Everyone likely is familiar with the saying that “you can drag a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.” Often, the saying is used as a metaphor for persons who are given opportunities but fail to take advantage of them. The implicit basis for both is that the horse – or person – either fails to understand the opportunity or isn’t interested, or motivated, enough to drink, i.e., to act on what’s available.
Bad water
The relevance of this to the postal world is the availability of centuries of experience-based advice to those who lead the Postal Service and their general disdain for taking it.
Though the Postal Service has a unique statutory charter to serve the public – which, presumably, would make it interested in its customers’ opinions and perspectives – it has an institutional tendency to be insular, in turn causing it to keep its own counsel rather than accept available external input.
It’s true that the USPS has venues where it encounters retail and commercial customers – the National Postal Forum, Postal Customer Councils, and the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee, for example – and many of its people – from Headquarters staff through field craft employees – are affable and pleasant in person, yet there’s always a discrete point where the customer can tell that input is no longer getting through.
For an agency that, in the memory of its current staff, has had to deal with Congressional meddling, an uncooperative (in its view) regulator, statutory and regulatory restrictions, and customers who don’t always have the most objective point of view, it may be understandable that a fortress culture has developed in which it’s assumed that those inside can rely only on each other for understanding and support. “Outsiders” just don’t understand the situation; they’re only looking out for their own interests, not those of the USPS; and must be kept, somewhat distrustfully, at arm’s length.
To be fair, it’s not just in the USPS – the presumption that “they” are trying to screw over “us” is a sentiment common to the “outsiders” as well. Mutual distrust is nothing new.
No water, thanks
The unfortunate consequence of such an us-vs-them environment is that open discussion is inhibited, advice is not taken, and solutions are not developed.
Thankfully, this is not a universal condition without exceptions; there are workgroups in MTAC, for example, where cooperative exchanges occur and that yield mutually beneficial results. On the other hand, and more so in recent years, external input has been shunned, often because it’s out of step with the preferred policy or course of action.
Under past postmasters general, such as Pat Donahoe and Megan Brennan, there were venues in which commercial mailers could offer their comments and ideas. How gratefully that input was received isn’t known, but at least there was a willingness to take it, and sometimes it was manifest in subsequent decisions by the Postal Service. That changed, however, when Louis DeJoy became PMG, and it quickly became clear that the only input he wanted to get was affirmation of what he was doing. Everything became black and white; if you didn’t support him unquestioningly you were an enemy to be ostracized and dismissed. This was illustrated by the purge of HQ and field executives who didn’t fall in line, and the ascendancy of sycophant toadies eager to drink the Kool-Aid. Many in the middle simply kept their heads down.
Other horses
Within the commercial mailing industry, there’s a considerable body of experience – working with ratepaying clients, suppliers, transportation companies, and field postal employees at all levels – that can offer a perspective that should be valuable to those who lead the USPS.
Notably, the governors of the Postal Service, the outside directors who oversee the PMG and fundamental agency policies and performance, have never sought out such a source of information or perspective, apparently satisfied that what they’re spoon-fed by senior postal management is all they need to know. If the idea has ever crossed their minds that perhaps another point of view or source of information would be useful, they’ve never acted on it. They don’t know they’re thirsty and have no desire to find water.
Conversely, the Postal Regulatory Commission and the Office of Inspector General – two groups frowned on by Louis DeJoy for not cooperating with or flattering his ideas – do meet with industry representatives and are willing to accept their input. They know that another perspective is valuable.
Next month, there will be a new head of the Postal Service when, on a date yet to be announced, David Steiner is sworn in as the 76th postmaster general. As a former CEO he likely is confident in his ability to run a business; so was DeJoy.
However, the USPS isn’t just another big company, it’s a regulated public enterprise chartered as a service, and lacking in the latitude to operate like a privately- or publicly-held corporation. DeJoy seemed to never quite accept the difference, or at least never let it get in his way. Whether Steiner will be able to operate successfully in the Postal Service’s unique environment is yet to be seen.
It’s unknown what he’s doing in the weeks between his selection (in early May) and his first day on the 10th floor of USPS HQ to prepare himself for his new job. Odds are he’s been getting plenty of briefings from senior HQ staff, and being told about the glories of DeJoy’s 10-Year Plan whose loyal acolytes continue its implementation.
To return to the horses-and-water analogy, he needs the “water” of outside advice – perspectives that, despite their source, can offer insights not available from the curated information supplied by HQ staff. Of course, the gatekeepers surrounding him – like those surrounding the governors – will warn him about “the industry” and its selfish demands.
What they won’t tell him is that the scores of associations and hundreds of industry professionals with thousands of years of experience can offer unvarnished advice, views not designed to promote official policy, and suggestions that might risk upsetting entrenched HQ ideologies.
Steiner needs water, but we’ll have to wait to see if he knows that and chooses to drink what’s available.