New Public Management: Lean State, Lean Government

(April 23-30, 2007)
by Magnolia Yrasuegui

Magnolia Yrasuegui

After about two months of forum discussions, we finally arrived in Gummersbach. From over 100 participants it was a great pleasure and honor to be chosen as one of the 22 to come and see each other and to continue the discussions face to face.

The moment we saw everybody it was as if we were long lost friends; we were asking how each other’s families were doing and other personal questions. We didn't really need to adjust much as we had already met online.

Customer Orientation as “Real Service”

What really impressed me the most in the seminar is how the German mayors made their towns adapt new public management (NPM) polices. For example in Huckenswagen, educating civil servants was one of the top priorities of Mayor Uwe Ufer. When a citizen comes to the town hall, Mayor Ufer wants that citizen to feel that he is important and that his concerns should be dealt with the utmost care however small and insignificant it may seem. The mayor believes that for a public servant to know how to give good service, he needs to learn it. Thus, the mayor gives his people the necessary training through hotel service courses.

Another thing that caught my attention is the BürgerService (Citizen’s Bureau) of Gummersbach. It is a one-stop-shop for citizens. It offers every kind of help they would need. When it says ALL, it means ALL! It not only provides help with obtaining passports, IDs, permits and other things that the local government is supposed to offer, the BürgerService also can help in purchasing train, plane, bus tickets as well as tickets for cultural shows! It really does mean it when it says ALL.

Sadly, customer orientation is not the current practice of our local government. Obviously this will not be easily unlearned because it has been practiced for many years

Process Orientated vs. Results Oriented

Currently we are more process oriented than results oriented. We employ long methods to arrive at a certain outcome when in fact we can shorten the process and come up with a better result.

This is what happens when you go to a government office in the Philippines, and you need to renew your business permit: you have to go first to Mr. A to get some of the requirements. You then proceed to Mr. B., who refers you to Mr. C. Mr. C. tells you that you have missing documents that you need to get at Mr. D's table. Mr. D. is on leave; you go to Mr. E., who is supposed to take over Mr. D's work. Mr. E. tells you that he can't do anything so you have to wait till Mr. D gets back!

This is the very opposite of Huckenswagen’s system. The mayor said that in his team, the employees have the freedom to choose how they are going to do their jobs as long as they give good results. Each employee is trained to answer all questions pertaining to what the local government offers from A-Z. If you talk to any staff, he knows every possible answer about the service his office provides. Empowering the civil servant is one of Huckenswagen’s strength.

Lessons Learned

In the Philippines, I see decentralization as the first step. For how can people in Luzon understand and know the real problems of people in Mindanao? When I say decentralization, it does not mean autonomy without any responsibility. Like in a football or basketball game, give the rules of the game and lay the boundaries, but let the player choose how to he plays the game.

The next step should be education. I believe that explaining what “customer orientation” is to the leaders and government employees would not be that hard because everybody is already exposed to the customer orientation principle in private corporations, food chains, service providers, etc. The challenge would be in the implementation because like anything new, this will be met with a lot of resistance and skepticism. So the key to education is to give it in bite-sized pieces.

We can start educating the higher levels of government so that they can lead by example (we can start with local liberal politicians).

The lower levels of government should be educated as well for they are the front liners. They are the first people whom the citizens will come in contact with. So they have to be empowered and given the tools to help change their mindset.

The citizens have to also be aware that certain changes are being implemented so that they can put pressure on the government to implement changes. They will serve as the check and balance to hold government accountable.

In my capacity as a journalist, I can educate my public on how changing the system can benefit the citizens in the short and long term by slowly giving them bite-sized knowledge of how NPM works.

Within my influence I know that I can implement the needed change. As they say “Rome was not built in a day,” so it is also true with changing the mindsets of people and implementing change. But we were not born running -- we crawl. We then take wobbly steps, then we walk, then we run. Let us start crawling till we can walk!