Good governance 101

India’s top government officer has given some useful advice to other civil servants. He says that when officers retire after 30 years of work, they should be able to look back and see 30 years of learning and improvement—not the same one year repeated 30 times.

This is an important reminder. Civil servants help run the country, and when they refuse to learn new things or change old ways of working, the country suffers too. India is often slowed down by outdated ideas, rules, and government systems. But improving things does not always require big, dramatic changes. Government officers usually cannot make huge changes on their own. Instead, the cabinet secretary says they should focus on doing everyday tasks better, little by little, year after year.

This idea is similar to ‘Kaizen’, a Japanese philosophy that helped Toyota become one of the world’s biggest car companies. Kaizen means “good change” and is all about making small improvements all the time. For example, if the same exam paper gets leaked again and again, it shows that nobody has learned from past mistakes. In a Kaizen system, people keep asking, “How can we do this better and more efficiently?”

Another important idea is ‘Gemba’, which means going and seeing things for yourself. Government officers should see firsthand how crowded Mumbai’s trains are or how poor women may spend hours every day just collecting water. Seeing problems up close helps people understand them better and find real solutions.

The lesson of Kaizen can help everyone, not just government workers. The cabinet secretary also advises keeping meetings short and useful. Business leaders such as Jeff Bezos have similar ideas. One of his rules is that a meeting should have only as many people as can be fed with two pizzas. Government officers should be just as careful because they are using the public’s time and money.

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