Originally Posted by Unregistered

Oh yes it is totally about culture (e.g. risk aversion, lack of recognition for innovation, low tolerance for failure). There are plenty of online articles on the importance of organisation culture. There is also a lack of motivation, especially among the ones who have stuck around for a long time and have hit the cap for their salary grade.

What is your suggestion then, fire all those managers at one go and replace them with private sector managers? Don't forget that these people are still domain experts, even if their processes and attitudes may be somewhat lacking. Who are you going to replace say, regulators and policymakers with, someone from the private sector who is good at sales or business but has never written regulations, done procurement properly or dealt with parliamentary questions before? These are far worse problems than simply being slow.

I'm sure management reads this forum from time to time, so you can try posting helpful suggestions and see if they are taken up (and no, firing people en masse isn't a solution).