Conversations with Government: is there an ROI?

I'm a bit obsessed with conversations and stories at present, because they often provide greater insights than loads of analysis and report writing. And so it proved with another weekend breakfast chat with my wife Ann. I don't want to make these sound more intellectual than they are, but a previous one I wrote about prompted fascinating discussions with a member of the intelligence community about how agents do - or don't - share intelligence.
Anyway, this time Ann remarked on how over the past week she had chatted with managers in both public and private sector about change and the need to take account - of course - of what's happening in the wider world. That operating environment may be competitive, apparently collaborative, local or global ... but it will certainly change in unexpected ways. What Ann heard on several occasions was "a lot of my staff don't want to know about that... they say they just want to get on with their job".
I know this is the stuff of zillions of management books, and it certainly squares with my experience of a lot (not all, not all) public and nonprofit organisations.
It struck a new mental spark with me because I'm working at present on how to help public servants learn about public engagement, and also change the culture within government so that it is more responsive to citizens, service users and other interests. If your "customers" aren't in a position to take their custom to another supplier, you need good feedback to stay on track. There are also, of course, lots of other issues about why and how citizens may influence policy between elections - known as deeper democracy.
Geoff Mulgan, writing in the Involve pamphlet "Post Party Politics" launched last Thursday identifies three currents of change making democracy less passive and more involving. After examining changing attitudes to representation, and decentralisation, he turns to "New conversations".

The third trend is closely associated with doubts about representation and the shift to decentralisation. This is the invention of new kinds of conversation that replace the monologue of politicians and parties with something more reciprocal, open and engaged. There are long histories of open conversations – notably in the Buddhist traditions of India and Japan – and all democracy rests on conversation, as parliaments are literally ‘parlements’ and are overseen by ‘speakers’. But increasingly the public have wanted to be participants in these discussions, rather than observers, so wider conversations have been institutionalised in local councils, panchayats, assemblies and citizen forums.

There are lots of methods aimed at promoting these conversations, many well documented by another Involve publication, People and Participation. However, there's no point promoting methods for engagement if those who have to deal with responses from the public are those saying "we just want to get on with our jobs in the same old way". They won't approach the task with much enthusiasm. There's even less point if agencies end up being surprised by the results they get, and unable or unwilling to deliver. As I've said before, participation often isn't working. Lee Bryant and I have written in the latest Involve pamphlet, that new technologies may make some difference as citizens and service users excert more influence, and change the environment within which government operates. It is certainly what Alan Moore is arguing when he writes about consumers Storming the Bastille.
Since we were in a slightly businessy frame of mind, another terms slipped into the breakfast conversation: return on investment, or ROI, which is the businessy way of checking "why bother?" This is certainly the killer question for engagement. Why should staff - or managers - bother with engaging customers and citizens if the benefits aren't evident? Why should customers complain, or citizens participate, if it won't make much difference?
We didn't reach a conclusion on that. It was, after all, only a breakfast chat, and we needed to get on with some weekend business as usual.

Comments

[kris]

Not that I wouldn't appreciate more open government, consider the reason most government workers go into that line of work - a secure job, good benefits, and a way to get paid without having very much direct accountability. There are obviously exceptions, but this population is not generally known for it's creative, collaborative, process improvement instincts.

A couple weeks ago, I had a very interesting conversation with a friend who had been part of a commission looking into the feasibility of a light rail system in a major US city. This friend also had previous experience in other government work.

His take on the function of government employees was not to get things done, but to increase one's capital by becoming known within government circles as a facilitator - being a valuable contact for finding the right person anyone else may need to find to get a problem resolved.

The upshot of this is that an individual's worth is not in streamling a system and making it more accessible. One's value is based on the ability to provide connections for others better than anyone else. It's not what you know, but who you know. And the more you know that nobody else knows, the more valuable you are. Streamlining and accessibility is contrary to that objective.

Making government more open and accessible would devalue any given individual's worth who, rather than being accountable for getting something solved, is valued by pointing others in the right direction. Hoarding information and maintaining the status quo is the path to success.

This pretty much mandates an inefficient, closed system. Evolving to a more open, accessible model runs against the grain of many government workers' reason for being.

[Steve Moore]

It seems to me that the impediments to meaningful civic engagement are intangled with some pretty deep-embedded problems that are not unique to, be are writ large in public bodies. It is the culture of decision making, the dearth of innovation, the adaptive behaviors that are cultivated within them - John Kay, the economist, makes a compelling case for 'helpfulness upwards' being the defining virtue of the British public servant - and lack of reward for intrapreneurship which contribute to a lack of alacrity in response to meaningful interaction with citizens. Is anyone aware of any Government department that has an innovation strategy? Until we do, I imagine that the revelation, novelty and learning that emerges only in conversation and social interaction has no place to go. When it is little stories vs. grand narratives the outcome is inevitable.