Fighting 'The Blob': organizations need systems to function, but be wary lest they grow into unwieldy bureaucracies.

If corporate institutions are noted for nothing else, they surely must be credited with the proclivity to contrive a "system" for just about everything, from the mundane to the most important. Everywhere you scan the American business landscape, you'll find systems. Systems that regulate employee behavior; systems that organize ideas, principles and doctrines, systems that establish procedures and processes--all designed to bring order where there might otherwise be chaos.

But, systems have a downside. Systems may be very good at controlling a company, but they can sap the vitality of an organization. In effect, in mature organizations "the system" becomes a formalized body of rules and regulations implemented to thwart change and protect the status quo. Charged with defending the system is a large force of "system police" commonly called bureaucrats. The motto of the system police is: Any change is a threat!

A nesting colony of system police can grow to be powerful enough to control any organization--no matter what its size. When this happens, the colony is identified by a single term: bureaucracy.

The most dangerous time to be controlled by the system is during times of volatility and change, because an entrenched bureaucracy exerts a paralyzing influence on an organization's ability to respond to change. It becomes slower to act than a family member repaying a loan and is able to stop progress with a single no decision. The bureaucracy of the system has come into our lives to fight innovation, creativity and individualism and to protect the old way of life. The bureaucracy of system police is silent, formless--it has no backbone--and insidious in the way that it envelops an organization. Visualize the system in terms of the 1950s classic sci-fi film The Blob. In the movie, once the Blob was released, it methodically grew from within itself and slowly but surely enveloped, smothered and killed everything and everyone it touched. So, too, with bureaucracy.

With all its power and the legions of bureaucrats to defend it, why should we even make the effort to "beat the system"? After all, Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the U.S. nuclear Navy, once said "If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy; God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won't."

Yet there is reason to attempt to beat the system. Beating the system will allow us to recognize that tradition is something to build on, not rest on. Beating the system will enable us to accept the status quo, but only till we can find something better.

Understand that this will be a difficult and constant battle. The system is more resilient than Texas crabgrass. You can poison it, dig it up, bury it, burn it and pave over it, but it will always fight to come back.

Yet the system is not invincible. It does have a kryptonite weakness that will allow you to keep it at bay. The system fears no person, but it does fear the entrepreneurial spirit of people. If we can identify, build, imbue and sustain our organizations--no matter what size--with an entrepreneurial spirit, then we can beat the system.

After all, I can't think of anybody who knowingly applauds the stultifying results of corporate bureaucracies. But it's quite another thing to actually change thinking and adopt the entrepreneurial mind-set that can set you free (the Biblical lessons of John 8:32, "and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free") notwithstanding.

Now, I realize there are some who will argue that entrepreneurial change only can come about with a change at the top, and to a certain degree, I agree with the assessment. Major corporate change invariably springs from the front office and percolates throughout the organization--if that is management's intention. But by no means do I agree with the notion that individual managers and employees can't be entrepreneurial in their approach to their jobs.

The critical step is recognizing the system for what it is and how it seeks to control and limit actions. The key thing is to start now--don't wait. The system is getting stronger every day. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to beat it. You can beat the system by adopting an entrepreneurial spirit and by building your entrepreneurial culture right now. The good news is that if you can beat the system, then you and your organization can beat anything and be a winner.

Robert W. MacDonald, a Best's Review columnist, is principal of CTW Consulting in Minneapolis and former CEO of three major insurers. He can be reached at [e-mail].