The importance of routine things

A very senior officer in the government came up with this brilliant quip "In government, we do not do the routine things well!" over a conversation with me in his chamber. This was interestingly soon after the "launch" of a particular initiative, a portal and a mobile app to go with it. Over the course of the next couple of minutes, we both reflected on the importance of "routine things" in government and how the role of the government is to ensure that all and every of the routine things are done (to begin with), done properly, done within a reasonable time and finally to the satisfaction (or welfare) of the client i.e. the citizen. The citizen is entitled to these "routine things" or "services" from the government by the virtue of simply being a citizen and a part of the democratic and legislative processes (i.e. s/he votes); in addition s/he pays taxes (direct and indirect) which pay the salaries of the government (ministers, officers, staff) do their jobs i.e. to do the routine things.

These "routine things" are not too hard to understand - these could be (depending on the department/arm of the government), getting a birth or death certificate, getting a passport, getting a driving licence, getting a registration done for land/property, getting a certificate for caste/income, getting your due pension, getting basic education of quality for our children, getting basic health facility and services and so on. Most of these services or in consulting lingo - "G2C (government to citizen) services" would have a defined process and a set of people ("process owners") involved. None of these process are new or even "relatively new"; the people who are responsible (let me use another word in vogue - "system-actors") are also not new - they have been doing the same job over and over again (and were even hired for it). Yes, the ministers, senior bureaucrats are usually new or get transferred by the time they "get a hang of it" but frankly they are not the ones who are responsible for the routine activities getting done. They would by and large put the proverbial "chidiya" (literally a bird but means signature/approvals) if the "file is put-up" to them. My intent was not to get into the "Why" in this article; would reserve that for another one but feel free to reflect and think.

Coming back to these "routine things", what happens when they are not "done, done on time and done well". The citizen need those services, some of them are inescapable and often mandated by the same government to get another service. To get this (say a mobile number or passport), you need that (say an ADHAAR card, police verification) and so on. To make matters worse, citizen would allude to roughly 1.2 billion of us and hence for any service that we want there would be hundreds and thousands of others who are vying to get the same services from the government at the place and same time (think of vaccines in recent times). The citizen is left with choices of either putting some "weight on the file" (read bribe, corruption) or to get the "file pulled up" (via influence or recommendation of a political, social or bureaucratic authority). In many cases and wherever possible, the citizen may opt out of government and get the services from private sector - for e.g. getting your child's education at private schools & universities or visiting private hospitals for treatment or routine and non-routine check-ups. Some are forced to go to another extreme - go to courts to get a "stay" or "show-cause notices" or in case the previous ones have not been responded to then, "contempt of court" notices to government. But, this is clearly a vicious cycle, the same process or lack of it repeats at the courts and legal system again. The number of cases that are pending in our courts and the delays therein have been matters of too many editorials, stories and films. What appears to us (citizens), is this large behemoth of government or system, that is insensitive (it does not care about us or our needs), inefficient (it takes far too much time and resources to get simple things done), ineffective (whatever gets done, does not get done well and again requires intervention) and incorrigible (that is it is too difficult to change this large a system), whereas it is the accumulated (over many instances and across different levels) "non-delivery or poor delivery" of routine activities.

To give an analogy, it is the complete break-down of a commercial vehicle brought about by utter disregard to routine check-ups and maintenance. No wonder then, we love "events" of overhauls, changes, launches and over the last two decades (and continuing) - "digitisation" of things. They promise so much with their "user-friendly features and functionalities", clear "roles and responsibilities" and robust "monitoring systems". I apologise (on behalf of many) if you have heard these jargons and lingo far too many times without actually realising the promised "value-addition". Unfortunately, what we don't realised is often that we have created, or "re-engineered" or "improved" another system which would still require the same people do their "routine things" properly.

Hence, irrespective of the novelty of these things (a new scheme portal) or incentives (rewards, recognition) or disincentives (pressure, review transparency), a change in the way "routine things" are done, requires a change in routines (and behaviour) of many people (thousands of government staff across levels) at almost the same time. This is where things get difficult. Any of us who have tried to change, remove or create a personal habit (albeit a small one) in ourselves would know how difficult it is to do them and sustain. We have to not only look at behaviour science (including internal and external motivations) but also systems-thinking to be able to change the individual behaviour along with that of the system (essentially a large number of individuals connected through processes) and sustain them. Clearly, unless these "system-actors" fundamentally change their behaviour, habits and practices (essentially how they do the routine things), things won't change i.e. they will not get done, not get done well and not get done in time despite the "launches". The senior officer concluded by saying "...the easiest thing is to launch something...". Yet another gem I carried away from the meeting. More on that in another post.

Thanks for reading.