Hostile Takeovers and Other Government Fun

Among the most worrisome prospects facing middle managers, especially those who have made their way to within sight of the corner office are changes in top management and hostile takeovers. When the whisper of change reaches the ears of mid-level executives, the need for ant-acids quickly increases.

Few well ensconced employees embrace organizational change. The devil they know is better than the one they fear. Corporate America's middle managers quake at the thought of turnover above them. Their positions will be in play when the new broom starts down the hall, and they suffer angst over all aspects of their lives. They even ponder the notion of life without the comforting embrace of mother corporation.

Such anxiety in the face of major change is not unique to the private sector. Government managers in local, state and federal agencies suffer stress that is very much akin to their corporate cousins. This may come as a shock to many members of the public who've been told that government service is safe from the pains of market oriented institutions but it is a fact.

This commentary will be confined to the federal government in Washington, but similar stresses take place in the regional offices and in state and local agencies as well. During my long career, I worked in each of these types of organizations and, while a practitioner and not a scholar, feel that I'm not too far off in speculating about the entire spectrum.

To tell the truth, government - especially in the headquarters of agencies and most importantly in those offices that formulate and communicate policies - is populated by an ambitious breed of public servants that yearns at least as fervently as those in private sector to rise and compete for the ear of top management. This, of course, is a far cry from the stereotypical slackers who in public imagination populate government service.

You may think that hostile takeovers of the government do not happen or that they occur only every eight or, at most, every four years, but that simply isn't the case. And after the politicians point with pride or view with alarm, the voters flip their coins and a new crew determined to make its mark descends upon the mass of quietly desperate bureaucrats.

The average tenure of presidential appointees to sub-cabinet positions is a little less than two years. Think of it, a new vice-president for sales every two years; that would disrupt any company. Even more shocking, ponder the hiring of all of your senior executives from outside the firm. Obviously, when things go radically wrong, your firm may look afar to hire new management, but this is done with full knowledge that the institution will be seriously disrupted for sometime after the shake up.

Yet top ranks in government are shaken and new outside executives are brought in to run organizations with multi-billion dollar budgets almost every two years. That's one reason for what is perceived to government inefficiency - just one, I grant you. This article is not designed to make you feel sorry for career government managers but, rather, to provide you with insight into a world that you may not know is even there.

A couple of exceptions are in order. Agencies whose missions are perceived to be vital to the nation are spared more than those whose objectives do not coincide with the philosophies of the administration in power even though that sometimes proves to be erroneous. Thus, the FBI, State, and Defense are more insulated from the rigors of constant reorganization than the Environmental Protection Agency, Housing and Urban development, parts of Health and Human Services, and other 'soft' - I leave the term for your defining, at least in this piece - agencies. The debate ongoing as these words are written on the intelligence agencies demonstrates that insulation from such rigors do not always yield the desired results. This undercuts my premise but bear with me.

Government executives are, in my view, a strange combination of bold and fearful. While it was long my thesis that the major difference in the managers, public and private, was the door they chose to enter when their preparation loosed them into the market, time and experience have shifted my opinion to some degree.

Obviously, the goals in the private sector are far easier to define. Even I can understand words such as numbers, quotas, and profits. Ah, but doing good is so hard to define and quantify. This difficulty provides another causation of why government is considered so inefficient - just one more. Yet those who set the goals can do little better. Increasing home ownership or reducing homelessness are worthy objectives and committing millions or billions to those ends are the best legislators can do. How many homeless were housed as a result of a given law as compared to another group that lost their dwellings because of other public policy is grist for many a talking mill. Surely, you'll grant that in selling hotdogs or mattresses it's easier to judge performance than in doing the people's business.

So we've established - haven't we? - that we have a new management team that views its employees, especially those who most closely supported its failed predecessors, with some suspicion and a group of middle managers whose fear is tending them toward paralysis might not be a pretty sight. Each time one group reaches out to the other, past gaffes and history get in the way. So the leaders seek out younger more vital workers who seem ready and eager to assist them in achieving mighty objectives. A new group in harness is on its way to glory but with the baggage of prior wars still on board - but shifted to the side. In the public sector, the outs are shunned with all the shame that goes with it. More inefficiency, wouldn't you agree?

As this process is repeated, sometimes for and sometimes against the public interest, new leadership comes and goes. Middle managers are sent to the wilderness up the hall where they can contemplate their sins, and new Young Turks and revamped heroes from prior administrations fill their places. I won't talk of scores settled and other unpleasantries that are more personal than business like, but with each rise and fall, the insecurities of those who chose the public life become more apparent.

The new paladins recognize that they are there because of the shortcomings of their predecessors. Only fools would rush in to embrace those managers who brought the disgraced executives to grief.

There, now you know the sad life of public managers. I'm sure that your tears are for them and not yourself and other taxpayers.