Does Management Matter?

he grades presented in this issue of Government Executive represent the most ambitious attempt ever made to grade the state of federal management. Sadly, they confirm with rigorous detail what most observers have long believed: But for occasional bright spots such as the Social Security Administration, and despite herculean efforts to rebuild the broken systems at agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Aviation Administration, most federal agencies are barely making the grade, and far too many have abandoned hope of getting better.

Although government is perfectly capable of doing better--witness the gains made in solving the Y2K problem--the reality is that the federal government's management systems remain mostly mediocre. Despite a half century of unrelenting reform, and in part because of it, the federal government is in danger of becoming a monument to managerial mediocrity. The spirit of improvement may be willing, whether in the Vice President's reinventing campaign or in the daily perseverance of nearly 2 million civil servants, but the flesh of modern systems and a top-to-bottom commitment to results remain weak.

Whether these grades make a difference depends almost entirely on whether Congress and the President see any reason to worry about mediocrity. Simply asked, does management matter to anything that either branch cares about? Consider two ways of asking the question.

Does Lousy Management Ordain Lousy Performance? Congress and the President will never act as long as they believe that mediocre management is unrelated to any outcomes that matter. Are fliers at greater risk because FAA is doing so poorly on financial management? Are workers at risk because OSHA is scoring so low on human resources? Are patients at risk because HCFA made an estimated $20 billion in improper payments last year. Are laws being broken because Customs and IRS are failing on information technology?

The link between poor management and actual outcomes is not always clear. Agencies can succeed in spite of lousy management systems, provided they have talented leadership, good people, and an extraordinary commitment to their mission. The fact is that federal agencies often do the impossible. The FAA may have lousy financial management, but it more than com- pensates with some of the most dedicated public servants in the world; EPA's staff retention problems are more than offset by most employees' deep commitment to the agency's mission. But there are also agencies where mission and management are entangled in failure. Now that the District of Columbia is on its way back from the management abyss, perhaps its Control Board should take on the INS.

Proving that lousy management equals lousy performance may be all but impossible, but there can be little doubt that lousy management makes good performance much more difficult. Too many federal agencies have come to rely on strong leadership and over-achieving employees as a substitute for decent management systems. High performance should be because of, not in spite of, management systems.

Is This Any Way to Treat a Public Service? If you cannot imagine what government could do with better systems, try imagining what government could do with the worst systems possible. Try human resource systems that are among the most inflexible in the world. Try information technology processes that create monstrous, oversold, high-priced systems that do not work. Try some of the federal government's 450 or so financial management systems, each one diabolically designed to refuse integration or real-time information. Try managing for results when Congress and the President refuse to reveal just where they want agencies to concentrate their energies.

Imagining such a reality is hardly difficult. It is the prevailing reality for far too many agencies. Nothing much comes easy to the public service these days. Even SSA, which has built one of the most impressive customer satisfaction systems in or outside of government, has endured the loss of 15,000 jobs, motivated more by an
artificial hunt for head-count reductions than a measured analysis of what the agency needs to serve an aging clientele.

The public service deserves better. Agencies need talented leaders, dedicated employees and clear missions. But they also need modern, high-quality approaches to management, for even extraordinary leadership cannot long sustain high performance in the absence of good systems.

Unfortunately, Congress and the President are hardly exemplars of parental involvement. Mostly, they act like lazy parents, occasionally answering a bad report card with a harsh word and demands to do better, but rarely giving the time or energy to become involved partners in reform. If they want INS, indeed all of government, to get better grades, they need to check in more often. They ought to clarify the mission, invest in management, recruit more talented leaders, take a shot at civil service reform, provide the dollars for training, stop contracting out core competency, and so on. At least for now, however, Congress and the President are more likely to scold departments and agencies than provide the kind of reforms that might actually produce better grades.