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Hack Your Bureaucracy: Get Things Done No Matter What Your Role on Any Team
“A deeply empowering and practical for anyone, anywhere, who just wants to GET STUFF DONE.”
--Cecilia Muñoz, former Director, White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama
- Find Your use small steps to achieve big change
- Set Your North keep your end goal in sight
- Cultivate the assemble an adept team and network
- Don’t Waste a turn every opportunity into a chance for change
--Cecilia Muñoz, former Director, White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama
Whether you just started your first entry-level job, run the entire company, or just feel trapped by your condo association bylaws, it’s time to it’s time to learn how to get big things done and make a lasting impact with Hack Your Bureaucracy.
From local government to the White House, Harvard to the world of venture capital, Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai have taken on some of the world’s most challenging bureaucracies—and won. Now, they bring their years of experience to you, teaching you strategies anyone can use to improve your organization through their own stories and those of fellow bureaucracy hackers,
- Find Your use small steps to achieve big change
- Set Your North keep your end goal in sight
- Cultivate the assemble an adept team and network
- Don’t Waste a turn every opportunity into a chance for change
And more!
Change doesn’t happen just because the person in charge declares it should, even if that person is the CEO of your company or the President of the United States. Regardless of your industry, role, or team, Hack Your Bureaucracy shows how to get started, take initiative on your own, and transform your ideas into impact.
"We think that changing the world requires inspirational leaders, but the truth is that real change is driven by regular people working behind the scenes. This is a deeply empowering and practical book for those for anyone, anywhere, who just wants to GET STUFF DONE. Marina and Nick may claim that they're not magicians, but I have watched them in action. The skills that they are passing along in this book feel like magic because they work."―Cecilia Muñoz, former Director, White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama
“If you’ve ever been frustrated by red tape, think of this book as a pair of scissors. Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai are master bureaucracy busters, and their experience in the White House shows how you can root out inefficiency in your own backyard.”―Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THINK AGAIN and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
"I’ve never read a book with so many good ideas. Every page that I read, I kicked myself, thinking back on all the times I tried to make change and failed. If Hack Your Bureaucracy had been written 30 years earlier, I would have accomplished so much more in my life."―Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics and University of Chicago professor
"A master class on intrapreneurship. If you want to drive change in large organizations, Hack Your Bureaucracy is a must read."―Eric Schmidt, co-founder of Schmidt Futures and former CEO of Google
"To tackle the biggest challenges we face on the planet, we will have to make bureaucracies work. Marina and Nick show us how. Practical, insightful, and totally spot-on, Hack Your Bureaucracy is essential reading for everyone from frustrated leaders to ambitious newcomers." ―Jen Pahlka, Founder, Code for America and former U.S. Deputy CTO
“Whether you are revamping your small business, helping to improve the PTA, or leading a scaled organization, this book has something for you. Marina and Nick take solving complex organizational problems and driving outcomes to a new level. Hack Your Bureaucracy is a step-step-guide on how to have impact one practical step at a time. Their bureaucracy hacking advice is thoughtful, tested and useful wisdom for those leading in any sector.” ―Tara McGuinness, co-author of Power to the Public, founder, New Practice Lab
"Nick and Marina are incredibly gifted change agents, and in Hack Your Bureaucracy, they provide hard-won lessons and wisdom that will be invaluable to everyone from entrepreneurs trying to build great companies to innovators working to change institutions of all kinds from the inside out. Like working with Nick and Marina, the book is energizing, inspiring, and an absolute blast— a how-to manual for driving change unlike any other."―Todd Park, cofounder of Devoted Health, Athenahealth, and Castlight Health and former U.S. CTO
"Having worked for decades in the Defense Department, including having had the top three jobs, I know how important it is to empower people. I’ve seen it with both military service members and DoD civilian employees across a variety of with hustle, grit, organizational savviness, and teamwork, you can take a good idea all the way through successful execution. In Hack Your Bureaucracy, Nick and Marina—world-class bureaucracy hackers themselves—present an actionable and fun guide to getting things done, even in the most challenging of environments."―Secretary Ash Carter, former Secretary o...
