Originally Posted by Paul F
Originally Posted by Hamwich
...... given the natural tendency of politicians to think they know best.


Coupled with a great deal of "not invented here" and "we've always done it this way" throughout the civil service.

A business associate of mine learnt his Strategic Planning and Process Improvement as a senior army officer in Northern Ireland. He honed his skills in an environment where the consequences of his decisions were literally life or death. On leaving the army, he set up as a freelance consultant and landed some work in a large hospital trust. He was constantly bombarded with :

"The trouble with you is that you have never worked in the NHS"

To which he often retorted:

"The trouble with you is that you have never worked anywhere else"


Excellent!

That kind of entrenched thinking is depressingly common in large private sector organisations too. We always used to joke that the kiss of death for a fast-growing dynamic company was when they became large enough to need an HR department. At that point following correct procedures became more important than success - it was thought better to do things right than to do the right thing.

I always used to start any design workshop that I ran by writing on a flip chart:

"If we always do what we've always done, then we'll always get what we've always got"

Tim H.
1986 4/4 VVTi Sport, 2002 LR Defender, 2022 Mini Cooper SE