I’ve heard John Seddon speaking a number of times and have watched some of his videos online, I’ve also been able to apply many of the ideas that I have learned in my various roles over the past 4 years and seen what an impact they can have so i was keen to find out more on his thoughts on the functioning of the civil service here in the UK especially since I am currently working in the public Sector.
Now, having read the book, I can see how many of the truths in this book apply not only to the public sector but also to many commercial organisations. I’ll explore my thoughts on this at the end of this post but first a brief description of the book.
John starts out by describing the way services are managed within the public sector and how New Labour’s vision has impacted these services along with a good description of Systems Thinking and how radically different this approach is from the way services are currently managed.
John sums this up by saying “A central idea in systems thinking is the relationship between purposes, measures and methods. By imposing targets the regime creates a purpose (to make the numbers) and constrains the method (the way services are designed). By contract, if you derive measures from purpose from the customer’s point of view, then you liberate method: innovation and improvement flow.”
That lays the foundation for John to explore multiple examples of failure within the current system driven by the government’s relentless demand for services to meet specific targets while at the same time constraining the methods they use. Time after time John is able to demonstrate how this targets approach has been detrimental to the delivery of services. The book exposes an underlying tension between politicians and civil servants – that politicians believe that the civil service is profligate and incapable of designing and managing effective and efficient service delivery.
Historically the government’s policies have been used to attempt to force the civil service to become more efficient by constraining the methods within which it operates (not trusting them to do it themselves) while at the same time forcing it to meet certain targets (not trusting the desire to do it properly). The book provides example after example of how these policies have failed.
There is however some hope as John also discusses examples of how some departments, freed from the constraints of policy, have been able to deliver outstanding services that far exceed even the most demanding government targets. It is unfortunate that these services are chastised by central government because they fail to implement the methods laid out in policy but instead aim to deliver high quality services.
Despite the obvious failings of these policies over the last 30 years it appears that government is still fixated on targets as being the way to drive change through the public sector where in fact it is only driving inefficiency as everyone from nurses to policemen, care workers to benefits agents are having to spend the majority of their time and effort in bureaucratic exercises to demonstrate policy compliance and target adherence as opposed to spending time delivering and improving services to the public.
This is the biggest waste in the public sector – not the supposed profligacy and inefficiency of it’s operations.
The book ends with a damning review of the process by which policy is created with nobody taking ultimate responsibility for the long-term effects of policies and little or no incentive to change this broken process.
Reading the book I recognised many of these same patterns in commercial organisations – with executives often too far removed from the day-to-day operations to have a real understanding but at the same time feeling a need to impose clear processes and targets in order to feel “in control” of what is happening. There is often a lack of trust between senior management and the employees as managers strive to improve efficiency through the imposition of processes and exert control through the imposition of targets.
These processes and targets mean that employees lack any incentive to innovate and improve the way they perform their roles. Instead we find employees who are frustrated by the inefficiencies they see in the companies they work for but feel powerless to make any kind of meaningful change.
Organisations in this position have a wonderful opportunity to liberate people to explore different methods of delivering the work they do – encouraging innovation and improvement driven by purpose as opposed to targets.
The keys to doing this involve: understanding the customer’s real purpose when interacting with the organisation and structuring the organisation to deliver this purpose.
Organisations need to ensure that everyone is clear on the purpose; provide people with the safety and structure that allows them to suggest and try different methods to achieve that purpose; and constantly encourage the continuous process of learning and improvement – even if this challenges current structures and processes.
Implementing this is challenging as it requires a different operating model from the traditional management style but it has great potential as it creates engaged employees who have a clear interest in improving the effectiveness of the organisation irrespective of their role.
Brett's babble 
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