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 13, 2022
158 people are currently reading
3334 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
September 12, 2022
I’ve worked many years inside nonprofit organizations that get stuck in their ways and tend to avoid risky innovations. For those of us who love making an impact through our work but often get sidelined by things like tradition, death by committee, or an aversion to upsetting donors, I deeply appreciate Marina and Nick’s mission to offer practical tactics for breaking through the bureaucracy as a means to achieve job satisfaction as well as improve the impact of the work we do. Full disclosure: Part of my story is included in the book and I was given an early copy to review it.
My favorite thing about the book is you can either read it in order or jump around from tactic to tactic. This came in handy after my first read all the way through - I was able to flip to a section and show my friend a tactic that might help with her situation at work, and she was able to grok it without the full context of the entire book. I personally have used a few of these tactics before reading the book (“play the newbie card,” “find the doers,” “write a one-pager,” and “use the bureaucracy against itself”), and I have appreciated the opportunity to add new ones to my tool belt, like “try the normal way first,” “understand the org chart,” and “don’t try to make the bureaucracy care.”
Hack Your Bureaucracy is a great practical handbook for anyone who’s in the middle of a frustrating project or team culture, but you’re not ready to give up on it just yet. Other bureaucracy-laden roles with an overabundance of stakeholders I can see this being useful for are teachers and healthcare workers. Highly recommend!
My favorite thing about the book is you can either read it in order or jump around from tactic to tactic. This came in handy after my first read all the way through - I was able to flip to a section and show my friend a tactic that might help with her situation at work, and she was able to grok it without the full context of the entire book. I personally have used a few of these tactics before reading the book (“play the newbie card,” “find the doers,” “write a one-pager,” and “use the bureaucracy against itself”), and I have appreciated the opportunity to add new ones to my tool belt, like “try the normal way first,” “understand the org chart,” and “don’t try to make the bureaucracy care.”
Hack Your Bureaucracy is a great practical handbook for anyone who’s in the middle of a frustrating project or team culture, but you’re not ready to give up on it just yet. Other bureaucracy-laden roles with an overabundance of stakeholders I can see this being useful for are teachers and healthcare workers. Highly recommend!
September 14, 2022
Nick Sinai and Marina Nitze have given a gift to anyone who is trying to drive change in a complex environment. The strategy names are sticky. The descriptions put into to words methods that I had seen or experienced in action but hadn't been able to articulate how or why they worked and so couldn't replicate myself. And, they introduced some new ways of working that are going to be immediately helpful. Bonus, it's a fun read - the peeks behind the curtain on some of Civic Tech's big success stories were so entertaining! Read it today but put it somewhere handy for next time you get stuck.
November 12, 2022
I have been innovating within DoD for 20 years. That is a long time, and I have learned a lot along the way. As I look back, however, I don’t recall anyone really teaching me how to be effective in creating change inside the world’s largest bureaucracy.
Instead, I have had to take responsibility for my own education. I have read hundreds of books, gone to conferences, learned from mentors, exchanged ideas with peers, and absorbed lessons through trial and error. Government intrapreneurship has felt less like a traditional education and more like an apprenticeship in an esoteric secret order, in which arcane lore is passed verbally from one generation to the next.
The dearth of formal education around this topic is surprising, because creating change within large organizations is such a critical skill. Large organizations must adapt to stay relevant in a competitive, fast-changing world. Organizations that resist change risk dying, failing, losing value, or becoming irrelevant. Leaders need their best people continually bringing forward ideas, breaking through calcified processes, and renewing their organizations. Bureaucracies have enduring properties and patterns of behavior that can be studied and understood, and scholars and practitioners have developed playbooks for what works and what doesn’t in creating change. Yet surprisingly few resources exist to teach this knowledge to aspiring intrapreneurs.
