It's very hard to embrace continuous improvement and innovation in that kind of environment. One way to counter this problem, Osborne tells government managers, is to introduce the threat of negative consequences to motivate workers to take more risks and to try to excel. Negative consequences create an urgency in a public agency that hasn't existed in decades. Osborne would also like to see the public sector more often use the negative consequence of firing someone for poor performance. There are just too many people in the public sector who are punching the clock.
Reformers also can see their best efforts undermined by politics.
Yet, time and again, political maneuvering can undermine this method of reform. One area of government that has changed significantly since 1992 is technology. Faster, more nimble and more effective computer systems have replaced the mainframe behemoths that once dominated the public sector. The result, says Osborne, is that as the use of technology in the public sector has swelled, so has innovation. Information technology is not fenced in by many rules and regulations.