Carnival of the Bureaucrats #4

I am pleased to report that the Carnival of the Bureaucrats continues to expand.

This month’s Bureaucratic Hero is Grigori Perelman. Until recently, Mr. Perelman worked for the Steklov Institute of Mathematics. Mr. Perelman’s insistence on excellence, dedication, an ethical work environment, and no money makes him eminently worthy of being honored with the prize of Bureaucratic Hero of the Month. Unfortunately, Mr. Perelman has recently suffered some career setbacks (see video below). Excellence is often not appropriately honored. I hope that this prize will encourage Mr. Perelman’s institutional supervisors and bureaucratic colleagues to recognize the true merits of Mr. Perelman’s work.

Honorable Mention goes to Anthea Norman-Taylor, a middle manager in the musical entertainment industry. Ms. Norman-Taylor recently shared this keen insight:

it’s important for kids to do boring things too. Because if you can find excitement in something boring, then you’re set up for life. Whereas if you constantly need entertainment, you might have a problem, because life is full of things that aren’t entertaining. [quoted by her husband in Johnson, last paragraph].

Not just kids, but also bureaucrats around the world can draw deep inspiration from this important wisdom.

Additional qualifying and meritorious submissions:

Meetings are a major activity in a bureaucracy. David Maister offers a useful procedure for calculating the IQ of a meeting.

The Engaging Brand offers a 12-step program for promoting organizational elimination.

Tracy Coenen at Sequence Inc. reports that the IRS is using outside debt collectors. One has to wonder whether these debt collectors will be able to maintain the IRS’s standards of bureaucratic action.

Ian Welsh at the Agonist offers insights into measurements for management:

As manager you probably don’t really know what your employees are doing. You probably don’t really understand what is required to do the job well. However unless you’ve beat them down too hard, or you’ve got a crew of reprobates, most people want to do a good job. Most people want to be able to say “damn, we’re good!” Don’t treat them like untrustworthy children, and you may find that they’re on your side and that measuring only the bottom line, on the minimum, is sufficient. When you go to war with your employees and try and measure every specific behaviour, generally both sides lose.

Aleksandr Kavokin at rdoctor.com offers a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Quiz. He notes: “working in an office you becom prone to carpal tunnel problems. SInce majority of bereaucrats do, watch your health.”

Bill Losapio reports that government inefficiency occurs. He explains:

Even if government folk have the absolute best of intentions, (many of whom indeed do), they are stripped of the only real tools – price, profit, and competition for scarce resources — they need to understand where money is best used. Instead, they take money by force and divvy it up according to factors like population, demographics, and financial need, not to mention political uses like bribery and extortion (don’t fool yourself – it happens all the time). Often, the assumption is that people in government mean well, so whatever they do surely should have more of our tax money (“Hey, they won’t cut corners, ya know? They’re not worried about profit.”).

Along with his submission to the Carnival of the Bureaucrats, Mr. Losapio remarked:

[author works for a defense contractor and has received at least one pen/pencil set from his employer ;)] Discussion of bureaucracy and the need for it to be minimized (despite the fact that many folk rely on it for their livelihood)

While some might question Mr. Losapio’s conclusions, his credentials for a qualifying submisson are clearly valid.

Generative Transformation (GT) revisits leadership and concludes:

Become self-aware and impeccable with your word/thoughts/actions and leadership shall become you. Make self-awareness and integrity your life practice and the world is yours.

I can’t offer you a way to win the world here at purple motes, but I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Carnival of the Bureaucrats. Submit your blog article to the next edition using our carnival submission form. Submissions should conform to the Carnival regulations. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.