Implementation and Evaporation: The Record of MBO

Abstract

If the implementation of good ideas were easy to achieve, then many of the problems of governing would be headed for solution. If implementation were always doomed to fail, this would imply the existence of determinate laws of politics, and public administration would be becoming a science of the inevitable. Often the proponents of an idea that in the abstract appears desirable will face the criticism: It's all very well, but it can never be implemented. If they prove their critics wrong by carrying out their proposals, there follows a dispute about whether the idea, as implemented, was any good after all. Analyzing the brief history of management by objectives (MBO) in the federal government in the 1970s can help us understand the indeterminate character of success and failure in the implementation of new ideas. The difficulty of deciding whether MBO has become accepted, disappeared, or simply evaporated illustrates how difficult it is to evaluate the implementation of a program in terms of its immediate consequences. The absorptive character of government, gradually adapting and incrementally augmenting its activities, suggests that change may more easily be measured on a time scale congenial to a forester or a geologist than to a Congress or a White House in a hurry.