Barry's SuperBlog

All Main Political Parties are the SameI want to discuss just one example where all the main political parties are the same (and therefore we have limited choice when we vote) and this is how al the Parties seek to initiate real change and improvement. They call it ‘Target Setting’ and it is destroying everything it touches.Target SettingAll the main political party’s use ‘target setting’ as their main vehicle for change. There is not one main Party that will improve our services by getting rid of target setting all together – even though all the research suggests that setting arbitrary targets (find me a target that is not arbitrary!) distorts systems and does not actually improve them.Politicians seem oblivious to the fact that that there are three ways to achieve a target, some ways help some ways don’t help at all. The three ways (perhaps there are more) are distort the data, distort the system or improve the system.(1) Distort the DataOne way to achieve a target is to manipulate the data in some way. To find a loophole that can be exploited so that the data collected looks better than it really is. This can be leaving some data out, or collecting the data in a way that was not actually intended. This is a relatively easy way to reach ‘targets’ and the staff that collect the data are under enormous pressure to see that the figures look right. Where there is a Blame Culture (which of course there is everywhere because this seems to be characteristic of Government itself) this subtle ‘fiddling of the data’ is happening all of the time. Those that get caught out are the unlucky ones, because this is endemic.A favourite way that Government themselves do this, is to change collection methods, or change data definitions when things are not happening the way they would like i.e. they move the goalposts. Classic examples of how manipulating the data has worked have been (1) in order to hit waiting list targets hospitals delayed putting people on a waiting list in the first place (2) to reach exam targets in some schools, children were prevented from taking the exams that their teacher thought they were likely to fail. And incidentally what makes matters worse for morale was that it was those schools who ‘cheated’ that won Government plaudits (‘most improved school’, ‘top school’) whereas those schools that refused to play these games often got put into ‘special measures’. (2)Distort the SystemThe second way to achieve a target is to distort the system i.e. to focus effort on achieving the targets at the expense of the things that are not being targeted or monitored. System thinkers often refer to this way of achieving targets as ‘moving the deck-chairs around on the Titanic’. We have seen this in schools where the extra tuition is targeted at the group of students that will benefit the school’s exam results the most (as measured by the targets set). We are continually distorting all of our Public Services in the name of target reaching. When I worked for two years as a Quality Consultant to a Health Authority I saw many examples of targets distorting services for the worse.(3) Improve the System !One way to reach a target is of course to actually improve the system, but to do this you have to change the system. Changing the System (and what, why, and how it can be changed for the better) is always the most difficult way to achieve a target, because this requires real knowledge about the current capability of the product or service (and despite all the measures we take, we never seem to have any useful data on this) and understanding the key influencers of quality improvement (which unfortunately no main political party has this knowledge – or they would not be setting targets in the first place).Two pertinent quotes:

“Eliminate Targets and work standards that prescribe arbitrary numerical 
quotas and goals” W.Edwards Deming (the father of quality improvement)

“Targets are capricious. While they are assumed to provide a spur to improvement, they actually make performance worse. The next time we hear about the Government’s use of targets, we should be asking why they have not been abandoned.” John Seddon (Vanguard Consulting)

Without knowledge of what a better way of working might look like, all that anyone can do, given a ‘target’ is ‘more of the same faster’; whereas quality improvement requires finding, researching, planning, trialing, studying and implementing ‘a different method’, so much easier to distort the system or fiddle the data.I will leave you with some additional quotes taken from a John Seddon article “On Target To Achieve Nothing” in the Guardian Newspaper in 2000 (full article here http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/6-targets.asp) And this article demonstrates to me that NOT ONE of our main Political Parties has learnt anything about improvement in the nine years since this was written! (It is my underlining in the text)

On a recent Radio 4 Today programme a Liberal Democrat spokesman was invited to criticise the Government’s use of targets for managing the public sector At last, I thought, someone is going to point out that targets don’t get us what we want.

Alas, the spokesman could only suggest that they should be used better. The fact is that targets don’t help us get to where we want to be. Worse, they actually obviate the possibility by making people focus on the wrong things. In the police, schools, health service and local authorities targets are hindering performance rather than fostering improvement.

What I had hoped the spokesman would say was that the whole idea of targets is flawed – that their use in a hierarchical system engages peoples’ ingenuity in managing the numbers instead of improving their methods. Peoples’ attention turns to being seen to meet the targets – fulfilling the bureaucratic requirements of reporting that which they have become ‘accountable’ for – at the expense of achieving the organisation’s purpose. In simple terms, all this effort constitutes and causes waste – inefficiency, poor service and, worst of all, low morale.

The notion of a target is plausible. In principle, there is nothing wrong with individuals having targets that they may set themselves – lose weight, run further, get another job, earn more money. But targets in a hierarchical system is that it is imposed with authority, by people who are generally detached from the work being carried out. Targets are therefore arbitrary. They may suit a plan, but they do not start from a knowledge of capability – what the system predictably achieves and why.

What the spokesman should have said was that instead of targets people need measures that lead to questions of method – ‘How can we do this better?’

So currently no main political party has in their manifesto “we will abolish targets so we can get on with improving not distorting services”Coming Next:   More on areas where Political Parties are the same