Blog posts on bureaucracy

Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs

• Change Your Name to Work With Our Software

  My advice. Don’t create stupid restrictions (in IT systems or otherwise). What do you care how long people’s names are? There are many people with 2 character names (even if your software says they are invalid, and + are a valid email character even if your software doesn't think so).

  Also, have customer service personnel who are trying to improve the system, not trying to get the customer off the phone to meet some arbitrary numerical target. Most often the representatives seem most concerned with getting you off the phone. An effective system to discover what needs to be improved is not something that management has bothered to design into the system. Big mistake.

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• Peter Scholtes on Teams and Viewing the Organization as a System

  Peter includes a description of the creation of the “organization chart” (which Peter calls “train wreck management”) that we are all familiar with today; it was created in the Whistler report on a Western Railroad accident in 1841.

  Almost a direct quote from the Whistler report: “so when something goes wrong we know who was derelict in his duty.” The premise behind the traditional organizational chart is that systems are ok (if we indeed recognize that there are such things as systems) things are ok if everyone would do his or her job. The cause of problems is dereliction of duty.

  ...

  This is an absolutely great presentation: I highly recommend it (as I highly recommend Peter’s book: The Leader’s Handbook).

  Without understanding a systems view of an organization you can’t understand whats at the heart of the quality movement and therefore everything else you do, management interventions, ways of relating to people, will reflect more likely the old philosophy rather than the new one.

  
  Points like this are very true but difficult to understand until you come to view organizations as systems.

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• People are Our Most Important Asset

  ideally the organization would be providing all employees excellent coaching opportunities, all employees would be paid more than fairly, all employees would have the opportunity to develop along their desired plan, all employees would have great leadership, all employees would not be subject to continually annoyance of management system failures, all employees could count on the support of the system when needed…

  But in organizations that I have worked for we are have not reached that point. So while working to move the organization closer and closer to that goal, I believe making some extra effort to focus on those people that are helping move the organization in that direction. But it is risky if done without an understanding of systems, variation, psychology, etc.  Providing extra coaching, advice and attempting to protect people from the management failures you can’t get fixed seem like pretty safe methods.

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• Failure to Address Systemic SWAT Raid Failures
  The systemic failure of police raids continues to cause deaths of innocent people...

   

  There is a need to fix this system – not just making excuses every time yet another mistake is made. The mistakes are not special causes unique to the individual case but the common cause errors resulting from the current management practices.

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• The Lazy Unreasonable Man

  My view of myself places me in both of these camps (lazy and unreasonable). But, honestly, I have become more reasonable over time and while it makes me less difficult to put up with I think I am less effective...

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• Arbitrary Rules Don't Work

  You can’t just expect people to act in a way that seems arbitrary.

  ...

  It is not ok to expect people to think the way you want them to. You have to understand how people will react and create solutions based on that.

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• Losing Consumers’ Trust

  People are emotional about their food safety. It is not just the final results that matter but the impression given. And the impression I think many see is that those involved in the food industry often place money about a mission to feed the world.

  I think it is a mistake for any company to focus on only money rather than a larger purpose. But that is especially true if customers have an emotional connection to your product that requires customer to trust you care about them.

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• Stupid Bureaucratic Requirement

  Is it really unquestioningly doing whatever you are told that is the value that is what is being aimed for? Seems pretty clear to me from even this short article this teacher understands the constitution much better than most people and cares enough to take the values that constitution endorses seriously. While the government looks like they only care about getting their form on file and don’t care at all what the purpose of that form is (the purpose can’t really be just to coerce everyone to sign it, can it?).

  ...

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• System Imposing Burden on Customers Driven by Pointy Haired Boss

  The practice of telling your customer they must save you from horrible management is terrible. Managers designing a system that puts a burden on customers to rescue people from harsh treatment is about as lame as management can be. Definite Dilbert's pointy haired boss level idiocy.

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