How to Respect Red Tape and Encourage Continuous Improvement

The Case for Red Tape

If you work for a government agency, you know red tape intimately. It is bureaucracy at its finest.

Red tape gets a bad rap, but it serves a useful purpose. I know it is counter-intuitive, but red tape is meant to make our lives easier and our services more efficient. It comprises all the processes, procedures and policies that will fit most situations, so we don’t have to spend energy trying to recreate the wheel on every case. It frees up time and energy and delivers predictable outcomes.

But sometimes red tape has outlived its usefulness. We need to take a step back every so often to examine if the current red tape is still useful.

Respect Red Tape

Respect means seeking to understand whether or not you agree. Ask around, looking to see if the red tape is a fence around a land mine or a guard rail for a street that no longer exists. Respect is the necessary companion of continuous improvement. Continuous improvement is an attitude that, when applied respectfully, helps you or a group move more efficiently and effectively towards your goals. We serve the public, and red tape is a means to that end. So, we must continuously ask ourselves if the means continue to get us to the ends in the most efficient way. We need to be nimble and grounded; we also need to be flexible about the means and stubborn about the ends.

Interrogate Red Tape

Replace or Reinforce Red Tape

When a specific piece of red tape proves its worth after a respectful interrogation of its value, then reinforce it, don’t demean or cut it. However, if the red tape no longer serves its intended purpose, cut it or replace it from the root. If the practice doesn’t fit the policy, you need to change the policy to fit the practice or reinforce the policy to change the practice.