gerard coughlan wrote:
> Ideally i wish to examine a bureaucracy where radical change has occured
> and see whether people at the bottom had an impact on the new direction.
> Bureaucracies are constructed to work from the top down, is it possible to
> work from the bottom up?
It might be worthwhile to examine a functioning bureaucracy, also. What a
lot of people forget it that functional hierarchies rely on lateral
communication (coordination of information and behavior) to get the job
done. This is despite the structure, which would seem to insist on
up/down relations and communications only. When lateral communications
stop (usually only because of a new boss who reasserts controls; or during
work-stoppages, among other reasons) the organization begins to operate
more slowly, even lethargically.
As far as bottom up influence--perhaps the following anecdote might
qualify:
During the mid-1980's, I worked in Europe, with the US Army, introducing
new weapons systems into the region. One of these systems was a main
battle tank, worth about $60 million (give or take) per copy. The time
came for a decision as to whether or not to accept this new weapon into
the theater--a decision based on countless hours of debate, anguish and
conversation, almost all with only senior managers and leaders. The
recommendation was presented in a large auditorium, where about a hundred
people had congregated to hear what the boss would decide.
A few people in the audience got their hands dirty for a living. Most of
the crowd in the room, and especially those who were briefing the
commander-in-chief for the US Army in europe, were senior managers (many
of whom were from the contractor). After the last briefing, the primary
briefer asked the commander to approve fielding the tank. The commander
looked over the room, and asked if there were any questions or comments.
There was only silence--for a moment--then from the back of the room, a
Louisiana drawl spoke up. "Well, sir--there's one thing," he said.
Everyone looked at him. The commander asked who was speaking, and the man
identified himself as a maintenance warrant officer in a tank battalion.
This was a guy that no one had ever asked any questions of--and when the
commander asked him what the issue was the answer was simply this.
"Well, sir, all of the nuts and bolts on this here new tank are
metric--and I only have a US standard tool kit!"
No one, among all of those highly paid and intelligent contractors and
project officers, had ever considered the tool box for these tanks. They
got their heads together and decided to send a tool kit with each box. If
the maintenance officer hadn't spoken, though, there would have been
hundreds of millions of dollars lost in attempting to perform maintenance
on these tanks.
-- Richard C. "Doc" Holloway, Thresholds--Human Development and Networking P.O. Box 2361, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 786-0925 Fax: (360) 709-4361 olypolys@nwrain.com"In questions of power . . . let us hear no more of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
-Thomas Jefferson
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>