Serious question: Do organizations tend to evolve in the direction of bureaucracy because that’s inherent to how…

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9 responses to “Serious question: Do organizations tend to evolve in the direction of bureaucracy because that’s inherent to how…”

1. 

   April 26, 2016

   Rita de Heer

   Whoo-hoo, I get to say my piece about bureaucracy!

   I’m a volunteer with a non-profit making organisation, in my local scene. I’m a member of a small (100+/- members) branch of Landcare NSW and I’ve served on the committee for long enough to have experienced the encroachment in the last six years of bureaucracy over volunteer organisations.  

   Bureaucracy in the case of volunteer organisations is definitely imposed from the top. Because would a bunch of volunteers bother?

   First, middle management is invented. Once upon a time, we belonged to Landcare Australia. Now, as well as Landcare NSW, we need to belong to a regional organisation, North Coast in our case. And so we have to update web portals with both these, as well as keep our own website up to date. 

   As well as attending meetings galore, to find out for instance that we now need a business plan and a five year strategic plan (not the same thing apparently). We need to be Hot Housed on Policy and Protocols. We need to modernise our what-do-you-call-them … The list goes on. 

   What has all this to do with what we are on about? Planting trees, restoring ecosystems, maintaining public land, installing nest boxes, running environmental workshops and the like?

   Nothing, nix and nada. 

   Bureaucracy in my opinion is there to provide employment for middle managers. Waste of good money. Get them out into the wild weeding and planting. 

   Reply
2. 

   April 26, 2016

   Rita de Heer

   Whoo-hoo, I get to say my piece about bureaucracy!

   I’m a volunteer with a non-profit making organisation, in my local scene. I’m a member of a small (100+/- members) branch of Landcare NSW and I’ve served on the committee for long enough to have experienced the encroachment in the last six years of bureaucracy over volunteer organisations.  

   Bureaucracy in the case of volunteer organisations is definitely imposed from the top. Because would a bunch of volunteers bother?

   First, middle management is invented. Once upon a time, we belonged to Landcare Australia. Now, as well as Landcare NSW, we need to belong to a regional organisation, North Coast in our case. And so we have to update web portals with both these, as well as keep our own website up to date. 

   As well as attending meetings galore, to find out for instance that we now need a business plan and a five year strategic plan (not the same thing apparently). We need to be Hot Housed on Policy and Protocols. We need to modernise our what-do-you-call-them … The list goes on. 

   What has all this to do with what we are on about? Planting trees, restoring ecosystems, maintaining public land, installing nest boxes, running environmental workshops and the like?

   Nothing, nix and nada. 

   Bureaucracy in my opinion is there to provide employment for middle managers. Waste of good money. Get them out into the wild weeding and planting. 

   Reply
3. 

   April 26, 2016

   Rita de Heer

   Whoo-hoo, I get to say my piece about bureaucracy!

   I’m a volunteer with a non-profit making organisation, in my local scene. I’m a member of a small (100+/- members) branch of Landcare NSW and I’ve served on the committee for long enough to have experienced the encroachment in the last six years of bureaucracy over volunteer organisations.  

   Bureaucracy in the case of volunteer organisations is definitely imposed from the top. Because would a bunch of volunteers bother?

   First, middle management is invented. Once upon a time, we belonged to Landcare Australia. Now, as well as Landcare NSW, we need to belong to a regional organisation, North Coast in our case. And so we have to update web portals with both these, as well as keep our own website up to date. 

   As well as attending meetings galore, to find out for instance that we now need a business plan and a five year strategic plan (not the same thing apparently). We need to be Hot Housed on Policy and Protocols. We need to modernise our what-do-you-call-them … The list goes on. 

   What has all this to do with what we are on about? Planting trees, restoring ecosystems, maintaining public land, installing nest boxes, running environmental workshops and the like?

   Nothing, nix and nada. 

   Bureaucracy in my opinion is there to provide employment for middle managers. Waste of good money. Get them out into the wild weeding and planting. 

