Implementing Google’s Bureaucracy Busters Initiative

Recently I’ve been reading Work Rules by Laszlo Block, leader of Google’s “People Function.”

Basically, he’s a Cheif Human Resources Officer who gets to break all the rules and experiment with wild ideas.

Although Laszlo presents many radical, powerful (and usually data based) programs Google employs, one has been consistently nagging me: Bureaucracy Busters.

Bureaucracy Busters is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s an initiative designed to bust bureaucracy and make Googlers’ lives more easy, efficient, and effective.

You can read more about the initiative here.

Although my thoughts have been continually drawn to implementing Bureaucracy Busters at my home institution, American University (AU), the ideas discussed are applicable to any organization.

Brief Summary

Bureaucracy Busters is a Google initiative for all employees to discuss and solve problems. The initiative (a.) allows overlooked problems to emerge and be solved (b.) helps all employees tap into the collective wisdom of Google (c.) gives employees a strong sense of ownership in the company.

A test trial of a Bureaucracy Busters can be run through Reddit for a particular American University department.

Eventually, a unique website could be established as a hub where any member of the American University community could give or receive help on work problems.

Background: Google

Google runs an annual initiative entitled Bureaucracy Busters. Employees identify their biggest bureaucracy frustrations and work together to help fix them. The initiative was launched in 2009 by then CFO Patrick Pichette.

It was established at a time when Google was evolving to a larger organization. With size, employees faced more, harder efficiency problems. More people also meant Google didn’t have the same tight-knit feel to it, making some longtime employees feel disillusioned.

In the first round, 570 ideas were submitted which were voted on 55,000 times. Most of the problems addressed were deceivingly small, repeatedly encountered issues, that could be permanently solved.

Often times there is a significant gap between those on the “front lines” and those making large decisions. Because of this, decision-makers have a tendency to either miss or not recognize the severity of problems faced by employees. Employees usually do not wish to air these concerns and likely do not have the power to permanently end them.

Leaving these problems unsolved serves to directly hurt organizational effectiveness and further demotivates employees.

Key Benefits to American University

A More Effective, Efficient University

Many of the problems aired will likely be legitimate problems that make work harder, costlier, or more time-consuming. Addressing them will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the school.

Gives Every Employees Ownership

Asking employees what their problems are and then asking for help in solving them works to create a culture of owners rather than employees. In such a culture, staff would more greatly identify with, care about, and work harder to better American University.

As Google expanded, the Bureaucracy Busters initiative helped every employee feel the same company ownership they did when the company was small. Since American University is of significant size, it is likely ownership has room for improvement.

Allows Departments/Teams to Use the Wisdom of Crowds

At first glance, it seems obvious that bringing up problems and offering solutions should be limited to the members of the specific department/team in question.

However, this assumption potentially is closing off a wide pool of wisdom.

Outsiders can offer invaluable insight, helping see problems from a new light or bringing unknown outside solutions to internal problems. Outsiders are also experts in one thing insiders never can be — how does a department/team interact and present itself to those outside itself.

Promotes the Prestige of American University

Copying a successful initiative of a Silicon Valley superpower bring prestige. It allows the university to frame itself as innovative.

Using Reddit as a Platform for AU Bureaucracy Busters

Although Reddit may seem unusual as a platform for prestigious institutions it is the most pragmatic choice.

The core function of Bureaucracy Busters is to collect information on problems employees are facing in their daily work lives and allow them to brainstorm for permanent solutions.

Reddit fulfills this core function by allowing posts from users and allowing them to discuss solutions.

Reddit also has one of the very best algorithms for optimally sorting content. This ensures the most important problems and solutions will naturally float to the top.

Since Bureaucracy Busters has never been deployed at AU before, it needs to be tested. Reddit offers a simple, reliable, and secure website that we can utilize immediately for free. It includes key administrative features.

A Reddit group called a subreddit would be established. This group can be set as private or restricted so only those directly invited can view information in the group or participate. The subreddit can be accessed directly through an American University-owned website.

Recommendation for First Testing

Since there a number of variables that can be tampered with, the Bureaucracy Busters program should not be initially implemented university-wide, but instead issued in a small test pool.

1. One department should be exclusively selected and tested such as the Parking Enforcement Office.
2. Participation in Bureaucracy Busters should be voluntary.
3. Only those in the test department should be made directly aware of the program, but participants should be given latitude to include anyone deemed necessary.

Future Vision

Every member of the American University community should be able to easily air problems they face in completing work in a virtual central location. Ideally, such a forum would be directly accessible to anyone via a unique website.

Viewing these problems and offering a solution should be accessible to anyone. This ensures the Bureaucracy Busters initiative can tap into the collective wisdom of the entire AU community to help solve its employee problems.

Anonymity or confidentiality should be offered to anyone participating. Providing these securities encourages sharing and frank honesty.

Google Values

Several core Google values are inherent in their Bureaucracy Busters initiative:

• Ownership: An employee identifies with Google and is encouraged to take independent initiative in making it better
• Wisdom of Crowds: A large group of people has a better chance of solving a particular problem than a small group
• Transparency: Allowing the free flow of information and preventing problems from being hidden from the whole company
• Equality: Every Googler has an equal ability to voice their ideas.

Although these sound like obvious good values on the surface, they are actually quite radical to most organizations. The manifestation of these values into Google initiatives has created programs that would be outright rejected as insane in most places.

Because of this, it is possible some of these core values conflict with those present at American University. In such a case the AU Bureaucracy Busters program can be modified to more conform to present AU values.

Originally published at www.coleharper.com on February 22, 2018.