INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION, AND POWER WITHIN A BUREAUCRACY
By: Clark Staten
Executive Director
Emergency Response & Research Institute
By: Clark Staten
Executive Director
Emergency Response & Research Institute
A radical change is occurring within the world. It is happening outside the recognition of most people. This change involves information, communication, and power. It also involves a transition of power from the "traditional bureaucracies" into an advanced organizational structure. So as to gain a better comprehension of these ideas, it is necessary to understand the form of today's typical bureaucracy. By review and learning from the past and present, it becomes possible to understand the future.
Alvin Toffler, in his insightful examination of these issues entitled "Powershift", points out that the world has undergone a gradual transformation from an agrarian (farm based) society, into a pre-industrial (small business) civilization, to a "Smoke-Stack" (factory assembly line) mentality, and finally is becoming a primarily service based economy. During this transition, Toffler says that the power of information has increased proportionally with the advances of technology. Toffler's main hypothesis is that there are three main sources of "power" . . .
Many existing organization structures can be shown to use a combination of these "power tools" to achieve management of their resources and personnel. Most private and government bureaucracies have evolved from a "smoke stack" management style that assured that all tasks were broken down into the smallest possible pieces (compartmentalization) and that workers did not have the "mentality" to discuss, learn, plan, or organize their work.
These "traditional" organizations placed various layers of management personnel to oversee the operations of the small pieces and to insure cooperation between the "compartments". Ideas, information, benefits, motivation, higher pay, and organizational direction flowed only from the higher levels of management to the "lower-level worker drones" at the bottom of the organizational chart.
A "production-line" or "piece-work approach" was shown to increase production and it led to systems to mass-produce goods and services. In turn, this abundance of production increased the profitability of a business and propagated further utilization in this management style. "Interchangability" of both parts and employees was thought to be the answer to increased productivity. In fact, this idea did work in many emerging industries and professions.
Simply put, more of anything was thought to be better. The quality and durability of a product was not considered as significant as the quantity produced. It was believed that production and profits could be vastly increased by simply turning up the "speed of the assembly line". For several decades, the concept and process seemed to work.
Bureaucracies came into being to give some finite structure and order to the increasing number of vice-presidents, managers, sub-managers, supervisors, and job bosses; who were nominally "in charge" of all of the assembly lines and "compartments" that had been created. At the historical time of their creation, these varying levels of management were probably relevant to the general function of a company or government agency. It was a time of excess, a time when working conditions and employee safety were disregarded in favor of expediency and profits. Supervisors were allowed a tyrannical approach to management. More and larger departments were added as capacity for production increased. It was also a time that led to the inception of employee unions and collective bargaining.
Many bureaucracies became further controlled, organized, and some would say burdened, by adding additional layers of management. These additional managers were deemed justified to insure that the "organized (unionized) workers" were performing as expected. Other layers of management were added to counteract or specialize in areas that were not constrained by the traditional organizational structures or union regulation. Yet other layers of management were added to "reward" those thought to be loyal, subservient, and compliant with the existing management structure. Indeed, with "mass production" came specialization of management.
Toffler accurately describes the two main features of power within bureaucracies as being "cubbyholes" and "channels". According to Toffler, specialized executives control "cubbyholes". "Cubbyholes" are places where we group people, information, resources, records, and functions. "Cubbyholes" are places that fit neatly on organizational charts and can hypothetically be easily managed. Senior managers and executives can be made aware that "so and so" problem should be solved by "so and so section/bureau/division/area", because that is "their bailiwick" (area of responsibility). Several "cubbyholes" may report to a single manager, although "cubbyholes" that are somehow perceived as being more important will probably have their own manager.
"Channels", on the other hand, are the way that information, motivation, and direction get from one place in the organization to another. Managers gain their power by controlling and filtering any flow of information, either "up or down" the tightly structured chain of command. By influencing this flow of information or knowledge, managers are perceived as powerful or lacking power. Without an effective flow of "wisdom" from one place in an organization, to another; duplicity, inefficiency, and disorganization are likely to result. Some managers are firm believers in a very strict interpretation of a formal "Chain of Command" structure and procedure . . .for this very reason.
