The Root Problem:Industrial-era Bureaucracies in a...
From the 1930s through the 1960s，we built large，top-down，centralized bureaucracies to do the public's business.They were patterned after the corporate structures of the age:hierarchical bureaucracies in which tasks were broken into simple parts，each the responsibility of a different layer of employees，each defined by specific rules and regulations.With their rigid preoccupation with standard operating procedure，their vertical chains of command，and their standardized services，these bureaucracies were steady—but slow and cumbersome.And in today's world of rapid change，lightning quick information technologies，tough global competition，and demanding customers，large，top-down bureaucracies—public or private—don't work very well.Saturn isn't run the way General Motors was.Intel isn't run the way IBM was.
Many federal organizations are also monopolies，with few incentives to innovate or improve.Employees have virtual lifetime tenure，regardless of their performance.Success offers few rewards;failure，few penalties.And customers are captive;they can't walk away from the air traffic control system or the Internal Revenue Service and sign up with a competitor.Worse，most federal monopolies receive their money without any direct input from their customers.Consequently，they try a lot harder to please Congressional appropriations subcommittees than the people they are meant to serve.Taxpayers pay more than they should and get poorer service.
Politics intensifies the problem.In Washington's highly politicized world，the greatest risk is not that a program will perform poorly，but that a scandal will erupt.Scandals are front-page news，while routine failure is ignored.Hence control system after control system is piled up to minimize the risk of scandal.The budget system，the personnel rules，the procurement process，the inspectors general—all are designed to prevent the tiniest misstep.We assume that we can't trust employees to make decisions，so we spell out in precise detail how they must do virtually everything，then audit them to ensure that they have obeyed every rule.The slightest deviation prompts new regulations and even more audits.(https://www.daowen.com)
Before long，simple procedures are too complex for employees to navigate，so we hire more budget analysts，more personnel experts，and more procurement officers to make things work.By then，the process involves so much red tape that the smallest action takes far longer and costs far more than it should.Simple travel arrangements require endless forms and numerous signatures.Straightforward purchases take months;larger ones take years.Routine printing jobs take a dozen approvals.
This emphasis on process steals resources from the real job:serving the customer.Not all this money is wasted，of course.But the real waste is no doubt larger，because the endless regulations and layers of control consume every employee's time.Who pays?The taxpayer.