How to Eliminate Bureaucracy in Organizations?

How to Eliminate Bureaucracy in Organizations?

Likened to a crippling illness, many authors argued that bureaucracy must be eliminated from organizations. For example, Gary Hamel stated that bureaucracy prevents forward thinking and innovation, suppresses creativity and motivation, and “is the enemy of resilience” (as cited in Denning, 2014).
Management students and practitioners associate bureaucracy with a vertical mechanistic organization where strategic planning is conducted by upper management (Kreitner, 2009, pp. 245, 252). In such an organization, the “span of control” is narrow with many layers of supervisors, lower-level managers and middle managers, each overseeing relatively few employees (Kreitner, 2009, p. 251).

LESSENING BUREAUCRACY
To lessen bureaucracy, many organizations have REMOVED MANAGEMENT LAYERS hoping to encourage "employee empowerment" (Hamel as cited in Denning, 2014). However, these are just are superficial changes that have not actually decreased bureaucracy. Hamel argues that power still lies in the hands of the few so that employees are not actively involved in strategic planning and that hurdles still hamper the innovation process (as cited in Denning, 2014). Even after such reorganizations, bureaucracy remains.


OVERCOMING BUREAUCRACY
According to Nayer and Hamel (as cited in Denning, 2014; Kreitner, 2009, p. 185 ), to really overcome bureaucracy in organizations, they must perform an audit of policies, structure and mission focusing on following things:

1. INNOVATION PLATFORMS: Create platforms for innovative ideas to flourish,
2. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES: Focus on delivering unique experiences to customers, rather than increasing shareholder profits, (increased profits will occur organically from successful product differentiation),
3. EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP: Enable leadership by allowing for more employee autonomy.

⇒ Do you have any other ideas/experiences on how bureaucracy can be fought in business firms or non-profit organizations?
Sources:
Denning, Steve. (2014, Nov 7). Why Bureaucracy must Die.
Kreitner, R. (2009). Management. (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin

		Comments Sort by date Sort by rating Rating
		1 Jerry Mp Entrepreneur, Uganda
	Fighting Bureaucracy in NGOs It is true that bureaucracy hinders many innovative ideas. Many young people have innovative ideas, ... Sign up

		8 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Tips to Eliminate Bureaucracy I agree with Leo Babauta what needs to be achieved is to move bureaucratic organizations from a bure... Sign up

		1 Andrew Blaine Business Consultant, South Africa
	The Power of the Operations Manual to Fight Bureaucracy A living, current and relevant operations manual (Ops Man) does more than define a business, it also... Sign up

		1 Herman Heyman Consultant, Belgium
	Fighting Bureaucracy in NGOs We have avoided a lot of bureaucracy by - Keeping our NGO as flat as is wise & feasible - Imple... Sign up

		2 Javier Elenes Business Consultant, Mexico
	Focus on Results to Avoid Bureaucracy I recommend to focus the job descriptions on the contribution to expected results while listing all ... Sign up

		1 Otieno Manager, Kenya
	How to Eliminate Bureaucracy The best way in my experience is to have all processes documented with levels of authority clearly d... Sign up

		0 Ray Chatwin Lecturer, United Kingdom
	Let's Hear it for Bureaucracy! Bureaucracy shouldn't be used as a mud-pie to throw at organisations which are what Handy called 'ro... Sign up

		2 Katie Pawley MBA Consultant, United States
	Balance of Bureaucracy and Employee Ownership Hello, I have reviewed everyones' submissions and all viewpoints listed should be considered when d... Sign up

		0 Javier Elenes Business Consultant, Mexico
	Focus the Operations Manual to Fight Bureaucracy @Andrew Blaine: To focus the Operations Manual to fight bureaucracy, it should be focused on expecte... Sign up

		0 Ajay kapoor, India
	How to Eliminate Bureaucracy in Organizations In order to eliminate bureaucracy, organisations should focus on processes & eliminate non-value add... Sign up

		0 V.SHRIDHAR Business Consultant, India
	Experiences in Eliminating Bureaucracy in our Organization Bureaucracy in my organization has come down to single digit. As far as my observations in steel fac... Sign up

		0 Andrew Blaine Business Consultant, South Africa
	Prime Objective of an Ops Manual @Javier Elenes: Hi Javier, at the risk of straying from the initial subject, I suggest that the pri... Sign up

		1 jorge anibal hoyos hoyos Manager, Colombia
	Countering Bureaucracy by Designing Procedures and an Empowerment Frame There should be a cost-effective design of the procedures so that every component of the organizatio... Sign up

		2 RAJI GEORGE Management Consultant, Sultanate of Oman
	Management Culture and Bureaucracy The level of bureaucracy depends on the level of democracy in the management culture and the level o... Sign up

		1 Javier Elenes Business Consultant, Mexico
	Employee Participation on How to do it Not What Shall be Done (Manager Responsibility) @RAJI GEORGE: Just an important practical note on employee participation: To define WHAT shall be d... Sign up

		1 Andrew Blaine Business Consultant, South Africa
	How to do it Best? @Javier Elenes: Hi Javier, While I agree with your sentiments, I find it hard to accept the principl... Sign up

		1 V.SHRIDHAR Business Consultant, India
	How to do it Best I agree with Javier Elenes, there should be standard procedure as operating procedures in a broad se... Sign up

		2 Emmanuel Mwirichia Manager, Kenya
	Arrange and Welcome Dissenting Views In a movie I watched recently (World War Z, starring Brad Pitt), the way that the zombies were initi... Sign up

		0 jorge anibal hoyos hoyos Manager, Colombia
	Fight Bureaucracy by Using Cronyism The cronyism (Editor: ~favoritism) could be a solution. First of all to disclose the reasons produci... Sign up

		1 Briolett, Canada
	Bureaucracy Bottleneck Most decisions in an organization are made by a few at the very top - either direct or indirect base... Sign up

		1 Radford United Kingdom
	Can a Bureaucratic Culture Really Be Removed? How is it possible to eliminate bureaucracy in an organisation if the managers, directors that have ... Sign up

		1 David Wilson Manager, Canada
	Reduce Levels of Management and Empower Employees Too many bureaucratic organizations are based on a top-down militaristic or hierarchical structure. ... Sign up