Article 42. Declaring War on Bureaucratic Complexity
It’s time to wage all out war on bureaucracies they are an obsolete form of organization which abuses its own employees and at best performs some needed function or ignores the public and at worst poses a real threat to their safety and security. Government is choking on bureaucratic garbage of its own design. I urge you not to read any memo longer than two pages and those that are send them back with a note to the originator to be rewritten. The worst offenders are in job descriptions and performance appraisals. An unwarranted shocking amount of time is spent in crafting and manipulating job descriptions and on endless performance appraisals. These were designed to control people by putting them in boxes and if they get out of line manipulating their performance appraisals. In short they are the perfect tools needed by the bureaucracy. All of which clouds the real work of innovation and making things happen in the area of continuous improvement.
A flatter leaner organization is much more efficient than a bureaucracy.
Why have middle managers? For the most part their job is to pass down directives and give performance appraisals. They are part of the career path and the means of controlling bottom level employees, which makes a bureaucracy work. The more opportunities to promote employees the more easily controlled they are which is where a bureaucracy gets its power. No employee that is in line for promotion is going cause trouble for the bureaucracy.
I have proposed restructuring bureaucracies by eliminating one or possibly several layers of management and the implementation of Work Improvement Teams (WITs). You probably will not be able to eliminate job descriptions and performance appraisals entirely but they certainly can be simplified to the point they are practical. WITs elect their own leaders and upper management promotes the most qualified from this pool of leaders. The key is to drive decision-making responsibility down to the lowest level practical.
For more information on eliminating bureaucracies and installing WITs see the following: Article 1. “Reforming Business and Government Bureaucracies”, Article 5. “Government Bureaucracies and Document Turn-Around Time”, Article 8. “Work Place Continuous Improvement”, Article 11. “Adaptation of Manufacturing Quality Improvement Techniques to Achieve Efficient Government”. See also Article 142. for Self-Directed Work Teams.
