My wife thinks it’s a great shame more people don’t have it. My Gran saw it as the answer to everything. My sociology lecturer said it didn’t exist and in my experience it is very rarely found amongst groups of professionals, so called experts and management consultants. I am referring to common sense or the lack of it and the tendency to overcomplicate especially where a generous budget and a tight timescale are involved.
Once the President of the USA JF Kennedy had announced that America would be the first to put a man on the moon money was no object. When the mission required a pen that would write in zero gravity then money and expertise were thrown at the problem. A few million dollars and the best technical brains eventually came up with a pen that could write upside down and in zero gravity. A triumph for USA technical know how. The Russians working on a more limited budget took a pencil into space.
Can we honestly say that in the past some of us in the public sector have not responded to the pressure of ambitious plans and imposed deadlines in the same way as NASSA and bought in expensive management consultants who have produced an over complicated solution and a large bill.
Over complicated solutions are often the result of the best intensions. Fired by the vision, not wishing to make compromises, the desire is to come up with the perfect solution a Rolls Royce service. Professionals always strive for the best even when they know that only a select few will be able to afford it. The harsh financial climate the Public Sector is now entering means we should not waste time and energy designing a pure model of Self Directed Support or a perfect model for world class commissioning the task is to come up with something that will do the job and we can afford.
I am not suggesting service cuts and redundancies are a good thing. I am suggesting that a lack of money may be the opportunity to think the unthinkable to do things differently, to overcome the inbuilt resistance to radical change. I am also suggesting it may not be such a bad thing to have to be less idealistic and more pragmatic, to accept that good enough will have to do. Or as my Gran would say show a little common sense.
Blair McPherson is author of People management in a harsh financial climate published by www.russellhouse.co.uk