Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

In my industry job, I see people making phone calls to obtain answers to questions right now. I never say that in 28 years of government. Here are some thoughts on the practice.

I worked in government for 28 years. I have since worked in private industry for two years. A current project highlighted to me one of the main differences between government and industry:

In industry, things get done in meetings.

I’m not swift; sometimes I take a couple of years to notice something. What I noticed is that during meetings in industry, people make phone calls. We will be discussing something, a question will arise, someone will pick up the phone, make a call, and get the answer right then. Next item.

That – pick up the phone, make a call, get the answer – never happened in any meeting I attended in government (and believe me, I attended thousands of meetings in government). Why didn’t we make the phone call in government meetings? Several reasons that come to mind. In government,

(1) No use trying to call someone else, because they are sitting in another meeting at the same time.

(2) We (mostly incorrectly) assume the right people are in the room.

And the reason that keeps coming to the forefront of my mind:

(3) There is no “get it done” (GID) mentality in government.

There were rare occasions in my government life that we were anxious to GID. So, we persevered and GID. Still, in government, there was never any urge to do it now (DIN).

I recall in 1980s, reading a little newspaper article tacked to a bulletin board. The point of the article: if you have something to get done, DIN. The funny thing, this bulletin board was in a government building where the only people who would see it were government employees. Perhaps I was the only person in the building who read the article.

These phone calls I keep witnessing in industry meetings, the are the epitome of GID-DIN. I guess every time I see this I could yell “giddin” or something silly.

By the way, these phone calls are quite effective. What surprises me is that the people we are calling are in their offices at their desks and answer their phones. They aren’t sitting in a meeting behind a closed door. Wow. What a concept. Another good reason to NOT be in meetings.