I’m going to change the pace for this week and not talk about politics. It’s all beginning to nauseate me. The irrelevancy of all the candidate condemnation has reached migraine-inducing proportions.

 

I’ll return to politics in a couple of weeks after I see how ultimately ridiculous it all can get. Meanwhile, let me tell you about a revelation, concerning true bureaucracies, that I’ve rediscovered since retiring 5-years ago.

 

Since the beginning of 2003, I’ve volunteered tons of hours to our criminal justice system. Much of it has involved multi-state projects.

 

However, over the past year and a half, I’ve restricted myself to research aimed at defending judges. More specifically, I’ve expended great effort in defending their rulings relative to legal constraints resulting from various legislative mandates.

 

Of course, most irritating among such constraints are those mandatory minimum sentences for everything from traffic violations to major felonies.

 

Please don’t misunderstand me. The judiciary is quite bureaucratic, but it pales in comparison to the multitude of clueless legislative bodies that think mandatory prison time eliminates crime.

 

It doesn’t. All it really does is quickly max-out prison capacity, MOST of the time with those a judge should have had the latitude of placing in more effective alternative programs.

 

But, this is not about dumb politicians trying to run the criminal justice system. It’s about bureaucratic hyperbole in all it’s glory.

 

First, you have to understand the nature of bureaucracies. ALL true bureaucracies, once empowered, take on lives of their own, whether they are members of the “private” sector or the “public” sector.

 

The only difference between a “private” sector, for-profit bureaucracy and a “public” sector, governmental bureaucracy is that the former will eventually go out of business over inefficiencies of scale. The latter ones, however, NEVER DIE!

 

OUR criminal justice system is the most unyielding, out of control, and grossly inefficient bureaucracy the world has ever known. This is particularly true at the state level.

 

But, enough digression! As this isn’t about dumb politicians, neither is it about specific inefficiencies. It’s about something much more serious: too much travel and “talk-giving” on my part.

 

Executives love to delegate stuff. Among their favorite stuff to delegate is blame for their own stupid blunders. Nowhere is this truer than in the criminal justice system, including some members of state judiciaries.

 

While I never signed on for this duty, it does not surprise me that I’ve inherited it. Once you understand a basic precept surrounding bureaucratic management, the reason becomes clear.

 

There is a cardinal rule for executive-level decision makers, especially DIRECTORS and CEOs. It’s called the “NEVER do it yourself; always delegate the task” rule.

 

Whenever some group wants a “talk” or an “explanation” concerning an executive’s proximity to incompetence, always delegate the task to a spokesperson.

 

Most importantly, it must be one that is reliable, credible, and reasonably entertaining. And, there’s an excellent reason for it, too.

 

According to Dr. Robert Hebner—the 1997 Nobel Lauriat in Physics, so HE should know—in all true bureaucracies, work always filters down while blame always filters up.

 

It’s a scientific phenomenon backed by a simple physical principle involving the relative densities of work and blame. That of the former is higher than that of the latter.

 

Work in true bureaucracies is always a direct offshoot of the executive level decision-making process. And, the more active (in the volatile sense) these decision-makers are, the more work they generate.

 

In addition, the system tends to strengthen a self-promulgated belief that they actually matter at all. In other words, it tends to prove that ignorance is bliss.

 

Unfortunately, there is a price attached to this thought process. It comes in the form of expanding pressure on the entire system. The more work, the more pressure! And, as science has confirmed, expanding pressure ultimately requires some degree of release.

 

Release comes in the form of blame. But, it’s a false release. Every self-aggrandizing twit with a psychology degree knows that blame amounts mostly to hot, steamy air with absolutely no capacity for achieving anything useful.

 

Thus, a viscous cycle takes to life. Idle decision-making generates added work, which generates gas clouds of blame aimed at decision-makers.

 

The decision-makers become more defensive, making more, even dumber, decisions, thus sending down increasing levels of work, which only serves to enlarge the upper-bound gas clouds of blame.

 

Of course, the psychology folks know about another cause agent, too. It’s similar to blame but with opposite results. They call it praise.

 

After considerable hypothesis testing, the shrinks have discovered that praise can nullify the effects of a typically over-expanded work-blame cycle.

 

First, it calms the over active(PC for volatile) upper level decision-makers, resulting in less work generated downward. And, it has a neutral density, moving upward as easily as downward.

 

But, at all costs, it must move in both directions and NEVER stall at any one level, most certainly NOT at an executive council level.

 

This is especially dangerous as it causes them to begin believing their own press. It could even cause some of them to break their own arms as they attempt to “pat” themselves on their backs.

 

Sometimes it even pays to blame oneself for mistakes. Although it’s a rarity within the confines of the mahogany foxholes manned by executives, it has happened.

 

Conversely, self-praise is so damn tacky, including that for one’s own ideas and programs. Even though they should never do it, some executives, most notably CEOs, can’t resist it.

 

I think this is where I come in. So, I’m going to assume that the folks I’ve signed on with are sending me all over hell and creation for a couple of logical reasons.

 

First, with the proper motivation, I’m in a position of choosing to speak in glowing terms about them AND their reasoning—even when it’s flawed—to outsiders who do not know any better. I can do it minus the risk of sounding self-serving, too.

 

It’s a position… you know, like one of those lying-assed presidential press secretaries, only I’m in it for the pure challenge of fooling as many people as I can most of the time. Money is simply not an issue.

 

Second, they hope that if I occasionally experience some of the praise I heap on them, I won’t increase their damage control work with my tendency to “tell it like it is.” God, do they hate THAT.

 

Anyway, this is how Dr. Bob explained it to me back in the late 1990s and I’m sticking with it.

 

In the meantime, if you know of a bureaucratic organization looking to reduce excessive work-blame pressure, send me an email. I have a number of effective “talks.”

 

I promise that I won’t “tell it like it is.” Well, at least not in so many words, if you get my drift.

 

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.