I have been picking away at my own book on the subject, which I hope will help fill this gap. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the book I’m trying to write has already been written! This year Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai released "Hack Your Bureaucracy", which is exactly the book I feel has been missing. Both authors are veterans of the private sector and government. Nitze served as the Chief Technology Officer of the US Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, while Sinai served as the US Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House. Both authors have been in the hot seat, leading improbable change in some of the most convoluted bureaucracies in the world.
The book is organized as a playbook or tactics manual, divided into six imperative sections:
Define the Problem
Learn Your Org
Pitch the Solution
Start Small and Build Momentum
Build Your Team
Make it Stick
Each section is divided into short chapters, with more specific imperative titles like “Give Real Demos” and “Give Credit Liberally.”
The tactics themselves are all excellent, and largely mirror my own approach to creating change. They draw on best practices familiar to anyone who has worked with agile, lean, design thinking, or other similar methodologies: meeting with users to understand pain points, starting small, building real prototypes, iterating rapidly, testing assumptions with users, and iteratively building on small successes. Readers already familiar with these tactics will appreciate the way the authors contextualize them for government. For those new to these methodologies, the book will hopefully provide a refreshing and eye-opening alternative to how government usually does business (specifically: epic, pre-planned, large-scale projects designed and executed without adequate iteration and user engagement).
What I appreciated even more than the tactics, however, was the book’s underlying philosophy about organizational changemaking. The authors recognize that a frontal assault on bureaucracy is doomed to fail, and that overly hostile or arrogant intrapreneurs will probably self-eliminate. Instead, they teach their readers to be calm, patient, self-confident leaders who flow with the bureaucracy’s natural characteristics to develop their ideas. They advocate basic courtesies like trying an organization’s existing “front doors” and processes before resorting to subterfuge. The picture that emerges of an effective bureaucracy hacker is of someone who is friendly, gets to know her colleagues, listens with empathy, and shows emotional intelligence in learning how to build coalitions and manage the opposition. This does not mean being a pushover; it does mean being constructive and relational, while also shrewdly maneuvering through the bureaucracy. The book deftly explores the highly political nature of intrapreneurship, while still setting a high bar for ethical behavior.
The book is peppered with anecdotes from the authors’ own experiences, as well as many other changemaking efforts throughout a range of government agencies. I found myself nodding knowingly on almost every page. The stories—and the lessons the authors drew from them—closely paralleled my own experiences and conclusions.
Intrapreneurs at any level of experience, in any organization, will benefit from this book. In fact, if I could only recommend one practical book for government intrapreneurs, it would probably be this one.
The authors acknowledge that leading change is difficult, but take the optimistic stance that organizations can and do change. The book’s introduction concludes, “Change is possible, even in the most challenging of environments. But no one else is coming to save the day. It’s up to you.”
Instead, I have had to take responsibility for my own education. I have read hundreds of books, gone to conferences, learned from mentors, exchanged ideas with peers, and absorbed lessons through trial and error. Government intrapreneurship has felt less like a traditional education and more like an apprenticeship in an esoteric secret order, in which arcane lore is passed verbally from one generation to the next.
The dearth of formal education around this topic is surprising, because creating change within large organizations is such a critical skill. Large organizations must adapt to stay relevant in a competitive, fast-changing world. Organizations that resist change risk dying, failing, losing value, or becoming irrelevant. Leaders need their best people continually bringing forward ideas, breaking through calcified processes, and renewing their organizations. Bureaucracies have enduring properties and patterns of behavior that can be studied and understood, and scholars and practitioners have developed playbooks for what works and what doesn’t in creating change. Yet surprisingly few resources exist to teach this knowledge to aspiring intrapreneurs.
I have been picking away at my own book on the subject, which I hope will help fill this gap. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the book I’m trying to write has already been written! This year Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai released "Hack Your Bureaucracy", which is exactly the book I feel has been missing. Both authors are veterans of the private sector and government. Nitze served as the Chief Technology Officer of the US Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, while Sinai served as the US Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House. Both authors have been in the hot seat, leading improbable change in some of the most convoluted bureaucracies in the world.
