From promise to delivery: Overcoming the strategy problem in the public sector

To deliver better strategies and outcomes, governments need to tackle social dynamics in the cabinet room.

 
The purpose of government is to improve the lives of citizens and make society better off for the future. That is true in every aspect of public-sector responsibility, from healthcare reforms that attempt to enhance patient well-being to efforts to reduce carbon emissions and initiatives to promote economic growth. As a result, government leaders often paint a “hockey stick” into the future; after an initial period of little change, sharp improvements in performance are forecast two or three years in the future.

Unfortunately, few governments are able to deliver the promised impact. Yet that does not deter public-sector planners from making equally bold forecasts for subsequent years. As a result, unrealized hockey sticks string together and the ugly cousin of the hockey stick appears, the “hairy back.” Exhibit 1 shows that this effect is not an isolated phenomenon. Hockey sticks are drawn repeatedly, for everything from global economic growth projections to country-level productivity growth to unemployment reduction to cost estimates of major infrastructure projects. The optimistic projections continue, even in the face of actual results that have stayed roughly flat—or worsened.

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