Summary:
Is there a new organizational ethos which should shape the
characteristics and operating dynamics of the early 21st century public
bureaucracy? Is this radically different from the efficiency and
effectiveness paradigm associated with the late 20th century? Does being
resourceful, strategically agile, responsive and creative lie at its
core?
Key points•
What characteristics are needed for the 21st century public
bureaucracy? Do they need to be different from what went before? In
which ways will they need to be different?
• The bureaucracies
we have were developed to solve the problems of their time and reflect
the culture of their age. At their best they sought systematic
procedures to bring transparency, fairness and equity to decision
making. Yet as they evolved weaknesses appeared.
•
Bureaucracies were once seen as benign and modern if somewhat
technocratic. Has it latest focus on efficiency created a
neo-bureaucratic centralism that needs to be reassessed especially in
the context of user driven service innovation?
• Changes are
already afoot in the organisational practices of the public sector,
commercial companies and in the wider world. It includes a shift to
involving users more and co-creating policies, products or solutions; a
shift from hierarchical to network thinking, a breakdown in traditional
disciplinary boundaries, and cultural cross-fertilization. These have
implications for how bureaucracies need to operate.
• The 21st
century bureaucracy needs to combine the best of the 20th century
bureaucracy and evolving lessons about what makes a good organization
work.
• The creative bureaucracy thesis seeks to marry two
seemingly incompatible concepts – creativity and bureaucracy – in order
to do this. Creativity focuses on resourcefulness, imagination and
flexibility.
• With the recognition of the power of
integrated, joined up thinking is a new generalist required able to
understand specialist knowledge as well as be able to range across
disciplines
• There is a need to shift the negative
perceptions of bureaucracy and those that work in them. Many people who
work in bureaucracies are not expressing their full talents. Can we
create conditions to better harness their imaginations, creativity and
competences?
• Finally, the world at large poses new and
urgent challenges from greening to dealing with diversity. Bureaucracies
need to inventive and effective in dealing with these.
Charles Landry, Comedia The Creative Bureaucracy‘Creative’
and ‘bureaucracy’: two words that do not seem to fit together. The
first hints at curiosity, imagination, looking at things afresh,
bringing unconnected things together in unusual ways, having initiative.
It seems dynamic, loose and flexible. Creativity is multifaceted
resourcefulness and responsiveness. The second triggers in the mind
words like structure, hierarchy, rules, routine, process. It seems
mechanical, lifeless, eviscerated and static. 'Bureaucracy' is embedded
with negative connotations in English, likened to a nuisance or even
tyranny at odds with public or civic service. Bureaucracies are
maligned, they drain the spirit it is said. In German and French, by
contrast, the equivalent words are less pejorative.
The ‘creative
bureaucracy’ idea is not a plan, but a proposed way of operating that
helps create better plans and better future ways of operating. It is an
adaptive, responsive and collaborative organisational form that in
principle can harness the initiative and full intelligences of those
working in them and respond to the changing demands of those they seek
to serve.
Bureaucracies exist in the public, private and
community spheres in various forms. They can be complex in their precise
characteristics depending on their purpose, mission, scope and size. A
bureaucracy is the organizational structure of larger organizations
which have systematic procedures, protocols and regulations to manage
activity. These dictate how most processes are executed as well as the
formal division of powers, hierarchies, and relationships intended to
anticipate needs and improve efficiency. Here the focus is on the public
domain, yet it has as much relevance to how large corporations operate
as to public institutions. Key principles have evolved in how they
operate such as neutrality or leaving vision making to politicians. This
can constrain initiative, motivation and creative potential.
This note tries to differ from most other discussions of the topic.
It
attempts to combine questions of organization and structure, culture
and values in organizations with how people feel emotionally and
psychologically at work and especially those lower down who are often
responsible for putting plans in to action. It puts the lived experience
of the person centre-stage. For organizations to be effective people
want to be able to take initiative and have more control, influence or
power.
There is a vast body of literature on making organizations
or bureaucracies more competent, innovative and entrepreneurial; on how
to develop joint ‘visions’; on the merits of different regulation and
incentives regimes; on the relationship between bureaucracy, power,
politics and interests and effectiveness; and on the balance between
certainty, predictability, standardisation, codes, fairness and their
opposites. This note will not address these, instead this Viewpoint asks
a central question: Are there new organizational principles which
should shape the qualities, characteristics and operating dynamics of
the early 21st century bureaucracy. Are they radically different from
those associated with the late 20th century?
Where are we at?The
predominant organizational form of the 20th century had its genesis in
military forms and later industrial modes of production, encapsulated at
its worst by Taylorism, which could reduce people to mere drones and
did not harness their potential talent. It emphasized control. Its forms
were characterised by hierarchical management systems, sharply defined
departments and divisions of labour and left little scope for
self-expression. Yet bureaucratic forms developed in response to the
arbitrariness of previous rulemaking and sought to provide efficiency
within a framework of accountability, transparency, neutrality and
equality. It evolved thus as part of the democratic impulse. It contains
attributes that should not be lost in the new cultural context of
greater individual empowerment and choice, where the ability to take
initiative, to be imaginative and creative are seen as important in
solving problems and creating opportunities. Equally creativity and
innovation simply for the sake of it is by no means desirable.