The book is organized as a playbook or tactics manual, divided into six imperative sections:
Define the Problem
Learn Your Org
Pitch the Solution
Start Small and Build Momentum
Build Your Team
Make it Stick
Each section is divided into short chapters, with more specific imperative titles like “Give Real Demos” and “Give Credit Liberally.”
The tactics themselves are all excellent, and largely mirror my own approach to creating change. They draw on best practices familiar to anyone who has worked with agile, lean, design thinking, or other similar methodologies: meeting with users to understand pain points, starting small, building real prototypes, iterating rapidly, testing assumptions with users, and iteratively building on small successes. Readers already familiar with these tactics will appreciate the way the authors contextualize them for government. For those new to these methodologies, the book will hopefully provide a refreshing and eye-opening alternative to how government usually does business (specifically: epic, pre-planned, large-scale projects designed and executed without adequate iteration and user engagement).
What I appreciated even more than the tactics, however, was the book’s underlying philosophy about organizational changemaking. The authors recognize that a frontal assault on bureaucracy is doomed to fail, and that overly hostile or arrogant intrapreneurs will probably self-eliminate. Instead, they teach their readers to be calm, patient, self-confident leaders who flow with the bureaucracy’s natural characteristics to develop their ideas. They advocate basic courtesies like trying an organization’s existing “front doors” and processes before resorting to subterfuge. The picture that emerges of an effective bureaucracy hacker is of someone who is friendly, gets to know her colleagues, listens with empathy, and shows emotional intelligence in learning how to build coalitions and manage the opposition. This does not mean being a pushover; it does mean being constructive and relational, while also shrewdly maneuvering through the bureaucracy. The book deftly explores the highly political nature of intrapreneurship, while still setting a high bar for ethical behavior.
The book is peppered with anecdotes from the authors’ own experiences, as well as many other changemaking efforts throughout a range of government agencies. I found myself nodding knowingly on almost every page. The stories—and the lessons the authors drew from them—closely paralleled my own experiences and conclusions.
Intrapreneurs at any level of experience, in any organization, will benefit from this book. In fact, if I could only recommend one practical book for government intrapreneurs, it would probably be this one.
The authors acknowledge that leading change is difficult, but take the optimistic stance that organizations can and do change. The book’s introduction concludes, “Change is possible, even in the most challenging of environments. But no one else is coming to save the day. It’s up to you.”
September 11, 2022
Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai have pulled together a book of the tips, tricks, and hacks they learned from years of working and leading in the private sector and public sector, at the federal level and the local level.
Full disclosure: I read an early copy of the book and provided feedback, and worked closely with Nick at Harvard.
What I like about this book isn't just the advice, which I was familiar with from teaching alongside Nick and Marina. I also appreciate the format. By giving each tip for "getting things done" it's own chapter, Hacking Your Bureaucracy reads a bit like Green's 48 Laws of Power. But instead of lessons on accumulating power for yourself, it's about creating change efficiently and in ways that can scale your impact.
Because of this format, you can also return to the chapters that resonate with you or jump around to the advice that best fits your situation. Which is nice for busy people with too many unread business books already on their shelves!
Full disclosure: I read an early copy of the book and provided feedback, and worked closely with Nick at Harvard.
What I like about this book isn't just the advice, which I was familiar with from teaching alongside Nick and Marina. I also appreciate the format. By giving each tip for "getting things done" it's own chapter, Hacking Your Bureaucracy reads a bit like Green's 48 Laws of Power. But instead of lessons on accumulating power for yourself, it's about creating change efficiently and in ways that can scale your impact.
Because of this format, you can also return to the chapters that resonate with you or jump around to the advice that best fits your situation. Which is nice for busy people with too many unread business books already on their shelves!
September 11, 2022
I read this book in galleys and it's as brilliant and useful as you'd expect from Marina and Nick, the two people who have made more happen in bureaucracies than anyone I know. Getting things done in bureaucracies is hard, but it's critical to our future, as we face enormous challenges and need big institutions to move to confront them. I hope EVERYONE will read this book and make more good things happen at enormous scale!
