Vanquishing Bureaucracy
Beating bureaucracy to build an organization that is flat, fast, flexible and fearless
In any organization, the greatest threat to resilience, speed and creativity is an excess of bureaucracy—too many layers, too many burdensome processes, and too many unnecessary rules. CEOs know bureaucracy is a cure, but have often struggled to reverse its relentless advance. In the US and other major economies, the ranks of managers and administrators have been growing three times as fast as all other job categories.
Luckily, bureaucracy isn’t mandatory, and a small but growing number of organizations have proven that it’s possible to roll back the bureaucratic tide; that a company can capture the benefits of bureaucracy—control, coordination and consistency—while avoiding the costs. These vanguard organizations operate with far fewer managers, staffers and layers than their peers. They are leaner, move faster, and enjoy substantial productivity advantages.
Bureaucracy is a tax on human initiative and ingenuity, and it’s everyone responsibility to help weed it out. That means flattening the pyramid, moving middle managers into higher-value roles, eliminating busywork, pushing authority down, sharpening accountability, rooting out low-value processes, expanding the decision rights of frontline employees, and getting everyone laser focused on creating value for customers, and excising bureaucratic behaviors. This is hard work, but the rewards are extraordinary.
Gary can help your organization uninstall bureaucracy.