GELFAND’S WORLD-I was asked to give a talk last week about writing. You may notice that what I do is straightforward nonfiction. In fact, I refer to it as uncreative writing, since the idea is to communicate ideas cleanly and clearly.
In preparing and presenting the talk, I went to old classics such as Jaques Barzun's masterful Simple and Direct. I also mentioned A Writer's Companion by Richard Marius. Read these two sources and you can't help but become a better writer.
This was all well and good, but what I really would have liked was a perfect example of bad writing that could be presented to a perplexed audience. Then we could rescue the bad writing by using the concepts embodied in Simple and Direct.
The perfect bad example has now arrived in my inbox as if sent to me by the gods of bad writing. [http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html] Perhaps it won't surprise you to learn that the source of what I just received was a government agency that is passing along the thoughts of a large foundation.
The topic is, ostensibly, a new plan for the City of Los Angeles to create innovation. I'm going to start by typing the title, found on the first of its 81 pages:
"City Hall Innovation Team Playbook: The innovation delivery approach to develop and deliver bold innovation"
Language purists will giggle over the awkward use of the word "delivery," but this is just to pick nits. The real problem is that the title doesn't actually tell us anything.
And it's boring. Oh so boring.
It's also pretty confusing. For one thing, the document calls itself a "playbook." Since the 81 pages don't resemble an actual playbook, you have to wonder what inspired this particular bit of inanity. And then we have that amazing tetrad of words, "the innovation delivery approach."
There is something wrong with those words. When you look at them closely, you will realize that it would be better to omit them completely. If there is any meaning to what an innovation delivery approach might be, the manual (I refuse to call it a playbook) will make that clear.
Go back and read the title again, and decide whether you think it actually means anything.
Perhaps we might simplify it. Maybe what the title means to say is something like this:
Title: The Los Angeles city process for improving your lives through cutting governmental red tape.
Or perhaps it means something like this: "Allowing useful innovation to happen in city government."
Or perhaps it was meant to mean something else. In its current form, we are left to wonder.
But enough of sentence number one in this 81 pages of governmentese. Let's try the next paragraph.
"The Imperative for Innovation
"Cities are uniquely able to innovate and transform citizens’ lives, but face many barriers to developing and implementing solutions to tough challenges. City governments are not always organized to support innovation, especially when it comes to addressing “horizontal” issues—such as poverty reduction, sustainability, or customer service—that are the shared responsibility of multiple
departments. The absence of standard management and engagement strategies to overcome department silos makes it harder for leaders to develop, deliver, and sustain new approaches to these complex and multifaceted challenges."
Wow. I wish I had Jon Stewart here to read that paragraph out loud. Let's try to guess what it might mean in terms of the city's innovation team.
The title states an imperative for innovation. That implies that we need innovation, because an imperative is something that is forced, or required. This title is the verbal equivalent of a politician pounding his fist on the podium, and to somewhat the same effect.
The next sentence really needs to be studied, as it reveals something important about the mindset of the bureaucratic writer. The first clause alone is a masterpiece of wrongness: "Cities are uniquely able to innovate and transform citizens' lives. . . ." Now I would be willing to agree that cities are able to transform citizens' lives. That makes sense, because the very act of riding the turnip truck from the family farm into the big city is going to change you. You will see buildings and streetcars. You will encounter salesmen and city police. You will be faced with opportunities that differ from your old farmhand job, just as you will face new dangers. And you might make it big in the movies.
But the first part of the sentence says that "cities are uniquely able to innovate."
That is one of the stupider lines I have ever seen -- that is, if the subject of the sentence, "cities," refers to city governments and agencies. Since the title of this work begins with the words City Hall, I think we can take it on faith that the subject matter of this report is governmental action.
Now we get to prime grade A bureaucratese: "but face many barriers to developing and implementing solutions to tough challenges."
I might hazard a guess as to what this means: "It's hard to fix things when you haven't a clue how to proceed, and when anything you do will be fought by city officials defending the status quo."
It might be a faux pas for a government agency to actually say something this clearly, but it would save the rest of us a headache.
The next section is a masterpiece of a certain kind: "especially when it comes to addressing “horizontal” issues—such as poverty reduction, sustainability, or customer service—that are the shared responsibility of multiple departments"
I'm tempted to borrow the line Jay Leno made famous: "What the Hell were you thinking?"
In this case, we read of horizontal issues, which are presumably different from oblique issues or, heaven forfend, vertical issues. Whatever a horizontal issue is supposed to be, it is obviously a broad category, involving problems as diverse as poverty reduction and customer service. The sentence even includes one of those catch-all terms, sustainability, which can mean just about anything, but in the province of city government, generally means nothing.
We finish with the worst writing of all: "The absence of standard management and engagement strategies to overcome department silos makes it harder for leaders to develop, deliver, and sustain new approaches to these complex and multifaceted challenges."
Maybe the farm boy who has just arrived in the city will find one recognizable object, because apparently these city departments have silos. Now I know that silo is also a new buzz word, but I hadn't bothered to learn what it is supposed to mean. Did the term stem from missile silos, or could the city slickers be confusing silos with grain elevators?
An online search reveals the jargon meaning: "a system, process, department, etc. that operates in isolation from others." Another online definition refers to departments or agencies that not only operate in isolation, they make it a practice of keeping information from other departments.
In other words, silos in government are usually bad things, but they can sometimes be good things, depending on whether you think it is a good idea to keep potentially dangerous information away from the City Council. Whatever silos are supposed to be in city governments, the word is obviously a bad bit of jargon that doesn't belong in a report meant to be read by actual human beings.
Luckily, the next paragraph is a lot easier to translate into the English language. Here it is:
"Further, many mayors’ offices lack the human capital, organizational capacity, or financial resources to take on bold ideas. A tension exists between “putting out fires” and managing day-to-day responsibilities and finding the time and space needed to think, plan, and launch new solutions. There are few incentives within bureaucracies to experiment and try new things—but there are plenty of motivations to maintain the status quo or settle for incremental change. New programs that fail tend to attract more attention than those that succeed. And when it comes to innovation, there will inevitably be efforts that do not work as planned."
Translated into English, this paragraph is more like a single sentence: "There aren't very many smart people in government, and the ones who are smart are not allowed to be smart on the job."
I'm only willing to present one more paragraph:
"Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Innovation Teams program was created to provide cities with a method to address these barriers and deliver change more effectively to their citizens. Using the Innovation Delivery approach, innovation teams (i-teams) greatly reduce the risks associated with innovation, and provide mayors with assurance in their ability to develop and implement effective solutions to their highest-priority problems."
Doesn't this really just say, "We've got a plan to help you fix the worst problems. We'll do this by protecting city employees who screw things up even worse when they take some initiative. If by some miracle our plan actually works, then the city employees who did the work will be no worse off than before."
I think that's enough. We've gone through the title and the first paragraphs, and there are eighty pages to go.
Government speak is a thing unto itself. I invite you to download the whole thing and take a look at its language.
Then tell me whether you can believe in the innovation team approach to city government. After all, if they can't do a little innovation in expressing their concepts clearly, why should we take them seriously?
(Bob Gelfand writes on culture and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 51
Pub: Jun 23, 2015
