This post is written by Shaun Cameron, Policy and Project Officer, Australian Public Service.

  • The problem: Machinery of Government (MoG) changes are expensive and disruptive events that occur regularly with new governments.
  • Why it matters: These changes can lead to a loss of human capital and knowledge, public service function and negative impacts to organisational structures.
  • The solution: Adaptive leadership will engage the capability, creativity, and diversity of public servants, rather than a primary reliance on traditional solutions.

The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) outlines adaptive leadership as an ongoing practice of leadership aimed at helping members of a community or organisation adapt to momentous changes. Adaptive leadership emphasises the importance of adaptation to a complex and rapidly changing environment and views leadership as continually learned behaviour, as opposed to an ingrained characteristic within individuals. It is cooperative and addresses ambiguous situations that do not have known solutions.

One modern leadership challenge that emerges particularly after periods of change of elected governments, as Australia experienced in 2022, is related to Machinery of Government (MoG) changes. This process of flux refers to government departments and agencies being rearranged and restructured through the splitting and merging of different government functions, or even the abolishing and creation of new entities altogether. Civil servants who have experienced this process often describe the process as being “mogged”.

In 2015-16, Australian Public Service MoG changes involved the movement of 8,000 staff in 21 changes.

Since 1993-94, more than 200 MoG changes have been made to Australian Public Service departments and entities, with the Australian Department of Education undergoing 10 name changes alone in the last 50 years. MoGs are likely to continue to be a facet of government changes as newly elected governments make preferred departmental and public service changes, despite known impacts of these disruptions including significant financial and operating system costs, and the creation of siloed and dysfunctional organisational structures in remaining departments and agencies.

Getting mogged, then being mugged

In 2015-16, Australian Public Service MoG changes involved the movement of 8,000 staff in 21 changes, while the most recent July 2022 MoG has already resulted in organisational restructuring in which relabelled teams lack human resources. Civil servants are further likely to face the splitting of information technology systems, a loss of human resources and institutional knowledge as colleagues take the opportunity to shift workplace (or leave unappealing ones), and perhaps questions of how to manage new teams and departmental functions that they are unfamiliar with.

While an engineer can utilise the experience of building a bridge in the past, applying this method to MoG changes will likely lead to troubled waters.

This form of change is resistant to the application of traditional and technical leadership and skill sets alone, which involve the application of existing know-how, past experience, and the standard problem-solving processes of the organisation to emerging problems. Dr. Paul Porteous provides examples of engineers or medical scientists utilising past expertise and experience in tackling challenges that have been seen before, without the need for a change in values or organisational culture to reach an acceptable solution.

While an engineer can utilise the experience of building a bridge in the past, applying this method to MoG changes will likely lead to troubled waters. Adaptive leadership problems, of which MoG changes are an example, resist the standard solutions offered and require people throughout the organisation to change their default assumptions and approaches to addressing the problems at hand. A reliance on expertise or past knowledge will not suffice and creative and innovative approaches may be required.

Taking change on the chin

Responding to adaptive challenges requires the ability to anticipate future obstacles and co-develop solutions with team members that can be non-traditional and innovative in nature. In responding to adaptive leadership challenges, courageous conversations with staff and engagement can be actioned with organisational leaders at varying levels to elicit the discovery of assumptions held on the problem, the source of these applied assumptions and how the organisation can come together to address the individual challenge faced.

Building on this consultation, internal and external stakeholders that are regularly engaged with should be partnered with to uncover potential solutions that move beyond the standard application of technical skill sets or previous institutional responses.

Diversity should further be supported in consulting and engaging not only staff of varying cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, but also diversity in work function and perspective which may lead to creative and innovative solutions to the challenges resulting from MoG changes. This engagement can take place internally within government departments and agencies, but also between government stakeholders with new or existing working relationships.

Making change meaningfully

This approach supports a localism perspective which involves garnering perspectives of the local community. In the case of adaptive leadership, localism involves engaging with varying staff in non-leadership positions who are on the front lines of MoG changes and the resulting consequences to the public service, which will support the problem-solving capacity of the organisation as a collective. New and adaptive challenges require experimental mindsets and innovative solutions that defy existing convention, which are unlikely to be garnered from traditional methods of problem-solving.

Applying the lens of adaptive leadership to MoG changes may offer an opportunity for leaders and thinkers to develop new and innovative solutions to a process of change that will likely occur again into the future. Partnering, valuing diversity and creativity, and wide consultation is more likely to offer solutions, rather than simply experience, technical know-how, or organisational guidelines.

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