The Need for a New Approach

We live in a world of rapid change. Almost every day our society grows more complex, particularly as new technologies and changing demographics strain the old social system.

Front-line employees in both the public and private sectors must adapt quickly to these changes. They must manage new technologies, perform increasingly complex tasks, assume new responsibilities and fine-tune their work for the changing needs of the public. Today's society demands efficiency, expects competence and has little tolerance for waste.

But while a few progressive corporations-such as Xerox, Saturn, Corning and Levi Strauss-are building new partnerships with workers and their unions to meet these challenges, much of the public sector continues to operate under the old command-and-control management system, which is built on hierarchy and rules.

Today, for the typical front-line public employee to resolve an on-site problem or perform a function outside the rules and regulations, he or she must first seek approval from a supervisor who is frequently far removed from the actual work site. And that's not all. The immediate supervisor often must go through more channels until a higher-up signs the proverbial form in triplicate.

It doesn't matter if the front-line worker deals regularly with the public or knows exactly how to clean a toxic spill, provide a hospital service or repair a school bus-the job is held up until the decision moves through all the lines of authority. Not only are workers stifled and demoralized by such a system; the public also loses when workers who know how to get the job done are saddled by a burdensome, costly and inefficient bureaucracy.

The best way to make the system work better is to empower these front-line workers with the training and responsibility to meet the public's needs. Give them the flexibility, authority and support to make decisions on the job. View them as resources with ideas and experience. Cut the inefficient hierarchies and wasteful layers of management that separate front-line workers from the real decision makers. Stop treating workers as replaceable parts with no insights and instead make them vital and permanent members of the team.

There is simply no reason to sustain the old, costly and inefficient management system when there are front-line workers who understand what the public needs and are capable, motivated and qualified to do the job right.