Get Rid of the Bureaucracy 

Eliminate Waste, Unnecessary Approvals and Speed-breakers

 

Vadim Kotelnikov

Vadim Kotelnikov, founder of 1000ventures - personal logo      Business e-Coach      Innompic Games icon

 

  9 Signs of a Losing Organization

 

"The more regulations, the poorer people."

~ Lao Tzu

"It is as unfair to slowly dismantle a bureaucratic structure as it would be for a surgeon to open up a patient once a year and remove 10% of a cancerous tumor."

~ Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton

         

  

9 Signs of a Losing Organization

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; bureaucracy is tolerated... More

Winning Organization Download PowerPoint presentation, pdf e-book

Classic Signals of Bureaucracy

According to Robert Heller

Detailed monthly budget approvals

Centrally-driven strategic planning only

Powerful staff members with no line responsibility

Many-layered approval procedures

Many-layered, strictly observed payment bands

Rigid status symbols

Hefty corporate manuals and "bibles"

 

 

  

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements 

Empowered Employees (Metal):

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

The GE Leadership Effectiveness Survey (LES)

Hates / avoids / eliminates "bureaucracy" and strives for brevity, simplicity, clarity... 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"
~ Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton

 

 

 

Jack Welch advice business quotes

Bureaucracy is the enemy. It kills a company's competitive spirit... More

Jack Welch

GE

Max DePree quotes

Protect unusual people from bureaucracy and legalism typical of organizations... More

Max
De Pree

 

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 Download PowerPoint presentation, pdf e-book"... More

Dell Inc.

"From the very beginning, we tended to come at things in a very practical way," says Michael Dell, the Founder & CEO of Dell Inc.. "I was always asking, "What's the most efficient way to accomplish this?"... More

 

 

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... More

Bunsha

Kuniyasu Sakai and his partner, Hiroshi Sekiyama, are legendary managers in Japan. They don't buy the "bigger is better" concept. Kuniyasu Sakai and Hiroshi Sekiyama started a business together and turned it into a Highly Profitable one Download PowerPoint presentation, pdf e-book. Rather than building a single, giant firm, they divided it, and then kept on dividing. Always keeping each of their firms at its optimum size.

In the process of creating a prosperous Bunsha group of companies, they discovered how to keep their companies on the cutting edge, their employees productive, and their clients happy, all at the same time. Their method is what Mr. Sakai calls bunsha (literally, 'dividing companies'), a system he and Mr. Sekiyama developed over more than 40 years of real-world corporate management. They created a group of more than 40 thriving, independent, high-tech manufacturing companies through bunsha (company division). Once a company is "successful," they fear that bureaucracy and complacency will set in. What do they do? They divide it... More

 

References:

  1. It's not the BIG and eats the SMALL... it's the FAST that eats the SLOW, Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton

  2. The Cycle of Leadership, Noel M. Trichi

  3. "Jack Welch and the GE Way," Robert Slater

  4. The Welch Way, Jeffrey A. Krames

  5. Roads to Success, Heller, Robert