Tuesday, May 15, 2012

How to Combat Bureaucracy? (Part I)

What is bureaucracy? It is an inefficient organization that is wasteful and chaotic in nature. How can we combat bureaucracy? One word – circles. To understand how circles can offset bureaucracy we must first look at how the universe and matter are organized. Our solar system consists of 8 planets circling the sun. Matter consists of atoms with electrons circling the nucleus made up of protons and neutrons. In other words, the shape that best describes organization and the natural stability of our existence is the circle, not the square or triangle.

Thus, it begs to reason that the best way to organize intersections and cities is using a circular grid instead of a square grid. Circles at intersections were at one point common, but increased traffic and human error has forced cities to use a less efficient means to control traffic using stop lights and stop signs. In effect, chaos at intersections caused government officials to intervene to solve the problem by introducing more waste and inefficient measures to make the situation even more chaotic and less efficient. After all, city lights are red much longer than they are green (80% to 20%), and 4 way stops are more common than 2 way stops.

Now let’s examine how the government and corporations are organized. They are all organized in a pyramid fashion. The executive branch of the federal government for example, has the President at the top. Below him are cabinet leaders and czars. One cabinet such as Homeland Security has various organizations within it including the CIA and the FBI. Each of these organizations includes hundreds of other entities. Information flow generally starts from the top and very rarely flows from the bottom up or from side to side. In other words, critical information obtained by a CIA agent will rarely make it to the head of the CIA and it will most certainly never make its way over to the FBI. Meanwhile; corporations are organized the same way. At the top they have a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) reporting to a board of directors. Below the CEO are the chief operating officer, the head of human resources, the head of facilities, the head of research and development and so forth. Under each of these headings could be hundreds of more entities, groups, and organizations which oversee hundreds of more organizations and groups. Once again, the flow of information generally comes from the top down and rarely goes from the bottom up or from side to side. In reality, most government and corporate organization charts are much more convoluted than a pyramid shape with responsibility and accountability going every which way.

Government programs are also organized in a chaotic fashion and most do not resemble any shape. Take for instance, the flowchart for the ObamaCare legislation that recently passed: http://docs.house.gov/gopleader/House-Democrats-Health-Plan.pdf. This is a nightmare and there is no way something organized in such a complex manner can be run efficiently. Thus, ObamaCare will fail beneath the chaos of its organization that will be inefficient, wasteful, and bureaucratic. A simple way to illustrate the complex and bureaucratic organization of ObamaCare legislation: Can anyone find the patient in the ObamaCare flowchart?

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

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