Grant Wickham

Good night.

Witnessed this first hand on many occasions; the first assault was Management by Objective. Performance indicators were introduced for everything except to wipe one’s bum. Then Teamwork was introduced, based on the American model and a new form of Groupthink was introduced. Specific focus or general focus on target accomplishment but never the Twain would meet. Then there is Education. Introduction of Competency based Instruction/training. Throwing the baby out with the bath water. You are either competent or not. No scaling to indicate how well you did, no intrinsic motivation to do it the best, hence since 1990-1996 Australian Education has been burying the treasure with the trash. “What Brown didn’t realise is that when you give public servants targets, they will concentrate on satisfying those targets to the exclusion of everything else. Self-preservation takes over, the target becomes the aim and the focus, and the welfare and indeed the existence of the public, the individual, the person, the end user, the patient, the client, the poor taxpayer hoping to get some service for their money, goes out of the window, never to be seen again. The end result is a massive fraud. Public servants are encouraged to cheat the public in order to get promoted and to receive bonus payments. Performance indicators on a scale that would have impressed Stalin have been forced on councils, schools”…….