"Mission-Driven Bureaucrats": Conversation with Dan Honig

Professor Dan Honig has published a tremendous new book, “Mission-Driven Bureaucrats”. He argues that efforts to improve state bureaucracies are actually counter-productive. By imposing strict rulebooks, managers may be stifling local autonomy, innovation and enthusiasm. Instead, it may be more effective to create empowering cultures that reward intrinsic motivation. This argument comes from working and learning with bureaucracies in Detroit, Senegal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Liberia and beyond.
Book: danhonig.info/missiondrivenbu...

[@PrettyGirl99871]

Hi Alice! I absolutely love every podcast you have put out there and listened to over 80% of Rocking our Priors episodes. However, I have noticed that there are consistent audio issues which makes it uncomfortable to continue the listening process. I know that hiring an audio engineer may be too much work but given the tremendous content quality you put out there, please consider taking into account the quality of the audio as well, thank you! - your devoted fan.

[@aliceevans745]

thank you. can you let me know what kinds of issues please?

[@johnstewart7025]

Perhaps accountability should be at department level. Let managers weed out inferior caseworkers. If a child is injured or killed that is on the top manager.

[@TheoneandonlyRAH]

this is exactly what it is like working in the nHS

[@TheoneandonlyRAH]

also makes me think of dan davies the unaccountability machine

[@TheoneandonlyRAH]

would be cool to see how other states do social services. places like vietnam or denmark or singapore or france. maybe it's a cultural thing