Why you rarely hear the words “I’m afraid” in local government

This article is written by Victoria Camp, transformation manager, Caerphilly Council

This article is about what to do with fear as a public servant, whether that fear is your own, or spread throughout your organisation.

I’ve been afraid to commit these words to the page for some time now. Although often what I write is designed to provoke, I already sense some of the themes here will get close to the bone. Yet, having come up time and time again against this invisible barrier to progress, I’m doing nobody any favours by keeping it to myself.

Fear is a very natural and powerful emotion, whether it dwells at the level of the individual, a company, or a culture. We all feel it, and we all process it in different ways. As human beings mature, we learn that fear can also be our friend. Those nerves that jangle in your stomach and spine right before making a huge presentation are often what lead you to smash it out of the park. Being afraid of the consequences of your actions, and so thinking them through, is often the surest way of making robust decisions.

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And yet, I suspect that fear is the single biggest reason so many of us in the public sector feel like we are drowning in policy, procedure and protocol most of the time. I would like to explain more what I mean here, and to try and offer some solutions.

Speaking truth to fear

Look around at what passes for global leadership at the moment. Ask yourself who among the many names and faces that come up most draws you towards them.

Is it the strongman who projects strength and surety even in the face of disaster, or those who demonstrate humility, grace and authenticity? Do you prefer someone who has an answer for everything, or someone who actually says: “I don’t know”, or even “I got that wrong”?

When was the last time you heard a leader use one of those phrases publicly, full stop? It’s just this lack of humility that creates a culture of fear around fear itself. In such environments, the words “I don’t know” can lead to career suicide.

Now think about a policy or process you’ve had to follow in your own place of work as a public servant. Try to trace the logic of it back to its essential premise. Is it based on the principle of upholding legislation, or is it based on a fear of breaking legislation? Is it a constructive response to public concerns, or does it simply try to limit existing damage? How many of the processes you follow at work ultimately come down to people in your organisation being afraid?

Assuming the best of people

Let’s look at human resource policies where, say, a manager’s sign-off is required on timesheets submitted by staff. This is a fairly common practice in most organisations, private or public. But why so? What value is the manager’s sign-off providing, given very few currently interact with their teams at work?

Now, whenever fear creeps into our team’s conversations, it is treated as a welcome guest at the table, provided it pulls its weight.

The practice persists only because of a persistent fear that staff might be clocking more hours than they have actually worked. The solution of having someone up the hierarchy “sign-off” their work timesheet offers only a false sense of security however. There is still little to no evidence that the hours they’ve approved have indeed been worked.

A process based on trust rather than fear would look rather different. Managers would assume that employees aren’t gaming the system, and that anyone who is will eventually be caught and dealt with. Instead of assuming the worst of their staff, organisations would assume the best, and so hold them to a more positive standard.

Taking a different tack

In my relatively brief public sector career, I have often heard it said that a course of action could not be taken because it was deemed too likely to upset the public, senior leadership, unions and so on.

These conversations always left me feeling somewhat sad, and not because of people’s concerns, but because of the limits these placed on conversation.

I know from having worked at a global American banking corporation of how these processes differ. I’m not suggesting local authorities use financial institutions as their cultural models, but rather that they consider other ways of managing fear when it arises.

Instead of internalising fears around decisions, financiers tend instead to talk about them openly. They ask questions, challenge answers, and probe others’ discomfort to find something tangible, something they can say actually stands in their way and how to deal with it logically.

In the context of public service, rather than block a decision based on the risk of public outcry, teams should ask what such an outcry might look like, what can be done to mitigate it, and what they consider to be an acceptable level of pushback.

Once you’re agreed on these things, you can start gathering information to inform the steps you take to avoid the worst possible outcome. If you can’t completely avoid negative reactions, you can at least limit the damage they make whilst ultimately accomplishing what you’ve set out to achieve.

I’ve witnessed glances of this approach in my current post at Caerphilly. We are very close to implementing a new policy in the council, which was attempted two years ago but which was met with a lot of fear. This time, partly because of the pandemic, partly because of new leadership, the project has progressed. The crucial difference however is that fears have been named and dealt with throughout the process.

Now, whenever fear creeps into our team’s conversations, it is treated as a welcome guest at the table, provided it pulls its weight. We don’t let fear stay rent-free in our heads. We let it out, analyse it, and put it to work, until it either proves empty or pays off. — V****ictoria Camp

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