Chris Corrigan Menu
  • Blog
  • Services
    • What I do
    • How I work
  • Resources
    • Books in my library
    • Facilitation Resources
    • Open Space Resources
      • Planning an Open Space Technology Meeting
  • Courses
  • About
    • Books and Papers
    • CV and Client list
    • Music
    • Who I am
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Services
    • What I do
    • How I work
  • Resources
    • Books in my library
    • Facilitation Resources
    • Open Space Resources
      • Planning an Open Space Technology Meeting
  • Courses
  • About
    • Books and Papers
    • CV and Client list
    • Music
    • Who I am
  • Contact

Citizens or customers?

June 16, 2016 By Chris Corrigan Community 2 Comments

Continuing on from my post yesterday, I find that Henry Mintzberg has been up to his good, outraged trickster self, and has published a redux of what is wrong with Public Management as a whole:

There is no one best way to manage everything. These practices have done their share of damage to many government departments, and beyond. Many corporations and NGOs have also suffered from what can reduce to a contemporary form of bureaucracy that discourages innovation, damages cultures, and disengages employees.

In essence, the New Public Management seeks to (a) isolate public services, so that (b)  each can be run by an individual manager, who is (c) held accountable for quantitate measures of performance, while (d) treating the recipient of these services as “customers.” Let’s take a look at all this.

Am I a customer of my government, or a citizen and a subject?  I am no customer of my government, thank you, buying services at arm’s length in the marketplace of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Do I really need to be called a “customer” to be treated decently?

I worked in government for three years, doing third party consultations on the British Columbia Treaty Process.  It was coalface level democracy. I was talking to citizens – some of them with truly odious opinions – about a historic public policy initiative that had the possibility to permanently change their way of life.  They were not customers, but citizens, with every right to expect that we would treat them the way citizens should be treated in a democracy.  It was not about getting them to “buy in” to what we were doing; it was about operating from the fundamental premise that, collectively, they required a place to express their ownership of their country.  That doesn’t mean that everyone gets what he or she wants, because in a democracy you have to balance rights and interests. But anyone who thinks that treating citizens is basically just providing good customer service has been sold a bill of goods.  Yes, even in the provision of services.

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Related

Share
  • Tweet
Efficiency and the commons
Trying to make developmental evaluation easier

2 Comments

  1. Rosa Zubizarreta says:
    June 17, 2016 at 12:21 am

    Hi Chris! Given what you wrote above, you might enjoy reading King and Stiver’s “Government is Us: Public Administration in an Anti-Government Era”. One of the best books in public administration that I’ve come across… i

    1. Chris Corrigan says:
      June 17, 2016 at 12:25 am

      Thanks for the tip! I hear Mintzbergs own book on the subject is vey good too.

Comments are closed.

Find Interesting Things
Events
  • Art of Hosting Fall 2023 with Caitlin Frost, Kelly Poirier and Kris Archie Vancouver or Bowen Island, BC Canada.
  • Complexity from the Inside Out with Caitlin Frost, April - June 2023
Resources
  • A list of books in my library
  • Facilitation Resources
  • Open Space Resources
  • Planning an Open Space Technology meeting
SIGN UP

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
  

Find Interesting Things

© 2015 Chris Corrigan. All rights reserved. | Site by Square Wave Studio