Ladders, Triangles, Fences, and Fools: The Adages That Helped Me Navigate Public Service
Over the last few months, I have found myself thinking a lot about the Serenity Prayer. While it has been popularized through 12-step programs, the one in my head is the original version by theologian Reinold Niebuhr:
The victorious man in the day of crisis is the man who has the serenity to accept what he cannot help and the courage to change what must be altered.
I like the original for its framing about a particular moment “of crisis.” In our normal, daily lives, we are not facing crises with a need to discern what we can and cannot control. But there are particular moments of stress where we have to consciously determine what we control, what we should take responsibility for, and what we do not control (which is a very large universe). The last time this idea was frequently on my mind was when I was DC’s Director of Planning. In public service, there are various levels of crises every day and plenty of requests (sometimes they are more like demands) to try and control things that are not in one’s power to control.
Having spent most of my career in government service, I faced numerous challenges and took solace in various sayings and adages to help me understand and communicate what I was doing. One of my most powerful tools was a Field Notes book that I kept in my pocket. It had plenty of bland lists and key meetings takeaways. But it also became my repository for powerful ideas and words of wisdom. As notebooks filled up (I’m currently on number 27), I created an insert on which I write down the best ideas that wanted to carry from notebook to notebook. It now includes dozens of favorite quotes, ideas to remember, and my most-referenced/forgotten adages, such as the Serenity Prayer.
There are a few specific adages written on this card that helped get me through two decades of public service. In many ways, they helped serve as a counterweight to the notable and powerful forces of uncompromising efficiency, misunderstood work, and big demands. And while they were focused on government, when put together, they helped me see that across many contexts, often the most efficient way to achieve positive outcomes can be through seemingly inefficient processes that ultimately avoid costly unexpected hurdles and unintended consequences.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
or as Shakespeare put it in As You Like It: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool”
“Can’t you just throw out legacy systems and start over?”
We all find ourselves asking why a certain thing (often in government) is so difficult or slow or costly. The question in and of itself is not problematic and can certainly be useful. The problem is that in many cases, it is applied to an area that we are not expert in and the question is rooted in an underlying assumption that either we could do the thing faster/cheaper/better or the people who are doing it now are not as good as us. In those cases, we are almost always suffering from a phenomenon that Professors Dunning and Kruger identified in their 1990s study: an overestimation of our abilities and an underestimation of the complexity of reality in a domain that we are not expert in.
The nature of government is frequent leadership change as elected officials and their appointees come and go. Many times those high level officials understand the deep subject matter expertise of their organizations. Those who do not often have a choice of coming to the role from a place of learning and curiosity or a place of assumed knowledge and judgement. That latter group are often prime examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect, demanding unreasonable outcomes in the assumption that everyone else isn’t as smart as them but having little idea of the reality.
One way to avoid being such a “fool who doth think he is wise is to follow the tale of Chesterton’s Fence.
Chesterton’s Fence
Before you tear a fence down, you should understand why it was put up.
The principle from English author G.K. Chesterton (a big fan of parables), is one of thoughtful change: before altering or removing a rule, institution, or process (or fence), one should first understand its original purpose. Perhaps the fence is outdated or unnecessary. But just as likely, it may very well serve a purpose that you don’t know. It serves as a type of collective intelligence, being built via the wisdom (and resources) of previous generations and continuing to serve many over time. Those who come later tear it down without asking why, may only learn too late its original value. I was recently reminded of Chesterton’s Fence thanks to a reference in a recent Nate Silver newsletter in which he warns about ideas from Musk’s DOGE being implemented prematurely.
Just as with the Dunning-Kruger effect, this adage helps remind us to make big decisions from a place of knowledge rather than judgement. The next adage helps those who may be in the process of understanding a problem better contextualize its challenges.
The Triple Constraint or Project Management Triangle
Good, Fast, Cheap. Choose two.
This adage, from the project management world, acknowledges the reality that in most cases you can only optimize for two of the three goals of speed, cost, or quality. It is the one I have known the longest, as I learned it from my late high school theater technical director. I realize now he must have often faced pressure to do the impossible: high quality things quickly and on the cheap.
There is a lot of talk about the government being slow and/or expensive. But little talk about how, in many cases, it is meeting unprecedented levels of quality, whether in terms of accuracy, reliability or security. I find that we often underestimate the cost and value of these qualities, but that government often must ensure them. In the case of the $45 bolt I linked to above, the reason it is costly is because its quality is orders of magnitude higher (not only in production and materials but also testing).
The final adage is one that a former colleague of mine and I developed to describe the hidden value in a bureaucratic process we became a part of.
Ladder of Moderation
Bureaucratic process can serve to create more reasonable outcomes
It is difficult to say “no” to someone (unless you are my toddler going through his “no” phase). It’s even more challenging for a senior or elected official to say “no” to a partner, supporter, or powerful person who may have a costly or unrealistic request. The ladder of moderation is a process to avoid such difficult situations and preserve relationships, while also increasing the chances of getting to a “yes.” =
Rather than being forced into an immediate and uncomfortable “no” or a just-as-challenging-to-achieve “yes”, the leader sends the requester to junior staffers, also known as the bottom of the ladder of moderation. These junior staffers meet with the requester, learn about the request and then tell them their request is unrealistic. The requester must then raise the request up the rungs to middle management. As they climb the hierarchical ladder with their ask, they must expend political capital and refine their request at each rung, moderating it to more reasonable or feasible levels. By the time they get back to the senior leader, their request is often more financial feasible, reasonable, and well-thought-out (or perhaps the requester has realized the challenging nature of their request and given up). The process, an example of valuable friction, conserves senior decision-makers' time, offloads difficult conversations, and preserves relationships and goodwill.
The takeaway from these adages is not that we must accept the status quo, justify inefficiency, or argue against reforms. In fact, my career has been built on working toward positive changes and reforms in the public sector. Instead, these adages help encourage us to start with curiosity on how to improve. In many situations, spending the time and energy (and exhibiting the humility) to ask questions and understand why things are the way they are can actually be the best way to achieve ambitious outcomes.
Some Links…
Yonah Freemark’s amazing roundup of 2024’s local transit initiatives across the U.S in 2025 and a look ahead for 2025.
Images: HART (l) and Metro Los Angeles (r)
“the opposite of doom is curiosity” - an interesting conversation between Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes (I highly recommend the podcast version). Image: Adobe Stock
Tracy Hadden Loh and Xavier de Souza Briggs take a look at the implementation of racial equity analyses for legislation in DC and Montgomery County. Image: Shutterstock
A bonus adage! Earlier this week, during a panic about AI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made tech news by referencing Jevons Paradox, the idea that as technologies (Mr. Jevon was talking about coal-fired engines in the mid-19th Century) get more efficient, they become more accessible and can actually result in an overall increase in resource use. Image: Adobe Stock
