Busting Bureaucracy with Radical Management

To transform organizations so that they are fit for human beings--more inspiring and engaging and yet just as disciplined and even more productive--we need to understand why promising ideas for improving management developed in the 20th Century--such as teams, empowerment, delayering or innovation--failed to become a permanent part of the standard management repertoire.

These improvements didn't stick because of the mental model around management should be conducted that is still remarkably pervasive in the Fortune 500. It comprises five interlocking principles.

The most important principle is that the goal of a firm is to make money for the shareholders. Second, the role of the managers is that of a controller of individuals, generally using a blend of carrots and sticks. Third, coordination of work is achieved through bureaucracy: rules, plans, reports and meetings. Fourth, the overriding value in the organization is efficiency, namely, saving money to enhance profits, often through economies of scale. Fifth, communications are top-down, telling subordinates what to do and often how to do it.