The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy

We have a tendency to simply add layers of bureaucracy without a culture that allows us to take anything away. Combined with a risk averse system of signing authorities, conceptually simple items can take weeks or longer.

As an example, I had a file once that I was told needed the formation commander's signature.

After reviewing the file, I concluded that this shouldn't need his signature as:

1. It was irrelevant to the function of the commander doing his actual job (ie. There was no reason for him to personally care about the file)
2. The commander had no decision or input to make regarding the file as all relevant decisions have been made by lower levels of command.
3. There was no clear legal or policy reason that required his personal authorization for the file to continue processing.

I took the matter to the fmn chief clerk (fantastic woman btw, this isn't a shot against her), who called her superior fmn cclk who literally just told her "yeah we always put the fmn commander's signature on it" and that was the end of their analysis.

In the end, despite identifying an admin inefficiency that could be improved, we chose as an institution to maintain a risk averse stance. The consequence of this is that those admin items then become delayed by a week or more as we chase a sr officer across the country with pieces of paper he has no valuable input on.

We should develop an administrative culture that encourages reducing those inefficiencies, partly by being willing to lower signing authorities to somewhere more reasonable.

Every time something hits a CO's desk or higher, it's using up the time of multiple staff officers, HRAs, mail clerks and the CO/Comd themselves that could be better spent doing reconstitution planning.