Humanocracy

 

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Counting the Cost

Bureaucracy is like pornography: it’s hard to find anyone who’ll defend it, but there’s a lot of it about. Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, calls bureaucracy a “villain.” Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, labels it “a disease,” while Charles Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, says the tentacles of bureaucracy should be treated “like the cancers they so much resemble.”

With enemies like these, you’d think bureaucracy would be on the run, but that’s not the case. Since 1983, the number of managers and administrators in the US workforce has more than doubled, while employment in all other occupations is up by only 44 percent. (See figure 3-1.)

FIGURE 3-1

Growth in US employment by job category ...