The most dangerous word in public service.
“Depends.”
Think about it for a second.
- How long does it take to get a permit? Depends.
- How long does it take to get a license plate? Depends.
- How hard is it to get a waiver? Depends.
- When do you think we will start this project? Depends.
If everything depends, then nothing depends.
It’s a filler word – it means nothing and it leads nowhere.
Recently, I started working with an east coast city to help their hiring and recruiting team focus on getting people hired faster.
At the time I started working with them, we asked a few questions:
“How long is it taking from the time you post the position to the time they are given an offer?”
You know exactly how they answered.
Then we asked: “How hard is it to get through your system?”
And, guess what they said.
“Depends” isn’t a new phenomenon. This response has been commonplace for years.
While I worked in Denver at the Peak Academy, “it depends” was the answer for everything from responding to 911 calls to fines at the library.
Why is this such a dangerous word?
When we say depends, we are demonstrating there is no standard or consistency in our service.
We are saying, we are making special things for everyone.
As public employees, we are good at a lot of things.
But we are not good at making special things for everyone who walks into our office.
Our systems are not designed for specialty cupcakes. We make large sheet cakes in a few flavors.
Follow me here. In our systems, we create things.
Driver licenses, food assistance, building permits, or food safety inspections to name a few.
These services are not a catch all so when we say things like ”it depends”…
…we create workarounds, safe guards, and hacks to try to create special services for every request.
Instead of saying no. We say, it depends.
Creating unique services that “depend” is not scalable.
We create services for hundreds, sometimes thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people…when we create special services for one or two people or organizations, we fail at the larger services.
- Picking up the trash can not depend.
- Collecting child support can not depend.
- The safety of buildings can not depend.
- Tax collections can not depend.
We either do it or we don’t. Depends gives us an out.
But that elongates our services and pulls us away from the important work at hand.
When the variability of our work is 80%…that means our standard is 20%.
In that instance, our math is backwards.
Our standard and consistent service should be 80% and our exceptions should be 20%. Not the other way around.
Depends are a brand of adult diapers that help people with incontinence.
And for a lot of us, we will “depend” on them.
But until then, let’s agree to stop saying “it depends” for everything!
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