A
plethora of new management techniques have since been adopted to respond
and to overcome perceived weaknesses and to harness the imagination and
energy of staff, such as: ‘the organization as a learning system’,
‘excellence theories’, ‘motivation theory’, ‘cultural intelligence’,
‘strategic management’, ‘continuous improvement’, a focus on ‘core
competences’ to name a few.
At least in some quarters there are
discernible new patterns of organisation in companies, 'bureaucracies'
and society as a whole:
• Sharing, co-creation and openness.
'Open innovation' is the catchphrase. This is reconfiguring how
companies operate, well beyond IT and initiatives like open source.
There are new technical possibilities to relate to audiences, clients or
citizens, for example through Web 2.0. There is a greater shift to the
user and some already talk of a far more interactive Web 3.0. This is
enhancing possibilities to deepen and reinvent democratic processes and
the relationship of individuals to organizations.
• A shift from hierarchical to network thinking.
Traditional organizational thinking looked at boundaries, levels,
precise functions and set responsibilities through which efficiency or
product and policy innovation was to occur. It appeared neat and clear.
Now new platforms for collaboration and partnerships between citizens,
corporations and public institutions are developing. Relationships can
cut across organizational types or geographic borders and connections
are more permeable. Things can seem fuzzy. In this process the nature of
innovation itself is changing especially in rethinking and redesigning
services and how they are delivered.
• Breaking down divisions between disciplines.
Silo thinking and working is increasingly showing its weakness. It
lacks knowledge coming from within the interconnections. Whilst
acknowledging specialist knowledge working across boundaries can create
new or joint insights. Within organizations the developmental, marketing
and communications roles are seen as more significant than before.
These latter capacities do not sit easily with public sector
organizations.
• Increased mobility and cultural cross-fertilization.
Identities are being reshaped. Multiple perspectives on issues are
emerging. The acknowledged canon in many disciplines is being
questioned. As the terra firma shifts issues of trust, loyalty and the
role of the expert are being reconsidered.
• Creativity as a resource.
The ability to be imaginative and inventive is increasingly seen as an
important asset. This requires organizations that allow individuals to
be curious and that foster a culture of debate. Fluidity, suppleness,
adaptability and responsiveness are the organizational watchwords. How,
in this context, do organizations allow for greater creativity?
• The rise of the new generalist.
As a result of these changes new kinds of jobs that never existed
before are being invented. One that is likely to emerge as significant
is the ‘new generalist’. This is a person who understands the essence
and core arguments of specialist subjects, but has the capacity to range
over disciplines, is able to make connections and create synergies and
develop new insights. This contrasts to the somewhat maligned ‘old
generalist’. In stereotype this was an amateur who knew little of
substance.
The above needs to be seen in the light of new complex
problems. These include greening and sustainability which if treated
seriously, will need to reshape our landscape of thinking and behaviour
and how we do things. Some refer to this as the rise of wicked problems.
Many public policy problems, such as obesity which cut across health
and social issues or getting people to change their behaviours with the
threat of climate change are severely complex. They have been called
wicked problems (Ritter & Webber and Horn). They are seemingly
intractable, made up of inter-related dilemmas, issues and interweave
political, economic and social questions. Wicked problems cannot be
tackled by traditional approaches where problems are simply defined,
analysed and solved in sequential steps. They have characteristics that
make traditional hierarchical, top down thinking less adept and
appropriate to solving them. For example, there is no definite way or
unique “correct” view of formulating the problem; and different
stakeholders see problem and solutions differently often with deeply
held ideological views. With these problems comprehensive data is often
uncertain, difficult to acquire or missing. In addition they are
connected to other problems and every solution reveals new aspects of
the problem that needs adjusting. In some sense the problem is never
solved and solutions are merely better or worse. Organizationally
dealing with these problems requires adaptability, agility and
responsiveness.
Can bureaucracies remain as they were in this
unfolding world of messy issues? We do not assume that bureaucracies are
inherently against innovation. Part of their rationale is in fact to
slow things down so that issues can be thought through. The real
question is whether the slowing down dynamics of the system itself
becomes its raison d’etre.
In considering these changes all
organizations whether in the public or private sphere will reflect the
character and frailty of human diversity. These include the tendency to
be tribal, the danger of group think, the use of hierarchy to exert
power. There will be mavericks, rule benders and those who push against
the grain as much as rule junkies. Yet how can mavericks or creatives
slot in to organizations that by tradition see the benefits of caution
or more slow paced considered approaches?
Questions to consider•
Is there an inner logic to all organizations across cultures and
time that constrains and reduces people potential to be creative?
• Are there organizational forms, cultures or rules systems and mechanisms that are able to empower and enrich?
•
If so, is the organizational ethos and its resulting culture
different, in that it rewards openness, responsiveness and flexibility?
Can large more bureaucratic organizations develop such an ethos?
•
What is the next focus to enhance organizational achievement?