November 8, 2024
A very practical guide to essential consulting practices written in a way that inspires action. The book's premise of succeeding with projects despite bureaucratic obstacles is compelling, but the tools and techniques discussed easily translates to all settings where change meets with resistance. Peter Block's excellent book, Flawless Consulting, has a fair bit of it devoted to "dealing with resistance". Hack Your Bureaucracy goes into deeper detail on the different kinds of resistance you meet on your way and offers practical advice on how to deal with it. The book is peppered throughout with inspiring stories of people who challenged bureaucratic barriers, weaved around them, or helped change the rules in order to pave the way for progress.
I was listening to this book during a challenging time at work, where - as a small team with few resources - we wanted to execute on an ambitious strategy. Each chapter contained elements of useful advice that I could put into practice the same week.
Now you have to excuse me as I go connect with our information governance advisors to ensure that our data descriptions are complete. That's in the book too: Don't leave your project vulnerable to be shut down because you didn't follow procedure. Bureaucracy hacking sounds cool and subversive, but it is good to note that the book doesn't encourage disdain for bureaucratic structures. It explains the reasons bureaucracy exists and provides advice on how to make progress while still playing by the rules. And sometimes progress requires effort to change the bureaucracy itself, which also leaves the world better off.
I was listening to this book during a challenging time at work, where - as a small team with few resources - we wanted to execute on an ambitious strategy. Each chapter contained elements of useful advice that I could put into practice the same week.
Now you have to excuse me as I go connect with our information governance advisors to ensure that our data descriptions are complete. That's in the book too: Don't leave your project vulnerable to be shut down because you didn't follow procedure. Bureaucracy hacking sounds cool and subversive, but it is good to note that the book doesn't encourage disdain for bureaucratic structures. It explains the reasons bureaucracy exists and provides advice on how to make progress while still playing by the rules. And sometimes progress requires effort to change the bureaucracy itself, which also leaves the world better off.
September 17, 2022
Super fun read with lots of stories categorized into highly applicable techniques for getting stuff done in large orgs.
Anyone who's attempted to make progress or enact change in a large human organization will laugh, cry, and learn while reading this. For folks who have been frustrated, having a framework of deciding whether your efforts can be classified one of Defining the Program, Learning your Org, Pitching the Solution, Starting Small and Building Momentum, Building your Team, or Making it Stick can help from tunnel visioning energy and over-focusing on one area.
Also, it gives a fascinating side view into how two of the most talented people that worked in Federal Government bent the beast to help other humans.
It's a good read. Grab it :)
Anyone who's attempted to make progress or enact change in a large human organization will laugh, cry, and learn while reading this. For folks who have been frustrated, having a framework of deciding whether your efforts can be classified one of Defining the Program, Learning your Org, Pitching the Solution, Starting Small and Building Momentum, Building your Team, or Making it Stick can help from tunnel visioning energy and over-focusing on one area.
Also, it gives a fascinating side view into how two of the most talented people that worked in Federal Government bent the beast to help other humans.
It's a good read. Grab it :)
August 19, 2023
Working inside the beltway this was music to my ears. Hearing so many good ideas along with many familiar anecdotes, I took quite a few notes. Most examples are from US Federal Government circles with some backstories of political figures and issues, so this may not be a great read for everyone in gov bureaucracy. Bruce Schneier’s Hacker Mind explains the same mindset within the bigger picture. If you like to mix it with a little satire, Jim Hacker or the Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey may have better showcases for you. I know I’m dating myself here.
September 14, 2022
Some very good ideas.
September 15, 2022
Marina and Nick weave together insightful, interesting stories with practical strategies that can be applied to any environment - making accessible the methods that they've perfected in some of the most challenging environments. The book's value is not only in the first read - it is the perfect go-to guide for referencing tactics to use when in the moment of navigating a tough situation.
Hack Your Bureaucracy shares the story of a blogger who successfully traded a paperclip for a house through successive trades. This book offers dozens of paperclips to start with in the form of real-world tested tactics that can be used to navigate even the most difficult situations to get past blockers and get things done.
*I've been fortunate to see Marina and Nick put these practices into action and read an early copy of the book which shares one of my projects.
