Peter, Parkinson, Praying
For a Benevolent Dictator
Halloween is this Thursday, but one would hardly know it, as everyone seems rightly focused on next week's presidential election. Happy Halloween, nonetheless, and, if you haven't already, check out last week's post, dedicated to the holiday, "ZOMBIES, VAMPIRES, ALIENS!".
But let's talk about what is on everyone's mind, the coming election. BTW, that handsome devil in the photo above is Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), the beloved nation-builder of Singapore, widely cited as an example of a "benevolent dictator".
I'M 100% CERTAIN OF ONE THING: MOST PEOPLE WILL BE DISAPPOINTED, REGARDLESS OF WHO WINS
The nation is very divided; tensions and tempers are high. At the same time, people have low expectations of and enthusiasm for their party's candidate. This election is "meh", even though everyone is saying, "This is the most important election of our lifetime."
Does it matter who wins? Will anything change? Can one person make a difference in the organization that is the government?
These questions are worth asking and can yield insights into the behavior of organizations and those who lead them.
At the most basic level, we must ask ourselves two questions:
- Is the organization meeting its goals?
- Is the organization self-governing, or does it require an active "minders"?
LEADERSHIP MATTERS TO THE DEGREE THAT AN ORGANIZATION IS MEETING GOALS AND IS SELF-GOVERNING
"Heaven", in the graphic, is an organization meeting its goals, and doing it with aplomb. It has systems in place, and results flow, organically, from the organization itself. Imagine a healthy organism with a really good immune system, a really good "operating system", well-designed. In a number of posts, I've cited Toyota as an example of this. [Here, here, and here.]
"Stable" is the organization that through hard work or good luck, has good management in place holding everything together, even though "systems" are lacking. Good people making good decisions - - all hands on deck, all the time. If and when those conditions are present, this is fine, this is good.
We all have experienced the "Unstable" organization at some point in our lives, where people run around putting out fires, not exactly certain how things are supposed to run, as no one knows. These places have poor or non-existent operating systems: policies, procedures, rules, norms, etc. It's painful.
"Hell" is that special kind of the organization that is not meeting its goals AND it seems to run itself in this process! Oh, there's an operating system, alright: one built for dysfunction. A brilliant vision of this dystopia in film is the 1985 science-fiction black comedy, Brasil, from writer and director Terry Gilliam. This is an existential crisis, demoralizing and dehumanizing.
WHAT YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR ELECTION CHOICES REFLECTS WHAT YOU BELIEVE ABOUT OUR COUNTRY'S GOALS AND HOW WE ARE ORGANIZED TO MEET THEM
While people on opposite sides of the political aisle might argue about exactly what tops the list of their most pressing concerns, neither group is happy. On a number of issues, particularly the economy and healthcare, polls show broad consensus across both political parties. Neither group would argue that the government is "meeting organizational goals".
Looking from the outside in, a number of indexes seem to indicate we're not doing very well compared to our developed nation peer group. The Human Development Index (HDI) places the United States at number 20, having fallen 5 places in the last decade. The World Happiness Report places the United States 63rd. Another one, the OECD Better Life Index, ranks the US 10th, noting "Community" and "Work-Life Balance" as weak points.
Equally less well-known, the United States has declined or stagnated on a number of important measures of human capital development. We're no longer the great land of opportunity: intergenerational social mobility, the rate at which children born into poverty climb the income ladder, has declined over the last century. On the OECD's PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test, the US ranks 18th, and student scores haven't improved over the past decade.
GOVERNMENT IS NOT DOING A GOOD JOB, AND THE CITIZENRY IS UNHAPPY WITH THE GOVERNMENT
According to a number of polls, roughly 80% of Americans disapprove of the way the Congress is performing its job, with only 20% approving.
BUT GOVERNMENT WORKERS AND CONGRESS INCUMBENTS LOVE THEIR JOBS
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks the "quit rate" for workers. Government workers quit at a third the rate of private sector employees; Turnover is low in the government.
This applies to the elected officials as well. Incumbents are reelected to their seat in the House of Representatives roughly 95% of the time! The rate is a bit lower for the Senate, around 85%. While on-the-job experience explains some of the incumbent's advantage, it is the ability to raise campaign money, protections through gerrymandering, and positive media coverage that tilts the table in their favor.
Government workers earn more as well. A June 2024 BLS report shows that public worker pay is nearly 40% higher than private sector workers. Those elected to office also get rich in office, typically doubling their net worth. Benefits are generous, and congresspeople are able to parlay the connections they make into lucrative business, employment, and investment opportunities.
GOVERNMENT IS OSSIFIED: WORKERS EARN MORE AND QUIT LESS; 90%+ OF INCUMBENTS GET RE-ELECTED
Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull explain in their 1969 book "The Peter Principle", that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to the level of their incompetence.
"In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." & "In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties." - The Peter Principle and it's Corollary
Peter and Hull also note that the "super-competent" are dismissed, as "they tend to disrupt the hierarchy."
The Peter Principle is epidemic across all organizations, and is particularly virulent in government, holding the position of monopolist, free from external competition.
