Government has to regain a modicum of performance capacity.
Governments have become powerless against the onslaught of special-interest groups, have, indeed, become powerless to govern—to make decisions and to enforce them. The new tasks—protection of the environment, stamping out private armies and international terrorism, making arms control effective—all will require more rather than less government. But they will require a different form of government.
Government has to regain a modicum of performance capacity. It has to be turned around. To turn around any institution—whether a business, a labor union, a university, a hospital, or a government—always requires the same three steps:
- Abandonment of the things that do not work, the things that have never worked, the things that have outlived their usefulness and their capacity to contribute.
- Concentration on the things that do work, the things that produce results, the things that improve the organization’s ability to perform.
- Analysis of the half-successes, the half-failures.
A turnaround requires abandoning whatever does not perform and doing more of what does perform.
ACTION POINT: Can your business profit from government incompetence much like FedEx and UPS have profited from the shortcomings of the U.S. Postal Service? If you work for government, improve your effectiveness by concentrating on what works.
Post-Capitalist Society
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker