The Rule of 3 Layers

Bureaucracy is a funny thing, it starts out as a way to make things run smoothly and make it easier to manage far flung operations. It makes a process standard and it is insurance for managers that things will run smoothly.  We learn the procedures, we fill in the dubious and copious forms and we hang our heads while we push the process along.  In the beginning, it helps keep the organization afloat.

But bureaucracy has a dark side; when it grows too big the problem with bureaucracy reveals itself.

Workers at the low end are constantly working towards the goal of making things work.  They are the foot soldiers that get things done.  They don't need reminding if what is important to keep the money coming in and the customers happy. 

Managers, well they are like managers everywhere - they live to make sure they control of their little fiefdoms with all the perks and pay packets. Managers have it easy but they are also responsible and they turn in the odd good year performance.

But on the side of the middle layers - the people that don't feel personally accountable for the work - they tend to lose the big picture.  Who wouldn't want the pay of a mid level bureaucrat without the stress at the low end or the risk at the high end? Those without the yoke or the lash have a precarious job;  they aren't strictly needed and when things get tight they look like an excess.  Middle bureaucrats have a self interest in keeping their work.  And of course, the story told to their managers bears that out.  And over time the need, or so it is told, for more middle level bureaucracy to increase. 

So here's where things get interesting;  how do you reconcile the company's need to perform with the personal need to justify the papertrail?  What is the self-interest for a bureaucrat to make things streamlined? More efficient administration decreases the need for their services!  So this is where the tension from making things efficient hits a log jam and gets derailed.  If anything, bureaucracy tends to blossom over time and needs paring to make it manageable.

So here is the rule of 3 layers.  Any organization should have no more than 3 layers.  There should be no more than 3 managers between the CEO at the top and the workers at the bottom. This is a simple way to keep the ideas and direction of the company in unison.