From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Dec 24 2002 - 03:14:49 MST
Jeff writes
> By way of a simple example--just a place to
> start--suppose you took a certain large bureaucracy,
> and split it in two. Suppose you gave management a
> base salary half the usual amount and then declared
> the two in competition with each other. Whichever
> half accomplished the most with the least would then
> receive the lions share--say a 90/10 split--of that
> half of their compensation that had been set aside at
> the outset. The top management of the losing side
> could then be dismissed/demoted, and a new top
> management team drawn from the remaining management
> pool, and the process repeated. If competition in the
> corporate world works, why not try to apply the same
> winning principle in the government sphere?
That's a great idea.
I have had an idea along similar lines. At each level
in the federal bureaucracy, a manager is required to
give up 1/5 of his or her direct reports. That is,
he must reduce the number of groups that report to
him by 20 percent. So even the President (in the
U.S.) would have to give up one in five departments.
All the individuals in the sacrificed department or
group would also be required to return to the private
sector.
(Now 20 percent isn't so bad; one might expect in
war time that the typical bureaucrat might have
to fare far worse.)
If you are familiar with what happens to the fraction
4/5 when raised to the nth power, where n is the number
of levels in the bureaucracy, then you'll see the
incomparable efficacy of my scheme!
Lee
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