Policy implementation – a challenge that the government can no longer ignore

Photo: Pixabay on Pexels

“Aren’t the government and other leaders focusing too much on operational results at the expense of… building commitment and policy implementation? – asks Andrew Kakabadse, professor of management and leadership at Henley Business School

The Labor Party under former Prime Minister Tony Blair was an example of how the policy implementation challenges facing communities and organizations were often misunderstood.

This lack of awareness led to the failure of several specific entities that were contributing greatly to the public good but were also in need of operational improvements.

As the government and other executives exercise less scrutiny in the future, stakeholder relationships and reputational concerns are gradually ignored.

Over time, accountability is increasingly focused on operational performance and compliance requirements rather than the important concept of building engagement with government and communities.

Another example of this was the abandonment of the Top Management Program (TMP), an initiative first launched in 1986 in which top civil servants and ministers, private sector representatives and public service leaders worked together to increase commitment and alignment to generate greater national wealth and Britain’s success on the international stage.

Errors in context

At the time, TMP received greater attention than the Harvard Strategy Program, and to this day some members of its cohort continue to meet, share, and analyze difficult issues, despite the decline of the program’s official national problem-solving function due to a short-sighted focus on operational improvement.

Similarly, the Civil Service College in the UK was closed due to an alleged lack of attention to operational skills, with its contribution to shaping thinking at national and international levels seemingly dismissed.

In addition, Bramshill Police College was closed, despite its central role in global thinking about policing and social issues. The university attracted top officers from around the world, including members of the FBI and CIA.

Labour’s short-term perspective is continued by the Conservatives, with both groups showing a lack of appreciation for how to build an individual culture that enables multiple interests to align.

This failure to appreciate the context in which effective police forces can operate, beyond accountability for operational performance, demonstrates a lack of understanding of how meaningful institutions can change society in line with specific values and principles.

The zealous pursuit of accountability relies too heavily on management and disregards leadership.

Read more Andrew Kakabadse: How to ensure effective decision-making in the civil service

Is the government fit for purpose?

The question “Is the government doing its job?” A 2018 UK government-wide analysis found that ministers and senior civil servants considered 80% of policies to be failures due to ignorance or lack of respect for the “cracks” that exist in policy implementation. Many such policies were originally considered reasonable.

Our ongoing Kakabadse study of large private and public sector entities repeatedly shows this 80% figure, as it shows how well-thought-out policies and strategies continually break down due to carelessness or incompetence.

It is clear that the greatest challenge for policy is its implementation, not its creation.

Policy implementation is a key leadership and management challenge. Requirements for strategic focus or refocusing are leadership issues that must be addressed in conjunction with operational and performance issues driven by management.

Below are five key findings from our findings on improving policy implementation:

1. Organization size

Any entity employing more than 500 people is susceptible to systemic weaknesses. Administrative disciplines so easily degenerate into bureaucracy, which then becomes a driver of operational and strategic rigidity, as well as an unwillingness, inability or lack of awareness to respond to external demands or events.

The main reason for this is to try to justify appropriate responses to market or community developments that cross organizational boundaries and require the implementation of procedures that satisfactorily respond to external demands but disrupt internal configurations.

Organizational and financial disciplines and performance review measurement processes are designed to enable performance effectiveness and act as the “glue” between departmental units and the broader entity.

However, the need to improve processes and respond to external opportunities or developments is often ignored or dismissed. In such a case, it does not take long for resentment to build among external audiences, which then undermines the entity’s reputation and may even lead to its collapse.

2. Silo thinking

A gathering of professionals focused on quality improvement can develop into a distinct community that then too easily becomes siloed.

This is because their primary focus shifts toward protecting the community, spending less time and attention on deliberation and more on the procedural parameters of their unit or department.

In other words, markets and communities are viewed according to ways of thinking and dynamics shaped by protocol arrangements. A silo mindset fosters widespread resistance to change.

When we try to challenge and change the silo approach, quality often deteriorates as resistance to change arises.

At the same time, as internal leaders recognize the strategic value of pursuing change, they should accept short-term compromise on standards to avoid deep resistance to the issues being discussed before they ultimately adopt new ways of working.

3. Interface

When implementing a change program, attention should be focused on key leaders who occupy sensitive positions in the unit’s structure.

An interface is the point where two or more structural organizational arrangements meet and can cause tension.

Collaboration becomes necessary to resolve emerging discrepancies, issue by issue.

This means that the maturity, personal resilience and collaborative skills of those in important liaison roles determine whether policy will be implemented effectively or continually frustrated.

The emerging mindset of those in interface roles is much more important than the quality of organizational design.

4. Fracture points

When constant disruption of policy implementation becomes a habit, the cracks in the structure become very visible.

It is a common practice for centralized leadership to ignore requests for improvement from general management.

The reality of policy implementation on the ground is a message that headquarters often doesn’t want to hear – “the strategy developed by headquarters may be fine, but communities and markets have little impact.”

An essential requirement is to be able to adapt the policy or strategy to local conditions. When this fails, leaders tend to dig in their heels.

It is management’s responsibility to pay attention to these break points. Those in managerial or supervisory roles may be too far from experiencing the real damage caused at each point of fracture.

Those who take their oversight responsibilities seriously should visit fracking sites and collect the necessary data to better understand the impacts of fracking sites. The next task is to share these insights through the decision-making chain.

5. Future scanning

Constant inattention to the weaknesses of large systems leads to looking inward, which in turn becomes the cultural norm.

In addition to the lack of response to external demands, an additional impact is a decline in investment in forecasting research.

While a tougher approach to external demands or grievances may reduce the ferocity of external demands in the short term, reviewing the issue more closely allows for a better internal assessment of effectiveness

In fact, compliance comes at the expense of management because the organization loses touch but doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know. As a result, commitment and trust in external stakeholders is gradually destroyed.

Context is key

Greater effectiveness in policy implementation requires enlightened leadership that respects how to effectively engage audiences despite the built-in disparities that are inherent in policy implementation.

Decision-making should be context-based, in which each policy-making and implementation activity is unique. What matters most is the quality of leadership and management, which must analyze and appreciate every complexity of policy implementation to really make a difference.

Join the Global Government Forum LinkedIn group to stay up to date with all the essential information citizens and civil servants need to know.