Another restructuring with a new organigramme? Is it instead developing a
refreshed understanding of how organizations can succeed with a greater
emphasis on assessing the psychological effects of the work place and
its impact on people? Will this achieve more to encourage motivation
than changes in structure?
• Does changing the ethos of an
organization require changing its physical setting? Have these changed
enough to make them creativity inducing places and people in them more
productive? Do organizational consultants, architects, project planners,
the construction industry understand the language of space, place and
design sufficiently?
• What would the prototypes for the 21st
century responsive, effective bureaucracy look like? Are organizations
like SEMCO run by Ricardo Semler and known for its radical industrial
democracy models or are they not appropriate for a public sector
bureaucracy?
• How can people at different levels of the
organization feel more fulfilled? What models exist to give people
operating at levels four or five more scope to take initiative and have
influence?
• What is the right metaphor for this emerging
organizational form one that moves from a vertical structure to a more
horizontally integrated and networked one? What metaphor marries the
benefits of organizational structure with flexibility? If it is not the
machine is it a living organism where human potential is optimized? Is
it the network? Is it how Google operates? Is it the garden? Is there
something better?
What might the 21st century bureaucracy look like?A
bureaucracy, crucially, is not only a structure, a mere organigramme
with functional relationships and roles. It is a group of people with
lives, emotions, aspirations, energy, passion and values. Those that
work in them often have strong values, great intentions and good ideas.
Most want to do good and not be negative. Somehow, however, good intent
can evaporate as the dynamic of the organizational ‘system’ unfolds. Can
the positive virtues and potential of public sector bureaucracies and
the people working in them be rediscovered? These include fostering
fairness, equity, equality of opportunity, being neutral and
transparent. These are important achievements of democracy, yet the
focus on efficiency can obscure these intentions.
The need for
effective organization, administration and management is not questioned.
The issue is what ethos and culture is encouraged by organizational
priorities and ways of thinking. Is it possible for bureaucracies to add
to their culture the suppleness and fluidity we associate with
creativity? My contention is two fold. First the ability for
organizations to be more resourceful, responsive, imaginative and
innovative is key to their democratic mission and effectiveness. Second,
by empowering staff in this way they offer more and it makes them more
committed so creating a positive feedback loop. This makes resolving the
tension between the two concepts ‘creative’ and ‘bureaucracy’ a central
aim of the ‘new bureaucracy’..
People want more fulfilled lives
and with this they work better. The ability to be creative stands as a
proxy for this desire. It means being able to think for oneself, to have
initiative, explore and experiment. Creativity then becomes a general
problem-solving and opportunity-creating capacity. The essence of
creativity is flexible resourcefulness. It generates the ability to find
one’s way to solutions for intractable, unexpected, unusual problems or
improve day-to-day circumstances through many micro innovations. This
keeps organizations alive and adaptable. It is applied imagination using
qualities like intelligence, inventiveness and learning along the way.
This enables potential to unfold.
Life in a bureaucracyI
have interviewed perhaps 50 people in the UK and elsewhere both
professionals who had a high degree of autonomy and those further down
the hierarchical chain since my interest in bureaucracies developed in
2004. The two main questions I asked of participants were:
‘Are you working at full capacity?’
‘What would the organizational conditions be for you achieve more?’
Most
of the high level professionals were relatively satisfied in their
work, claiming they were operating at around 65% to 75%. Those operating
at level three or four in the hierarchy, on the other hand, were less
satisfied, averaging out at around 60%.
The conditions conducive to satisfaction boiled down to a few things:
•
Creating greater autonomy and control over one’s job and in how to
achieve goals. Being subjected to outcomes and targets imposed from far
away was the main problem.
• Enabling people to break out of
departmental constraints in order to solve problems which require
working across the organization without needing to go up and down the
hierarchy.
• Respecting, valuing and rewarding
under-acknowledged capacities, such as the ability to build
relationships or networks internally and externally.
• Encouraging a culture of critical thinking so that the organizational becomes more of a ‘learning system’.
• Developing a sense of organizational continuity that allies predictability to responsiveness.
The
most profoundly negative effect felt by people in organizations in the
last two decades is the tendency for endless tinkering and restructuring
to adapt organizations to new times. This will to restructure comes
from many sources, for different reasons and in many forms, including:
the new broom syndrome; new government or local authority policy; a
valid recognition that a structure is out of date or the need for
flexibility to achieve a competitive edge.
Is it time to
reconsider the balance of effort put on restructuring as distinct from
investing in an understanding of how people become more motivated and
harness their capabilities. Which route is more effective?
My
experience of working in large organisations is limited I have had
shorter periods in Brussels at the European Union and later at the World
Bank in Washington. I set out below the insights I have gained over the
past 25 years of advising and consulting with cities and working with
their bureaucracies as an outsider - principally helping them adapt to
the new global conditions. The main lessons I have learnt are:
Energy and PassionThe
most effective organizations are those where people feel they can be
engaged and where their commitment to the organization lies beyond a
contractual relationship and where a deeper emotional bond can be
established both to the work itself and the organization. In these
situations people feel they are able ’to be our true selves’ and to have
a ‘creative presence’ so that working gives the sense of ‘pregnant
possibilities’ and where they can develop ‘an intensity that feels and
appears effortless’. Here energy and passion can come into alignment.
