Life in a large organization can often feel like a few moments of inspiration and innovation surrounded by a lifetime of sitting on conference calls, filling out forms, and creating PowerPoint decks to update management. Where many feel the problem can be solved by flattening the organization and getting rid of what may seem to be excess layers of management, consider that the problem may not be the people in management themselves, but instead the processes and cultural norms that have sprung up around them.

So as an alternative to (or perhaps in addition to) flattening the organization, consider putting employees and managers to work on solving the bureaucracy problem. You can begin by tying compensation, rewards, and recognition not just to how well a group performs financially, but how it does at eliminating the layers of bureaucracy that stop their teams from getting even more work done more quickly. But don’t stop there. Your work won’t be complete until you’ve created a culture where everyone is inspired and eager to eliminate as much time-sucking bureaucracy as they can.

Problem

As an organization itself grows larger and more complex, the challenge of effectively managing it also grows larger and more complex. To manage this complexity, most businesses implement systems, controls, processes, and meetings in an effort to help keep everything functioning well.

Unfortunately, these bureaucratic systems and processes often take on a life of their own. In many organizations, employees spend as much or more time navigating the bureaucracy as they do working on products and services for the benefit of customers.

If your organization has reached the point where the bureaucracy is demanding as much or more time and attention than the work itself, it might be time to consider a change. But where many organizations interested in reducing bureaucracy quickly look to “flatten the organization,” eliminating layers of management between the executives and workers, there is another option available that may be even more effective at reducing the bureaucracy within our organizations.

Solution

The best way to attack an entrenched set of bureaucratic processes within the organization will be to begin a cultural transformation that encourages every employee at every level of the organization to reduce bureaucracy. This cultural transformation includes 2 elements:

A simple bottom-up identification/rating system that rewards those who identify and remove bureaucratic systems and processes in real, tangible ways.
A cultural campaign that recognizes those who’ve done heroic work in reducing bureaucracy, sharing their stories with the entire organization in an effort to “show people the way” and give them additional motivation to get involved.

Bottom-up identification/rating system

To be successful, this effort will require a lightweight, "bottom-up" way to rate how well managers are doing at removing bureaucratic processes. Our requirement is that this system would require no more than 5 minutes of time from each employee twice per year (any more would risk the solution simply adding one more piece of bureaucracy in the effort to remove bureaucracy).

We recommend something as simple as the following three-question survey, which would be completed by each employee 2 times per year.

How would you rate the job your manager is doing at simplifying, improving, or eliminating the unnecessary bureaucracy that makes it harder for you to get work done over the past six months? (extremely good, very good, average, not very good, not at all good)
How would you rate the job those above your manager are doing at simplifying, improving, or eliminating the unnecessary bureaucracy that makes it harder for you to get work done over the past six months? (extremely good, very good, average, not very good, not at all good)
Name the unnecessary bureaucratic elements of your job that you would like to see simplified, improved, or eliminated during the next six months.

Some organizations may want to consider replacing the third question with an online tool that allows employees to report bureaucratic time-sucking systems as they encounter them instead of only once every six months. As part of the survey rating management, there would be a reminder to go add any new offending systems or processes to that tool. The advantage is that the organization would have real-time reporting of bureaucratic burdens instead of only once every six months.

Not only employees, but also managers up to the CEO level will fill out this survey twice per year, so this bottom-up approach will rate everyone all of the way up to the CEO on their efforts to eliminate unwanted bureaucracy.

The aggregated report could be turned into a visual map that would highlight trouble spots in the organization where bureaucracy is out of control, while also showing the areas where bureaucracy has been minimized. The former represents an opportunity for improvement, while the latter is where we’ll find the stories that we’ll want to share around the organization.

The ratings that come from this survey should be directly tied to management compensation at all levels of the organization. Managers that perform well at removing unnecessary bureaucracy as reported by those below them in the organization will be rewarded for their efforts, while those who do not will miss out on this portion of their compensation.

Many people define a good manager as someone who helps remove the barriers that stop people in their organization from getting their work done. In essence, this system simply rewards the managers that do this well. At the same time, it creates a feedback mechanism for all managers to quickly learn where they can improve.

Cultural campaign

But don’t mistake this approach as simple Skinnerian stick and carrot behaviorism. While the bottom-up feedback system described above will align management rewards with the desired outcome (reducing unnecessary bureaucracy), it will also also create a culture where unnecessary bureaucracy is viewed as unacceptable by all employees.

Every piece of feedback from the survey that results in the elimination of bad bureaucracy is the opportunity to tell a story. This story will have heroes (the employees who identified the issues and who collaborated with managers to develop a solution), drama and crisis (things or people that stood in the way, obstacles that were overcome), and a (hopefully) happy ending.

These stories must be captured and told throughout the organization as real examples of ways that bureaucracy can be harmful and how it can be eliminated. Turn the people or departments that flattened bureaucracy into heroes, give them awards, film short documentary videos that tell their story. Then tell these stories everywhere you can. Have an executive highlight a story and thank the main “characters” at company or team meetings. Post short documentary videos on the organization’s intranet. Write a short story and post it above the urinals or on the back of stall doors in the bathrooms.

Whatever you do, ensure the best examples are shared over and over again, and the people who did the work feel proud of their accomplishments. Also be sure to focus on the positive outcomes of the stories so everyone understands the effect/change that came from eliminating bureaucracy. If you continue to tell these stories, in time you’ll begin to create a culture where people don’t just eliminate bureaucracy because it is measured as part of their compensation, but instead because it is part of the culture: “the way we do things around here.”

Before long, your employees will have whittled down the bureaucratic elements of your culture to the bare essentials. Then they can keep the effort going by watching closely to ensure new bureaucratic systems are stopped before they have a chance to grow out of control.

