Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Most government agencies are dysfunctional. There are simple reasons. One reason is that the path to promotion lies in spending money, not bringing value per cost.

Try to understand how people “get ahead” working inside a government agency. To make more money, you are promoted to a higher grade. I worked in a government agency for 28 years, so I have some experience here. Please note that the agency where I worked is a relatively non-bureaucratic and efficient one.

How are you promoted to a higher grade? Managing more people and more money.

How are you assigned more people and more money? Receiving credit for accomplishing something through the people and money you now manage.

Consider two paths to accomplishing something:

(1) A person in your charge has an idea. They work on the idea at home in the evening. They walk into the office on Monday, implement the idea (like a small yet ingenious computer program), and deliver big value.

(2) A group of people in your charge work on a highly funded program. They deliver value. The value doesn’t have to be more than what is spent as usually it isn’t.

Path (1) does not bring promotion as it comes about NOT from the people and money you manage. Path (2) brings promotion as it comes from the people and money you manage.

Path (1) often occurs inside a government agency. The result is usually canceled or deleted as it is not from the approved path (2). It is embarrassing as the opportunity to bring great value at low cost always existed, but you didn’t recognize it – one lone person did. The person who actually accomplishes the inexpensive to implement but valuable concept is labeled as a “loose cannon” or “loner” or something bad and is either squashed down into a dungeon or leaves the government agency in frustration.

Note, all this dysfunction comes from the desire to be promoted. There are two parts to being promoted: [1] higher pay and [2] a bigger title.

[1] Higher Pay: I always sought higher pay. My reason was simple, I needed the money to pay bills and save for college for three sons.

[2] Bigger Title: This didn’t interest me as I was interested in [1] Higher Pay. I knew people who worked in government who truly considered their work as a service to the public. Their income from family investments and such equaled or surpassed their government salary. Pay didn’t matter to them.

I don’t know that there is anyway to remove the desire for [1], [2], or both. I don’t know that we need to remove the desire for those. I do believe we need to do something about the dysfunction in Paths (1) and (2). Diligent oversight and rewards for Path (1) would help. I see neither of those happening any time soon.