This morning as I ran the gauntlet from the public swimming pool to my clothes, I looked up long enough to spy a sign that commanded me NOT to take photos in the changing rooms. “Good gracious!” I said to myself – and as it turned out, to one other occupant. “Why” I asked her “would anyone want to take photos in the changing rooms?” She was at a loss to respond. I hadn’t quite caught her with her pants down but it was a changing room so you will get the general drift. She made a good recovery however and wondered aloud if maybe people liked to take photos of themselves which we both agreed was a bit weird.
Upon reflection – I don’t imagine I would be particularly happy to inadvertently appear in the background of someone else’s selfie as I was struggling to get my bloomers on, but nevertheless I couldn’t help feeling slightly miffed about both the necessity of the sign and the bluntness of its message. A simple ‘please’ might have softened it a bit.
Here’s the thing. I read recently a statement by mayor-elect Max Brough that “Real progress is not achieved by a plodding bureaucratic process” and I have to agree. We have become a nation that caters to the lowest common denominator. I have noted before that dog control bylaws do not exist to keep responsible dog owners under control – they exist to provide a way of managing bad dog owners. Likewise with the sign on the changing room wall. 95% of the changing room users have no intent whatsoever of taking selfies or any other kind of picture while they are in there, yet the sign exists (harshly) for the 5% who clearly have in the past.
All this regulation and public instruction may well have a noble purpose – but in the process it drags decent folk down. Not just by commanding them NOT to do stuff they had no intention of doing in the first place. More insidious is that these things are in themselves reflections of plodding bureaucratic process – which has become plodding because the bureaucrats have become adept at designing processes (and signs) to cover their butts. The most alarming thing about this (and I hope this is what Max Brough was thinking when he made his statement) is that the rest of us have been lulled into an entirely inappropriate sense of acceptance.
Now to be fair to the bureaucrats (some of them are my best friends) much of this knee jerk response in the way of signs and process has been brought about as a form of self-preservation from enthusiastic politicians chasing any number of objectives. Effecting change quickly must take its place alongside cheap point scoring and playing the blame game.
Regardless, there is no doubt that bureaucratic process plods more than it propels. The trick to changing that will lie in building trust and confidence between and among those who set the direction and those who implement it. Go for it Max!