Lao Tzu, a 6th century Chinese philosopher, said "To lead the people, walk behind them." When you walk behind your people, you pick up things that you can never pick up if you're constantly sitting in a glass cabin into which you expect people to remove their footwear before they enter. It does something to otherwise ordinary mortals when they get into their cabins and sit on their thrones - wise exceptions continue to stay mortals, but most of them morph into insensitive jacks-in-office; these jacks-in-office live in an incredibly happy atmosphere and for the life of them, can never understand why others can't be as happy as they are!
Hello! I'm jack-in-office; I make all important decisions that I don't have to communicate - read that again - THAT I DON'T HAVE TO COMMUNICATE - those 6 words are the root cause of everyone's misery; they allow me to be completely insensitive to you because I don't even know you exist; I'm not the messenger, and people only shoot messengers. I will make a decision - Yes, No, Maybe - but you communicate it - and you get shot in the process, thank you very much.
But you ask, "Since I'm anyway getting shot, will I be allowed to make my own decisions and then get shot for my decisions instead of getting shot for yours?"
"No way! I'm jack-in-office, stupid. You're just jack's jack."
And how did I make these decisions? Not by talking to the people who will be affected by them or at least listening to assistant jack, but by talking to other jacks like me who also reside in similar glass houses and flick away their assistant jacks and other ordinary mortals from their cabins like flies. Assistant jack goes out to communicate jack-in-office's decisions to the ordinary mortals who revolt and flog assistant jack because they don't have access to jack-in-office to flog him. Assistant jack can't mollify his people, so he resorts to the next best thing - like third-degree torture.
Meanwhile, good ole' jack-in-office is protected from the mayhem, seated as he is in his sterile glass cabin, so he's happy and for the life of him, can never understand why others can't be as happy as he is!(Oh, sorry, am I repeating myself?)
Instead picture this: I'm jack-in-office; I want a decision I made implemented, so I go out and announce my decision and face the consequences, good or bad; I communicate and I (not you) am accountable to my subordinates; I listen to the concerns, I think about them, and a few egg and tomato omelettes later, I become sensitive; not because I've grown a brain at last but because I know now what it is to have my goose cooked, so it forces me to think about other people for a change, especially if I have to go out and meet them and talk to them and be accountable for my actions.
None of the above is practical in large organizations and that is why decision making should be decentralized at every level, organizations, city administrations, state, and even central administration. Instead, both these conditions don't exist. Decision making remains very centralized in most large organizations and definitely even in so called democracies despite lofty mouthings to the contrary and people who make the decsions are least accountable, least accessible, least connected, least knowledgeable, and the very least sensitive.
Blasphemy! If decision making were to be decentralized, what about me?!? I would be unnecessary and I'm not skilled to do what I'm asking you to do! So, what about me? Hush, hush now....
