Why I’m leaving

And a parting thought

As so many people have recently, I’m moving to Australia in the new year. My PhD chapter is coming to an end and while there are many reasons to move overseas – some of it does have to do with what I’ve learned about the public service in this time, and with its current outlook. So as a final post, I want to share some of those observations. Perhaps this might tie up a few loose ends.

Let’s start with the reaction I’ve had to my writing here. Writing a PhD is a lonely journey - they told me at the start and it’s true. That the topic I’ve chosen ended up resonating with so many people is unusual and I’ve been chuffed with all the people who reached out, shared their thoughts or met me for a coffee.

On the one hand I had such positive feedback, but towards the end I also received one clear message from several angles:

What you’re saying is on point, but no one will hire you with this.

I know so many smart and experienced people who are unemployed, and this is by no means an uncommon experience right after a PhD. But I also have to take seriously what this world is conveying to me – and that’s to find a way to get back in line, or else…

And so I’m leaving, because I see no perspective for my work in NZ – at least not now. I could go on about the de-funding of the humanities and how that effectively means NZ provides an education to people like me who are then bound to take that expensive expertise overseas. Brain drain by design. But I honestly don’t mean to make this a pity party for one – I just want to lay out how things look from where I’m sitting.

Photo of an exit sign by mk. s

Sometimes it felt like people were looking to me as a sort of activist, some even directly asked me what can be done about the state of affairs around restructuring. And while I appreciate the trust and appreciation expressed in that – I don’t have any answers. I’ve grappled with this for a long time, thought about less obvious paths that I might go down to make something of my research and this dynamic. But I’ve also had my own experiences with restructures that showed me what happens to those who stick their necks out too far.

I’ve done the legwork to know that the signals I’m getting are part of the system sustaining itself.

And I do believe that there’s a good dose of Kiwiana in there – our very specific relationship to critical voices. There’s something that New Zealanders do when someone says something critical that I’ve never seen anywhere else: they just disappear. No one will directly confront you, debate you, tell you why your opinion is wrong. You just find yourself ghosted, standing on your own like you farted on a full dance floor. And if you’re lucky, some well-meaning person will give you a hint to perhaps be less forthcoming with your opinions. And that’s that.

I do think that this is an unspoken social contract that makes New Zealanders more contented and balanced than – for example – ze Germans with their never-ceasing Angst (which I can attest is a real thing). But it’s also a conduct that stops us from keeping pace with the progress we see overseas, at least when it comes to public management. Throwing around the latest new innovation term or strategy idea gives the impression of a positive, forward trajectory - but it keeps us fiddling with the surface.

Perhaps the biggest thing I’ve learned from all this is that it’s not an intellectual issue - it’s ideology.

But let’s get to the promised parting thought:

I hear of the emergence of Organisational Design functions in several larger public institutions. In principle, I believe this is good news and far overdue. Such functions are the sensible place to oversee all architectural aspects of how an organisation is set up and counteract the “institutional amnesia” that we see in so many public places. But whether they will succeed in their task will depend on the same issues that similar functions have faced over the last decade.

Every “design” role I’ve ever been hired into had been established with the intent to improve something – yet hardly any of those roles had the means to do what the job description said.

A digital service cannot be made more user-friendly when the project manager has scoped out any from of user-testing from the start. Internal systems remain as clunky as they ever have been because the procurement decision has been made months ago based on technical requirements gathered by a BA. As a friend of mine said of their job in a large government agency: the Service Design team has been around for nearly a decade now – but there’s no design happening here.

My research has shown me that the root cause of all this goes so much deeper into the logic of how our public service organisations work: We define strategy, we word operating models, we change the structure – and then we return to the start.

Organisational Design should be a meta capability - one that nudges the institution towards a healthy interplay between all the capabilities that it needs. In theory. But to do that, it will need influence, access, and perhaps most of all, an openness to change the way we handle change.

Given that New Zealand’s public sector is going in the exact opposite direction, I have my doubts whether these newly established teams will be able to do what their job descriptions say. Because one fundamental thing that the current government does not seem to grasp is that:

Restrictions, command and control- style leadership and more direct political authority towards the public service does not lead to creative problem solving, thriftiness, or efficiency: it leads to patch protection, risk-aversion, and holding on to what feels safe.

It will not fix the wastefulness of the public service – which I believe exists – because it changes nothing about its basic decision-making logic and power distributions. But by all means, I hope I’m wrong on this.

So there… I did it again, wrote something critical.

Time for me to ghost… Photo by Tandem X Visuals

And that’s where I’ll need to leave you, for now. It’s not all doom and gloom, I’m working on my publications through other channels. I’m sure my time overseas will allow me to see New Zealand in a whole new light. And that may be exactly what’s needed. Thanks again to everyone – you’ve honestly made my PhD journey a lot easier to land!