The Busting Bureaucracy Hackathon
What I notice is that many people spontaniously create bureaucratie as they are scared to take the smallest piece of risk and say; "No. That doesn't work, You can't do that". So even though there is no formal approval required, people tend to believe that there is. This counts for both the proposer of an initiative as well as the one getting the proposal.
So often the "nay sayers" make things hard. This has much to do with the culture in the organization. If you have management (and in preference Executive Mgt), promote, push and evangelize risk taking you can already get a lot of autonomy and creativity back into your org.
Individual initiatives can provoke this quite easily as well I discovred a while back when I simply informed my manager that I would stop asking questions and just do the right thing for the company, team and myself until I was told to stop. Even on the statement I made I got silence :-) Wow! What a life changer in my job! I have never been more productive and creative since I did that.
So tech can certainly help, but the org culture, its structure and (exec) management engagement can easily make a big difference by encouriging people to simply reject some of the, what I would call "imaginary bureaucratie".
So let me ask a question and please excuse me for my ignorance...
What exactly do we expect Tech to resolve? Less approval processes? Easier approval processes? Or is tech just the reflection of the issue (as the approval processes all seem to be pretty sofisticated)?
Maybe we should have less of technology and more trust (in ourseleves, our subordinates and peers)?
Oscar-- this is a fantastic observation! I've never really thought about it this way before, but the term imaginary bureaucracy is a compelling way of describing this odd--but common--situation. People are so used to being held back by REAL bureaucracy that they continue to see it--even when it isn't there. A bureaucracy mirage, if you will:)
And I agree with you that the way to make the mirage disappear starts with changing the culture.
As for your question about technology, one of the things many of us who have been part of the MIX for some time believe is that the culture change that the Internet and other technological advances have led to over the past few years/decades has not yet been fully replicated in the culture of our organizations.
So where technology itself (e.g. tools) may not be able to change culture by themselves, what they can often help with is beginning/easing the process of cultural change by making it easier for organizations to embrace the cultural norms of the new technology landscape, e.g. openness, collaboration, meritocracy of ideas, rapid prototyping, flattened hierarchies, less top down management, etc. These concepts are often "baked in" to new technologies in ways that can bring the organization forward with them.
In some organizations, this sort of cultural change is embraced, in some organizations the cultural change happens--but kicking and screaming, and in others it is fought off like a virus. In the 2nd and 3rd cases, it often takes strong support from top leadership for change to be successful. But where there is a will, there is a way. Technology can't do the hard work by itself, but it can be a powerful enabler with the right human support.
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