Empowering mission driven bureaucrats to provide better public services

In the UK, up to 80% of a social worker’s time can be spent filling out forms rather than helping the desperate people in their care. This is an example of what Dan Honig calls ‘management for compliance’. Honig is associate professor of public policy at University College London, among many other affiliations including Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Lahore University of Management Sciences. In his new book, Mission Driven Bureaucrats, he argues that a ‘management for empowerment’ results in more motivated public servants, higher integrity commitment to the values inherent in public service, and ultimately better service delivery. Honig presents a range of empirical evidence, qualitative and quantitative, suggesting that managing people with metrics and reports and emphasising accountability creates a culture of mistrust and shirking, compounding the problems it is designed to solve. In contrast, recruiting people looking for purpose, supporting them to learn, and granting them autonomy to apply their expertise in a way that suits local conditions generates a virtuous cycle. Mission driven bureaucrats feel energised, unmotivated bureaucrats invest more in the mission, and lazy knaves get screened out by their more committed peers. In this episode, Dan joins regular host Mark Fabian from the University of Warwick to discuss the main arguments of his book and the wider context in which it sits. 

Dan’s website: https://danhonig.info/ 

Buy Mission Driven Bureaucrats here.

Moore on British Colonial Management in the Philippines

Christopher Hood on tools for all seasons in public management 

Michael Barber, Deliverology:

Knights, Knaves, or Pawns by LeGrand

Article by Esther Duflo using cameras to improve teacher attendance:

An introduction to self-determination theory:

Elizabeth Linos’ research, including on policing in Knoxville

Andrea Headley’s research on police and other front line responders

One of Nesta’s many reports on mission driven government

Social Finance UK on system change evaluation