Reinvention, and Limbo-Land between Public Sector and Business

A good friend of mine is considering looking for a job after being out of the workforce for twelve years. She used to be a teacher and she loved to teach. She is deciding what her next move is.

"I love to teach. I like the classroom. I don't have the time or energy to reinvent myself," she said. "If I am going to go back to work, I want to go back to a place where I am comfortable, not where I need to figure it all out from scratch. Going back to work is going to be hard enough with getting used to a new schedule for me and the kids. I can't imagine that plus trying out a whole new endeavor."

There are times in life where we need and want to try something new, where we need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and try something different and exciting. This can be thrilling.

At other times, it is best to stick with what we know, the old and familiar. Most often, we have the hybrid of a little bit of both the old and the new. For my friend, going back to work after kids by itself will be new since she never worked while she had a family. Teaching will be what is familiar.

I think about this and it makes me reflect on my experiences and getting back to work. Before kids, I worked in consulting firms. After kids, all of my volunteer work was with non-profits and the public schools. I've been in both worlds for a long time, and I am trying to decide which realm to re-enter: business or the public sector? It makes me think about the differences between the two. This isn't to say one is better than the other, but more to think about how they are vary. I have respect for the work in both areas.

Business is motivated by profit, whether for shareholders, partners or the owners. Public sector work is motivated by a mission: Keep the streets safe. Educate children. Put out fires.

Businesses value efficiency and effectiveness. The public sector (when working well) needs to consider multiple perspectives when implementing a plan, and that takes time. In building a new library, city council might need to talk to seniors, parents with kids, people with disabilities like loss of vision. How will this new library meet the needs of the diverse members of a community?

A business can pick and choose what products they want to sell, and eliminate those that aren't working. If a product or service doesn't have a market, companies drop them. The public sector has a responsibility to meet the needs of a variety of constituents. Firemen can't say "It isn't cost effective to put out fires in rural areas." Public schools can't say "It isn't efficient to educate kids who don't speak English or who have disabilities." Or, "Our graduation rates are abysmal. Let's drop 12th grade." Failure isn't an option.

Businesses typically have one leader who makes decisions. Public sector decisions are made by consensus building and compromise. From a school board to congress, both groups need to convince other members of the governing board of their ideas. In a company, an employee might have to convince their boss.*

Businesses sometimes value system approaches on things like budgeting, project management, and communication. Public sector organizations often rely on subject matter experts to run the organization, even though those people might not have expertise in running an organization. Police run police departments. Firemen run fire departments. In my work with schools, I served on numerous committees with teachers. Teachers are subject matter experts on teaching, but few knew how to manage a project. For the most part, this is fine. Teachers don't really need to know about project management, budgeting, or communication planning. It becomes a problem when systemic changes need to be made. I saw the district was challenged because the administration, most of whom were former teachers, didn't have strong enough skills to get the job done.

I can see positive sides to both, and both can learn from each other. Likewise, I don't think it is realistic to think the government can be run like a business because it isn't. It would be like asking an elephant to swim like a fish. If you want to haul logs up a hill, call an elephant. If you want dinner, call a fish.

It would be nice, however, to find the sweet spot between the business realm and the public sector.

* This doesn't include change management which would apply similarly to both business and the public sector.