Is Bureaucracy Dead?

One of the finest and among the instantly recognized CEOs and author, Jack Welch opines as
follows about democracy as asked by Solomon Moss from TIME magazine:

How do you take on the bureaucracy that damages so many organizations?

Damages? How about deadens? That's a better word to describe what bureaucracy does; it sucks
the life out of a business. It turns normal people, granted a smidgen of authority, into rule-bound
technocrats and twists candid conversation about real issues into jargon-laden gobbledygook.

So why do people put up with it? Probably because bureaucracy just seems like too big a monster
for any one individual to slay. And we'd agree, unless that individual happens to be the leader. After all, it is
leaders who set the tone for their organizations through the values they choose and the behaviors they
demonstrate. And ultimately, it is leaders, and leaders alone, who have the power to set a bureaucracy
eradication process in motion.

What you want instead is an organization where ideas flow freely up, down, and sideways, along
halls, in elevators. A business where an idea's value has nothing to do with the stripes on the shoulder of
the person behind it and everything to do with their insight and creativity.

Bureaucratic organizational structures: too many layers; high boundaries between management
layers; slow decision making; nepotism; large-scale inefficiency; too close monitoring of things and
subordinates; too many tools, compliance documents discouraging creative thinking...

The modern management thought requires, “to govern the governance of any modern
organization, be it a political government or a business enterprise”. The formal bureaucracy has
"purposeful rationality” in which both goals and means are rationally chosen". According to Weber,
modern society is possible only because of the rational principles that are the mark of the
bureaucratic organization. Quite simply, "bureaucratic types of organizations are technically
superior to all other forms of administration".

Modern public administrators also have viewed bureaucracy and bureaucrats in a positive manner.
Paul Appleby (1945) dedicates his book Big Democracy to Bill Bureaucrat and does so in a positive, not a
pejorative, manner mentioning that bureaucracies are a target for negative symbolism because their
perceived largeness, exotic names, and complex procedures can seem threatening. Some conservatives
also argue that the bureaucracy is illegitimate because it is not constitutionally rooted, an argument that has
been pursued by some public administration scholars as well (see Stillman 1998). Some scholars (Goodsell
1994; NCPS 1989) have argued that negative views of public bureaucracies, and the government generally,
can be solved through better public relations. Many scholars see the press as one source of this negative
 perception (Kettl 1999; McCurry 1999), and studies (Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997; Iyengar 1987) have
shown that the way the media frames an issue affects the public's perception of that issue or an associated
group. Data also link the rise in television as the sole news source for most individuals, concomitant with a
decline in newspaper readership, with an increase in negative feelings toward the government.

 Learning from The Fastest Companies which have sounded the death knell
for bureaucratic style of work.

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.

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. In short, bureaucracy gums up the works. All this may sound harsh but hidebound behaviour
is a competitiveness killer.

Strategy of a prudent market leader in a bureaucratic environment.

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."

Case in Point General Electric (GE)

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

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.

Case in Point Dell Inc.

Michael Dell, the Founder & CEO of Dell Computer Corporation says, “We eliminated the
possibility of bureaucracy before it ever cropped up that provided us opportunities for learning as
well. Our sales force, for example, had to set up their own computers as against the usual practice in
all organizations. 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. That marked the start of our reputation for great service, one
of the tools for staying ahead of the competition."

The modern management thought requires, “to govern the governance of any modern
organization, be it a political government or a business enterprise”. The formal bureaucracy has
"purposeful rationality” in which both goals and means are rationally chosen". According to Weber,
modern society is possible only because of the rational principles that are the mark of the
bureaucratic organization. Quite simply, "bureaucratic types of organizations are technically
superior to all other forms of administration".

India's bumbling, ailing and dying bureaucrats but

bureaucracy (still) lives.
Why are we not surprised that India's "suffocating bureaucracy" has been named the worst
and least efficient in the whole continent, behind even gnarled Vietnam, Communism-eaten China
and bulbous Indonesia in a survey by 1,274 expats working across 12 north and south Asian
nations.
One of the most important things that make bureaucrats fail is the political class they
eventually report to. The same class that ties their hands and gags their mouths.

Some of the measures how this high handedness can be countered is by giving the victims
genuine power to deal with their staff who delay files and wait endlessly for their palms to be

greased until they give it a shove. Give redress and grievance bodies like CAT real teeth. Moreover,
and this is the toughest, free them of political stranglehold.

Webliography

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/onefortheroad/entry/india-s-bumbling-bureaucrats-and

http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/change_fast_decision_bureaucracy-
out.html

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064096006603.html

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-84549953/live-bureaucrats-and-dead.html

NAME: Pranay Jain

Class: eMBA Division B

Roll No: 115