CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCING POLICY MESSES,MANAGEMENT, AND THEIR MANAGERS

My first and most important point: Policymakers in government andpolicy analysts in the public and private sectors have a great deal tolearn about management from a special class of professionals littlediscussed in the literature or media: namely, those control room operatorswho manage large technical systems for water supplies, electricity,telecommunications, and other critical infrastructures that societieshave come to depend on for reliable health, safety, and energy services.

This book is about applying what has been learned from managingmore reliably in one domain (critical infrastructures) to the broaderdomains of policy and management that have their own political orlegal mandates to be reliable, yet increasingly fall short of meetingthose mandates.

When we think of policymakers, as we often must these days, we mayhave in mind leaders, legislators, and officials who govern our politicalinstitutions. When many of us think of control rooms and the operatorsin large-scale energy or telecommunications systems—if we thinkof them at all—it is during major emergencies. Among the better-knownexamples are the frantic actions of control room operators atthe Fukushima nuclear power plant, on the Deepwater Horizon drillingrig, or in the lower Manhattan telecommunications hub as the WorldTrade Center fell around it on 9/11.

Why should we expect that policymakers, analysts, and political eliteshave anything to learn from real-time infrastructure managers? Becausethese operators manage every day to prevent all manner of majoraccidents and failures from happening, which would occur if the operatorshad not managed the way they do. We see politicians, policymakers,and their support staff operating at their performance edges; whatwe don't see is that critical infrastructure managers have to do the sameevery day, but more successfully, by managing the way they do.

My second line of argument: What exactly is this "managing the waythey do"? To answer succinctly, control room operators are often brilliantmess managers, and what is blazingly obvious is we need bettermess managers when it comes to what seem to be intractable problemsin policies and politics.

When asked why I call these apparent intractabilities "messes," myanswer is that this is precisely what they are called by those responsiblefor managing them. There is no metaphor or argument by analogyhere. The healthcare mess, Social Security mess, financial mess, eurozonemess—those are the terms used by the public, analysts, and elitesto sum up the issues and tasks before them. What is less recognized—andthe book's aim is to fill this gap—is that the same messes can bemanaged more reliably and professionally than the public or the policyestablishment acknowledge.

The image that the public may have of control rooms—men andwomen undertaking command and control in darkened venues, sittingin front of computer screens and with grid maps on the walls—capturesnone of the daily, if not minute-by-minute, adaptations requiredof operators to meet all kinds of contingencies that arise unexpectedlyor uncontrollably and that have to be dealt with if the critical service isto be provided reliably. I argue that these skills and this perspectiveoffer a more realistic template for success than do current policy analyticaland decisionmaking approaches, many of which I show arefaith-based in the extreme.

My third line of argument: Just look at the sheer number of differentpolicy messes for which we need more realistic managers! After I describewhat control room operators do in managing the variety of badand good messes that come their way, I spend most of the book showinghow those in and around the policy establishment can be their ownnetworks of mess and reliability managers. As networks of professionals,I argue, they are better able to avoid bad or worse messes, takemore advantage of the good messes there are, and more effectivelyaddress the societal and professional challenges ahead in managingpolicy messes more reliably.

For some readers these arguments are crystal-clear and in no need ofelaboration before moving directly to the next chapters. Most readerswill require a fuller description of why and how the points matter, as Iintend the readership to be drawn from many fields and concerns. Myexamples are drawn from the United States and internationally; theyinclude policy messes in the arenas of the environment, education,climate change, social welfare, health, and international development.I focus in all chapters on one connecting policy mess that enables meto illustrate the major points in my argument as I develop them. This isthe global financial mess that came to the fore in 2008 and afterward. Idescribe and follow that mess as it has morphed into the multiplemuddles over unfunded pensions, underfunded Social Security andmedical obligations, sovereign debt, banking reform, and currency stabilityin the eurozone and elsewhere. I turn now to an expanded discussionof my three lines of argument.

This Argument in More Detail

Now step back and consider the world around you. It's a mess, and weknow it. But if almost everything is a mess, is each mess being managedfor the mess that it is? It is one thing to say that messes start outbad; it is something else to say that they are bad because we managethem poorly. A little bit of both is happening, you say. But that "little"matters considerably when capitalizing on the role of mess in policy,management, and politics. Good messes are to be had, and we canmanage a major mess well rather than poorly.

For the moment, think of a policy mess as a public issue so uncertain,complex, interrupted, and disputed that it can't be avoided. It has to bemanaged; the problem is how. The ideal aim would be to prevent themess, or clear it up once and for all, but that is easier to say than do. Yetevery day, professionals reliably manage to produce critical...