The wider ethos of such organizations follows.
Strategically principled, tactically flexibleThe
organisations most effective in being agents rather than victims of
change are those that operate with strong public acknowledged
principles. These act as a compass and guide to provide direction. They
are not prescriptive. Rules, regulations and laws instead serve ethical,
value-laden principles: If the aim is to reduce energy consumption, how
you achieve that goal is up to you. How you legislate and implement
by-laws shifts over time as long as the principle intent is achieved.
The skill of being strategically agile is key.
Vision shaping rules, rather than rules shaping visionConversely,
innovation is often thwarted by institutional myopia. In the context in
which I am most comfortable – cities – rules are rarely designed with a
wider urban outcome in mind, such as creating a great neighbourhood or
urban vitality. Instead they are concerned with a very particular aspect
– health, safety, privacy, road guidelines, traffic flow. In addition
to being single issue, the rules try to be uniform across boundaries of
all kinds demanding a standardised code framework. This is something the
private sector also wants as it simplifies things and gives certainty.
When someone comes up with a bright idea comprising a more holistic
vision for the city, they are often rejected by officials who might
state ‘this is not in line with government guidelines’ and so a strict
modus operandi based on existing rules prevails.
In order to
achieve most of the complex outcomes cities desire means rethinking
guidelines and rules. For instance, many cities want to be ‘networked’
or ‘vibrant’. Consider the notion of 'networked'. This describes a place
of hubs and nodes with centres of urbanity criss-crossing the city. It
is a place where public transport is privileged over the private, and
people over cars, it is an accessible, walkable place; where building a
sense of place is a priority and creating distinctiveness is a common
striving; a place of good streets, interesting public spaces; a place
that is sustaining and sustainable and that inspires their people and
outsiders too. Rules made for specific elements of the city are unlikely
to achieve this on their own. The vision and its principled intent
should determine the nature and application of rules.
Optimizing not maximizingThe
nonlinear and complex nature of the challenges faced by organisations
today requires correspondingly complex, adaptive solutions. It is
important to consider the difference between optimizing and maximizing a
situation. Complex systems do the former. Maximising individual
elements, like traffic flow, environmental protection, building
densities, safety and health standards which tends to happen in siloed
organizations may not address an overarching problem and indeed make it
worse. The challenge is to optimize the balance between the different
aspects. A simple analogy is the body: if you maximize the function of
every part of your body, such as the lungs, the heart, the liver and
kidneys you collapse and die. The bodies tries to optimize. For
instance, if you have a kidney problem your lungs adapt, your heartbeat
might rise whilst your liver functions slow. In short, the elements
communicate with each other adaptively to optimise the situation.
Without
diminishing the importance of specialist knowledge, fragmented
knowledge and expertise can lead to reduced insight and the capacity to
solve problems or develop opportunities. Such silo thinking privileges
the individual discipline in isolation and can encourage a celebration
of individual targets and thus linear maximisation.
Horizontal not vertical, devolved and less centralizedPublic
institutions remain largely vertically integrated. You look upwards for
instructions. The UK remains with Japan the most centralized liberal
democracy in the world with around 75% of a local authority’s resources
coming from central government. To address a complex problem like
obesity that has multiple causes and which needs addressing on a number
of fronts simultaneously in an orchestrated way you need to be able to
agglomerate responsibility in one place. This is fraught with
difficulty. A local authority, for instance, has little traction over
what a hospital or university do who are both important players in
tackling obesity. There are different accountability structures and
money streams are usually centrally dictated which constrains the
freedom to act.
Other examples of cross-cutting issues where
similar problems occur include place-making, creating sustainable
communities and healthy urban planning.
There is an increased
recognition that to solve many problems or to grasp new opportunities in
the future it is necessary to create horizontal more open networks
which allow solutions to emerge from within user communities. This
requires a decentralizing drive. With centralization this remains very
difficult if not impossible to achieve.
Interdisciplinary not multidisciplinaryProjects
should be run on interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary lines where
skills intermesh, joint solutions emerge and perspectives change through
working together. Contrast this with a multidisciplinary approach where
experts share information and knowledge, but usually feed in their
expert opinion without changing views.
In the interdisciplinary
world the aim and intent - making a great place or street, for example –
is central and continually in focus. The various experts jointly agree
the characteristics and qualities of such a place. The only question
then is how the expert discipline can help that overall goal.
In
most stakeholder consultation processes after environmental services,
highway engineering, the disability and safety specialists, retailers
and other considerations have had their say the project may fall apart.
Instead of asking ‘what are the highway or disability rules that apply
to this project?’ the question should be ‘how can disability or highway
legislation be flexibly used to make a great place?’
Aligning professional mindsetsEven
though we have increasing expertise in the technical aspects that make
up a neighbourhood or a building, those insights do not seem to provide
the answer. The places, estates, institutions and buildings and often
their programmes disappoint.