Hack Your Bureaucracy shares the story of a blogger who successfully traded a paperclip for a house through successive trades. This book offers dozens of paperclips to start with in the form of real-world tested tactics that can be used to navigate even the most difficult situations to get past blockers and get things done.
*I've been fortunate to see Marina and Nick put these practices into action and read an early copy of the book which shares one of my projects.
September 15, 2022
Have you ever wanted to hack your bureaucracy? Mind-numbing paperwork. "Process" that gets in the way of results. Too young or junior to be taken seriously or have authority? You want to take action to get things done but don't want to get fired or undermine the organization you work for? Well, I have a book recommendation for you: Hack Your Bureaucracy: Get Things Done No Matter What Your Role on Any Team by Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai. Marina and Nick have track records of driving change through big bureaucracies (including the federal government) and they bring their learnings to the public with this very well-written book that is helpful to people at any organization with a bureaucracy and for any type of employee
October 23, 2023
Interesting book and does a nice job of tying together a wide array of useful — if not novel — ideas into a compelling justification for why you should do them to get a particular type of challenge done. Most individual pieces of advice were kind of obvious and self-helpy, but the structure it provided was I think the selling point. Read this bc I have currently been frustrated by some pointless idiotic bureaucracy in my own work and I think it gave me some interesting tools to use to try and address it.
September 23, 2022
Concise, practical, and fun examples of how to solve problems in any bureaucracy, whether in a government agency or large company. Devoured it over a weekend, excellent book to buy, read, and keep on a shelf to refer back to.
September 24, 2022
This book is a firehose. Wield carefully.
December 23, 2022
Really good book if you currently work in a bureaucracy already. Excellent book if you work for the government or military. But, just okay if you work in a traditional 'for profit' business. Much of the book is the author bragging about working with XYZ presidential administration. I found it to be kinda dry, but useful to my personal situations.
December 30, 2022
yet another book on change management, this time marketed from the perspective of managing bureacracy. i found myself reading several chapters where the word "bureaucracy" could simply be removed. overall, not many new ideas to take from this book.
April 13, 2023
Get Hacking To Get Cracking!
Get ready to boost your productivity and hack your way through bureaucracy with this amazing book!
This is a game-changer for anyone looking to improve their work environment and get things done more efficiently.
The author, Nitze, does an outstanding job of researching and presenting useful tips on how to navigate the complex and often frustrating world of bureaucracy.
From streamlining processes to identifying inefficiencies, this book is full of practical advice that will help you improve your team's performance and make a difference in your workplace.
What sets this book apart is the author's emphasis on being respectful and mindful of others' roles and responsibilities while implementing changes.
Nitze understands the importance of diplomacy and collaboration in any successful project, and she provides readers with strategies for building consensus and avoiding potential conflicts.
Whether you're an employee, a manager, or an entrepreneur, Hack Your Bureaucracy is a must-read.
The book is well-written, engaging, and packed with actionable insights that will help you achieve your goals and create a more productive work environment.
So, if you want to learn how to get things done, improve your team's performance, and hack your way through bureaucracy, get this book! You won't regret it.
4.2/5
Get ready to boost your productivity and hack your way through bureaucracy with this amazing book!
This is a game-changer for anyone looking to improve their work environment and get things done more efficiently.
The author, Nitze, does an outstanding job of researching and presenting useful tips on how to navigate the complex and often frustrating world of bureaucracy.
From streamlining processes to identifying inefficiencies, this book is full of practical advice that will help you improve your team's performance and make a difference in your workplace.
What sets this book apart is the author's emphasis on being respectful and mindful of others' roles and responsibilities while implementing changes.
Nitze understands the importance of diplomacy and collaboration in any successful project, and she provides readers with strategies for building consensus and avoiding potential conflicts.
Whether you're an employee, a manager, or an entrepreneur, Hack Your Bureaucracy is a must-read.
The book is well-written, engaging, and packed with actionable insights that will help you achieve your goals and create a more productive work environment.
