“There is a culture of complacency among the agency’s middle management,” said Rep. Jeffrey Miller (R-Fla.), chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC). “These mid-level managers are evidently willing to just wait out those of us who are trying to change things.”
Not only is that statement riddled with assumptions, it’s laden with its own complacency.
But there’s even more in this game of blame.
Many in Congress argue that the problems in the VA stem from slipshod, incompetent middle managers who are not held responsible for outcomes in their medical facilities.
And yet, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported a year ago that the VA routinely rewards these managers with bonuses in spite of enduring poor conditions. According to the performance pay policy, managers can earn bonuses and advancement by reducing veteran wait-times. Those who fail suffer downgrades. The GAO noted, however, that the policy neglects to specify an overarching purpose that the goals are to support.
Lazy Blaming
So now it feels merely convenient to place the blame on the shoulders of the VA middle managers. By doing so, we don’t have to answer any of these questions:
- Why would the managers need to manipulate wait-time data at all?
- Why did leaders award managers bonuses in spite of festering poor conditions?
- What was the point of the performance goals and the draconian consequences?
- Why didn’t the leaders take any action in light of the GAO 2013 report and countless veteran complaints and VA whistleblowers over the years?
- And what could possibly be written in the government employee contract that is preventing everyone from taking different actions to fix the enduring problems?
Imagine Being a Manager at the VA
You get offered a new job. You’re excited. You’re filled with enthusiasm, hope and possibility to progress your career, make a decent salary with nice benefits, and make a difference serving the people who served our country. (I highly doubt you’re excited about taking this new job because of the opportunity to manipulate wait-time data…)
But then, instead of helping veterans, you are hit with an onslaught of red tape, office politics and inane policies, union contracts, arbitrary performance goals that threaten your salary and benefits, a lack of resources to meet those goals, deaf-eared leaders, and ignorant politicians. All of which suddenly makes it impossible for you to make a difference.
And now you’re not only feeling helpless, you’re feeling resentment. That resentment shifts you from ‘I care!’ to ‘Why should I care if you don’t?’ And now you’re so busy trying to save yourself, you have no time to save a veteran.
The policies and politics are driving your behavior. You have long forgotten your initial enthusiasm, hope, and possibility of making a difference for veterans.
WYGIWYT (what you get is what you tolerate)
As leaders, it’s easy to blame managers for being incompetent and lazy. Just like it’s easy to blame your kids for being rude and disrespectful or your dog for not listening.
But it’s hard for leaders to accept the responsibility that you created it and you tolerate it month after month, year after year.
The bureaucracy, the manipulated wait-time data, the fraud, the waste, and the abuse… these are just manifestations of underlying, unaddressed issues. But those issues require the commitment of leaders to help their managers make a difference, not throw them under the bus in the midst of an election year.
United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki resigned under pressure last week. As a former United States Army general, he knows that failure flows up the chain of command. Too bad it skipped a few chain links on the way up.