As mentioned last
week, one of the structural tendencies of bureaucracy is centralization. So,
where does this tendency to centralize power and control come from?
Order and Freedom
In his
influential book Small Is Beautiful, British
economist E. F. Schumacher elaborates on the tension between order and freedom
that exists within virtually all organizations:
Nobody really likes
large-scale organisation; nobody likes to take orders from a superior who takes
orders from a superior who takes orders . . . Even if the rules devised by
bureaucracy are outstandingly humane, nobody likes to be ruled by rules, that
is to say, by people whose answer to every complaint is: “I did not make the
rules: I am merely applying them.”
Yet, it seems, large-scale organisation is
here to stay. Therefore it is all the more necessary to think about it and to
theorise about it. The stronger the current, the greater the need for skilful
navigation. . . .
In any organisation, large or small,
there must be a certain clarity and orderliness; if things fall into disorder,
nothing can be accomplished. Yet, orderliness, as such, is static and lifeless;
so there must be plenty of elbow-room and scope for breaking through the
established order. . . .
Therefore any organisation has to
strive continuously for the orderliness of order
and the disorderliness of creative freedom.
And the specific danger inherent in large-scale organisation is that its
natural bias and tendency favour order, at the expense of creative freedom.
We can associate many further pairs
of opposites with this basic pair of order and freedom. Centralisation is
mainly an idea of order; decentralisation, one of freedom. . . .
The larger an organisation, the more obvious and
inescapable is the need for order. But if this need is looked after with such
efficiency and perfection that no scope remains for man to exercise his
creative intuition, for entrepreneurial
disorder, the organisation becomes moribund and a desert of frustration.1
We should
probably view the tension between order and freedom, between centralization and
decentralization, through the lens of the question suggested in an earlier post:
Which is more important, the individual or the organization? If the answer is
the organization, then order and centralization should weigh more heavily than
creative freedom and decentralization. If, however, the individual is more
important than the organization, then freedom and decentralization should take
precedence.
Overregimentation
This question is
particularly relevant in the Church, because of its hybrid nature. While the
wards and stakes are in many ways a fine example of decentralization, in other
ways centralized bureaucracy has been the predominant pattern at both the local
and the general level for decades. Not surprisingly, some of the Brethren have
expressed varying degrees of discomfort with the inevitable fruits of
centralization. For instance, in a talk given at a regional representatives
seminar in1990, Elder Boyd K. Packer, comparing Church leaders to a team of
doctors, stated: “While we all seem to agree that over-medication,
over-programming, is a critically serious problem, we have failed to reduce the
treatments. It has been virtually impossible to affect any reduction in
programs. Each time we try, advocates cry to high heaven that we are putting
the spiritual lives of our youth at risk. If symptoms reappear, we program even
heavier doses of interviews, activities, meetings, and assessments. . . . In
recent years I have felt, and I think I am not alone, that we were losing the
ability to correct the course of the Church.” He then suggested that “the most
dangerous side effect of all we have prescribed in the way of programming and
instruction and all, is the overregimentation of the Church. This
overregimentation is a direct result of too many programmed instructions.”2
In other words, too much order, too much control, too much centralization.
Similarly, in a
2004 presentation to a worldwide audience of ward and stake leaders, Elder
Richard G. Scott quoted a 1940 memorandum from the First Presidency that
conveyed their concern about the regimentation that can occur in the Church if
leaders are too directive or programs too prescriptive. “The work of the
Church, in all fields, is standing in grave danger of being regimented down to
the minutest detail. The result of that will be that not only will all
initiative be crushed out but that all opportunity for the working of the
spirit will be eliminated. The Church has not been built on that principle. In
all their work, the Auxiliaries must not only give opportunity for initiative,
but . . . must encourage it.”3 The fruits of centralization were
apparent in 1940, and they certainly have not diminished in the intervening
seventy-five years. Indeed, the bureaucracy grew more dense and difficult with
the implementation of Correlation in the 1960s, and by the turn of the
millennium it had become so cumbersome that it yielded the candid admission from
President Gordon B. Hinckley that I quoted last week: “As thrilling as [Church]
growth was, he abhorred bureaucracy and at times felt himself swimming
helplessly against a mounting tide.”4
But it has not been
just President Hinckley or a few of his apostolic colleagues who have expressed
frustration over Church bureaucracy. As I have talked with various people about
organizational issues (and as I have listened to or overheard others speaking
spontaneously), I am amazed at how many have had some sort of unpleasant
encounter with the Church bureaucracy. I have a friend, for instance, who was
looking for a job several years ago and applied for a position as a sales rep
with a large computer manufacturer. He happened to meet the man who had vacated
the position and asked him why. The reason was that his major account was the
LDS Church, and it was so frustrating dealing with the Church bureaucracy that
he quit his job and looked for something less stressful. Those who have worked
inside the bureaucracy have an intimate acquaintance with the difficulties
centralization and heavy top-down management can create. Schumacher’s observation
that too much emphasis on order produces organizations that are “moribund and a
desert of frustration” certainly rings true to me based on my seven plus years
with the Curriculum Department. And just this week I sat in a meeting at BYU
with a former Church Magazines colleague whose feelings about working at Church
headquarters mirror my own.
