Saturday, September 11, 2010

How bureaucracies solve problems

In assessing the organization and management of the Sunland centers for the past 60+ years, I have been thinking about the various permutations and combinations of agencies in the state system. This reminds me of one of my professors in my MBA program many years ago. I recall a lecture in which he pointed out that in a bureaucracy, problems are viewed as occurring in a box or boxes within the organizational chart. That, then, is how they are solved: by addressing the boxes. That comment really resonated with me. Here is my take-off on that, not specific to the state system but just in general:

Situation 1: a problem occurs that does not fit within any existing box.
Solution: draw another box (create a new dept)

Situation 2: a box is malfunctioning
Solution: move the contents of the box to two or more other boxes (notice I did NOT say "delete the box", as this never occurs in a bureaucracy. It only grows, never contracts). In this situation, the box will be reserved for refilling at a later date, when memories have faded due to employee turnover.

Situation 3: a box is expanding and threatening the space of boxes to the side of or above it.
Solution: divide the box into two boxes. Note: This will be very satisfying to the bureaucracy as it has met its need to expand.

Situation 4: a box is calling too much attention to itself (attention may be of the positive but more often negative type)
Solution: regroup boxes, placing above box underneath a different higher level box. You may also want to consider shuffling the contents (otherwise known as people) of this box with some surrounding boxes. It does not really matter which boxes you pick.

These are your choices and they will pretty much solve any problem that the organization might face. A review of the history of any medium to large-size organization will reinforce the "truthiness" of my assertion. A challenge: come up with a scenario not addressed by the above. Anyone?

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