Move Fast and Break Things

I am on vacation and had not really intended to post but I wanted to quickly comment on one of the arguments used to push back on the DOGE effort. The Democrats, who historically have been real masters of managing the media, have had a pretty flat-footed response to DOGE and have floundered for any sort of messaging that offsets the near endless revelations of stupid spending that DOGE is finding. Most of their protests just look like hysterical defenses of the indefensible.

But the argument I have heard recently that is more likely to resonate with the Democrat's traditional (read: sane) base is something like "we are all for explorations of government efficiency but think it needs to be done in a much more measured and careful way." Unfortunately, for anyone with any experience in organizational cost cutting, a "measured pace" is another way of saying "let's move slow enough so the antibodies in the system have time to kill us." As a result, if anything, I think DOGE is moving too slow.

Way back when I was a newly minted MBA with a less cynical view of how organizations work, I was employed by consultant McKinsey & Co to do cost cutting studies. McKinsey had a pitch to clients where they said that simple-mindedly mandating across-the-board cuts was stupid and destructive. Instead they advocated for a process, I think it was called EVA but it was 30 damn years ago and I cannot remember, to carefully look at every process in the company, to redesign the process, and then cut headcount based on implementing the better process. They would say that the only way to cut staff was to first cut the work that employees had to do first.

As a over-educated and under-experienced consultant, this sounded great to me. It made logical sense as the most thoughtful way to go about cost and headcount reduction, and really it still does make sense in an academic vacuum. It just feels better doing a detailed analysis that leads to 10% less needed staff rather than simply at the outset demanding a 10% across-the-board staff reduction (it also demands orders of magnitude more consulting hours, but that only occurs to the current more cynical version of myself).

But in the real world, one often does not have this luxury. First, going into such an analysis can take many months, all through which the organization knows cuts are coming and productivity plummets. It is effectively pulling off the Band-Aid really slowly. Second, the only way to do this analysis is to have the cooperation of the staff that is about to be cut, a tall order in many real world situations where the staff is ready to fight you (and especially when the staff is organized into unions to fight you). Third, you really don't necessarily get much innovation through this process. By the way, all these problems are squared and cubed in a public vs private context with powerful unions and constant media spotlight.

When I was fresh our of mba-school, I thought just whacking 20% of the staff without analysis was the dumbest thing in the world. But having tried to change and manage organizations, I have changed my mind. Necessity is the mother of invention, and sometimes just getting rid of 20% of the staff and having to make do is the ultimate in necessity. In a reverse of the McKinsey formulation, you cut the work that has to be done by cutting the staff. This approach is fast, and there is no way for the anti-bodies to organize to fight the change when the change comes fast enough. Rip off the Band-Aid, get the required savings, fix problems where you went to far later.

The DOGE efforts are doomed at some level no matter what because so much of Federal spending is programmed by law. It is going to take legislative changes and a better budgeting approach out of Congress to make big changes. But I do think there is staffing efficiency to be had but DOGE is not going to get there alone either**. At some point Trump is going to have to just pick a number and say that in 30 days, every department has to cut their staff by that number. Nothing else is going to work. Nothing else usually works in the private world and it certainly is not going to work in the government where the antibody strength is the highest.

Which is not to say that what DOGE is doing is not valuable, because it is. The constant string of factoids and revelations are going to be the PR air cover that larger cuts via legislation and/or mass layoffs are going to need.

** Postscript: it is useful to keep a few numbers in mind to see the difficulties with the DOGE process getting their promised savings. Yes they can keep finding million dollar examples of stupid spending to be cut. But to get a trillion dollars in savings -- an almost unfathomably large number -- requires a million individual cuts of a million dollars each. The other thing to remember is just how large the federal workforce is. As I pointed out the other day, the 75,000 that took Trump's early retirement package seems like a lot, but it is well under just the normal annual 6% turnover in the federal workforce.

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Coyote: The DOGE efforts are doomed at some level no matter what because so much of Federal spending is programmed by law.

That’s a primary objection: Trump is exceeding his authority under the law. That, and they’re idiots. Most of the changes should be done through legislation; otherwise, it will undermine the constitutional checks and balances. Would you use “move fast and break things” for surgery, where a wrong move can kill the patient? Of note: They fired people working with nuclear weapons.

Having worked in a move fast and break things environment, ime the end results tend to be look, I did a thing vs look, I fixed a thing.

