Friday, August 26, 2011
Politics / Clout City / News Rahm measuring up—and down, and sideways
Posted by Steve Bogira on 08.26.11 at 11:55 AM
Emanuel seems to have an insatiable need to measure. He was born with a silver ruler in his hand. He doesn't believe in measuring twice and cutting once—more like measuring a half dozen times, cutting once, then measuring another dozen times, with triumphant proclamations of each result.
As the Tribune's Kristen Mack and Bob Secter observed Sunday, even before Emanuel took office on May 16 he "was already eyeing the 100-day mark on Tuesday as an opportunity to strut his bona fides as a go-getter and a visionary." His transition report contained dozens of goals to reach by his 100th day as mayor. "So intent has Emanuel been on demonstrating his leadership mastery that just 30 days into office he posed for cameras in front of a super-sized list of those goals, several of which were checked off well ahead of his self-imposed deadline," Mack and Secter wrote.
Rahm described his first 100 days this way to the Trib: "It's been more change at every level in a shorter period of time than at any other time in the history of the city of Chicago, and I challenge anybody to say otherwise."
A statement of such breadth is pretty hard to contest. It's also possible that Rahm has shown more conceit at every level in a shorter period of time than at any other time in the history of the city of Chicago. I'd challenge him to say otherwise, but I think he might agree.
Hiznumber's own glowing 100-day report persuaded many out-of-town reporters that he was off to an unparalleled start. Emanuel "has already put his stamp on the city with a flood of initiatives," the Economist gushed. "It is rumoured that he never sleeps....All anyone talks about is his energy."
That's an exaggeration. While I myself have chatted with friends about nothing else, reliable sources have informed me of two recent conversations in Chicago where Rahm's energy went mysteriously unmentioned.
My own statistical analysis of Emanuel's 100-day report, with an error margin of 3 percent, has determined that 71 percent of it is fluff. It's bloated with business efficiency-speak. His administration has developed new performance benchmarks, drafted comprehensive strategies, launched evaluating processes, identified ambitious goals, outlined structures for implementation, and designed new data collection systems.
Emanuel would never simply pluck the lint from his belly button. He'd appoint a task force to craft formal guiding principles on lint removal, assemble an Innovation Delivery Team to identify creative approaches, develop performance metrics for the removers, establish return-on-investment standards, and launch a pilot project. Reports would be issued. Goals would be met. Eventually, the lint would be plucked.
Unlike the reign of a certain former governor, there's no hint of corruption with Emanuel—and, like most citizens, I prefer elected officials who are partial to graphs instead of graft. But his administration does seem to be fucking goal-ridden.
Business efficiency methods, including goals and frequent progress assessments, can be helpful in government. But they have their costs, especially when they're overemphasized. They take time to set up and manage, they can encourage cheating to meet goals, and they tend to depreciate the value of important qualities that aren't easily measured.
I'm not convinced that Rahm is really as infatuated with numbers and measurement as he appears. I suspect he mainly recognizes their political value. Numbers are magically persuasive, as marketers have long understood. It's why Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies 12 ways, instead of a bunch of ways.
And business rubrics are in vogue in government today, because of the illusion of actual accomplishment and progress they offer citizens. "Good government is good politics," Richard J. Daley used to say. The maxim today would be, "Good productivity benchmarks are good politics." Rahm knows you can't fool all of the people all of the time, but 65 percent may be an achievable goal.
Comments (4)
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I'll take Rahm's overfocus on metrics over the thundering lack of accountability we have had for years anyday.
like
dislikeI'm becoming a Rahm convert. I never thought I would. I always saw democrats as being so frivolous with money. I like fact that he's axing union jobs if they don't tighten the budget. I hate right and left, I just want some financial accountability. I'm a magician and love the artistic side of democrats so I guess I'm socially democrat and fiscally conservative. Why can't we have a forensics accounting office every ten years to tighten up our lavish piggish spending?
Scott
Chicago Magician
Beats the Daley way by a mile. People love to rag on consultantese, and yet reforming the operations of government is one of the most crucial - and overlooked, because un-sexy - political issues.
Of course there are potential pitfalls, but in there's nothing generically wrong with data-driven optimization of business processes. Sounds consultant-y, right? Well, it's a practice that has been absolutely standard in the private sector for over half a century. In fact, it's largely what's driven our economy's productivity growth, and increased living standards.
It's almost like people want government to suck. Most of these metrics, standards, task forces and so on make sense if you look at the nuts and bolts of how city programs work. It mostly boils down to "let's actually pay attention to how we deliver city services and continually make it better." This is direly needed in the public sector, where politics and a lack of competition often leads to a build-up of bureaucratic cruft.
Does the guy have an ego? Of course. Are the number-filled pressers clever PR strategy? No shit. But to extent that this leads to not-god-awful-government, who cares? It's easy to obsess over the atmospherics without engaging the substance (or lack thereof) of these reforms.
The proof will obviously be in the pudding, but I'm keeping an open mind.
How can you trust him?
For instance, he is cutting the salary of appointed board chairman to numerous committees/boards. I think almost everyone would support such a move. On the other hand he made over 300k going to four meetings on the Freddie Mac board. So all of a sudden he is a reformer?
