If you had lived your entire life in a land where peas and potatoes were the only vegetables, you’d have a hard time imagining avocados and artichokes. Likewise, when every organization you’ve ever come across is bureaucratic at its core, it’s hard to imagine a large-scale institution that is resolutely non-bureaucratic.
If you had lived your entire life in a land where peas and potatoes were the only vegetables, you’d have a hard time imagining avocados and artichokes. Likewise, when every organization you’ve ever come across is bureaucratic at its core, it’s hard to imagine a large-scale institution that is resolutely non-bureaucratic. So it’s understandable that most of us would assume bureaucracy is inevitable—understandable, but not acceptable. We have to raise our aspirations. We have to commit ourselves to building organizations that are big and nimble, disciplined and empowering, focused and opportunistic, coordinated and decentralized.
Here’s the good news: when you take time to look, you’ll find there are alternatives to our tradition-encrusted management model. (You can find a lot of them at www.managementexchange.com). Lift the covers on these “positive deviants,” and you’ll find that “difficult to imagine” doesn’t mean “impossible to build.” You’ll also discover that IT is critical to creating organizations where …
- Every associate has a holographic picture of the business and its performance—a pre-requisite for getting everyone to think and behave like a business owner.
- Associates get real-time feedback on their performance from customers and peers, which enables self-management instead of manager-management.
- Control is achieved through shared objectives and transparency, rather than through air-tight rules and oversight.
- Complex coordination problems are solved peer-to-peer, rather than through top-down mandates; where people have all the information they need to recognize their shared interests, and the collaborative platforms they need to co-create win-win solutions.
- There are no gatekeepers and no “channels” to go through since individuals can easily find and connect with virtually anyone who has relevant expertise and experience.
- Boundary-spanning “communities of passion” spontaneously self-assemble around promising initiatives with little need for top-down direction.
- Tough business challenges get crowd-sourced to the entire organization.
- Ideas of all sorts compete on their merits in an open marketplace.
- First-level associates are able to model the implications of their decisions on virtually every aspect of business performance and have wide latitude in making operational trade-offs.
- The “collective wisdom” of the entire organization gets harnessed in making “executive” decisions around strategic direction, resource allocation and key appointments.
- Hundreds or thousands of associates come together to define their shared values and develop ways of embedding those values in systems and processes.
- Every change program is “socially constructed” and ripples out, rather than cascading down.
- Everyone gets to see the “big picture” as trends and developments around the world get tagged and shared across the enterprise.
- Relevant information from all informed sources, internal and external, gets integrated into peer-based compensation decisions.
- Leadership rank is the product of peer-based assessments and objective measures of competence and contribution rather than the product of title or position.
Many of these features of the post-bureaucratic organization are already visible in the world’s most progressive organizations. Truth is, you no longer have to be a starry-eyed dreamer to imagine a world filled with organizations that are unencumbered by bureaucratic drag.
Visit Phase 2 of the Beyond Bureaurcracy Hackathon to contribute your own attributes to the conversation.
Gary, you raise 15 principles of a 'non-bureaucratic" model of organization above (and I realize you qualify those by stating that IT has something to do with all of them, but it is still a good start). Wouldn't it be interesting to see how many and what companies over, say, 15,000 employees were managed by, say, at least 10 of these principles? Or if that is too many, how about 5? My point is that I suspect individual fixes are not necessarily the solution to your challenge -- almost any company can probably employ several of these. And thus it presumably would take a "new" approach to embed at least ten of them?
However, before we get to that point, shouldn't we find out if there are in fact larger organizations that pervasively employ a large number of these principles?
Alternatives to the Bureaucratic Model. This approach like every problem driven approach has a limiting effect on the scope of solutions. By focusing on bureaucracy one thing is sure, its there to stay. The question is why in our day to day activities we create bureaucracy. Every person has a favorite way of storing information, processing information, creating overview etc.. Every time we , in order to ameliorate our personal efficiency, impose our way of doing one someone else we create bureaucracy. The main question to solve is how my personal effectiveness gets optimal support from a mutual designed system that balances the relative efforts of each individual against the efforts of all involved. That means that we are looking for personal awareness of everybody involved in every phase of working together. Systems in my opinion come only second to organizing that awareness.
You state Gary that "We have to commit ourselves to building organizations that are big and nimble, disciplined and empowering, focused and opportunistic, coordinated and decentralized." but I'm not convinced that we need the 'big' organization and I suspect its time has come. The huge advances in communications and digital technologies we have seen since 'big' became the norm make alternative more federated models possible and in so doing removes the bureaucracy. Why try to sustain a broken model and one that is too often inhumane in scale, remote, slow, corporatist and reactionary? The time has come to replace 'big' and not 'fix it' and we have the tools to do so but do we have the vision?
Just imagine what an enlightened police force might be like - or a FDA or FEMA? It’s okay to think big. In my view we need these big organizations to become nimble and for employees to feel proud of providing and enabling public enterprise. It’s okay to think big and important to start small and take small evolutionary steps. Build the desire don't rely on duty. I suggest ways for doing this in some other posts or email me peter.rennie@leadershipaustralia.com.au
Just imagine what an enlightened police force might be like - or a FDA or FEMA? It’s okay to think big. In my view we need these big organizations to become nimble and for employees to feel proud of providing and enabling public enterprise. It’s okay to think big and important to start small and take small evolutionary steps. Build the desire don't rely on duty. I suggest ways for doing this in some other posts or email me peter.rennie@leadershipaustralia.com.au
Inspiring and definitely worth pursuing. It also means we must turn the following into reality and perhaps first: belief improvement skills - for the operation of currently held negative beliefs and their root causes of fear, habits and ignorance are the causes of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy reflects the complexity of human nature and the existing culture. To make all Gary's inspiring changes reality, we must first influence the culture towards dealing more effectively with the forces of fear, unhelpful habits and ignorance. We must all undergo effective personal development. Ideally as we develop we also trim bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy is built by an imperial hierarchical approach to management. It is the dinosaur approach to managing people; I am the manager and therefore I must know more than my subordinates, so only I can make decision. This is propagated up and down the management chain. I also agree that bureaucracy is enforced when a company sees failure as a career limiter. This further stifles innovation. Therefore, through resource empowerment, an environment of collaboration, with collective goals and fail fast culture, will bring down the bureaucratic wall.