Planners project, surveyors cost,
engineers calculate, architects visualize. Professions have their way of
achieving insight, a particular set of organizing attributes and
dispositions – in short, a mindset. But no profession can claim for
itself, as many do, to understand the overarching complexity of places
and how they work, be that a neighbourhood, a hospital or housing
estate.
The task, then, is to shift to making a place as distinct
from doing a project. This involves the complex art of seeing,
understanding and acting upon how the physical, social, economic,
emotional, psychological and cultural dynamics work. This applies not
only to those defined as core professions, such as planners, engineers
or architects, but also those concerned with issues such as health,
urban entertainment or social care. Particular professional skills
should become subsumed to the broader goals of successful place making.
Mindsets need to be aligned. Professionals need to understand the
essence of other disciplines and their professional languages.
The New Generalist The
new generalist, in the context of cities, knows how to think
conceptually, spatially and visually and recognises multiple
intelligences. This more rounded person is not the Jack of all trades or
gifted amateur of older times. Their higher order skills help them
analyse situations better by being able to grasp the essence of other
specialist disciplines and to see the connections between them. They
have a roving mind. Overlaid on this base are general personal
qualities. These include: openness, listening and empathy as well as the
capacity to judge the right timing and appropriateness to move into
their near opposites of decisiveness and implementing things.
The
requirements, for example, to create good cities go beyond the classic
disciplines associated with urban development like design, planning,
valuing and engineering. It requires people who can think about hardware
and software issues simultaneously. For example, they will be able to
understand the emotional effects of physical structures like roads or
buildings. They will be able to combine attributes some of the
specialist disciplines bring such as being acute observers, good
visualisers, able information gatherers, sharp strategists or inspirers,
sensitive facilitators and mediators, clear presenters and
interesting story tellers.
Creative connectors: Overcoming entrenched interestsSuccessful
places seem to have many creative connectors, who might be
organizations or individuals. The connectors and facilitators stand
above the nitty gritty of the day to day, important as this is, and look
at ‘what really matters’ instead of getting stuck in detail or short
term problems.
By standing above the fray they can focus on
bringing people, organizations and ideas together and avoid getting
involved in interest group politics. They take an eagle-eye view of
things and rove over concerns and see the lines of possible alignment.
They look for the common agenda and see issues many organizations view
as quite important, but not as of prime importance as it is not their
main raison d’etre. In most silo based organizations many issues slip
through under-acknowledged, yet they may be the most important task for a
place or organization. Examples include a city’s global positioning,
developing cultural richness or assessing talent from a broader
perspective. This is a task well beyond the educational sector, although
they play an important part. After all school or university occupies
only five to seven hours a day yet we behave as if it were 24 hours.
Some of the most effective learning outcomes happen outside formal
institutions.
The connector organization has a difficult role to
play. It needs to present itself as beyond self-interest and be both
powerful and not powerful simultaneously. Its needs power to draw
credible people and organizations together. If it takes too much credit
others will be jealous, yet it needs authority or to operate. The
connector needs an unusual set of qualities, they include: Sharp focus,
clarity, strategic intent, diplomatic skills, flexibility, the capacity
to read situations and deal with power play; strong conceptual thinking
to understand the essence of arguments, summarizing skills, the ability
to chair and make meetings work.
Reframing ‘Reframing’
is changing the nature of something or a situation by looking at it
from a different standpoint and by doing so unleashing potential and a
fresh view. There is nothing radical in the idea itself except that it
is rarely aspired to. But when it is, the results can be powerful. By
turning strength into weakness, for example, the famous Emscher Park
project in the industrial Ruhr area of Germany used its industrial
degradation to its advantage. By developing a new industrial sector for
environmental protection it transformed its degraded landscape and
revitalised the economy. In similar exercises in reframing, children
have been employed as planners in places like Rouen and Locarno. Taking a
women’s perspective in Emscher and Vienna has highlighted facilities
traditional planning tends to forget: enhanced spaces for social
interaction; greater emphasis on play areas; better attention to
lighting and safety issues; rethinking the interiors of apartments with
greater attention to kitchens as the central place in households.
Co-creationCo-creation
between producers and users has existed in some spheres for a long
time, in product design, community arts and the dispersed networks that
track the sky. It has reached a new pitch with the possibilities of the
internet and more recently the interactive Web 2.0. At its core it
involves engaging users, creating feedback loops, co-defining products
or outcomes expected, co-owning the process. There is a dynamic
relationship.
We have lived with the idea that inventions and
innovations should be protected by patents as this guards the income
stream that repays the effort, research, resources expended and risk.
Yet patent protection now appears has a flipside. It can reduce creative
capacity and innovation potential because it locks in ideas within the
domain of rights holders, monopolizes it and blocks others developing an
idea, a product or process. Most evolving business models lure users as
participants and producers. Examples include the social networking
sites like My Space, Twitter and Facebook, where a core organisation
provides a platform and creates a large community of users who generate,
share, amend and distribute content. Public service organizations can
develop similar feedback loops with their audiences and generate a mass
of micro improvements and innovations to improve care, health, safety
and education.
