8 / 44
Policy&Practice
June 2016
6
M
anagement-by-Fear is the
current fad. Across the country,
in conference rooms of every size,
governors are looking at cabinet
members’ performance measures
and demanding to know why the
curve isn’t bending. There are city
managers berating department heads
because the trend line is going in the
wrong direction. There are federal
appointees making up excuses for
why the green light turned yellow on
their dashboard. Again, nobody calls
it Management-by-Fear. It’s called
accountability, managing for results,
dashboards, scorecards, and STAT, to
name a few. Different names, same
assumption: The way we get better
results is to hold people accountable
for measurable goals. Unfortunately,
locally
speaking
Foxholes or Firing Squads
Rethinking Government Accountability
not only do these accountability
systems rarely work (affixing blame
instead of fixing systems), they also
produce devastating side effects
(gaming the measurement system
and increasing fear like we have seen
in D.C. and Atlanta standardized test
score scandals).
I used to believe very strongly in
accountability systems. As a govern-
ment executive and a consultant, I
created and implemented every one
of the buzzwords from the previous
paragraph. And none of them made a
bit of difference. Not because we didn’t
do them right. Rather, it’s because we
have gotten the notion of account-
ability all wrong.
My view on accountability was
greatly changed by the stories of
soldiers fromWorld War II. My grand-
father had fought in the war, but,
like so many of his generation, he
had chosen not to speak of it. I had
no idea what he went through until
I saw the incredible work of Stephen
Ambrose, Steven Spielberg, and Tom
Hanks in the HBO mini-series “Band
of Brothers.” This graphic, eye-pop-
ping series followed Easy Company
from the storming of Normandy
Beach through the liberation and the
eventual end of the European conflict.
Each episode of the 10-part series
showed a key battle through the eyes
of one of the true-life characters. You
saw what they saw and felt what they
felt through some amazing acting
and directorial magic. What was most
memorable, however, were the last
By Ken Miller