Keating on Organizational Change in Asia
12th April 1997

Proving he is one of the more prescient observers of management in the region, in or out of parliament, ex Australian Prime minister Paul Keating recently urged Asian organizations to move from top-down management to more participative decision making during a recent visit to Jakarta.

Referring specifically to Indonesia's bureaucracy, Keating said that, in response to globalization, organizations should move towards a "broader-based decision making process, away from a top-down approach". However his comments are as appropriate for any organization, public or private, in the Asia Pacific, but especially those serving the rapidly growing tigers and tiger cubs. For Keating alludes to a great concern among many in the region, that the organizational decision making processes and structures that served us well in the past may no longer be flexible or responsive enough to serve a global century and fast moving, information-driven economies effectively. According to the Jakarta Post, Keating also said that..

Top down approaches normally happened in countries which were in earlier stages of development and had immature economies and business structures. In such situations decisions "tend to fade and gravitate to the top". As the economy gets more sophisticated and the base gets larger, it's important that the decision-making bureaucracy happens more broadly and that all small incremental issues don't go to decision makers at the top..

I think its probably an Asian characteristic,... but it will be part of a challenge for Indonesia.

By broadening the base of decision-making, the people in the top levels of the bureaucracy could focus on strategic issues and policies and not the day-to-day activities...

Couldn't have said it better ourselves....