Taming Company Bureaucracy

The danger inherent within a bureaucratic culture is that failure is not identified and risk is not rewarded. When accountability is neither identified by management nor embraced by the employee, and the fear of failure overpowers the reward for success, then the organization is wandering down a path that leads to a paralysis of analysis. In such an environment no one will assume the ownership of risk of an action because there is no reward of equal value. As true accountability vanishes from an organization, decision-making becomes constipated through the body culture, leading to missed opportunities and ultimate failure.

If not well thought out and managed carefully, you can create a fertile environment for the cancerous growth of bureaucracy – and that eventually eats the life out of an organization. Bureaucracy thrives when the environment is complicated and confusing. Bureaucracy survives by creating, implementing, and protecting a complicated body of rules that suppress creativity, hides accountability, and inhibits action. The way to defeat bureaucracy – or to never let it take hold – is by fighting to keep things simple and clear.
-Bob MacDonald, et al.

“Bureaucracy is the death of any achievement.”
-Albert Einstein

“The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.”
-Brooks Atkinson