Answer: Bureaucracies tend to be rigidly controlled at the top of the organization. This can be offset or hidden if the quality of the top leader is an excellent manager. One who gets out of the office mingles with the people of his organization and shows a genuine interest in their concerns and follows up on them. This type of manager knows what is going on at all levels of his organization. There is name for this activity its called “Management by Walking Around”. You will find this manager mostly in small organizations where it is physically possible to get around and make contact with employees. This type of management can offset most of the drawbacks found in small bureaucratic organizations. But when the manager or the style of the top leader of this same organization is changed you can revert back to the old bureaucracy in an instant. I’ve seen it happen.

In large bureaucratic organizations that are dispersed throughout a state there may not be opportunities for otherwise excellent leaders to interface with employees. In this case the manager has to rely on his supervisors for nearly all of the information he needs to manage the organization. Over time the organization can become bloated with extra levels of management. As this occurs it also becomes less responsive to the concerns of its employees and with the progress of its mission.

Bureaucracies overtime have a tendency to become politicized. This happens because of the need to protect the organization’s budget while in competition with other organizations. The bureaucracy is highly sensitive to bad news because it may directly affect the next year’s budget. Therefore any employee who openly criticizes the organization is censured and may not be promoted. This provides the perfect environment for misuse of tax dollars and fraud. Remember the rampant credit card fraud in government bureaucracies where violators went unpunished. The reason they got away with the crime is that the organization did not want to have their budgets affected by a criminal trial or those accused may have known of even greater crimes done by others.

The main reason that a Steering and Functional Management organization gets around the above budget problems is that Work Measurement is done. When actual costs of performing the function is known the budget is known and not subject to negotiation. This negates the efforts of the organization in trying to get a budget increase without a good reason.

I recommend the implementation of Work Improvement Teams (WIT)s in both small and large bureaucracies. For this reason: by relying on the top manager or management to make nearly all decisions you are limiting the innovative decision making brain power to only a few at the top. Untold opportunities for creative innovation are lost because of the failure of the organization to use the brainpower of its entire organization. As I have stated elsewhere you want to drive the decision making power down to the lowest level practical. That means that the WIT who “owns” the problem should be empowered with the responsible for solving it but not necessarily without guidance or advice. This makes for a much more flexible organization capable of responding quickly to changing conditions and threats.