Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy

Question # 1

What is the purpose?

In organizations, which operated before the development of bureaucracy, there was little planning, order and oversight. Also, decision making was mostly guesswork, and compensation correlated poorly with effort. Bureaucracy changed this and turbocharged productivity growth. How? Through its design, a bureaucracy produces  compliance.  discipline.  higher precision.  predictability.  reliability.  stability.  efficiency. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Page 46 and 149.

The goal of bureaucracy is to get

serve the organization.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 46, 48 and 82.

humans to better

Question # 2 To what extent do people make decisions themselves?

In a bureaucracy, people have no or little voice in choosing their leaders.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Page 199.

In a bureaucracy, the organization comes before human beings.

Human beings are instruments to create products and services. The goal of bureaucracy is to get humans to better serve the organization - thereby turning people into semi-programmable robots.

This stands in strong contrast to humanocracy, where human beings come before the organization. The challenge in a humanocracy is to find out what sort of organizations help the individual human beings bring out the best they can give in various situations.

Question How easy is it for you to launch a new initiative? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 46, 48 and 82.

Frederic Taylor's goal was to put machines before humans. He wanted to make

human beings as reliable and efficient as the machines they served. To do that, he observed and measured everything. The result: People started following rules and punching clocks.

Taylor also divided managers and employees because he found that employees were too stupid to select tools, devise methods, set schedules or resolve disputes. As a result, work of employees was standardized and stripped of judgment. It became the job of managers to enforce / control / ensure that rules were followed and variances were minimized.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Page 63.

Bureaucracies value thinking over feeling.

Example: How well do bureaucracies understand emotions users feel when waiting - on the phone or in a physical shop - to talk to a customer service representative?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Page 237.

A bureaucracy has a only 1 formal hierarchy and several management layers. Why is that a problem?  Hierarchy asks too much of too few people. Managers are expected to make decisions on all kinds of issues – including decisions about complex issues that exceed the cognitive limits of a small group of people.  The more people, who are below a person in a hierarchy, the more power that person has to make decisions about any topic.  The more important a decision is, the smaller is the number of people who can challenge the decision maker. Power makes people less aware of risks.  The higher a person is in the hierarchy, the more money that person earns. This is a problem as the person at the top of the hierarchy may not be the person, who create the most value for the organization.  As the organization grows, the number of layers in the hierarchy increases. Thereby, the cost of wages increase.

Questions: 1. How many layers are there between the CEO and people, who work with customers?

2. To what extent do managers hold on to power when they should have shared it?

3. To what extent do people avoid disagreeing with managers?

4. To what extent are there formalized ways to challenge decision proposals? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 45, 75, 85, 169, 186, 190, 198 and 313.

Question # 3 How is control achieved?

In a bureaucracy, control is achieved through  detailed procedures and rules,  close supervision / oversight,  strict spending limits,  other rules,  little free time for people,  little power for people to make decisions themselves,  sanctions. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 pages 45, 82, 152 and 188. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vknDxr87rxs

Technologies reinforce top-down structures and control. 2 examples: 1. Digital technology allows jobs to be sliced into ever smaller segments and outsourced to the lowest bidder.

2. Real time analytics make it possible to assess job performance minute by minute - thereby making managers more controlobsessed.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Page 80.

Bureaucracies are managed by accountants and administrators - not by builders and inventors. What distinguishes managers from non-managers is not creativity, foresight or technical expertise. It is the ability to develop plans, build budgets, distribute tasks and prepare reports. Approval of new initiatives takes a long time.

Central staff groups make policy and set compliance.

Questions 1. What percentage of time do you spend on preparing reports?

2. What percentage of your time do you spend on getting approvals?

3. To what extent is the checking / controlling that is going on internally in the organization, you work for, slowing you down? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 45, 82, 152 and 188.

Questions 1. What are you doing that feels like interference or adds no value?

2. What are doing that people, you lead, could do better? In this regard, to what extent do you invite people to shadow you for a few days to learn what you do.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Page 317.

Question # 4 What determine how much money people are paid for work they do?

Bureaucracy systematically undermines meritocracy, i.e. that people are free to contribute and succeed whatever their social rank and personal connections.

Why does this happen?

1. The most confident people - not the most competent - become managers.

2. Managers have more control over employees than the reverse. When people feel fear, they do not express contrary opinions.

3. To justify their power, managers do not crowdsource strategy.

Question To what extent do you unfairly claim credit? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 183 – 185, 315.

Managers, who are higher in the hierarchy, recruit managers who are lower in the hierarchy. Everyone competes and fights with each other to get promoted to jobs that are higher in the hierarchy, include more decision making authority and higher wages.

How competent and creative people are matter less in order to get promoted.

Question To what extent do you discount the contributions to other people to get promoted?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 45, 75, 83, 86 and 313.

Bureaucracies pay managers based on  the size of the budget they are responsible for,  how many people are below them in the hierarchy.

Managers assess people's performance and give people feedback about how well they perform.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 45, 190 and 313.

Question # 5

To what extent do people try out ideas?

6 out of 10 frontline employees, who work for large companies, find it very

difficult to try out ideas. Bureaucracies are designed to produce reliable products – not prototypes. Deviations from standard practice are to be eliminated – not celebrated. To stop experimenting is to stop growing.

Question 1. To what extent do you do everything you can to play it safe and avoid making mistakes?

2. To what extent do you avoid challenging rules that do not make sense? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 250 and 313.

A bureaucracy is intrinsically conservative and defends the status quo long past the time the quo has lost its status. Funding decisions are often made relative to last year's budget - promoting more of the same. Being a wall against disorder, a bureaucracy systematically devalues originality and discourages rebellious thinking.

Ideas people have are met with indifference, skepticism or resistance.

Question How do you react to ideas people share?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 70, 75, 82, 85, 133 and 170.

Strategies and budgets are set by people, who are positioned at the top of the top of the organizational hierarchy. Managers tell people, who are lower in the hierarchy, what jobs they should do. Jobs are precisely defined

to strengthen specialization and

thereby increase efficiency. People become really good at doing narrowly defined tasks. By precisely describing roles and responsibilities, people know exactly what they are responsible and not responsible for. Power is placed in jobs / positions that people hold. People know exactly what decisions they can make and not make. And people know exactly what resources they control and do not control. By increasing specialization, people think less creatively and take fewer initiatives.

Question To what extent do people, who are closest to customers, design their own work, solve problems and test new ideas? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 45 and 61.

Question # 6 How openly do people share information?

A bureaucracy is a closed system. 3 examples: 1. It prefers secrecy over openness / transparency.

2. It prefers having work done by monopolies within the organization such as HR, planning, procurement, manufacturing, marketing, finance / funding, IT and legal affairs.

3. It resists having work done by external people / companies.

Question To what extent do you favor your department even when that is not optimal for the organization? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 Pages 131, 177 and 315.

Question # 7 How can you replace bureaucracy with humanocracy?

30 minute workshop to replace bureaucracy with humanocracy Part 1: 10 minutes in groups of 2 people.  What is blocking people, who work for this organization, to give their best?  Why is this blocking people?

Part 2: 5 minutes in groups of 2 people.

Which anti bureaucratic value – ownership, markets, meritocracy, community, openness or experimentation - would be most helpful value to solve the problem defined in part 1?

Part 3: 15 minutes in groups of 2 people.  Thinking about the anti bureaucratic value you focused on in part 2, what is one simple and fun idea you can think of which can help integrate that value in work you do?  Which volunteers want to participate in trying out the idea?  How many minutes will you spend trying out the idea?

Inspired by https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3397074094 page 327.