This is a different focus than simply making the
value chain more effective. Instead it takes participation to the next
level to co-design services. This is impossible within a vertical
structure and will require people like safety officers, fire officers,
youth workers, traffic engineers to rethink their roles and to reskill
themselves.
ConclusionNew
economic, cultural and social conditions require new organizational
models to make them work well. A world where user driven problem solving
and co-creation is more prevalent and which increasingly acknowledges
the importance of engaged employees needs to create structures where
their imagination, initiative can express itself more fully. The primary
organizational focus then shifts. It demands greater fluidity,
responsiveness and strategic agility. It does not give up trying to
efficient, it seeks instead to be ‘creatively bureaucratic’ as a means
of enhancing civic creativity.
The challenge for the new
bureaucracy is to foster civic creativity as its ethos and to persuade
their citizen partners and others that problems and opportunities are
better addressed in this way. Civic creativity is imaginative
problem-solving applied to public good objectives. It involves public
sector institutions being more entrepreneurial and responsive to its
various audiences within accountability principles and the private
sector being more aware of its responsibilities to the collective whole.
Conclusions•
The public interest bureaucracies we have are insufficiently
achieving what they set out to do, and failing to respond to major
shifts on the horizon, such as the deep trend towards co-creation, will
make this worse.
• The operating dynamics of the 21st-century
bureaucracy that is responsive to its citizens and users and that
provides fulfilling lives for those that work in them will be different
in significant ways from what we are used to.
• One central
organizational challenge is to shift from vertical structures to more
horizontal ones and from hierarchies to networks and looser time dated
task specific arrangements.
• The skills and core competences
to run complex bureaucracies will change. A range of generic skills will
become far more important such as the capacity to build relationships
and ability to broker, to rove across disciplines and to understand the
essence of each, to think conceptually, to learn the languages of
different sectors, to communicate, to work in teams, to delegate and
give up power for increased influence.
• There is
under-exploited talent in most bureaucracies that wants to burst out.
There should be a shift in focus to asking how we harness talent rather
than adjusting structures.
• Centralization does not encourage
creative bureaucracies. Decentralization and more autonomy remain key
drivers to generate innovation and are essential to build creativity in
to the system as the potential of more actors is harnessed.
A final thought •
Many attributes of the successful bureaucracy are difficult to
measure as they concern attitudes and organizational cultures. Yet as
Daniel Yankelovich the renowned American pollster noted: ‘The first step
is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is okay as far as
it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t be measured or
give it an arbitrary value. This is artificial and misleading. The
third step is to presume what can’t be measured isn’t really important.
This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can’t be easily
measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide!’
• The
question ‘what is the value of a ‘creative bureaucracy’’ should be
reversed to ‘what is the cost of not having a creative bureaucracy’
Examples:Inventing rules afresh: Calgary’s Community Standards Process
Calgary
recognized that getting people to comply with by-laws requires
different tools and personnel with different skills than are normally
found in enforcement jobs. Environmental by-laws are enacted to regulate
and control actions or behaviours. Frequently, by-laws are developed
based on a few complaints from a very vocal citizen group. Living in
close proximity we by default influence each other’s lives, so it then
becomes necessary to agree reasonable standards for things that affect
our neighbours and a simple, safe process for resolution. This process
generally happens with little input from citizens.
The vision behind the Community Standards by-law project is based on a few cornerstones or principles.
•
Most people will abide by-laws they understand, agree with, see as
relevant and feel they have been considered in the process – very few
people will simply do as they are told.
• By-laws need to reflect the standards the community desires. What works in one place does not in another.
•
The public needs to drive the process to set the guidelines to
achieve compliance which includes getting violators to be part of the
solution. The aim is to create a self-regulating system.
•
Neighbourhood liveability requires a blend of respect and tolerance and
processes that foster and support resolution, not punishment. By-laws,
if properly constructed and applied, can provide a peaceful resolution
to most issues. Strictly regulated by-laws can become a weapon in a
neighbour war with the local by-law officials drawn in.
• The
concept tries to get at least 95% of the public voluntarily to comply
with by-laws because they make sense, can be understood and deserve
support. Calgary calculated that they could not enforce against more
than 5% of the population given the sheer volume.
As an example,
take property. There were 12 different by-laws. All were created at
different times and in isolation of each other and included things as:
unsightly premises, nuisance, levels of waste, fire hazards, open
burning, graffiti, noise or drainage. Several were very old and there
were many areas of conflict within the rules.
The Community
Standards programme set up an advisory committee made up of three
members from each of the 14 electoral wards, one of which had to be
young, as well as representatives from a variety of community/interest
groups.
Starting with a blank piece of paper they assumed there
were no by-laws. Over several months the group agreed what they want
their city to look and feel like. They reached a consensus on what are
acceptable/desirable activities in the community, what are problematic
and need to be prohibited, what are potentially problematic and need to
be regulated and what are outside of their ability to regulate.
The
outcome, a Community Standards by-law, is a baseline of minimum
acceptable standards for Calgary based on citizens’ expectations. The
process does not stop with drafting a by-law. Implementation involves an
extensive program of education and awareness, working with communities
and others in a program called Partners in Compliance. By taking
ownership of their neighbourhood the community participates in
maintaining compliance. The local authority assists with resources to do
community clean ups or other programmes that will lead to better
compliance. The aim is to create a self regulating community where
enforcement is rarely needed, yet voluntary compliance is high.