Until the arrival of computers and their almost unlimited power to categorize, organize, store and analyze information, the "cubbyhole and channel" approach seemed the best way to control and manage the varied and many functions within a growing business. After all, many said, the system could be endlessly expanded to fit the needs of the organization by adding more cubbyholes and selecting managers to communicate between them. The "folly" of this approach, however, has finally begun to become known.
As both government and private industries have recently come to realize, the diversification and complexity of the world society is causing dramatic changes at such a rapid rate that the "cubbyhole and channel" approach of the past is not adequate to the task of managing the vast amounts of data, information, and analysis that are necessary to function.
Some astute analysts have even suggested that this "speedup" in the flow of change makes an organization's data, skills, and knowledge extremely fragile. Everything upon which decisions are being made is in a constant state of decay, disintegration, and regeneration. This constant state of "flux" causes some cubbyholes to be overflowing with new ideas, information and concepts; still others have become practically empty and useless, as their expertise and information sinks into obsolescence.
As the abilities of government agencies, companies and the consumer to communicate and interact continue to improve, the process of change will continue to accelerate. The public's perception of any organization today is shaped by the information about it that is disseminated by the mass media and a rapidly expanding ability of common citizens to personally gather data. Often, what starts out to be a relatively benign remark or act may have tremendous impact on a company, government, or entire country . . . when it is amplified by computer, satellite, radio, and television communication. The magnitude of this ability to rapidly alter the public perception must change the way that organizations are managed.
The most difficult problem of all . . . is how to change the "cubbyhole" and "channel" mentality that has been described by Toffler. In a large number of companies, in the military, in almost all government agencies, and in many other organizations, the strict "Chain of Command" and "compartmentalization" theories are firmly entrenched. To attempt to change the bureaucracy is to diminish or change the essence and reality of the POWER structure within those organizations. That will surely be resisted at almost every level of the bureaucracy, largely due to the fact that it will cause a shifting of POWER and it's inherent privileges.
A reshaping of power also changes those that wield it. Personnel changes are as inevitable as the forces that will cause the upheaval in the first place. Those that are perceived as having the necessary information, and know how to use it, will undoubtedly profit from the emergence of change.
Senior management is rationally more interested in being able to obtain the information that needs, when it needs it . . . than where it comes from. Some "links in the chain of command" are very aware of their significance in the transference of information and technical data. In the face of possible change, they may withhold worthwhile facts from one manager, while providing it to another, in hopes of furthering their importance and security within the organization.
Managers who are not deemed to be desirable by the "specialist compartments" may be bypassed in the movement and filtering of information. Senior executives that need research on a particular topic may be given incomplete or incorrect information, so as to discredit them or their plans for change. A "deathly" internal struggle is likely to occur in any organization that strives to change the way they accumulate, analyze, and distribute information or "knowledge".
Undoubtedly, as the quantity and quality of available information increases, those that can most readily access and utilize it will become more valuable to any organization. Those with the communications and computer skills necessary to implement a major "cultural" revolution within a company are likely to be given additional responsibilities and rewards. In fact, in some companies and agencies, we have already seen an appearance of a new class of employee called the "Management Information System" (or M.I.S.) specialists.
During the early days of computers, when computers were enormous machines that filled entire rooms, an "elite" group of corporate men and women began to emerge. "Mainframe" computers were the answer, or so they said. These "giant brains" were thought to be able to bring control and order to the chaos that was the rapidly growing and changing organization of the day. They could control everything that happened in the company. Of course, the only people that had sufficient knowledge to operate these gargantuan machines were the people making the recommendations, but that didn't seem to matter to senior management because it was consistent with the idea of "compartmentalizing" of specialist tasks.
Managers and executives of every rank were called upon to go to the M.I.S. specialists ("data gurus") to obtain or analyze information that could be helpful in the furtherance of sectional, department, or organizational goals. Resource allocation, promotions, production strategies, and planning processes were all determined by M.I.S. (Management Information Systems) professionals, who may have had little working knowledge of the task at hand . . . but knew, well, how to work the computer. With this knowledge of a series of binary numbers came POWER.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a revolution that spawned and will help to shape the future of "knowledge" began to take place. The introduction of the "Micro" or "Personal" computer (P.C.), by IBM and several other companies, changed the entire complexion of computing. The immense power that had been accumulated by the data processing professionals of the "Secret Data Society" in the "Mainframe Days" was being eroded by a collection of supposedly "underpowered" and "weak" microprocessors that were assuming many functions previously performed within the M.I.S. compartment. With this transference of information, went a modicum of power.
