This is Part One, of a three-part series on government accountability.
Allison Pearson has an important article in the Telegraph: “The NHS is killing us – it is an enemy of Britain.” In it she documents how badly the British National Health System (NHS) has gone astray. People with treatable medical conditions are dying, because the system will not provide them with quality medical care in a timely fashion. We should pay attention to the tragedy of the NHS, because it illustrates where we are headed as our federal institutions fail for the same reason – a lack of accountability.
Like the NHS, our federal government has lost its way. Unequal application of the law has become the norm. Assets intended to protect citizens from foreign threats are instead protecting political parties from domestic accountability. Federal bureaucracies have been empowered to issue economy busting regulations with little or no legislative oversight. Our own executive branch is even arguing to the Supreme Court that the Constitution should not be allowed to constrain its power – which is precisely what the Constitution is intended to do.
Institutions created to serve us, see the Constitution as something to be circumnavigated, rather than adhered to. According to Pew Research, a shocking 84 percent of Americans believe the federal government can’t be trusted to “do the right thing.” And yet those chosen to serve us, seem unconcerned about our wishes and are making no attempt to win back our trust.
Countless essays have been written analyzing how a government designed to serve the people, morphed into a leviathan demanding servitude from its citizens. The explanations range from simple human greed to ill-advised social justice pursuits. There is no single answer. But I’m not concerned with the forces that caused the federal government to lose its way. I’m more concerned with why the checks and balances for which we are famous, failed to prevent it. Why didn’t the system correct itself?
All complex systems require feedback. The driver of a car needs a speedometer to detect speed variations. As the car deviates from the speed limit, the driver makes throttle changes accordingly. If the driver fails to make the appropriate adjustments, a helpful officer in a blue uniform will critique the driver’s piloting skills and apply external accountability. The system keeps traffic flowing relatively conflict free – because of feedback and accountability. The same principle applies to organizations.
Organizational predictability depends on
- Mission clarity: a widely accepted understanding of the organization’s purpose;
- Service focus: an understanding that the organization produces work products that are needed by others; and
- Control (i.e., accountability): a means to detect and correct deviations in mission and work product quality.
Without detection and correction, missions creep and morph. Work products stop being externally focused (what a customer needs) and become internally focused (what the organization wishes to produce). Organizations lacking accountability lose their way, and eventually substitute their interests, for the interests of those they are intended to serve – as Brittain’s NHS has.
Successful commercial organizations have layered systems of accountability to prevent deviations from their mission. Quality systems check work products against customer requirements, management watches employees, stockholders watch management, and customers provide the final layer of accountability. Organizations that fail to meet customer expectations, see declining revenue. Management either takes corrective action (training, discipline, process improvement, or reorganization), or the organization fails; and is replaced by a competitor.
The “big three” U.S. auto makers faced an existential level crisis in the 1970s because they had substituted their objectives for those of their customers. Due to spiking fuel costs, customers wanted lighter more fuel-efficient cars. Yet the “big three” kept producing 3-ton lounges with wheels – simply because that is what they had always made – it was comfortable for them. Japanese competition nearly destroyed them, until they regrouped, redesigned, and retooled.
The Disney Corporation is currently learning the consequence of losing mission and customer focus. In response to employee pressure, Disney made a radical departure from its mission. It substituted employee interest in social engineering for its customer’s desire for family entertainment. The corporation’s customers have treated it to a bit of external accountability. Disney has lost $135 billion (38 percent) of its market value in 3 years. It is now a company in crisis – facing layoffs, cutbacks, and stockholder pushback. Disney will either take corrective action, or eventually be replaced by a competitor more sensitive to customer desires.
Government agencies are similarly prone to losing mission and customer focus. In the case of the NHS, it has become so bloated and bureaucratic, that patients wait months or even years to receive critical medical treatment. People die while waiting for routine treatment. As one NHS doctor complained: “The NHS is run by managers for the benefit of managers.” It has shifted from doctors serving patients, to the bureaucracy serving itself – internally focused vs externally focused.
The same thing is happening in America because the federal government faces no threat from outside competitors. Declining productivity is enabled by increased spending. Politicians have stopped bothering with debates; and have substituted gerrymandering, electoral tampering, and propaganda to achieve lifetime installment in office. Bureaucrats no longer serve citizens, but the politicians who give them a never-ending supply of money and power. Judges have become “Obama judges” and “Trump judges,” where interpretation of the Constitution has become an exercise in social engineering via creative writing.
The federal government now serves the federal government, rather than the citizens from which its authority is derived.
Once an organization becomes internally focused, it becomes cancerous, growing and corrupting until the host is threatened – which for the federal government, is us. This metastasizing malignancy is how we ended up with
- An agency founded to promote clean air and water (the EPA), addressing bovine flatulence;
- An organization founded to stamp out malaria by spraying mosquitoes (the CDC), dictating an eviction moratorium, and promoting gun control;
- A department created to share educational best practices (the Department of Education), encouraging classroom access to pornography and the normalization of gender dysphoria;
- A law enforcement agency (the FBI) instigating crimes, so that it can solve them;
- An agency intended to gather information about national security threats (the CIA), using foreign intelligence assets to spy on a political party; and
- Supreme Court justices who believe they are empowered to rewrite the Constitution – by calling their tampering emanations from penumbras.
Few of our “public servants” are concerned about the wishes of those they are intended to serve, because our government has become internally rather than externally focused, and will not correct itself.
There are 2.9 million people on the federal payroll, who have stopped serving us, and started serving themselves – growing their organizations, squandering our money, promoting radical ideologies, and increasing their power over the citizenry.
A malignant tumor will not excise itself, and a corrupt bureaucracy will not police itself without external accountability – which is sorely lacking for our government. Why do over 8 out of 10 Americans no longer trust the federal government? Clearly, they’ve been paying attention.
Part 2 will examine how our government systems of accountability have failed.
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA
1 thought on “Part 1 – Organizations Fail Without Accountability”