The
by-law becomes a community tool written in a more flexible manner that
does not rely solely on a set technical standard but provides
regulations subject to interpretation, such as what type of noise is
disturbing.
Their experience shows a 90 – 95% success rate in
resolving issues compared to 30% of situations where there is
third-party intervention relying on regulatory orders and which require
follow-up intervention.
The broad goal is to provide a framework
or agreed standards and provide mechanisms for self-regulation. The
regulatory hammer lives in the background to intervene in cases where
there is no desire to work collaboratively and to provide encouragement
to seek non-regulatory resolution.
Thanks to Bill Bruce Calgary’s director of Bye-Laws for providing me with the material for this example.
The Bicycle Bell: Rules that build social capitalIn
Calgary there are 650 kilometres of shared-use pathways jointly used by
walkers, cyclists, skateboarders and roller-bladers, runners and dog
walkers. Rules enforced by the by-law officers ensure the system can
operate safely. One is that all bicycles have to have a bell to alert
other users. The penalty for failing to have one is a $57.00 fine.
Failing to pay can have further consequences. Historically, officers
would patrol the pathway and stop cyclists without a bell and fine them.
These interactions were unpleasant and stressful for both the officer
and cyclist. After the confrontation the cyclist would ride away angry
with their $57.00 ticket but still with no bell on the bike – no
compliance. Administering the fine cost the taxpayer $100 and more if
the cyclist ended up in court.
The simple solution was to revisit
the original goal of compliance and to review options to achieve it.
The city were able to buy 100 bells wholesale at $1.00 per bell and 12
screwdrivers for each of the rangers.
Officers were given bells
and a screw driver with the instruction to continue to enforce the
regulation but to do it differently. During the dialogue with
‘offenders’, the officer covers the reasons why the bell is needed and
the penalty for noncompliance. He then says they are lucky as he has a
bell and a screw driver and if the cyclist is willing to install it now,
the officer will not a ticket them. During the installation time, the
officer takes advantage to continue the positive dialogue and educate
the cyclist on other safety related regulations. At the end of this
five- to ten-minute encounter, the cyclist rides away in compliance,
educated and in a positive mood as they have been given a gift. The
officer returns to duty after a constructive, unstressful encounter.
The prime goal of compliance is achieved. To date, no one has declined
to accept the bell and take the ticket option. This approach is far
cheaper. Crucially with financial capital, the more you use it the more
the less you have; with social capital the more you use it the more it
achieves.
Freiburg: We had principles and we meant themThere
are nearly as many solar installations in Freiburg, an historic
university city in Southern Germany with a population of 200,000, as in
the whole of the UK. Why, when most technologies are tried and tested,
is the UK so far behind most of Europe? How did a largely conservative
city become the ‘green’ capital of Europe? The main lessons are less in
the details and much more concerned with showing principles, vision,
will, motivation, and tenacity.
As Wulf Daseking the chief planner involved since the early 1980s noted in conversation:
‘It
was all relatively easy, we had a few principles and we meant them –
full stop. We discussed things with citizens and major players like the
developers and through education and awareness raising got them on board
– we showed them how in the long run they would benefit from our plans.
Once they understood the framework, things were clearer. We provided a
structure and predictability – that is really all they want. We were
flexible about the look of buildings, we only insisted that the corner
buildings that were prominent met the highest standards of design, many
of those in between are not very attractive, but when they are part of
an assembly of buildings they look alright. We had one advantage,
Freiburg was growing so this gave us a lot of power. I have always said
the key thing is not give power away to the developers, they have to
work within our guidelines’.
In the early 1980s the threat of a
nuclear waste plant being sited near the city galvanized interests
across the political spectrum. When the Chernobyl disaster happened in
the Ukraine in 1986 this gave an important impetus to rethink the city’s
energy platform and the solar grouping proposed an alternative solar
based strategy. Their impact grew and over time the political attitudes
of all the major parties coalesced around the idea of Freiburg becoming a
solar city.
PrinciplesThe
idea has been most fully worked through in two new major settlements:
Riesefeld with 7,000 inhabitants and Vauban with 6,000 inhabitants.
Three
main principles characterize these developments. First, there are
strong ecological objectives such as integrating solar heating, feeding
district heating systems with a combined heat and power plant, rainwater
collection and upgrading the surrounding nature to reserve status.
Second, there are traffic systems that give priority to public
transport, pedestrians and bicycles. The secondary streets especially in
Vauban are largely car-free as there are dedicated parking houses so
encouraging children to play on the street. Third, priority is given to
mixed use both in terms of income groups, local shopping and nearby work
opportunities. Furthermore, public and private spaces interweave well
creating green lungs in the developments and there is a flexible urban
design framework that allows for future adaptation.
Practice The commitment to these principles has manifested itself in wide-ranging policies of which the following are only a few:
Vaubon's ‘energy plus' homes are built on a North-South axis to make
the most of sunlight, producing more energy than they consume.