So, is it
possible to defuse bureaucracy? Certainly. But it involves a reshuffling of
values, perhaps even a discarding of certain notions that have become extremely
entrenched in the organization. To start with, organizational values such as
malleability (requiring people to conform to organizational needs), strict
obedience to institutional edict (never being allowed to question anything that
comes down the line of authority), and paternalism (treating employees like
little children) need to be abandoned. The desire for members to exercise
creative freedom needs to outweigh the desire for order (or control). Trust is
imperative. Allowing the democratic aspect of the Church to blossom again after
decades of being chased into the wilderness by the theocratic impulse is also
necessary. These are all topics I’ve addressed in recent weeks. They are also
incredibly difficult changes to make, especially for an institution that has carefully
and intentionally nurtured a top-down culture, but they are imperative if
Church leaders really want to tame the bureaucracy. If, on the other hand, maintaining
central control and enforcing cultural and behavioral uniformity end up being
too dear to give up, then we must simply resign ourselves to dealing with an
increasingly intractable bureaucracy. What we must recognize, however, is that
this is a choice. We are not (contrary to President Hinckley’s sentiment)
helpless in the face of a mounting tide of bureaucracy.
Change in the Wind?
This discussion
may not be totally pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. The wind may actually be
shifting slightly. The fact that Church leaders have recognized the dangers of
overregimentation is significant. Changes in the new Church handbooks are encouraging.
An Ensign article introducing some of
these changes stated: “The handbooks provide greater simplification and
flexibility to avoid two great dangers, according to President Boyd K.
Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The first is the danger
of regimenting the influence of the Holy Ghost out of Church programs. ‘It is a
spiritual work that we are about,’ he said, ‘and a spiritual work must be guided
by the Spirit.’ The second is the danger of ‘establishing the Church without
establishing the gospel.’” The article goes on to say that the changes are
“meant to reduce the complexity of Church programs and allow some local
adaptation where necessary without sacrificing the uniformity of policies,
procedures, and programs”5—a perfect description of the uneasy
tension that exists between creative freedom and order, between centralization
and decentralization. This is of course a delicate balancing act—allowing local
adaptation while preserving uniformity—but the fact that some space has been
allowed for change is an acknowledgement that Church leaders understand this
inherent tension and the dangers of its elimination.
How these changes
play out in practice will be interesting to observe, because, as Elder Packer
suggested, bureaucracy does not easily yield territory it has won, nor does it
readily loosen its grip on the lives of those it controls. As Schumacher points
out, the larger an organization grows, the more inescapable and obvious becomes
its need to maintain order. Not surprisingly, the compulsion to preserve order
(and uniformity) can overwhelm the impulse toward freedom and creativity and
toward the unpredictability they inevitably generate.
The Spirit, I
would suggest, fosters creativity and is generally unpredictable. But in a
highly structured and hierarchical organization, it is very difficult for those
responsible for maintaining order and uniformity to trust lower-level leaders
and rank-and-file members to receive their own inspiration regarding programs
and structures that can deliver gospel blessings most effectively in a variety
of cultural settings around the world. Needless to say, American corporate
structures and methods are an awkward fit for most cultures (even, I would
suggest, for most parts of the United States). So, the big question is, can the Church allow
sufficient decentralization so that local Saints can experience the creative
freedom of following the Spirit, no matter where it takes them? This all comes
back to the issue of trust. Joseph Smith claimed that he taught people correct
principles and allowed them to govern themselves. Whether he was as consistent
in achieving this ideal as he liked to think is questionable, but it certainly
is an ideal worth pursuing.
_______________________
1. E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered
(London: Blond & Briggs, 1973), 226–277, italics in original.
2. Boyd K. Packer, “Let Them Govern Themselves,” an
address delivered at a regional representatives seminar, reprinted in Sunstone 79 (October 1990): 28–33,
quotation at 30.
3. “Memorandum of Suggestion,” March 29, 1940, 4;
quoted in Richard G. Scott, “The Doctrinal Foundation of the Auxiliaries,”
Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, January 10, 2004. This memorandum was
likely written by J. Reuben Clark, since President Grant had suffered a stroke
the previous month and remained largely incapacitated until he died in 1945,
and Second Counselor David O. McKay was seriously ill with a lung ailment.
Quinn, J. Reuben Clark, 83.
4. Sheri L. Dew, Go
Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 1996), 408. Undoubtedly, President Hinckley was intending the
colloquial and not the formal definition of the term. See note 33 above.
5. “New Handbooks Introduced During Worldwide
Training,” Ensign 40, no. 1 (January 2011): 74.
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