QUOTE FOR THE TIMES

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As business and technology is increasingly present in our lives and our culture, and our experience dealing with big companies is mandatory, this statement from the General Electric 2000 Annual Report is of particular interest.

"We cultivate the hatred of bureaucracy in our company and never for a moment hesitate to use that awful word 'hate.' Bureaucrats must be ridiculed and removed. They multiply in organizational layers and behind functional walls -- which means that every day must be a battle to demolish this structure and keep the organization open, ventilated, and free. Even if bureaucracy is largely exterminated, as it has been at GE, people need to be vigilant -- even paranoid -- because the allure of bureaucracy is part of human nature and hard to resist, and it can return in the blink of an eye. Bureaucracy frustrates people, distorts their priorities, limits their dreams, and turns the face of the entire enterprise inward. In a digitized world, the internal workings of companies will be exposed to the world, and bureaucracies will be seen by all for what they are -- slow, self-absorbed, customer-insensitive, even silly."

In 2001, we have yet to learn what the "digitized world" will be like, but it doesn't necessarily promise us an easier or better future.

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HOUSTON INSTITUTE FOR CULTURE | QUOTE ARCHIVE