Arne's simple question hides the complexity of transparency. Among democracy lovers, transparency - opening up the goings on of government institutions - is usually thought of as an indisputably good thing. And that makes sense - if there's nothing wrong, why would you want to hide it?
But transparency - like everything else - only works if it aligns with human incentives and behavior. Sometimes things work better with transparency. Sometimes not. Running an organization, like a school, is a good example of the latter.
If you run your own company, you know you have some employees who deliver more than others. Managing that gap takes finesse; you want to keep the better employee fired up while figuring out how to improve the other employee's game. You may experiment with performance pay, mentoring or creating teams that have their own incentives. At the same time, you've got to make sure your clients are served. One thing's clear; there's no way all your clients can work with the best employee. So you have to make choices. Now let's say your employees' success rates are made public. You've got a problem: everyone will want to work with the top employee, none with the 2nd rate worker. The 2nd guy is just as likely to become demoralized as energized by this new public information; either way, office morale and team-spirit are sure to plummet. Any incentives you've worked out to improve the 2nd employee's work get lost now that all eyes are on his numbers.
I've just given a negative picture of what transparency may deliver; there are likely many positive responses and scenarios that could occur as well. The point is that, when you add transparency, the picture changes - in many potentially complex ways. If you're Arne you'd want to think "in what ways will transparency shift the incentives and dynamics in schools?" and "In the end, are students better or worse off?" It's not a no-brainer.
No comments:
Post a Comment