In the last 15 years in Australia public-sector organisations have been down-sized, right-sized, reorganised, restructured, united, bisected, and sometimes like Defence are now up-sizing! All have had grand visions, strategic business plans, roadmaps, outsourcing plans and so on. Most of these initiatives have failed to realise the expected efficiencies or significantly improve competence. Why?
I think the leaders of these organisations wish for simplicity even when it is not possible to avoid inherent complexity. In particular they put in place piecemeal business solutions and fail to recognise they are part of a wider system. In short they don’t understand their system boundaries or their cross boundary relationships, and don’t give the change initiative time to work before embarking on another. I think many public-sector organisations would benefit from a systems thinking approach to management.
