The Seven (actually nine) Rules of Bureaucracy

I would guess that every American has contact at least once a week with that creature known as The Bureaucracy.  The chief lament of the nonprofit sector regarding The Bureaucracy is the maddening arbitrariness of rules, regulations, service contracts specifics, reports and other various hoops.  This drains away massive amounts of energy, time, money and enthusiasm.

Harry E. Teasley, Jr. is Chairman Emeritus of the Reason Foundation and a man with a long and successful career in business management.  In that context he spent considerable time interacting with The Bureaucracy and has come up with what he calls the Seven Rules of Bureaucracy (actually nine, but who' counting?)

Harry Teasley's Rules of Bureaucracy

Rule #1: Maintain the problem at all costs! The problem is the basis of power, perks, privileges, and security.

Rule #2: Use crisis and perceived crisis to increase your power and control.

Rule 2a. Force 11th-hour decisions, threaten the loss of options and opportunities, and limit the opposition's opportunity to review and critique.

Rule #3: If there are not enough crises, manufacture them, even from nature, where none exist.

Rule #4: Control the flow and release of information while feigning openness.

Rule 4a: Deny, delay, obfuscate, spin, and lie.

Rule #5: Maximize public-relations exposure by creating a cover story that appeals to the universal need to help people.

Rule #6: Create vested support groups by distributing concentrated benefits and/or entitlements to these special interests, while distributing the costs broadly to one's political opponents.

Rule #7: Demonize the truth tellers who have the temerity to say, "The emperor has no clothes."

Rule 7a: Accuse the truth teller of one's own defects, deficiencies, crimes, and misdemeanors.

Read the whole thing here...