Practical Impact

We want to succeed because of our systems, not despite them. Often times people spend so much time working through process that they are able to spend little time actually executing on meaningful outcomes.

The practical impact here is to remove the systems that take proportionally too much time. Our hope is that by removing these systems, we’ll return time back to employees, which they can then use to create real value for the organization through better serving customers and other important communities, while creating new products, services, and innovations.

First Steps

Start small, perhaps testing this system within one department or division. If you see results, expand it to other groups within the organization. Be sure to capture stories as you do your experiment-- you’ll be able to use these stories to help explain the value of the program as you increase its scope.

Start with removing or improving smaller processes and systems first, showing the results of your effort, before tackling big complex systems. You’ll want a few successes under your belt before you attempt to wrestle a gorilla.

Credits

Thanks to the MIX and especially the MIX Hackathon Pilot team for providing the inspiration and feedback that made this hack possible. Thanks also to the great managers that each of us have had over the years who did a good job at removing barriers facing us, showing the potential of what could be done when bureaucracy was eliminated.

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June 28, 2011 at 5:32pm

Terri Griffith

I love hacks that are multidimensional in their approach. This one hits on organizational process, technology (the rating system), and people. No silver bullets here!

June 27, 2011 at 10:38pm

Ellen Weber

Thanks Chris, Sam, and Rebecca! Well crafted response to several of bureaucracy’s burdens, and especially to the “time-sucking” systems included with it – that drain innovation. Would be interested in seeing a bit more about where this is done and with what results.

I especially liked your notion of reports being transformed into visual maps to spot trouble areas.

Thanks for your concerns to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy. Would you agree that innovative organizations also require ongoing need to facilitate people to both spot and remove those subtler and deeply ingrained ruts and systems that seem convenient yet hold back innovation?

Consider ratings, as detailed here and used in the MIX as brief examples along with new research about the innovative mind.

Two key concerns come to me when ratings link to compensation for instance – since we now have several reasons to see how ratings come flawed, and inaccurate from a mental standpoint.

To address specifics in your proposed design - would your team consider two key questions– related to ratings as described here and used to move ideas forward in the MIX as well as in many corporations:

1). How do you account for research that folks rate higher – what and who most looks like themselves and what most resembles their own ideas, culture, and in several aspects look similar to already conventional approaches?

(Brain fact: Folks typically draw on their brain’s basal ganglia equipment and that highly used mental equipment defaults us daily to familiar ruts and comfortable routines.)

2). How would you address cognitive and neuro research that now shows how people tend to ignore differences or in the case of ratings - tend to rate lower, what least looks familiar and what least resembles their own recognized approaches?

(Brain fact: To risk vastly new directions, is to rely far more on the brain’s (often uncomfortable) working memory along with increased dopamine it takes to risk any strikingly new and often completely unfamiliar approaches – for the innate rewards of potently new and currently unfamiliar outcomes. )

In light of these facts ratings themselves can prevent the very diversity needed to fly new machines that may vastly differ in size, shape, texture and aroma – from what we know as reliable. What do you think?

Liked by Sary Jane Ravelo Cagulang

June 28, 2011 at 3:35pm

Sam Knuth (Folk-Williams)

Hi Ellen,

Thanks for your comments. Some thoughts...

To your first question... I haven't seen the research, but yes people rating highly things that are more familiar to them is something I've definitely seen before. I think it is a very dangerous slope when significant actions are tied to ratings. In a lot of my work, we look at basing reviews/comp on outcomes over activities, which means ratings are simply a place to start asking questions - not something to make a decision on. The key I think is to focus on the outcomes - have barriers been removed? what was the impact? Or, were attempts to remove barriers blocked?

Your second question feels to me like an inverse of the first. Again, I personally prefer to use ratings as a starting point of discussion/investigation, not a thing to base significant decisions on. If we just look at ratings without looking at outcomes and what actions/inactions led to those outcomes, then we don't really have enough to go on. I can see a very high risk to people rating highly people they like personally, for example, regardless of whether they actually deserve the rating.

One thought I had while we were writing this, would be that instead of doing a rating system we could create a web form that people would use to report examples of when somebody actively removed a time sucking system/took away a barrier, or insisted upon the use of one. The form would ask the user to describe the situation, the person in question, and the details of the actions that person took and the outcome. The concept would be that everyone gets in the habit of using this reporting tool as they experience examples. That way the ratings would be focused on examples (outcomes) vs. ratings done later, which may be more subject to the kind of bias you are describing. But still, that's far from perfect.

Would love more feedback to see this idea evolve!

Liked by Sary Jane Ravelo Cagulang

June 28, 2011 at 8:26pm

Ellen Weber

Wow Sam this looks like a dynamite alternative start! . "One thought I had while we were writing this, would be that instead of doing a rating system we could create a web form that people would use to report examples of when somebody actively removed a time sucking system/took away a barrier, or insisted upon the use of one. The form would ask the user to describe the situation, the person in question, and the details of the actions that person took and the outcome. The concept would be that everyone gets in the habit of using this reporting tool as they experience examples. That way the ratings would be focused on examples (outcomes) vs. ratings done later, which may be more subject to the kind of bias you are describing. But still, that's far from perfect."

Wonderfull stated - it's a great start!

What a good start at that. For an MBA course on Innovative Leadership I designed at the invitation of the Bittner School of Business I created a final assessment based on evidence of outcomes in somewhat similar ways that you detailed so well here. Ratings make a negative difference - when they hold back great ideas from the mix - and they do, for some of the reasons we both agree.

Great stuff Sam - Chris also remains open and innovative in the area of ratings - so that area could be central to innovational leadership that wins.

Liked by Sary Jane Ravelo Cagulang