Not the latest desperate revenue raising measure from a proliferate government, but the cost to stakeholders of the multiple levels of management that infest most large organisations, but which add no direct value.
Management manages, it manages those underneath them, successive levels of filtering, shaping, compromising, and dissembling of information between the coal face and the top.
I recently completed an assignment for a large organisation and realised early on that the job was not to consider the problem presented in a new light, to apply a new set of eyes and experiences to it, but to present to senior management a set of ideas that had in the past not got through the filtering process, and this assignment was a last ditch effort by a committed middle management to question the status quo.
This may be a legitimate management tactic, a way to progress an idea, but it is hugely wasteful. In this case, the conclusion was obvious to all but those who finally allocated the resources, and who owed their exalted positions to the continuance of the status quo. It was a redistribution of resources from shareholders to a bloated senior management without an original idea in 20 years, and to me, a grateful consultant.
Such redistributions in the hands of governments are called a “Tax”, why should it be any different in business?.
