I advocate the replacement of the 19th century Bureaucratic organization with a 21st century Team Management organization but not in all situations. Where bureaucracy works best is in the military and among first responder organizations like police and fire anywhere where decisions must be quickly made on the spot. This does not mean that Team Management has no leaders and all decisions are group decisions. Leaders are still needed but are backed up by team involvement in decisions. Most reformers think that this may be a pipe dream but some of the best US companies are using the Team Management organization. This reform can be the end result of the implementation of Lean Teams throughout government to improve the efficiency of the agency. At the start of the process no bureaucracy should object when efficiency measures such as Enterprise Lean Lean teams are enacted into law by the legislature. The result is that most of the well known faults of the bureaucratic organization simply go away after changing to a Team Management organization.
What Shapes Bureaucratic behavior? The simple answer is that bureaucracies grow and change over time and shape themselves in reaction to changing missions and their public image into what they finally become. The organization’s mission is in step with the agency’s culture if the culture is widely and heartily shared by most of the organization’s members. There is a direct connection between an organization’s mission and the organization’s culture. What bureaucrats do depends not only on what they think their primary task is, but to a large extent in the pride of who they think they are. A perfect example is the FBI whose overall mission is to stop crime with the “G-man” culture. You might think that the FBI’s bureaucracy is ok because it falls under the first responders definition but it was the FBI’s bureaucracy that ignored the fact that its field agents reported that Arabs were being trained to fly commercial airliners resulting in the 9-11 attacks. For the time being the FBI is listening to its agents in the field but it still has too many layers of management which needs to be changed to Team management. The bulk of the FBI should be Team Managed with its responding activities managed as a hierarchically controlled structure when necessary.
Bureaucracies are in many ways like dinosaurs barely capable of adapting to new environmental threats. Yet they are remarkably adaptable when it comes to protecting their self-interest. In fact serving their self interests takes precedence over serving the public which pays their salaries. Just look what happens to whistle blowers. It’s time to wage all out war on bureaucracies where they are obsolete. Because they are wasteful and in many cases abuse their its own employees. They are at best when they perform some needed function but create and enforce elaborate rules causing mountains of red tape. They can at worst pose a real threat to public safety and security. Witness the toxic bureaucracy Homeland Security which allowed more than a thousand people to die during hurricane Katrina.
Government is choking on bureaucratic garbage of its own design. When examining bureaucratic waste besides too many layers of management the worst offenses 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 for protecting themselves from public visibility from whistle blowers. All of this wasteful activity clouds the real work of innovation and making things happen through continuous improvement found in in a Team Managed organization.
Reducing the number of levels of management is gut wrenching for bureaucracies because their power resides in their ability to promote personnel. Every manager must have a second in command that can take his place in order for him to be promoted. 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 a source of bureaucratic power. No employee that is in line for promotion is going cause trouble for the bureaucracy. Bureaucrats in many cases hinder genuine economic recovery by concocting and enforcing unnecessary, even senseless regulations, collecting excessive taxes, fees, and fines, and demanding mountains of wasteful paperwork to prove compliance with government edicts.
Bureaucracies have the power to out last reformers in the legislature and governors faced with the need to be elected and with term limits. The key word here is POWER. Bureaucrats love power it is reflected in the various levels of an organization’s career path. With each promotion a bureaucrat gains more power over his fellow workers allowing him to make his own decisions. If those who work for him fail to follow his bidding he can always manipulate their performance appraisals.
Bureaucracies hold public opinion in high regard because it has a direct influence on their budgets. When they are held in high esteem their funding requests are more likely to be met but when there is negative publicity the public will focus for a time on the agencies activities and the outcome may lead to a cut in funding. But generally within a few months the public’s attention is redirected elsewhere and the bureaucracy returns to business as usual. The result of a public scandal usually leads to tighter rules and increased red tape but no real improvements.
Because the bureaucratic management structure is so embedded in our way of governing few seem to realize that it has flaws that cause the public ongoing hostility due to its red tape or that it may provide an opening leading to disaster. It is important for us to realize that the bureaucratic management structure will not be reformed by current government leaders without extensive and repeated focus on major bureaucratic failures.
Team Management empowers all employees to be innovative and encourages small successes. The entire organization benefits from the continuous improvement in its processes. Team Management focuses on the customer the people they are serving. Bureaucracies tend to ignore this and have as their primary focus the organization itself and its survival. All improvements should in the end better serve your customer and the taxpayer.
Nearly all state and local governments and up to 90% of all US industry use the bureaucratic form of organization. This form of organization has inherent inefficiencies embedded within it. Increased efficiency can be obtained by changing from the bureaucratic form to a Team Management form of organization. The important advantage in changing from a Bureaucratic organization to a Team Managed organization is that the savings continues annually for years. But in a bureaucracy after only a few years the level of staffing will grow to where it originally was. I explain how this can be done as a part of my General Reform Model.
The bureaucracy's culture the definition of its tasks and rules with the limitations of its capabilities influence its performance and can often produce seemingly “irrational” behavior. The main reason behind “red tape” can be explained with the fact that since there are high risks at stake when the rules are violated there is a “tendency” to multiply the rules. When public scandals occur the rules are tightened creating more Red Tape to prevent future scandals that erode the public trust. Bureaucracies provide a poor work environment for employees, are slow to respond with red tape and are known for engaging in bazaar activities.
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