It’s been all the rage for a while for organizations to claim they want to be “lean and mean”. Such a desire will apparently yield greater efficiency, keep costs down, lower prices. What could possibly be wrong with that ?
Not long ago, however, people actually prized other things. They ridiculed those who “knew the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Even today the wealthy expect services far beyond a “wham bam thank you ma’am” approach. We have begun to regret the loss to society as civility has been submerged by nastiness .
More than that, whatever the benefits to a private economic organization, such an approach has never worked socially. “Lean and mean” families generally fall apart or produce monsters. Lean and mean social organizations fail miserably .
So it is with government. As rich technocrats take over and seek to “streamline” everything, they fail to realize that the primary goal of government, as in families and social organizations, is not to produce a product at lowest cost, but to provide a service that keeps a culture healthy, whatever the expense.
Like many slogans, “lean and mean” is a shallow fad of limited utility once the shock wears off and the actual results are evaluated. Even most successful organizations learn they must find ways to happily engage as a collaborative tribal unit. But too often, a lot of things are wrecked before that happens. In a government, that is a massive, and perhaps fatal, tragedy .
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 