I don’t disagree with this assessment but it’s also a narrow view[0] that allows the problem to persist in the first place.
Rather, I’d like to see what positive oversight would look like, but that has not been put forth by any of these organizations thus far. It all comes down to “trust us” which is also hard to stomach
[0]: most often but not exclusively held by Americans (of which i am one). We collectively fail to imagine government being a positive force and what that would look like.
This is a relatively new and carefully cultivated state of things.
I mean, the early phases of this era are a half-century old at this point, but it’s not like it’s a law of nature that at least half the population of the US and about half the politicians must regard government as rarely-useful. It didn’t used to be that way. It’s not an American trait in some holistic historical sense.
perhaps our government has become less competent? Having worked in the federal government briefly (and growing up in a place with lots of feds), it makes perfect sense that our government is generally incompetent/low-capacity.
In the wake of the civil rights movement, lots of government civil service exams became presumptively illegal. The pay bands are also pretty trash.
If we wanted a competent government, we should have far fewer people paid a lot more and hired in a more aggressively merit-based process. Our current government is from an era without computerization where you needed lots of grunts to process things like SS claims, etc. That is simply not this era.
> If we wanted a competent government, we should have far fewer people paid a lot more and hired in a more aggressively merit-based process. Our current government is from an era without computerization where you needed lots of grunts to process things like SS claims, etc. That is simply not this era.
This.
IMHO, the military's regular reassignment also solves a lot of bureaucracy-at-scale problems (even if it creates different ones around competency and long-duration projects).
Preventing people from becoming entrenched in a single role/office is important to ensuring a healthy overall system and providing space for new ideas.
What makes you believe the military is immune to "bureaucracy-at-scale" problems? From my vantage point, it may have both large bureaucratic issues and massive churn. (And it's not immediately clear to me that the former isn't partially a result of the latter.)
The rotating post thing is mostly to avoid empire-building and disrupt personal loyalty to leadership, because standing armies are incredibly dangerous things to keep around and that reduces the risk.
It has side-benefits particular to the military mostly related to how adaptable the organization is when lots of its members are being killed and disabled at a high rate.
I don’t think you’d find a lot of takers for a rotating-post offer in the broader public sector, without far higher wages. I think most of the folks willing to do that for low wages are already in the military or the foreign service.
I don't disagree that it solves the "in this job until I die". But as you allude to, it creates its own issues and it's not clear to me if, on balance, its better. Churn can also create an ineffective (or superficially effective) organization because the hardest problems can't really be solved in a short tenure. (If it could the Executive Branch would be considered highly effective because it has churn every 4-8 years).
On the whole, I think it's still a net positive. The drag of unmotivated, apathetic, and/or inflexible employees is incredibly high, and then there's the additional efficiency drag of the systems that must put in place to ensure they meet minimum performance (i.e. filling out make-work forms to track performance).
Better to simply create a system by which they're weeded out.
Which I guess dovetails with the military "up or out" process.
From a giant organization perspective, there's a lot to admire in militaries. They're the worst systems, except for all the other ways organizations as large as them could be organized...
>Better to simply create a system by which they're weeded out.
I agree with this. It's really just another way to say there should be mechanisms to hold people accountable.
>Which I guess dovetails with the military "up or out" process.
I don't think the military does a great job of this. From what I could see, it only forces out the absolute absymal performers (e.g., those who can't pass a PFT or have multiple DUIs etc.) I would argue it takes far too long (often only implemented once they've been in a decade or more and haven't made SNCO). This does a disservice to both the organization (the person is still around for a decade) and also the service member (they have now dedicated over a decade to a career that is a dead end, and usually over halfway to retirement).
>but there's also much stronger gating of promotions by competency tests there, right?
I think it heavily depends on the branch and what is considered “competence”. I remember meeting Airmen who could cite all the stats about weapons systems because that was on their test, but the couldn’t shoot. And Marines where it was the opposite. It’s also generally possible to get promoted by just hanging out, keeping out of trouble, and having reasonable fitness tests
The military has lots of waste and graft, but it is also not terrible at hiring very competent/smart people through their commission system (unlike a lot of the rest of government). I am skeptical that churn is a cause of problems, almost everywhere I have worked in government has by far the opposite problem.
The smartest people I've met either have plum book positions, military officers, or work as prosecutors.
(by plum brook, do you mean NASA? If so, I've met some smart people from there and other NASA posts, but also met some of the worst employees that epitomize some of what the discussion is against - very toxic, against any new ideas, refusing to retire, shirking duties etc. at one point one org had an average age of 59+, that's very indicative of a refusal to move on).
>it is also not terrible at hiring very competent/smart people through their commission system
I suspect you would get a very different perspective if you talked to enlisted servicemembers (or subordinate officers). I would argue the commissioning system is better than the previous aristocratic commissioning system, but still relatively poor at mating skills to positions.
I think churn is a couple of problems for a couple of different potential reasons:
1) constantly moving positions tends to leave the more complicated problems unsolved. For one, it's difficult to truly understand the dynamics of a complicated system in a short period. Secondly, if someone is concerned with promotion, attacking small problems tends to get you a win during your tenure, while it's unlikely you'll make much headway on a really difficult or complicated problem. Even worse is the commander who has all kinds of great ideas they want implemented even before they really understand the problem (ie the 'good idea fairy' dilemma)
2) military churn can bias toward giving people responsibility beyond their capability, simply because they need someone to fill that role. This is especially with younger organizations (and the military definitely biases young). Meaning you tend to people with a lot of power/responsibility before their frontal lobe is even fully developed.
Now I do think the military does a pretty good job at accountability, which can mitigate some of those factors. But if that's the case, we should be trying to optimize for "accountability" and not "churn".
The better military organizations seem to have "churn" in the uniformed services in charge but a steady cadre of professional civilian staff supporting them.
the plum book is a list of politically appointed positions in the federal government, including positions at NASA and elsewhere. i wasn’t referring to the plum brook facility
I dunno. When I read the founding fathers, they seem pretty skeptical of power structures, both public and private. The way they configured the government, it’s clear that they had little trust that we’d have competent or honest politicians at the helm. Hence all the checks and balances and limitations to federal powers.
Rather, I’d like to see what positive oversight would look like, but that has not been put forth by any of these organizations thus far. It all comes down to “trust us” which is also hard to stomach
[0]: most often but not exclusively held by Americans (of which i am one). We collectively fail to imagine government being a positive force and what that would look like.