These changes are having a huge impact on travel and how we work, shop and live. Never before has there been more need for inspired thinking in order for travel agents to survive; nor has there been a greater need to open our minds to ideas from those who can offer new perspectives.
Of all the inventions spawned by the industrial revolution, bureaucracy was perhaps the most significant. Standardisation enabled organisations to achieve unprecedented efficiency. Today, bureaucracy is the “standard operating system” for virtually every large-scale organisation. But for such organisations to succeed, bureaucracy must go.
Today’s employees are skilled, communication is instant and the pace of change exponential. Yet our organisations are still held hostage by the bureaucratic legacy and so are less adaptable than they could be. Bureaucracy is a tax on human effort and a drag on productivity.
The solution? Wring bureaucracy out of the economy. Some experts say this would add billions to economic output in the UK alone. However, bureaucracy is well defended. Leaders who learned how to succeed bureaucratically are not eager to change the game rules. Bureaucracy is also useful – it has enabled human beings to master complexity at scale. So what will it take to reduce its hold on organisations?
First, according to a Gallup survey, two out of three employees are not “involved, enthusiastic about or committed to their work and workplace” – though this is not the case at Barrhead. The survey suggests people show up to work but leave their initiative at home. Thus, organisations waste more human capacity than they use, creating a system in which most employees are seen as doers, not thinkers. Bosses would do well to ask staff what they think – and listen to them, giving a better idea of what folk want than those in ivory towers. We strive to do this.
Second, data. Bureaucrats pay heed to what can be measured. That is why every organisation needs to calculate its BMI (bureaucracy mass index). The first step is to establish a baseline, with the goal of steadily shrinking the BMI. It is crucial to make the costs of bureaucracy visible to the entire organisation.
Third, role models. There are few organisations where frontline staff elect their leaders, where strategy is crowd-sourced or self-managing teams have done away with the need for formal hierarchy. But they exist, and are more profitable than their bureaucratic peers.
We must change the way we change. Top-down change is powerless to uproot bureaucracy. You need a company-wide effort to reinvent the management model around principles such as trust, transparency, meritocracy, subsidiarity and experimentation. The biggest risk to prosperity is a hierarchical model that stifles initiative and creativity.
Bureaucracy can be beaten, but only with an approach that is bold.
Bill Munro is chairman of Barrhead Travel Group