PETER'S PRINCIPLE IS MADE WORSE BY PARKINSON'S LAW
C. Northcote Parkinson described his law in a 1955 essay in the Economist.
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." - Parkinson's Law
He further states,
The number of workers within public administration, bureaucracy or officialdom tends to grow, regardless of the amount of work to be done, attributed mainly to two factors: First, officials want subordinates, not rivals, and second, officials make work for each other. - Parkinson's Law
Peter and Parkinson, in concert, guarantee that government grows, grows larger and less competent, year-by-year.
GOVERNMENT IS UNSUSTAINABLE AT CURRENT SIZE, AT NO GROWTH!
The Federal Register lists 438 Federal government agencies and sub-agencies. There are about 24 million government employees out of about 170 million workers in the US, or about one in seven workers.
Government spending is at World War II levels, as a share of the US economy.
Resulting in an astronomically-large, public debt.
The greater the public debt, the less likely that it can be and will be paid back, ever. Government debt hurts the economy by competing with private parties for capital and by necessitating future tax increases or spending cuts to pay interest. The Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) believes the US has until about 2040 to correct the issue before catastrophic default, Zugzwang. [See my post, "Ambush Beats the Tar Pit"]
No one, on either side of the political aisle, believes this is sustainable. Yet everyone kicks the can down the road.
MANAGER, TURNAROUND EXPERT, OR BENEVOLENT DICTATOR - - WHAT'S YOUR ASSESSMENT? WHAT'S NEEDED?
Your assessment depends, of course, on your station in life. We are not homogenous in this. Some are doing very well in the status quo, even as the US declines in every objective measure. [Maybe these are the 20% that think Congress is doing a good job? For them!] Most though, are barely scraping by, as everything becomes more costly and difficult over time, little-by-little, drip-by-drip.
We vary not only in our assessments of how good or bad the situation is but also in how much time we believe we have to change things.
Let's revisit that matrix and think about what you might desire, based on where you believe we are in the grid.
Heaven. Change is not your friend, if you are here. This is the harvest box: People enjoying the decline of the US for their own benefit. Looters. Action: Do nothing, as the automaton moves for you.
Stable. Somewhat similar to the Heaven box, but you need competent people at the helm; people you can control. You need talent in place to manage the decline, for you. Maintain. You might even work to entrench the situation, by further systematizing the causes of the decline and your ability to benefit from them. Action: Move left, systematize.
Unstable. Here, you want a turnaround person. You want someone who will make things better, incrementally, moving from unstable to stable, and then, if you can improve the organization, put systems in place, striving for that sweet "Heaven". Action: Move up, improve outcomes. [See the discussion, here.]
Hell. If you believe we are here, you see a runaway train. The system is working, but for whom?! And, the organization is self-governing, that is, it has systems in place to keep it going, doing what is does, without a lot of minding by leadership. It is in Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode. This is way beyond the abilities of a good turnaround specialist. One needs a miracle, in the ideal case, a benevolent dictator, someone strong enough to tear out old systems, to outline a new direction, and to motivate people to make it happen. Action: Move right, break stuff.
You see the challenge with the Hell position? You have to make things worse before they can get better. This is an immense leadership challenge. To pull off a Singapore-style miracle, you have to move to the right, then up, and then to the left in the grid. Unlike the other moves, your task is fraught with hazards and uncertainty. You would face tremendous opposition. Some would label you a monster.
I could be wrong, but I don't see any candidate running on the "Break Things" platform. Maybe these leaders are drafted into that position, when the going gets really bad, when voters have exhausted all hope.
PRAYING FOR A BENEVOLENT DICTATOR, WHILE THERE'S TIME
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky described what they call the "planning fallacy" in 1979. People systematically underestimate the time needed to complete a task, they are biased toward optimism.
Would that shift your position in the grid if you understood this bias?
Real-world examples abound:
Boston's Big Dig tunnel, seven years late at triple the forecast budget
Denver International Airport (DIA), 18 months late at nearly double the budget
California High-Speed Rail, work-in-progress, no schedule, with tens of billions in cost overruns
How about a whopper?!
"The Department of Defense's most expensive weapon system—the F-35 aircraft—is now more than a decade behind schedule and $183 billion over original cost estimates." - Government Accounting Office (GAO)
And, what if I told you that only 1/3 of the planes are "combat capable"? Wouldn't you have to double or maybe triple the effective, cost-per-plane! Yep, I think so. Examples in military, are legion: Perhaps, in another post, I'll delve into submarines, ice breakers, and littoral combat ships.
I mentioned the Wharton debt model above; the planning fallacy would suggest that they are overoptimistic. What if the fiscal zugswang is two elections away, in 2032?!
THINGS ARE WORSE THAN YOU ESTIMATE AND WILL BE MORE DIFFICULT TO FIX THAN YOU BELIEVE
As I argue in my post, "Ambush Beats the Tar Pit", it is critical to size up your situation, accurately, and to do it as early as possible.
The key to avoiding the tar pit, to avoiding the zugzwang, is to avoid even getting close to it!
Smell the tar, from afar, and don't be tempted to dine on that floundering bird stuck in the muck. After that first, fateful, paw plant in the black, sticky goo, you have far fewer choices. Most are not good ones.
Let's pray we find our own Lee Kuan Yew, whilst we have time.
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