The Busting Bureaucracy Hackathon

Gary - your revolution is important to all of us! The following are Peter Block's, from the book "Stewardship" alternatives to bureaucratic management practices paraphrased. watchers versus doers - everyone in the org watches and does real work - no one gets paid to watch others "do" work. Those doing the work need to have responsibility for managing the work. What is required...is the reintegration of managing the work with doing the work. This is empowerment. This is partnership. This is the right use of power. partner in charge for clarity, not control lens - paradigm replacement measure what matters

Sorry to be a nit-picker, but I think we should be asking whether bureaucracies being cumbersome and non-adaptive is inevitable. Bureaucracy means that the organization (bureau) rules, just as meritocracy means merit rules, democracy means people rule, etc., etc. Before bureaucracy organizations were those that owned them. The cobbler shop was the cobbler, the butcher shop was the butcher, the mill was the miller, and so on. Yes, bureaucracy is inevitable because it is evolutionary in nature. The idea that jobs exist separate from the incumbents that perform them is a bureaucratic notion. Without bureaucracy, the entire body of law around fair and equitable employment practices would be turned on its head. Shareholders invest in organizations, separate from the people who run them (although the latter is certainly important). That's a bureaucratic notion, too. Now that we have that straight, the question becomes whether these bureaucracies need be, as we clumsily say, "bureaucratic?" Now I can agree that the answer is no. I think the secret is thinking small. In digital processes, we no longer have to be locked into centralization. Centralization is notion left over from the industrial age. Digital processes can be free form it, but it will require a grand shift in many of our paradigms and management methods.

Recognize people by value and not by role. Form teams of personnel, each with an equal voice, working together to solve business challenges and achieve business outcomes. Productive teams succeed based upon individual contributions not by the role or title they have.

People will be doing things differently. For this to happen people will need to let go of old frameworks, concepts and tools. So what is an example of an old framework that holds people back? The deeply held belief that man is a hierarchical animal and the FEAR shared by most people that without some form of hierarchy chaos will result. An example of an old concept? That great leaders create compelling visions to motivate employees. What of an old tool? The annual performance review. And what new framework could replace the old? The understanding that hierarchy is just a mental construct that can be replaced by a better construct. The pyramidal structure and mindset can be replaced by a horizontal or parabolic structure and mindset (see below). And a new concept? That the role of the leader is to make the most of the expression and use of everyone’s intelligence. And a new tool? One that allows leaders to build relationships, and model desirable behaviors. (I discuss one of these tools the FIBS-ROCK model in an entry to a recent MIX prize – see below) Warmly, Peter Rennie peter.rennie@leadershipaustralia.com.au See http://www.mixprize.org/m-prize/human-potential . . A parabolic structure is a horizontal social structure that can replace the hierarchical or pyramidal structure to coordinate people in order to achieve complex purposes. In parabolic structures position and status only serve the purpose and not people’s egos.