Covering tail saps politicians' courage

Adam Rice, a seasoned operations sergeant of a Special Forces unit operating out of a safe house near Kandahar, wanted to move quickly to capture Osama bin Laden but was hampered by the military bureaucracy. He had to first file elaborate paperwork that required a three-star general's approval and took days to obtain. Rice blames risk aversion in career officers, whose promotions require spotless records — no mistakes, no bad luck, no flaps — as the problem (Newsweek, Sept. 3).

"Risk aversion," no mistakes, follow the process; call it what you will, but it's all "cover your behind." It's a virus that is rampant from Washington to local governments, from fighting wars to running school boards.

Some politicians and bureaucrats appear more concerned about their careers and create a plethora of laws and regulations to give the appearance of solving problems. If it's failing schools, lawmakers pass another law and call for more accountability. They don't take the time to make sure their legislative intent is carried out. When the problem surfaces again, they blame the ones at the bottom of the food chain, the teachers. They fail to see they are the ones who create the laws/regulations and then complain about big and intrusive government. It starts at the top.

Then, there are those public administrators who have perfected the art of "risk aversion," make no mistakes and tell their staff, "just follow the policy" (then whisper to themselves they only have five years and they are gone). Their defense against criticism is to keep reports on the "zero defects" process they use to adhere to the regulations. Which gives credence to John W. Gardner's comment, "The last breath of a dying bureaucracy is to write another policy in the policy manual." However, if you do get good customer service from a bureaucracy, you will probably find an administrator who has encouraged risk-taking by employees.

Our government has become sclerotic, unable to adjust to meet today's problems. Our leaders lack the courage to stand up and risk their political seat to demand our institutions be restructured for today's problems. Administrators are less effective in carrying out their statutory responsibilities; matter of fact, few know their original legislative intent. We complain about our education system, yet our legislators do the "risk aversion" thing and give the illusion of fixing it with the fix du jour; the prison recidivism rate, yet the answer is more prisons. And a health system that has atrophied is costly and pays to treat illnesses, rather than prevention. The public good has been forgotten.