   Reply
4. 

   April 26, 2016

   Rita de Heer

   How to stop it happening? Have a budget cut. I recall back in the 1980s the NSW Education department lost most of its middle management level through a serious budget cut. Suddenly schools were given their govt handouts straight from the fount to manage themselves.

   Also in Australia, CSIRO had to divest itself of 180+/- climate scientists. You can’t convince me that a small population such as ours needed that many. I’m betting most were middle management. 

   Reply
5. 

   April 26, 2016

   Rita de Heer

   How to stop it happening? Have a budget cut. I recall back in the 1980s the NSW Education department lost most of its middle management level through a serious budget cut. Suddenly schools were given their govt handouts straight from the fount to manage themselves.

   Also in Australia, CSIRO had to divest itself of 180+/- climate scientists. You can’t convince me that a small population such as ours needed that many. I’m betting most were middle management. 

   Reply
6. 

   April 26, 2016

   Rita de Heer

   How to stop it happening? Have a budget cut. I recall back in the 1980s the NSW Education department lost most of its middle management level through a serious budget cut. Suddenly schools were given their govt handouts straight from the fount to manage themselves.

   Also in Australia, CSIRO had to divest itself of 180+/- climate scientists. You can’t convince me that a small population such as ours needed that many. I’m betting most were middle management. 

   Reply
7. 

   April 26, 2016

   Jefferson Smith

   To understand bureaucracy, it really helps to have been in some start ups. At the early stages, companies can only survive by the wits of energetic workaholics who do a thousand jobs at once, and invent every process on the fly. But over time, the company needs to grow, and you can’t fill the building with more and more of those creative and driven personalities or the company will crash from internal chaos. So you hire implementation people, worker bees, who will take those discovered processes and codify them into rules, which they will then use to guide their behavior through the chaos of corporate adolescence. As things progress, the ratio of implementers to creatives grows, and the corporate play book grows with it. Unfortunately, those same play books that bring stability and predictability to corporate life are also anathema to the driven creative types, so they tend to move on, seeking younger, more dynamic companies, and leaving a slow but inevitable buildup of rule books and worker bees in their wake. In my experience, this is where bureaucracy comes from.

   Reply
8. 

   April 26, 2016

   Jefferson Smith

   To understand bureaucracy, it really helps to have been in some start ups. At the early stages, companies can only survive by the wits of energetic workaholics who do a thousand jobs at once, and invent every process on the fly. But over time, the company needs to grow, and you can’t fill the building with more and more of those creative and driven personalities or the company will crash from internal chaos. So you hire implementation people, worker bees, who will take those discovered processes and codify them into rules, which they will then use to guide their behavior through the chaos of corporate adolescence. As things progress, the ratio of implementers to creatives grows, and the corporate play book grows with it. Unfortunately, those same play books that bring stability and predictability to corporate life are also anathema to the driven creative types, so they tend to move on, seeking younger, more dynamic companies, and leaving a slow but inevitable buildup of rule books and worker bees in their wake. In my experience, this is where bureaucracy comes from.

   Reply
9. 

   April 26, 2016

   Jefferson Smith

   To understand bureaucracy, it really helps to have been in some start ups. At the early stages, companies can only survive by the wits of energetic workaholics who do a thousand jobs at once, and invent every process on the fly. But over time, the company needs to grow, and you can’t fill the building with more and more of those creative and driven personalities or the company will crash from internal chaos. So you hire implementation people, worker bees, who will take those discovered processes and codify them into rules, which they will then use to guide their behavior through the chaos of corporate adolescence. As things progress, the ratio of implementers to creatives grows, and the corporate play book grows with it. Unfortunately, those same play books that bring stability and predictability to corporate life are also anathema to the driven creative types, so they tend to move on, seeking younger, more dynamic companies, and leaving a slow but inevitable buildup of rule books and worker bees in their wake. In my experience, this is where bureaucracy comes from.

   Reply