Management Buzzwords Explained: Bureaucracy

This is the eighteenth in a series of essays that addresses management topics. The first ten explored "hot button" issues; the next ten satirize management "buzzwords." I base these essays on countless provocative lectures and irreverent discussions as a nutty professor of Business Administration.

This is the eighth essay in a row I've written in the attempt to explain some of the more common buzzwords used today in the profession of management. My intended audience has been the relatively young or new manager, with the hope that they won't too quickly adopt buzzwords before their meanings are understood. Actually I hope some of the words disappear completely, but I'll settle for a better understanding of management jargon in general.

My definition of "buzzword" is any term that is new and overused without deep understanding of its meaning or importance, because it is fashion or somehow correct to use it. This time, though, I'm concerned about a word that in my opinion has had a very hard time of it because it is not new at all, and its meaning has been lost for decades.

The problem, actually, is that its definition has not evolved as the world has evolved, leaving this word poorly appreciated in its proper context. Rather than being acknowledged for the title of one of the more important social innovations of the entire industrial revolution, it is usually discussed in such harsh tones, one would think it was completely evil.

The word is "bureaucracy." When was the last time you said "Boy I'm glad this place is bureaucratic," or "I'm hoping to get promoted to a much more bureaucratic position" or "if it wasn't for all the bureaucracy around here I'd never get anything done." Well, actually, you just might want to, at least once in a while.

Let's get in the old time machine and go back about 100 years. But before we do, understand that in the debate about whether markets "pull" technological innovation forward, or technological invention is "pushed" into latent markets, there is no clear answer. Markets and technologies co-evolve in the most general sense. Here I'm talking about the technology of, and market for, organizing principles.

Back when the industrial revolution was much younger but in full swing, we as a civilized society found ourselves with an enormous, unprecedented production capacity due to an explosion of technological innovation. Things called factories and mills and other centers of production were springing up all over the place, before we really figured out how to organize or run them. Even the concept of "management" as we know it today had to be invented, and so did the modern form of production organization.

Then, traditional forms of organization were the church, the military, monarchies and governments, and the family. Those kinds of organizations were all that people knew about, or knew how to run. It became apparent that none would serve as the right model for running industry. Of several giants who worked almost contemporaneously on the same problem, a German Sociologist by the name of Max Weber came along. He hypothesized that the organization of the future would have to be one that replaced the caprice, nepotism, and arbitrariness that management then "enjoyed," by a new style of management and organization characterized by:

The presence of rules and procedures, defining how the organization would and would not be allowed to run. Thus, the workplace would be reasonably predictable, and routines could be established and understood. This was to be coupled with a system of written communication and records, establishing organizational memory and continuity;

Specialization and division of labor. Each person, including the manager, would have a clearly defined job and clear tasks to perform. People would work in rational accordance with their skills, in departments organized by skill sets, or business functions;

A clear hierarchy of authority; and a clear chain of command from bottom to top. Thus downward lines of authority and communication would also be established and means of supervision and control would be clear;

Hiring and advancement based on technical competence, rather than family, or some other form of succession that had little-to-nothing to do with merit; and

Separation of the position/office from the incumbent. In other words, the manager, or office-holder, would hold authority if, and only to the extent that, he held a particular office. Other than that, his authority over others did not exist at all.

In fact, the difference between the "office" and the "manager" was the key to it all. The German word for office is bureau, and the new theory of authority and organization was called bureaucracy. However, while Weber wrote and theorized around the time of Fayol and Taylor, he was not translated into English until the middle part of the 20^th century, which explains why most references to Weber are of that time (especially 1947, the year of an important translation.)

Think about organizations with no rules, no clear chain of command, with people who think that they have some inherent right to their offices and to boss you around, no formal system of advancement based on merit, and people working in haphazard groupings. Maybe you feel like you work in exactly such a place now, but do you really?

These days, we are so used to the best of bureaucracy, we just assume it as common sense and notice only the bad part - the red tape, the impersonality, the inflexibility of petty people with no personal investment in the outcomes of their jobs. That's what we usually mean when we refer to bureaucracy, isn't it? But just about every professional organization is, first and foremost, bureaucratic, and we have that German sociologist to thank for it.

Oh, I also think General Custer was a genius. But don't get me started.