Hi folks,
So what would you see in the ‘new organization’? . . . Nothing much at first.
There is a venerable Chinese saying; ‘The more things change, the more they remain the same.’
Or to put it the other way - real, sustained change is not dramatic. It is slow. Let’s draw on the lessons of evolution. If you look out your window and onto the street you are likely to see great diversity. But what you see hides the fact that every living thing had evolved from a single cell or series of single cells that first appeared about 3.5 Billion years ago. And each subsequent change was so tiny that each new life form was almost indistinguishable from its parent. Each change was slightly better adapted to the new environment. Changes that didn’t help the new life form adapt were not viable and were not passed on.
What sort of changes were occurring? Each change involved either a new chemical process (for example, one that allowed the organism to better digest a food source) or a new tool (for example, the development of a better ‘eye’).
And it’s the same with organizational change. Walk in to an organization that has embarked on a sustainable change program and you won’t see much change from one day to the next. However, you will see changes, like those mentioned in Gary's blog, from one year to the next.
What you will be seeing is that people will be doing things differently. Just as in the evolution of life, people will be using new processes and new tools. But for this to happen people will need to let go of some old frameworks, old concepts and old tools that hold people back. So what is an example of an old framework that holds people back? The deeply held belief that man is a hierarchical animal and a FEAR that without some form of hierarchy chaos will result. What is an example of an old concept? The commonly accepted idea about what leadership involves. For example, that great leaders create compelling visions to motivate employees. What of an old tool? - the annual performance review.
And what are some new frameworks? The understanding that hierarchy is just a mental construct that can be replaced by a better construct. The hierarchical, or pyramidal mindset can be replaced by a horizontal or parabolic mindset (see below). And a new concept? That the leader’s purpose is to make the most of the expression and use of everyone’s intelligence. And a new tool? A tool 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)
AND how do you bring this about . . .
In my view we need to give up on the idea of “Breaking” or “Busting” bureaucracy (That’s an old concept by the way). FEAR is real for people and ‘means and ends’ are very important. Leaders need to show people that there is a 'better way'. People need a visceral experience of that 'better way'. Over time they can let go of their fears. And of course there will be early adopters and late adopters . . . and even non adopters – that’s all part of the mix.
Warmly, Peter Rennie
You can find a description in my entry to the current MIX prize How to unleash human potential.
The address is http://www.mixprize.org/m-prize/human-potential . . . then copy and paste the following title. .
Want to unleash human potential in others? Then make sure the good guys can flourish. Forget busting the bureaucracy. First blend with it. Then bend it.
(Please accept my apologies for my inability to give you a direct link to the entry.)
Or in a peer reviewed article on how and why parabolic structures work athttp://www.slam.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/JSLaMvol4_2010_Rennie.pdf
Or email me peter.rennie@leadershipaustralia.com.au
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.
Every responsible employee will help change the organizations of the future to be changed for better..
Very Simply put the future of our workplaces will be marked by employees who want an organization that does good in society, for its employees and customers. Creating Value for all involved..
The mental maps of leaders and organisations need to change drastically for
organisations to be successful and survive in the future.
As for most larger and "older" organizations it will be difficult to move from peas and potatoes to avocados and artichokes in ONE GO, it would be great to get some more hints and ideas (or even best practices) where do you start the journey and what will be the nest steps and / or the pitfalls whilst you are looking for the avocados and artichokes.
I believe that this goes along with the approach for simplicity and cutting out complexity of any organizational structure and culture. And this goes "against" the middle management layers (some time very powerful in large global orgs).
Hi Guenther,
It's not only difficult, it's impossible to move from peas and potatoes to avocados and artichokes in ONE GO. That is the provence of God. Only he can turn water into wine.
Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, suggests that gradual change is possible provided each change is seen as advantageous to the organism. For example, a change in a process such as a new chemical catalyst that can take advantage of a new food source. Or a change in a tool, such as an improved eye.
For organizations to evolve the leaders need to create the environmental conditions that enable people to desire change. In my view this often involves the introduction of new paradigm tools that wake people up to new possibilities and enable them to do things differently. If people do things because they have to, that is out of duty, you will not achieve sustainable change.
(see my post below).
Or email peter.rennie@leadershipaustralia.com.au
I have provided some answers to some of your other questions on this site. Try searching for peter rennie.
Warmly Peter
Dear Gary,
I love it!
YES ! most organizations are still stuck in the BUREAUCRATIC MODEL, including many universities - both as organizations and even in their teaching and research programs, which I have to admit, surprises me again and again.
I believe the next management movement will be to realize that building customer value is even more important than short term shareholder demands. Customer Value Creation will require every everyone in the company to accept and maintain this focus above and beyond the CX or Customer Service models. This is a paradigm shift and will be the #1 post-bureaucratic organization model. Companies today will need to progress up the customer centric maturity model to maximize success. I would like to open private discussions with anyone who would like to expand on the customer Value Creation movement. jim@carras.com
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