Moving with Speed:

Fast Decision-making

Getting Rid of the Bureaucracy

Eliminating Waste, Unnecessary Approvals and Speed-breakers

9 Signs of a Losing Organization

4. High Bureaucracy: bureaucratic organizational structures with too many layers; high boundaries between management layers; slow decision making; too close monitoring of things and subordinates; too many tools and documents discouraging creative thinking... More

Learning from Fastest Companies

No organization with a large bureaucracy is able to make fast decisions. Bureaucracy creates a climate in which the customer comes third – well after the management and the company's other employees.

Don't let minor rules and regulations, and some people, that make no sense but seem almost impossible to circumvent to swamp and clog your organization. Getting rid of the bureaucracy is a law at fastest companies, and anyone found guilty of building or perpetuating bureaucracies is severely punished for management malpractice. "The more dead weight at the top of the organization involved in the decision-making process, the slower the decisions will be made".¹

 Case in Point  ASEA Brown Bovery

When Sweden's Percy Barnevik's company merged with the troubled Swiss giant Brown Bovery, he promptly sent a message to the thousands of bureaucrats who worked at the company's headquarters in Zurich: "In the future,... the company won't be run like a government and administered from a central home office. Everyone at head office has ninety days to find a real job within the company that has something to do with the customer". Ninety days later Barnevik made good on his promise. More than 3,000 bureaucrats who were unable to comply were laid off. As a result of this shake-off, the once stodgy company – where decisions took months - quickly transformed itself into a quick-thinking company where all decisions are made in 1,000 local offices by 170,000 associates and employees. "The new ASEA Brown Bovery has sizzled, going from one strength to another and currently earning profits in excess of $2.5 billion annually."¹

 Case in Point  General Electric

Jack Welch has always hated and fought bureaucracy. "To him, bureaucracy is the enemy.

Bureaucracy means waste, slow decision making, unnecessary approvals, and all the other things that kill a company's competitive spirit. He spent many years battling bureaucracy, trying to rid GE of anything that would make it less competitive."⁴ He didn't simply strip away a little bureaucracy. He reshaped the face of the company to rid it of anything that was getting in the way of being informal, of being fast, of being boundaryless.

Welch felt that ridding the company of wasteful bureaucracy was everyone's job. He urged all his employees to fight it. "Disdaining bureaucracy" became an important part of GE's shared values, the list of behaviors that were expected from all GE employees.

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements

Empowered Employees (Metal):

• People hate and fight bureaucracy relentlessly at all organizational levels... More

Systemic Innovation: 7 Areas

2. Organizational Innovation... More

 Case in Point  Cutting Long Meetings Short

A CEO hired Larry Farrel, a renowned management consultant, to help him to get rid of the corporate bureaucracy. In particular, the CEO complained about the length of corporate meetings – the discussions were poorly focused and too long. Larry suggested a very simple but a very effective solution: to remove chairs from the meeting room. The CEO was extremely satisfied with the results: decisions were taken now within three minutes instead of three hours.

 Best Practices  Google: 10 Golden Rules

• Strive to reach consensus. Modern corporate mythology has the unique decision maker as hero. We adhere to the view that the "many are smarter than the few," and solicit a broad base of views before reaching any decision. At Google, the role of the manager is that of an aggregator of viewpoints, not the dictator of decisions. Building a consensus sometimes takes longer, but always produces a more committed team and better decisions... More

 Case in Point  Dell Inc.

"From the very beginning, we tended to come at things in a very practical way," writes Michael Dell⁹, the Founder & CEO of Dell Computer Corporation. "I was always asking, "What's the most efficient way to accomplish this?" Consequently, we eliminated the possibility for bureaucracy before it ever cropped up, and that provided opportunities for learning as well. Our sales force, for example, had to set up their own computers. They probably didn't enjoy it, but it gave them (and us) a real sense of what the uneducated customer would go through to set up his system, and it helped them develop a more intimate understanding of the products they were selling. As a result, they were able to help customers make informed decisions about what to buy and they could help solve equipment problems. That marked the start of our reputation for great service, one of the tools for staying ahead of the competition."