Canadian Government Executive - Volume 23 - Issue 09

20 / Canadian Government Executive // December 2017 Readings Brief Andrew Graham W e all ask why governments fail, often spectacularly, to carry out their policy goals through bad implementa- tion. When something goes wrong, we watch the arch of public attention rise, demands for accountability, and then governments move in to fix the problem. Then, we move on. We seldom go back and do a post mortem on failure. Come to think of it, we seldom do one on successes either. Those who ignore history are con- demned…. There is a growing body of research on failures in government. This column fo- cuses on two publications that are on the mark and consistent in telling ways. From the United Kingdom there is The Blunders of our Governments by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe, London Oneworld, 2013 and from the United States, there is A Cascade of Failures: Why Government Fails, and How to Stop It by Paul C. Light, Brookings Institute, available for download at www. brookings.edu . Both examined a series of government failures in their respective countries and came to surprisingly com- mon conclusions on the sources. Briefly summarized, they are: • Bluster Leads to Blunder when expec- tations of performance, timely deliv- ery and anticipated savings are raised too high, deadlines come too fast and the actual cost of implementation is estimated. Has anyone heard of under- promise and over-deliver? • Cultural Disconnect between the for- mulators of the policy or response and those who had to carry it out and those affected by the policy. Let’s just call it elitism for short. • Announcement Equals Accomplish- ment, or maybe it’s just a fondness for ribbon cutting and a distaste for the nitty gritty. • Handover Mentality, in which the de- signers of a policy, program or response ignore the messy part – implementa- tion. Let’s also call this operational dis- connect. • Stupid Risk Planning, which is actu- ally a whole category of bad moves that guarantee failure but also limit the capacity to respond to situations when they go wrong, such as: o Killing Truth to Power: Not encour- aging combative debate or seeking gainsayers in both the design and set- ting up of implementation. Don’t just shoot the messenger, exclude them The Architecture of Failure This short column will provide busy people with a quick review of developments in public management research and writing that might prove useful in their day-to-day work.