Losing Sight of the Mission

I had a long phone conversation last night with my best friend that lasted several hours. Thanks to this blog, Verizon Wireless will remain profitable. Anyway, the conversation evolved over a range of subjects, separate yet interconnected. Basically, you could say one thing led to another. The last part of the conversation ended up being about institutions, bureaucracy and leadership or lack of thereof. My, oh my wasn't that conversation enlightening. We work in different organizations, with different goals and yet suffer with the same problems.

My friend Joe works for the Department of Children and Families (DCF) back in my home state as a Social Worker. As such, his job puts him in the field dealing directly with the clients. So his job, one could say his mission, is to work with and help his clients, who by the way are people. Listening to Joe describe his job, one can sense the frustration he has in trying to accomplish his mission. The frustration stems not from the clients but from his own organization and the way it works. For example, though he is assigned clients and has to deal with those clients, he has no authority to make decisions about each case. Those decisions have to be made by someone higher up the chain. In addition, every contact with a client, be it a face to face meeting or even just a phone call has to be documented and reported. He, of course, has more than one case (client) assigned to him with more added all the time. The net effect is that, by his estimation, 20% of his time is actually spent with the client while the other 80% is spent doing paperwork. In addition, though his job is to help his clients, he isn't given any authority to actually help them.

The interconnection between the above aspects is interesting. The mission of DCF, at least initially, is to help children and families that find themselves in certain circumstances that require outside aid. On paper, that is still the mission. Because the organization deals with people, it needs to be careful in how it provides it's services because of the possibility of that aid making the situation worse. The wrong decision could adversely affect the client which opens up the organization to lawsuits. So, ostensibly to protect the client, the organization puts into place processes and procedures to check against this possibility. Decisions need to be checked and validated up the hierarchy giving the top of the hierarchy ultimate authority to make the final decision. This leads to those lower down on the chain not even bothering to make decisions but to pass it up. 80% of the workers time is spent documenting all interaction with a client in order to protect the organization from a possible lawsuit or investigation stemming from the wrong decision adversely affecting the client. In effect, while on paper and to the public, the mission of DCF is to help people, subconsciously within the organization, the mission has shifted to protecting the organization from the very people it is supposed to help. Those within the organization who are good at accomplishing this new mission are promoted to positions of leadership based not on their ability to help people, but on their ability to abide by the processes put in place. Thus the new, unstated mission perpetuates itself. What we call "group think" sets in. The organization has lost sight of it's original intent and purpose.

In my phone conversation, I identified Joe's frustrations without getting all the details very quickly. I said "Let me guess,..." and proceeded to list off a series of situations and circumstances that when tied together painted a picture of the culture of his organization, the source of his frustration. I was able to do this because I substituted "U.S. Army" for "DCF", "Sergeant" for "Social Worker"... need I say more.