start to cash in the treasure inside.
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Tags: common sense, cost cut, DOJ, employee, suggestion box, uncommon sense
This entry was posted on August 4, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.