Before you come up with a solution, you should really define the problem. If the problem is that the government is spending too much, then identify the things to cut spending on. If the problem is that money is being spent on stupid things, then stop the spending on stupid things. If the problem is that the federal government is exercising too much arbitrary power, then restrict the opportunities for arbitrary power.

I have a hard time imagining the problem where "fewer federal employees" is the solution.

If cutting spending is the objective, it would help to identify where the spending is. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the federal debt are something like 57% of all federal spending. These will not be reduced at all by firing government employees. (Technically, I suppose the employees in the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are part of that total, but not a significant part.) And they will not be reduced without changes in the law.

"Everything else," including federal courts, military procurement, military payroll, national parks, running embassies in foreign countries, white house staff, agricultural programs, highway construction, air traffic control, FBI, Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, Congressional salaries and staffs, federal retiree pensions, US Attorneys, bank inspectors, and sponsored research among many other things, is about $2.3 trillion, of which employee salary is much less than half. The announced goal is to reduce spending by $1 trillion, or about 43% of this amount. It is not remotely credible to attempt spending reductions on that scale, and attempting meaningful cost savings by slashing jobs is performative nonsense.

Edit: Oh, and have a good vacation. You've earned it.

Last edited 1 month ago by Brian C Smith

"Yes they can keep finding million dollar examples of stupid spending to be cut. But to get a trillion dollars in savings -- an almost unfathomably large number -- requires a million individual cuts of a million dollars each."

Repeating a comment I made in another thread, if the amount being spent on stupid stuff is really that trivial, it should be insanely easy to cut that spending. Right?

Not Sure: if the amount being spent on stupid stuff is really that trivial, it should be insanely easy to cut that spending

That doesn’t necessarily follow. For instance, “stupid stuff” may be entangled with “smart stuff”. In such a case, cutting out the “stupid” will inevitably result in cutting out some of the “smart”. Allocation of resources will never be perfect, so when setting up such a system, a certain amount of resources will inevitably be misallocated, whether when allocating or when unallocating. Furthermore, the “stupidity” may only be apparent in retrospect; or what may appear “stupid” on the surface may actually have value.

It's the government, who cares if they break things. I think you may have pointed out the speediness of shutting down reservations to the fed parks when a government shutdown occurred. This is in contrast to the general slowness when they operate. They have to show they do something. I like the public checkbook, with necessary exceptions, that some municipalities have instituted. FOIA should be the rule, not the exception.

Poe Ekaf: It's the government, who cares if they break things.

The military is of critical important to maintain free international trade, important for America's prosperity. Internal security protection is crucial, as demonstrated on 9/11/2001. Control of nukes is of especial critical. In addition, the U.S. federal government has financial information on virtually every person and every business in America, so safeguarding this information is necessary. The government spends trillions every year, so maintaining the integrity of payments is essential. Continued investment in scientific research is needed to remain competitive against rising competition.Social Security checks and provision of Medicare are of clear relevance to tens of millions of Americans.

W-

If you get the chance I would love to hear your thoughts regarding the park management issues at Yosemite and the Grand Canyon - bathroom keys and long waits to get into the parks - that occurred after they let people go These seem fishy and you have experience in the area

"That doesn’t necessarily follow. For instance, “stupid stuff” may be entangled with “smart stuff”. In such a case, cutting out the “stupid” will inevitably result in cutting out some of the “smart”."

I guess you must be okay with drinking lemonade with a little bit of piss in it then. If the smart stuff isn't smart enough to not be entangled with the stupid stuff, it can go, too.

Not Sure: If the smart stuff isn't smart enough to not be entangled with the stupid stuff, it can go, too.

Your original claim was that it would be insanely easy to cut “stupid” spending. We pointed out that it doesn’t necessarily follow. Consider surgically removing a tumor, which may be entangled with healthy tissue. “Moving fast and breaking things” may disable or kill the body. While it may require removing some healthy tissue to cut out the tumor, it requires care and precision to save the patient and preserve as much healthy function as possible.

The most obvious example is Trump-Musk firing people in charge of working with nuclear weapons. Oops.

Cutting stupid spending isn't anything like surgery to remove a tumor.

What a silly thing to say.

Not Sure: Cutting stupid spending isn't anything like surgery to remove a tumor.

You made an unsupported and overly simplistic claim. We showed why your view may be mistaken, and provided a real example of how simple notions about cutting spending may easily go awry. Then, instead of supporting your claim, you waved your hands.