One-third of Freiburg's streets are reserved for bicycles, one-third for trams and buses and a third for private vehicles.
The implementation of urban development is based on agreements between
the city and private owners. An important element has been getting
building contractors and architects on board and this means keeping
everyone well informed.
Freiburg has sold off plots of land to groups of families so they can employ an architect and build their own flats.
ImpactsImportantly
Freiburg’s reputation has led to a series of significant economic
spin-offs. First, it has attracted Europe's foremost solar power
research institute as well as other organizations and research centres
related to alternative energy. These have encouraged experimental
prototype solar buildings. Second, it has led to an active economic
sector leading the world in a variety of technologies. Third, in
collaboration with its economic development agency it created the major
solar energy exhibition and trade fair that has become so successful
that it has been franchised and transferred to Munich. In addition it
helped create a sister event in San Francisco. Finally, expert visits to
Freiburg have become a niche tourism market largely provided by the
municipality accounting for 20000 visits. Freiburg shows that there is
more to a green vision than house-building alone.
Apps for Democracy“Apps
for Democracy produced more savings for the D.C.government than any
other initiative.” - Vivek Kundra, former Chief Technology Officer of
Washington, DC and currently President Obama’s Chief Information Officer
In the autumn of 2008, Washington’s Office of the Chief Technology Office asked
iStrategyLabs how it could make its vast
Data Catalogue
useful for citizens, visitors, businesses and government agencies in
Washington, DC. The Data Catalogue contains all manner of open public
data featuring real-time crime feeds, school test scores, and poverty
indicators, and is the most comprehensive of its kind in the world.
The
old way - the Web 1.0 way - they felt would cost a couple of $million
by outsourcing it to a single supplier and would probably not deliver a
very good product. They felt combining with citizens talent would be far
more effective. Only two rules applied, the first was to use the
Washington Data Catalogue and the second to use open source with
creative commons licensing so the results could be shared.
Their
solution was to create Apps for Democracy. The first edition contest
cost the local authority $50,000 and returned 47 iPhone, Facebook and
web applications with an estimated value in excess of $2,600,000 to the
city. They include: A car pooling organizer, new biking maps, a ‘We the
People Wiki’ peer-led community reference website that anyone can edit
based on the public data, an application called ‘Aware Real Time
Alerts’ on crime reports, building permits and the like.
The next
round is the "Community Edition" and they are looking for 5000 feedback
items. It has two aims: to engage the people of Washington, DC to ask
for their input into the problems and then to crowd source ideas that
can be addressed with technology. Second, to build the best community
platform as well as their ideas about the perfect system to receive
feedback and service requests through blog posts, email surveys, video
testimonials, voice call-in captures or twitter update submissions. At
the conclusion the applications that win will be considered for
government support and helped with commercialisation
Conclusions•
The public interest bureaucracies we have are insufficiently
achieving what they set out to do, and responding to major shifts on the
horizon, such as the deep trend towards co-creation, will make this
worse.
• The operating dynamics of the 21st-century
bureaucracy that is responsive to its citizens and users and that
provides fulfilling lives for those that work in them will be different
in significant ways from what we are used to.
• One central
organizational challenge is to shift from vertical structures to more
horizontal ones and from hierarchies to networks and looser time dated
task specific arrangements.
• The skills and core competences
to run complex bureaucracies will change. A range of generic skills will
become far more important such as the capacity to build relationships
and ability to broker, to rove across disciplines and to understand the
essence of each, to think conceptually, to learn the languages of
different sectors, to communicate, work in teams, to delegate and give
up power for increased influence.
• There is under-exploited
talent in most bureaucracies that wants to burst out. There should be a
shift in focus to asking how we harness talent rather than adjusting
structures.
• Centralization does not encourage creative
bureaucracies. Decentralization and more autonomy remain key drivers to
generate innovation and are essential to build creativity in to the
system as the potential of more actors is harnessed.
A final thought •
Many attributes of the successful bureaucracy are difficult to
measure as they concern attitudes and organizational cultures. Yet as
Daniel Yankelovich the renowned American pollster noted: ‘The first step
is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is okay as far as
it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t be measured or
give it an arbitrary value. This is artificial and misleading. The
third step is to presume what can’t be measured isn’t really important.
This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can’t be easily
measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide!’
• The
question ‘what is the value of a ‘creative bureaucracy’’ should be
reversed to ‘what is the cost of not having a creative bureaucracy’
Thanks to Bill Bruce, Margaret Caust, Ed Beerbohm, Phil Wood, Paul Rubinstein for help and advice
Charles
Landry is the author of: The Creative City: A toolkit for urban
innovators’, ‘The Art of City Making’ and with my colleague Phil Wood
‘The Intercultural City: Planning for Diversity Advantage’.
Steph Curry proved that he is the Warriors leader.
In the figure given, if D has to communicate with G he will first
send the communication upwards with the help of C, B to A and then
downwards with the help of E and F to G which will take quite some time
and by that time, it may not be worth therefore a gang plank has been
developed between the two.
