Fighting team bureaucracy

Teams in large companies often fall into a trap called bureaucracy. Obbeying all internal standards, approval processes results in a loss of flexibility. If you want to help your team avoid this trap, encourage their entrepreneurial spirit. You can try the following:

  • Entrepreneurial experiments: Ask one or two employees to push forward a project without prior time-consuming, detailed analysis. If their colleagues question this approach, support them.
  • Tell the rest of top management: Tell fellow managers what the results of your experiment  were. Make them understand and try to get their support.
  • Watch the costs: Track costs throughout the experiment in order to avoid big losses. Communicate them to the employees involved so that they understand the benefits of quick actions.

 

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Article source Harvard Business Review - flagship magazine of Harvard Business School
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