Free Essay On Public Administration Essay Question

Harsh Reality 1: Guerilla government is here to stay discusses how ubiquitous and or naturally occurring guerilla governments can be. Guerilla governments, at least based on the research conducted by the author, can either be good or bad. The general perception about this type of government, however, is bad, mainly because there are a lot of other better government types out there. Examples of cases O’Leary used to describe this reality were the guerilla events that often happen in bureaucratic organizations where servants are inherently powerful because they are the backbone of the entire system.
Harsh Reality 2: Guerillas can do it to you in ways you’ll never know focused on the lack of transparency and flexibility when making rules for a guerilla government. In some cases, the policies that such governments implement can even be perceived as impossible to fully follow because of the poor choice of words and the inherent impossibility of fulfilling them. Examples of the deeds of people working for a guerilla government include tactics to influence the process of creating government policies, often to their advantage, examples of which may include putting a work order at the bottom of the desk drawer so that that work order would be the last one to be prioritized and even forgetting about such work order altogether .
Harsh Reality 3 focuses on the fact that there are certain guerilla activities that are subtle and can be hidden because of the only small and unnoticeable problems they often cause and there are those that are widespread and simply barbaric that the problems the guerilla action create may affect the entire organization. One case O’Leary gave was the case of the irritated employee-turned guerilla employee over a $5 McDonald’s hamburger issue in which the management decided not to reimburse the employee his $5 because they simply had more meaningful things to do than just process the papers required for the reimbursement.
Harsh Reality 4 focuses on the idea that most public (even private ones) organizations are not adequately equipped to deal effectively with guerilla governments often because there simply is no surefire way to know whether someone in the organization is committing guerilla activities against the management or not. The gist of the cases O’Leary mentioned that also highlighted the helplessness of the public organizations when it comes to dealing with these guerillas is the fact that these guerillas form the backbone of the organization and the fact that there simply is no way for any manager to please everybody which means that no matter what the management does, there will be guerilla employees inside the organization.
Harsh Reality 5 focuses on the insolvable quality of the tensions and negative effects that may be created as a result of guerillas within a public or even private organization because they simply are ubiquitous. Cases O’Leary mentioned pertaining to this reality were that of the Department of Agriculture, Department of Interior Government, and other large public organizations who manifests signs that they cannot control the surge of guerilla employees.
Basically, the recommendations to combat guerilla organizations include creating a flexible organization that encourages a healthy level of democracy, employing managers who are capable of listening to the employees’ concerns; and being able to understand the organization both formally and informally, separating the people from the problem; and creating multiple channels for dissent.
An example of guerilla government based on my personal experience was when I applied for a driver’s license some time ago. The ladies in one of the processing counters appeared disgruntled by her boss. I think that was the reason why I saw her voluntarily slowing the processing of driver’s license applications.
And lastly, what O’Leary meant by his advice from the pros was that one must be cautious enough but not too cautious and trusting enough but not too trusting when it comes to dealing with employees. Striking the perfect balance between caution and trust seems to be the only key to detect and counter the insurgence of guerilla employees within public organizations and offices.

Works Cited

O'Leary, R. "Guerilla Employees: Should Managers Nurture, Tolerate, or Terminate Them?" Public Administration Review (2010).