An article in today’s New York Times discusses how Andrew Cuomo is campaigning for governor of New York by promising to get rid of 20% of the commissions, boards and other independent bodies that infest the State government.

A choice quote from the article, citing a report on the problems of the state’s government:

“It was politically easy to create new agencies and difficult to abolish old ones, even when their functions had all but evaporated,” the report says.

Classic sacred zombie cow formation conditions. Combine that with election cycle politics and you have a recipe for raising an army of zombie cows initiatives.

Regardless of your politics, it’s refreshing to hear a politician promise to stop government from doing things no longer producing value on such a scale.

The real challenge, of course, will be changing the process of governance so that it’s not so easy to create more of these zombies. That 20% will grow back awfully quick even if he meets his campaign pledge.

What are you doing to prevent cows from lingering in your organization?

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