Uninformed Transparency
Without a doubt, project transparency is a great thing. I am sure, though, that you do not want every mistake you make broadcasted on the nightly news (or even to your boss). You make sure that as bad news is delivered, the data is accurate and understandable. In addition, that news rarely gets outside the company. Corporations have a significant level of secrecy provided to private individuals.
Public sector projects, however, must be transparent since the money funding them belongs to the public. Bad news is not delivered by you, it is delivered by a newscaster or pundit who has never run a project. The result is a risk-averse culture frightened of ending up on the newspaper's front page or the evening news. The fear of public humiliation nearly paralyzes any attempt at innovation, adopting the corporate world's tried and true processes, and even decision making.
Unequal Pay
Money is not everything, but as Daniel Pink has taught us, you need to pay enough to get money off the table. Government jobs are notoriously lower paying jobs that do not attract and retain the correct proportion of best of the best. That is surely not saying that all government employees are sub-par. There are many extremely smart and ambitious people working in government for wages well below their private sector counterparts.
The bell curve, though, is skewed and the proportion of innovative ambitious people is fewer. It is not just compensation, though, few governments are known as innovation centers. It does not take long for the most altruistic employees to get frustrated because their new ideas are not considered, let alone implemented. The best of the best are quickly disillusioned and drawn away to the higher paying, more innovative corporate world.
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Employee Motivation
