Monday, October 21, 2024

Foolish Overreach

For the well-being of us all, micromanaging governments need to get out of the way

By Wayne Prins, Executive Director

When employees respond to workplace surveys, one of the most consistent sources of frustration and dissatisfaction are micromanaging bosses. You know the type: always looking over your shoulder, lacking trust, offering unsolicited advice, quick to reprimand, always claiming to know better than you, and always believing they’re better than you at your craft.

These are the bosses who drive employees crazy. And it’s worse than just an annoyance. Micromanaging inhibits creativity, kills motivation, stifles productivity, erodes goodwill, betrays worker dignity, and eventually chases good employees away.

Unfortunately, most micromanagers don’t have the self-awareness to see that they’re doing it, so they keep doing it. Worse yet, when they do know it, they believe it’s what they’re supposed to be doing!

What is true about micromanaging bosses is also true about micromanaging governments. They always believe they know better than their citizens, always believe they’re the best at solving every problem, and always come up with new laws, regulations, or programs to “fix” things.

These governments require massive bureaucracies to administer ever-increasing compliance requirements, and they need ever-more tax revenue and debt to pay for them. They usually fall into the worse-yet category too, meaning they know they’re micromanaging, but they keep doing it because they believe it’s what they’re supposed to be doing.

Like the micromanaging boss, micromanaging governments inhibit the diversity and creativity of their people, kill motivation, stifle productivity, erode goodwill, chase good citizens away, and betray their dignity.

Politically, CLAC remains strictly nonpartisan and praises or criticizes governments based on their policies—not their political stripe. That said, doesn’t the description of a micromanaging government remind you of a government near you?

Canada has a debt problem, an affordability crisis, an increasingly unhappy and unsettled citizenry, and a systemic productivity problem—which is not workers’ fault. Our declining productivity has noticeably degraded our standard of living. And all this at a time when we have far more people working for the government than ever before, more debt, pay more taxes, and have far more laws, regulations, and programs all promising to make our lives better!

The reality is that government overreach and intervention are simply not capable of achieving the same positive results for workers as a free and unencumbered economy that facilitates and rewards competence, innovation, competition, pluralism in union choice, and accountability.

The appropriate role for government is to create a legal and regulatory environment to facilitate the economy described above and to provide an appropriate and adequate social safety net to help and protect citizens who need it most. Beyond that, government should stop micromanaging and get out of the way.

Foolish Overreach

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