So, if you want to learn how to get things done, improve your team's performance, and hack your way through bureaucracy, get this book! You won't regret it.
4.2/5
January 2, 2023
Like it or not, most of us live in bureaucracies, or have major aspects of our lives decided by them. There are plenty of books, articles, and personal stories that bemoan this fact and wax abstract and philosophical about what to do about it. Most of them come to some conclusion like "civilization needs to be restarted"
This book takes a more "boots on the ground" practical and pragmatic approach. If you've ever actually tried to change anything in a bureaucracy and succeeded (or failed) then some tactics in this book will resonate with you.
For me personally, I really like this book because it exposes just how much work it actually does take to get any kind of bureaucracy to adopt an idea, even a really really good one. I've known far too many people who have worked on initiatives or studies and kind of hoped that their work would stand on its own merits and inspire social, political, or corporate change.
When it invariably fails to do so, they just assume it's "corruption" or some other abstract thing getting in the way. It isn't. It's because bureaucracies are designed to reject change as a feature (as this book explains), and if you don't plan and manage your desired change in very very careful ways all through the bureaucratic process, it won't survive.
Yes, maybe they shouldn't be designed this way, but it doesn't change the fact that they are, and if you actually want to see a real change happen in real life, you need to at least know the basics in this book.
This book takes a more "boots on the ground" practical and pragmatic approach. If you've ever actually tried to change anything in a bureaucracy and succeeded (or failed) then some tactics in this book will resonate with you.
For me personally, I really like this book because it exposes just how much work it actually does take to get any kind of bureaucracy to adopt an idea, even a really really good one. I've known far too many people who have worked on initiatives or studies and kind of hoped that their work would stand on its own merits and inspire social, political, or corporate change.
When it invariably fails to do so, they just assume it's "corruption" or some other abstract thing getting in the way. It isn't. It's because bureaucracies are designed to reject change as a feature (as this book explains), and if you don't plan and manage your desired change in very very careful ways all through the bureaucratic process, it won't survive.
Yes, maybe they shouldn't be designed this way, but it doesn't change the fact that they are, and if you actually want to see a real change happen in real life, you need to at least know the basics in this book.
May 9, 2024
I listened to the audiobook of this through my local library / Libby. I think it would work better as a workbook - I think you'd benefit from writing some notes or being able to have this open on your desk or something to reflect on. In general, I think it has a lot of useful things in it, things that I will look to incorporate or at least be mindful of.
One thing that the author says frequently is that (paraphrasing) nothing gets done in meetings. I have a bit of a bone to pick with that. It may be true in software or developmental work, where the "work" is code, but when you're working on policies or big questions and how they will impact a field of grantees, meetings ARE the work. You need to be able to bring people together, have conversations, and figure out thinking. You can pass a Word document around 5 or 10 people for weeks and weeks, trading comments and feedback, or you can set up a working meeting to nail things down. These are things that matter. So, while I get what the book is trying to say, I wouldn't have been so authoritative in saying, "nothing gets done in meetings."
Otherwise, there is a lot of stuff in here that could be useful to folks working in bureaucratic systems.
One thing that the author says frequently is that (paraphrasing) nothing gets done in meetings. I have a bit of a bone to pick with that. It may be true in software or developmental work, where the "work" is code, but when you're working on policies or big questions and how they will impact a field of grantees, meetings ARE the work. You need to be able to bring people together, have conversations, and figure out thinking. You can pass a Word document around 5 or 10 people for weeks and weeks, trading comments and feedback, or you can set up a working meeting to nail things down. These are things that matter. So, while I get what the book is trying to say, I wouldn't have been so authoritative in saying, "nothing gets done in meetings."
Otherwise, there is a lot of stuff in here that could be useful to folks working in bureaucratic systems.
July 21, 2024
I wish this book had been available a decade earlier. I would have benefited tremendously from the insights as I navigated formal and informal leadership roles on cross-function projects in the public sector. Nitze and Sinai provide a wealth of actionable tactics for anyone looking to create change in their organization. Most of the scenarios discusses relate to barriers to new technology adoption in the US Federal government. But the examples are relatable to challenges faced in any organization: how to revise complicated or outdated forms; speed up hiring processes; plan a new, high profile event. This is a book to keep on your desk and revisit often if you're looking to improve internal processes.
