Norms in Federal Government
Background
Within the past week we spent a lot of time with our friends in the military. If you have not heard me be exceptionally complimentary of our service members previously, let me reiterate that the folks who protect our country are exceptional in almost every case. Not only that, but their counterparts on the contracting side are often complimentary personalities. It is not a career that fits everyone, we all sacrifice something to be a part of the process that results in outcomes for our country. We are all under enormous pressure to perform in a world that has only one certainty, change.
The in person time is both productive and generally fun. We talk about big initiatives, unknown outcomes, and manage risk and issues on both sides of the equation. This week we learned a lot and shared a lot of knowledge that would otherwise be less effectively stated over email or phone conversations due to context, distractions, or other issues that are common in our busy lives. The themes in this article are less to do with specific military issues, but more of a government-wide culture in a complex situation.
Risk Aversion
We live in a great country filled with a lot of innovative people. Every system that is generated and put into public use is usually simple in concept, but in application creates a lot of unintended, unforeseen consequences. There are a couple of principles or at least cultural norms that have an impact on all employees of the federal government. We live in a capitalist society, but we expect our government to operate with exceeding fairness. We hire lawyers when one or multiple sides feel the ‘fairness’ norm has been violated. Additionally, government people operate in a nebulous world of intellectual property rights that carry extreme consequences.
If you have worked with the federal government, you probably have heard someone use the excuse of, “I don’t want to end up in an orange jumpsuit” as a reason to avoid a situation they consider risky. Why? While relatively rare, the consequence is real. If a government official is found to be grossly negligent, or accepting bribes, or other illegal activity, this is probably a good thing. However, it creates a situation where most activities end up being perceived as high risk. Any amount of uncertainty results in a move of the needle toward self-preservation over challenging the norm.
An anecdote we heard over the course of last week is another great example of how this risk aversion can impact the government significantly. In this example, it was described that independent auditors suggested that, “…freeware may be a risk to security.” In this same conversation, the recommendation resulted in an adoption of a posture that any software that is not paid for is thus not acceptable for government use. Was that truly the intent of these auditors? Probably not. But undoing that damage is probably a significant battle.
Risk aversion is probably the most common norm in the government. There are many groups out there, in the late 2000s, I joined a group that considered themselves disruptors and met regularly, informally, and non-attributional across agencies on the civilian side. The behavior expressed by these teams is not generally irrational or high risk. Generally, these are some of the most motivated, smart, capable, and learning-focused members of the community. They loathe whatever norm is the norm, often because it is bureaucratic or ‘lazy’. These are my favorite people, because they enjoy living in uncertainty and pushing for ‘better’.
Bureaucracy
Although there are many that fight bureaucracy, it is a staple of government environments. As someone who likes to lean toward innovation, bureaucracy is what I consider job security. Whatever innovative solution or process we can create each month, quarter, year, is much like this article. It becomes static, it becomes old. Without actually implementing continuous improvement behaviors, we are likely to encounter people who are reductionists. These people want to make their task as simple as possible for their own interests. Often, in doing so, we end up with another static document that has a lifespan that can expand into a decade.
The bureaucracy is often built on the backbone of that reductionist intent to make processes more efficient. Processes like a request for base access, for example, seem easy to those who have to manage the security. They send a form out requesting personal data and signatures from multiple people. They receive that completed form (or forms in some cases) and go along their merry way. No form on file (typically paper) at the gate? Good luck getting through. From a third-party perspective what is easy for the execution team sucks for everyone else.
Up or Out
This topic is more military-specific, and curious from an organizational effectiveness perspective. It recently came to my attention that there is a norm of up or out within the ranks. What does this mean? Either you climb the ranks or you exit the military entirely, especially in the officer ranks.
In commercial organizations and in theories of organizational behavior taught in many MBA programs, we talk about “A players”. A players are typically the highly driven, focused individuals that compete and want to succeed for their own self-interests. They are often extremely valuable to a company, but company success is often driven by their counterparts or “B players”. B players seek more consistency, and often look to expand their careers through effective production.
In the military though, if you are not getting more responsibility, something is ‘wrong’. Imagine yourself as a young engineer in the military. For those of you who have spent time hiding under rocks, engineers have a stereotype of being introverts, nerds, none of which are a bad thing. However, it does often mean their desires are not necessarily aligned with going into management. Most of the best engineers I know are not necessarily anti-social, but they definitely have a preference for interacting with their team more than customers, bosses, or even worse, subordinates. Yet, this norm would mean that we would get rid of highly talented engineers to satisfy the need of the organization to push up or out.
What other norms are you noticing? I am interested in learning from the community, find me on LinkedIn.
