Around the world, productivity growth has stalled out. While some hope that a “second machine age” will reverse the slump, Professor Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini from the MLab think that wringing bureaucracy out of the economy offers a more promising and less speculative route to boosting productivity. By their calculations, busting bureaucracy would add $3 trillion to economic growth in the US alone. Dismantling bureaucracy won’t be easy, but it has to happen – bureaucracy must die.

To illustrate the cost of bureaucracy, please see the chart below which is from an investor presentation made by Handelsbanken in 2014.  It’s a great summary of the “bureaucracy tax”, that we find in most organisations:

Gary and Michele have just written a working paper summarizing their findings and providing a blueprint for abolishing the bureaucracy tax in organizations. They value your feedback on this paper; so thanks in advance for your contribution!

About the Management Lab (MLab):

Together with Polly LaBarre, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini are the founders of the MLab that focuses on helping organizations build tomorrow’s capabilities today – to become as resilient, innovative, and inspiring as they need to meet 21st century challenges. They have launched the world’s largest open innovation platform (the Management Innovation eXchange) involving 10s of 1000s of management innovators in “crowd solving” tough management challenges; developed a methodology and a platform for changing how large organizations change; and cultivated a vibrant network of vanguard leaders and organizations – all focused on reinventing management for the 21st century.

We hope the above sounds familiar to you… Yes – we are indeed fighting the same fight!