November 24, 2022
Having been in government for six years, I can honestly say that this book is on point. I wish I had a lot of this knowledge when I first joined public service. It would have helped me understand people and their experience better, likely saving me a lot of heartache and decisions that did not sit well with others. In a lot of ways, these ideas are simple and make you question why you didn’t think of them. That is usually the magic of truths like this. They are deceptively simple, yet challenging to implement. Navigating bureaucracies is difficult and exhausting. If you are joining one you are not familiar with, this book is for you.
March 23, 2025
A very clear manual for folks who are looking to make institutional change, whether inside government or in a large corporate environment where things tend to get stuck on process. This makes the case for consultation, fresh perspective and asking why something isn't working - sometimes the idea is great, but the execution is terrible. How does the end-user experience it?
I found this reassuring - my workplace isn't the only one that gets mired in the un-important, the risk, the second guessing and the NIMBYism of poor project management and unenthusiastic colleague support!
I found this reassuring - my workplace isn't the only one that gets mired in the un-important, the risk, the second guessing and the NIMBYism of poor project management and unenthusiastic colleague support!
September 27, 2022
This book is for anyone who is currently navigating through red tapes and hitting walls in the workplace. It is also a book of validation for those who have tried everything under the sun to make a positive impact on the people who use public services and programs. While written in a practical and matter-of-fact tone, the underlying theme of optimism and hope makes this book feel like a beautiful memoir of reflections and lessons learned. I highly recommend this read!
April 11, 2023
I have little experience in the corporate realm. When the start up I was working for was acquired I found myself looking for a book to help me navigate this new world. My boss found and recommended it. The chapters are short, easy to follow, and contain real life examples. I read a chapter every day or two so I could reference the information. I highly recommend this book to anyone new to the corporate world or struggling in it.
July 24, 2023
Lots of great tactics for "bureaucracy hacking". Not just for gov, but definitely has a big focus on it. If you have a design/UX background many of the techniques will feel familiar. You'd be surprised how many methods from the book are simply basic/good user centered design. I personally found the beginning and middle of the book better and more actionable than some of the later chapters, hence the 4/5 rating. Still a worthy read!
July 2, 2024
When I started this book, I was concerned it would be an instruction guide to wage an insurgency against the man. Instead, the author agrees that bureaucracy, at least at some level, is a necessary evil.
The book is written using simple language and delivers practical advice from cover to cover. Navigating and understanding a bureaucracy is just the beginning. From there, countless tips are provided to get things done - everyone’s real goal when frustrated by bureaucracy.
The book is written using simple language and delivers practical advice from cover to cover. Navigating and understanding a bureaucracy is just the beginning. From there, countless tips are provided to get things done - everyone’s real goal when frustrated by bureaucracy.
September 26, 2022
A really engaging read! I've seen firsthand how many of the tactics shared in this book, especially those around streamlining the foster care licensing and relative search processes, actually work. Marina and Nick hone in on some key strategies that will be incredibly helpful for those wondering how to meaningfully partner with systems to enact change.
March 2, 2023
From the same book club that has given us so many bad reviews, here comes another one. Chapters are small af, so it was easy to forget the book's main thread. Plus, it's too anecdotal and seems like 2/3 of it are common sense topics. The third that was left wasn't so bad; got a couple of useful tips.
June 5, 2023
First half of the book is more useful than the rest, in that most of the message comes across here - don't be scared by a bureaucracy, but don't attack it either. The rest is effectively examples on how to execute this top line message, and while giving it in many contexts is helpful, it does still a lot of contexts and situations left out.
June 5, 2024
3.5 stars. In general there was good content in here. It got tedious towards the middle of the book as concept after concept was presented…like they were trying to include everything they could possibly think of rather than having a cohesive, simpler structure. It also felt like some overlap with another book I’ve read recently called Recoding America.
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