The Busting Bureaucracy Hackathon

I think the first step to replace the existing bureaucratic practices has to do with handling fear, as Hubert Mugliett points out, because managers will have to relinquish power and it's easy to perceive that as threatening when you are -or think you are- close to the end of your professional career. A way to handle the power issue could be decentralizing decisions from one or a few all-mighty managers to several "area or subject experts", where each one has final say on her/his area/subject. This could be an approach to Jim Scully's "think small" and decentralization. There would be some sort of collegiate organ to decide on issues that affect several areas/subjects, supported by a close-to-real-time feedback information system, 360, including customers and financials, of course. Collegiate decisions would have to be fact supported, based on the feedback information system. As for innovation, proponents would issue proposals though a forum-like application where it could be voted by the entire organization and then analyzed at the proper level. This way attempt to change could be recognized and rewarded even if it failed, as Thimothy Dibble suggests, At some point peer proposed individuals would get to the expert level and the previous expert would stay as a consultant, or some other figure, to ensure the knowledge from experience is used to help the new expert to succeed. This way, stepping out of "management" wouldn't mean being left out in the street, but still being part of the organization.