The Pandemic of Bureaucracy – Forbes

We must bring an end to the pandemic of bureaucracy.

Five days after the French Ministry of Health confirmed the first three coronavirus cases, the Institut Pasteur sequenced its entire genome, paving the way for developing a cure. The creativity and intelligence of human beings has always been the solution to big challenges worldwide.

A pandemic is an adjective describing a disease spread throughout an entire country, continent, or the entire globe. Although many have come to accept its inevitability, excess bureaucracy is a pandemic that needs urgent attention. As management thought leader Gary Hamel put it: We need a consensus among managers, academics and policy-makers that this is a problem on the scale of global warming, preserving biodiversity, or pursuing gender equality.

The costs of ignoring the spread of this disease are staggering: the Management Lab estimates that cutting the cost of bureaucracy in half would produce $3 trillion in additional output in the U.S. alone. The fight will not be easy. The virus causing the disease mutates in unpredictable ways, and is incredibly cunning in its ability to survive, hide in dark corners, and sicken economies with chronic and sometimes fatal consequences.

If one were to sequence the excess bureaucracy virus, what would it reveal?

One gene would likely include the lust for power, a precursor for building fiefdoms (with the fiefdom-builders on top, of course). Dr. Ian Robertson has described the biological basis to the addiction of power. It turns out that in both men and women, the exercise of power increases both the levels of testosterone and 3-androstanediol (a testosterone by-product). This chemical surge, in turn, increases dopamine levelsa short-term reward for the brain. It goes without saying that this gene is present in most if not all politicians worldwide.

The presence of the lust for power gene suggest one way to attack the bureaucracy virus: create organizations where people voluntarily give up power, organize around clear principles, and attract followers organically based through trust, respect, and communication.

Its time to apply urgency to the task. Theres no reason to accept the costly, permanent pandemic of excess bureaucracy.

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The Pandemic of Bureaucracy - Forbes