The Tyranny of Mid-Level Bureaucracy
By Richard J. McGowan

Process -- the orderly and responsible progression of ideas to product -- has too often become a device for a type of suffocating manipulation. Neither the private nor public sectors can accomplish anything when myriad procedures are required for almost every decision. And, neither the public nor private sectors are immune from the disease commonly described as paralysis-by-analysis. Unfortunately, neutral efficiency has become a vitality-draining weapon.

Like a politician who cannot make a decision without first taking a poll, the manager who demands multiple procedures for almost every decision is equally hamstrung. Yet, there are those who have carved out a particular niche in both corporations and government -- the determination never to allow a viable idea to flow directly from the drawing board to the proverbial boardroom.

The tyranny of mid-level bureaucracy is endemic. It feeds on preventing ideas from reaching top management; or at least ideas deemed innovative or slightly radical. Why?

Well, the answer is glaringly simple. Ideas are political … and mid-level managers, weaned on the ideology of an organization, cannot in good conscience allow a radical idea to gain acceptance. Ego and job longevity are also involved. Whatever the cause, infectious thinking is infecting the decision-making process.

All too often, firms denigrate internal public relations, ignoring the in-house selling of ideas. All too often, managers or CEOs are on one side of the corporate moat while mid-level bureaucrats dictate which ideas move forward.

One obvious solution is to appoint an "ombudsman for ideas" within a company. He could support or overrule the decisions of lower level managers and pass on innovative proposals to the right people in the organization. He would keep managers from developing proprietary or political obsessions, energizing, instead, their decision-making skills.

Finally, it would rally and reward creative employees whose ideas would, at last, be given fair and adequate airings.

Problem solving involves knowledge sharing. Procedures need to be simplified. Responsibility needs to replace process. Thinking needs to replace rules. And management needs to know that the newest member of the firm just might have the best idea in the building.

Richard J. McGowan, former White House Correspondent for The New York Daily News, served in the Reagan-Bush and Bush-Quayle Administrations. A regular contributor to APS Review, McGowan was public affairs director for six federal agencies and also worked on Capitol Hill.

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