In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency – FEMA – hired a former young staffer of mine named David Pulsipher to work as a temporary contractor in its overwhelmed communications department. David had recently moved to Washington D.C. to get government and political experience.
And boy did he get it.
David wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms. He was an outsider among a tight-knit community of civil servants who were exhausted from working 14-hour days and dejected by public criticisms about their efforts. “I tried to assure them that my presence wasn’t a referendum on their performance, but just a resource to help lighten the load,” David wrote. “Being able to mitigate the internal crisis was every bit as important for me as being a external communications specialist.”
He introduced himself around, popped his head in a few offices, sat in on countless conference calls. Finally, after putting in the long hours beside them, the FEMA regulars brought David into the fold.
And there he learned just how differently things work in government as compared to the corporate world. Wrote the earnest Mr. Pulsipher:
“In the business world, accuracy, timeliness and efficiency dictate outcome. But in government, that’s not exactly the case. The CYA mentality that is ingrained into procedures and protocols absolutely stifles responsive communications. We'd have a draft press release on the day’s hot issue ready by 10 am, and it would get circulated and cc'ed by six different people in six different departments. It would be 5 pm before everyone agreed on the release, but by then something else was the pressing issue.
It always seemed that FEMA was like a boxer up against the ropes under a flurry of jabs and crosses, all the while looking for the one big punch that would rescue them, as opposed to quickly side-stepping and getting back to the middle of the ring.
As a result, FEMA's response would often be policy-speak, laden with qualifiers and very difficult to understand. A press release on the new 'automated phone system' would end up reading like a referendum you'd see in the election booth. You wouldn’t know whether you were for it or against it.”