Although resisted by the dataprocessing professionals, who had a vested interest in maintaining the "mainframe mentality" that only they understood, the "Micro-revolution" continued. P.C.s (personal computers) were then successfully attached to each other by cables, in networks, that allowed direct communication and information sharing within companies. Then, links were established by telephone modem (modulator/demodulator) to allow intercompany and even interstate communication. By the mid-1980's, a P.C. user with the correct "uplink" equipment could transmit data around the world by means of satellite communication. With this ability to communicate, send, and receive data, power came to the individual desktop. It drastically reduced the need for specialization and compartmentalization. The "channels" had been opened.
Developments in computer and communication technology should change the workplace of tomorrow. So as to keep up with the rapidly changing developments of other industries and world events, professional leaders must drastically reshape the way they think and conduct their business. The technology is available or rapidly being developed that will allow them to end the practice of frequently piling information into specialized cubbyholes.
Greatly increased computer storage and retrieval technology will allow executives and designated others to immediately access vast amounts of data and usable facts from their desktop workstation. Access to this information can be made available to as many people as need be, and new input also can be constantly added as it is compiled or obtained from other databases. Some types of information can be accessed in "real time" and can be expected to measurably improve an agency's or company's response to dynamic events.
The need or desire for "channeling" of information can be greatly diminished by using computer networks that allow parallel access to mutually readable and writeable databases. Communications also can take place in "real time" and involve simultaneous analysis of information as it is being received. "Expert systems" (artificial intelligence) will increase our productivity by translating data into a format that is easily understood and that can be readily utilized by almost anybody.
Faster and faster C.P.U.s (Central Processing Units) in our desktop computers will allow us to run more sophisticated software that also will improve our productivity. By processing multiple millions of instructions per second, we will be able to calculate, write, and manipulate text and images at a previously unimagined speed. Multi-media computers will incorporate video, sound, and television into our computers. Multitasking of programs will allow us to be monitoring live world events in a small "window" on our computer screen, while a spreadsheet is recalculating in another, and we are typing a memo to the "boss" in a third. Or even more . . .
With this increased speed and improved connectivity will come a change in power structures within the corporate and governmental bureaucracies. Traditional power concepts will be replaced by computer generated ones. As "assembly-line" management theories are replaced by open and communicating power structures, the ones with the greatest power will be the ones with the "best" information. As we gain a greater grasp of world events and can observe them in "real time", those that can rapidly analyze and respond to changes will have greater opportunities. Those that will have the best information are those with the greatest communication and data gathering capability.
An absence of need for conventional management tactics will be created as computer interconnected managers and employees communicate and "interface" to and from almost anyplace. Smaller and more powerful "laptop" computers and cellular modems will allow employees to be located almost anywhere and still be able to "telecommute" to work. World-wide paging and telephone services will connect all of the continents by satellite "hook-up". Even the most remote sites will be accessible by "live" video, voice and computer access; thus allowing "real time" knowledge of dynamic events.
Those that refuse to participate in this "technocratic revolution" will undoubtedly suffer for their reluctance. Other companies and agencies will obtain the necessary intelligence to "put them out of business". Government budgets dollars will go to the most prepared, best informed, and most efficient agencies. Business contracts will go to companies that can provide the best products at the lowest prices. Analysis of who are "the best and brightest" will be made easier than at any time in history, largely due to the improved computer capabilities of those doing the evaluation.
The size, shape, qualities, and quantities of power can be expected to be transfigured by knowledge in the coming years. In other words, those with appropriate knowledge can be expected to be able to make the choices that can make them healthy, wealthy, and wise. Power and money will gravitate to those that have the knowledge that is needed by others. Those that understand the new technologies of information gathering and dissemination will benefit the most from an increasingly more mobile and rapidly changing society.
Those who would wish to effectively gain and use power must; first . . . understand the dynamics, nature and complexity of power, second . . . accumulate the facts, information, and data, that will empower them, and third . . . exercise it in a fair, open, humane, and considerate manner.
(C) Clark Staten & Emergency Response & Research Institute,
1994-5; Electronically reprinted with prior permission of RESPONDER Magazine.
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