Wednesday, January 3, 2007
[106 B.C. - Cicero, Roman orator & statesman, born in Arpinum, Central Italy]
[1825 - Rensselaer School, (now Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute),
first U.S. engineering college, opens in Troy, New York.]
[1868 - Meiji Restoration in Japan]
[1892 - J.R.R. Tolkien, writer, born at Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State Province, South Africa)]
[1909 - Victor Borge (Borge Rosenbaum), pianist, comedian, born in Copenhagen, Denmark]
William's Theory of the Bureaucracy - Part 2
An institution that has existed for a decade or more has likely become a bureaucracy. This is true whether the institution is public or private, corporate, for-profit, nonprofit, charitable, benign, or sinister. The transition to bureaucracy is characterized by loss of focus on the original purpose for which the organization was created. This loss of purpose is replaced by a pervasive attitude in the institution that perceives the customer, constituent, client, patient, shareholder, founder, patron, student, applicant, passenger, citizen, congregant, or audience served as a mere necessary annoyance.
A number of organizations attain bureaucratic status in less than a decade; others may require the full 10 years. The rate at which bureaucratic maturity is reached, and the degree of ossification, are dependent on management. The exceptional leader can delay the inevitable; mediocre management may accelerate the process. Just as human beings gradually lose flexibility, so also do organizations. It is part of the management circle of life.
Poor William's Whimsical Words:
Bureaucracy is to institutions as senility is to living organisms.
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