Even though she never mentions the concept, former Reagan
and Bush senior official Linda Chavez makes an excellent case that the success
of the Trump presidency depends on sweeping civil service reform. The
title of her article in the New
York Post indicates her chosen focus: "Will
Trump’s Cabinet picks be able to beat the bureaucracy?"
Drawing on her experience, she lays out all the reasons the
answer to her question probably will be no. For example:
The normal relationships
between employer and employees don’t exist. As the head of a department or agency,
you pick very few of your own employees, and you have little or no authority to
get rid of those employees you inherit. Worst of all, you can’t reward
outstanding service. There’s no such thing as pay for performance. Nor is it
even possible to promote the best hires, except within the constraints of
federal civil service rules, and you can’t move employees easily from one job
to another.
The word bureaucracy became a
synonym for inefficiency and burdensome rules for a reason. Working within the
bureaucracy requires a talent and patience that few CEOs, in my experience,
possess. I’ve served on corporate boards for more than 25 years and worked
closely with CEOs and others in the executive suite. What I’ve seen tells me
that the businesspeople in the Cabinet are in for a rude awakening. (snip)
The greatest culture shock for
these new Cabinet members who’ve never worked in government, however, will be
how little authority they have to make major changes in their departments.
Divisions within agencies often operate as fiefdoms, with their own ties to
Congress and appropriations staffers who fund their work.
Worst of all, firing anyone in
the federal government, even for cause, is a tedious process for which few have
the stomach. And forget about getting rid of someone without an ironclad show
of gross incompetence or malfeasance.
She’s right, and all of these points are well understood by
scholars and students of bureaucracy. So if the Trump appointees are
shocked, that would mean that in the course of their careers, those with
executive backgrounds learned nothing via their interactions with the federal
bureaucracy. Nobody gets very high in any significant company without
running into the feds. I am certain that Rex Tillerson, to pick the most
familiar example, has had extensive exposure to lots of bureaucrats, especially
in the State Department. If he was unobservant of their ways (and the
ways of bureaucrats in foreign ministries around the world), why has been such
a success at dealing with them? Nobody claims that ExxonMobil is anything
other than highly successful in developing energy resources in difficult
diplomatic environments like Yemen or Russia.
That is why I recommended
civil service reform the morning after the election.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/12/why_the_success_of_the_trump_presidency_depends_on_civil_service_reform.html#ixzz4T7eTLBeZ
