The True Meaning of Bureaucracy

The True Meaning of Bureaucracy
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines bureaucracy as “ a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation .” You have, no doubt, heard or read other, even less flattering definitions and/or opinions of bureaucracy, particularly associated with national or local governments over loaded with middle management underachievers and endless rules and regulations. Unfortunately, many of the criticisms are fairly accurate.

The history of the term does it no favors either. The word originally became popularized in France shortly before the Revolution. Its positive connotations took a larger beating when the famous socialist, Karl Marx, embraced the theory as a beneficial method of governance and structure. Marx even theorized that bureaucracy was prevalent in most religions of the world.

The creation of rules for every possible action in the workplace, a strict hierarchy of management, and the objective of eliminating the ability of employees to think for themselves has consistently made bureaucratic organizations the target of valid criticism. An operating structure, as inflexible as a bureaucracy implies, seldom works efficiently in a living, breathing, evolving, and goal-driven company.

While it can be argued that the objective description of a bureaucracy is one that defines high levels of organization, structure, and chains of command (no attribute of which is inherently negative), just compare the performance of companies and governments using this structure to those that do not. In most cases, the bureaucratic organizations will rank lower than the non-bureaucratic entities in most operating and performance areas.

Minimizing Bureaucracy Might Improve Company Performance During Economic Problems
Research may show some proponents of bureaucracy during economic slowdowns and problems, but probably not many. You need not even bother to include the often criticized inefficiencies of national, state, and local government organizations using classic bureaucratic structures that tend to cause more operational problems than deliver solutions.

Economic problems and crises tend to expose “weaknesses” in the management, operations, or marketing functions. Many of these shortcomings are often related to inefficient or excess management personnel or inflexible structure that looks like bureaucracy. Stock answers like, “This is the way we’ve always done it” or “This is what our policy and procedures manual specifies” can quickly become a serious hindrance to success – and sometimes survival – during economic setbacks.

When companies face economic downturns, creating an atmosphere of “anti-bureaucracy” often helps performance. An environment of flexibility, creativity, internal friendly competition, incentives, brainstorming, and loyalty often increases individual and staff performance levels. While it is typically impossible to eliminate all levels of bureaucracy, nor would you want to, relaxing as much of the “red tape” and inflexible structure as possible may allow your employees to help solve the many problems caused by economic crises.

Even relatively minor modifications in the inflexible areas of a company’s structure can deliver increased performance. Sometimes these improvements are only temporary. However, during economic problem periods, even short-term performance increases might make the difference between success and failure in the future.