01.18.09
Influencing change in a bureaucracy
It already sounds difficult doesn’t it?
A bureaucracy, as defined by Warren Bennis (1969) cannot cope with:
- Rapid and unpredictable change
- The increasing complexity of modern organisation
- Diversity of specialist experience required in many organisations
- Humanistic, participative management styles
But before we start weighing up if an organisation is a bureaucratic one, we ought to be able to envisage what’s over on the other side of the spectrum. Well, this then would be an Adhocracy:
Adhocracy is a type of organisation design with is temporary, adaptive, creative, in contrast with bureaucracy which tends to be relatively permanent, rule-driven and inflexible. Adhocracy is similar to the concepts of organic and integrative styles; bureaucracy equates with mechanistic and segmentalist approaches.
I would add that an adhocracy is an organisation that is adept at continually improving itself.
Adhocracy Vs Bureaucracy
As a software consultancy we’re often asked to ‘transform’ an organisation from using a set of traditional software practices to more modern ones that we know achieve better results. Taking up some of these practices has direct repercussions on the way that IT departments organise themselves. Having been involved now in a few of these ‘organisation transformation’ projects, I’ve become increasingly convinced that from the outset we really need to get to grips with knowing exactly what type of company it is that we’re dealing with.
For example, as consultants if we go into an idealistic adhocracy our ‘change objective’ is going to be a great deal easier. Largely this is due to the client being used to change anyway; in fact change is part of their way of life and is embraced as such. In this situation we can do what good consultants do best, which is to implement change via a participatory approach. We can engage with workers in the ‘trenches’, and the good practices that we introduce will naturally ‘bubble out’ in an organic way, delivering change across the organisation.
The reality is though that most companies will have some bureaucratic traits in them. In order to answer this, we need to examine the question of ‘how do we tackle organisations that are veering towards being bureaucratic?’
Some consultancies, particularly the one I work for, would wish to encourage a participatory, collaborative way of spreading change through an organisation. By working with employees on a day-to-day basis, we can foster relationships that engender trust, and pave the way for individuals to try out new ways of doing things.
However, we must acknowledge that in organisations veering towards bureaucracy – i.e. ones with virtual ‘walls’ in place that separate out segmentalist units – such ‘organic’ change isn’t going to spread very far. Rather, by working in conjunction with people in the upper layers of an organisation, we will have the ability to propagate change downwards, and to try and possibly move a company along towards being more adhocratic. We can factor this approach in along with the ‘organic’, ‘bottom-up’ one, and so long as we synchronise up our efforts we may get a little more bang for our buck.
Going further, some researchers – Dunphy and Stace (1990 and 1996) argue that incremental and collaborative or consultative modes of change implementation can be highly inappropriate. For the survival of an organisation, where rapid change is absolutely necessary, transformative approaches will be effective when carried out in a directive and coercive manner.
It makes a little bit of sense in the end, that in order to change a ‘heavy’ bureaucracy we have to first embrace what a bureaucracy actually is and to play to its strengths.
Needless to say, if we’re working closely with the upper echelons of an organisation to help plan out a ‘directive’ change strategy, we’ll need to have a robust, comprehensive plan in place. We’ll need to have drawn up a roadmap of actions based on the original business objectives for change, performed an analysis of the major stakeholders, worked out how we’re going engage with the various sub-sections in the company; it’s a big task. Simply placing consultants in varying roles throughout the organisation and letting them work their magic isn’t going to cut it. The approach needs to be cohesive and well communicated.
It sounds somewhat obvious, but it’s really worth stressing that we really need to know up front what type of company it is that we’re dealing with when we’re asked to implement strategic change. An adhocracy? Great. A bureaucracy? Hmm…