http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/98/12/563.full.pdf+html

A surrealistic mega-analysis of redisorganization theories

SUMMARY
Background We are sick and tired of being
redisorganized.

Objective To systematically review the empirical
evidence for organizational theories and repeated
reorganizations.

Methods: We did not find anything worth reading,
other than Dilbert, so we fantasized. Unfortunately, our
fantasies may well resemble many people’s realities.
We are sorry about this, but it is not our fault.

Results: We discovered many reasons for repeated
reorganizations, the most common being ‘no good
reason’. We estimated that trillions of dollars are being
spent on strategic and organizational planning
activities each year, thus providing lots of good reasons
for hundreds of thousands of people, including us,
to get into the business. New leaders who are
intoxicated with the prospect of change further fuel
perpetual cycles of redisorganization. We identified
eight indicators of successful redisorganizations,
including large consultancy fees paid to friends and
relatives.

Conclusions: We propose the establishment of ethics
committees to review all future redisorganization
proposals in order to put a stop to uncontrolled,
unplanned experimentation inflicted on providers and
users of the health services...

...Box 1 Glossary of redisorganizational strategies:

Centralization (syn: merging, coordination): When you have
lots of money and want credit for dispensing it

Decentralization (syn: devolution, regionalization): When you
have run out of money and want to pass the buck (i.e. the
blame, not the money) down and out

Accordianization: When you need to keep everyone confused
by instituting continuous cycles of centralization and
decentralization. Best example: the NHS

Equalization: When you have not (yet) sorted out which side is
going to win

Interpositionization: When you need to insert shock-absorbing
lackeys between patients and managers to protect the latter
from being held accountable (this strategy is often
misrepresented as an attempt to help patients)

Indecisionization trees: When you are massively uncertain and
incompetent, picking numbers out of the air and placing them
in diagrams. Also used as a party game at management
retreats

Matrixization structure: When your indecision tree has been
exposed as meaningless twaddle, the introduction of a second
indecision tree at right angles to it

Obfuscasization: When you need to hide the fact that you have
not a clue what is really going on, or what you should do about
it. Makes heavy use of phrases such as ‘at this moment in time’
instead of ‘now’, and transforms things that are simple and
obvious into complicated and impenetrable muddles

R&Dization: When you have been exposed as a power-mad
fraud and are offered a compensation package just to get you
out of town. Employs the ‘Rake it in and Disappear’ ploy

Black hole effect: When a reorganization absorbs large
amounts of money and human resources without producing
any measurable output

Honesty: When your corporate conscience urges you to admit
that when you say, ‘It’s not the money it’s the principle’, it is
the money. A dangerous and abandoned strategy, included
here for historic purposes only.