To: corporate managers, re: bureaucracy; don't send memos!

• Author: Peters, Thomas J.

To: Corporate Managers

Re: Bureaucracy

DON'T SEND MEMOS!

Moaning about bureaucracy is a time-honored management prerogative. Now, however, bureaucracy is beyond moaning about; it is a block to survival. The campaign against bureaucracy must become a priority of the first order. I cannot provide you with the will to do it. I can simply tell you that it can be done, that it must be done if we are no move faster and liberate people--managers and nonmanagers alike--to perform up to their potential.

Fortunately, there are people and firms that have beaten back bureaucracy's seemingly inevitable encroachment:

A division general manager in a large high-technology firm raised from $25 to $200 the amount his engineers could spend without getting approval. The accountants screamed. Following imposition of the new standard, spending plummeted 60 percent. He explained: "That wasn't the point, cutting costs. It was to quit treating them like kids. But you know what happened, of course. With the $25 limit, it was "Let's see how many $24.99s we can tack together without authorization.' It was a time-consuming game--"We can out-Mickey Mouse you, boss.' Now, with the $200, people say, in effect, "Hey, that's a lot of money I'm responsible for.' They look at it as theirs.'

In The Intuitive Manager, journalist Roy Rowan reports: "[Ross] Perot claims he operated a memo-less company. Like Napoleon, who reputedly tossed out all written reports from his generals, figuring he'd already heard the important news, Perot prefers to conduct all of his business by personal contact. "Written reports stifle creativity,' he says.'

The New York Times recently reported that antibureaucrat Ken Iverson of Nucor Corporation, a steel manufacturer, maintains an "executive dining room': "[He] has designated as the executive dining room the Chinese restaurant and delicatessen--usually the deli--in the shopping center across the street from Nucor's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.'

Nordstrom, a $1.9 billion retailer, gets by with a one-sentence policy manual: "Use your best judgment at all times.'

Everyone talks about cutting red tape. A few do it. Why not the rest of us? How do you reduce the policy manual to a sentence? Or raise engineers' spending limits, in one step, by a factor of almost ten? Or stop sending memos?

Mars bars

Start with the voluminous rules. Betsy Sanders, vice-president of Nordstrom, acknowledges that the one-line "policy manual' drives Nordstrom's lawyers...